chapter xix
Regulus didn’t want to move when he woke up.
Actually, he hadn’t wanted to fall asleep in the first place; he was in an armchair by an almost-stranger’s bed. It was, to put it in common parlance, super fucking embarrassing.
Of course, the world didn’t care about what Regulus wanted. Neither, it seemed, did Pandora Rosier.
“Regulus, if you miss Evan’s first rehearsal, he will rip out your larynx, pan-fry it with some red wine and pine seeds with a splash of honey, and force it so far down your throat your intestines will become extra vocal cords.”
Regulus briefly thanked whatever higher power there may or may not have been that Pandora wasn’t going pre-med: the entire university would be dead within minutes.
God, he loved her so much.
“Dora, darling, this is important.” Regulus let his face go completely blank and brought his voice to a somber tone, allowing what little inflection he sometimes had to die off: “would he make me dip it in that atrocious honey mustard he’s so fond of?”
Pandora nodded as if that was a perfectly normal inquiry, just as Regulus had known she would, her face serious and unflinching. “No, he’d make a compote of your coagulated blood.” She stopped to consider something for a second. “It would be fairly sweet, actually quite lovely with the acidity of the wine.”
Regulus let a smile break his schooled expression “Well, no, we can’t have that. It would ruin his favorite saucepan.”
Pandora nodded again, seeing the wisdom in what Regulus said. Blood really did sink its flavour into everything it touched, and for the moment that Reg considered it, he truly didn’t mind. Things were what they were, and he accepted that sometimes what they were was blood.
“...so. May I ask what our dearly beloved devil spawn Rosier is rehearsing?”
Pandora gave Regulus a bright smile, and he braced himself: whatever she was about to say would be distasteful to him.
“Well, James really has been keen on that whole string quartet thing.”
No.
No fucking way.
It was not the fucking time.
He could actually never see James again, not after the episode with the chair and stupid Fais Dodo and his fucking brother. Not to mention the collapse before it.
“...I haven't played in almost a year,” Regulus finally said. “So I really can’t. Darn.”
Pandora only gave him an unimpressed side-eye, as if his complaint wasn’t even worth acknowledgment. Which it totally was. He was out of practice and Cassiopeia - his violin - was doubtlessly completely out of tune. So he couldn’t.
“Evan already tuned Cassie, he even restrung her. Resistance is futile.”
Evan did not fucking touch Cassie. Nobody but Reg could touch Cassie. “If your cousin harmed her atall, I will restring her with his boiled tendons and mend any slightscratches on her with his bones. I’ll string her bow with his veins.”
“Yes, yes, chéri, now come on,” Pandora urged, pulling Regulus from his chair - James’s chair - with unfair ease and an unperturbed expression. “James has been on us about it for weeks, but wouldn’t do it without you.”
Regulus stopped and frowned at this, which Dora quickly misinterpreted.
“Don’t get all pouty, we told him you’re excellent and don’t need the practice. There’s no need to get all fussy over it.”
Regulus briefly considered what he would do if anybody else ever called him ‘fussy’ and infantilized him. He imagined they’d find a life with every bone in their dominant hand fused together somewhat bothersome.
But Regulus, for all of his obstinancy, was not immovable, and Pandora truly was an unstoppable force. However much resistance it puts up, the movable object always falls to the unstoppable force.
And so Regulus found himself in Evan and Barty’s dorm, surrounded by his three best friends and the guy whose chair he crashed on. And he knew just how to solve his little dilemma.
“Since I haven’t played in so long, we haveto at least start with a piece I know. So I’m not so far behind.”
Barty, bless his twisted little heart, picked up on Regulus’s plan immediately, promptly elbowing Evan’s ribs, earning him a smacked arm. “Hey, Rosie, what’s that one song he was trying to arrange for a viola-violin before, the one he showed us that video of? Where he looked like he was either constipated or extremely sexually frustrated the entire time?”
Evan, coming to a quick understanding, smiled disarmingly at James, as charming and innocent as an angel. If that angel happened to be plotting against the human he was supposed to guard.
“The duet?” he asked Barty, his eyes never leaving James’s face.
Barty hummed in agreement, and Regulus felt the sudden urge to take back any negative thought he had ever had about the pair, as they were actually his heroes.
“Guys, don’t be rude,” Regulus cut in with well-practiced disdain, “we can’t just single James out like that and make him play that silly sonata with me, when I’ll doubtlessly trip all the way through it. It would just be embarrassing.”
For James. It would be extremely embarrassing for James, who was currently grinning like an idiot and shaking his head. “I don’t mind, I’ve got to warm up. I’m sure you can’t be at all bad, you just look like you were born to hold a violin.”
Which: what? Regulus felt his resolve deepen as Barty choked on a laugh until Pandora patted his back to fix him. Which somehow always worked.
“If you insist,” Regulus agreed with a curt nod. As if James was the one whom he was doing this for, not doing it to. “Evan, where did you put my music when you broke into my dorm?”
James looked blankly ahead at the statement, seemingly unable to process the group he had gotten himself into.
Evan shuffled around in his piano bench - because what self-respecting person didn’t have at least a baby grand in their tiny, cramped, dorm room - until he came up to Regulus with a piece. Thepiece.
“You can look it over while I check Rosier’s tuning abilities,” Regulus offered James after he thanked Evan.
The cellist took the sheet music and then froze, his eyes wide as he stared at the finely bound papers in front of him. Regulus noted with no small amount of satisfaction that James was rapidly paling, which should have been impossible with his skin tone.
Barty excused himself from the room “for a quick smoke” - read: to laugh his ass off - with a shit-eating grin on his face.
As Regulus gave Cassie a thorough inspection - Evan had, luckily for his own sake, done her no harm - he heard James give choked responses to whatever the Rosier cousins were saying to him. He didn’t break down crying as some may have when faced with the piece, but Regulus was sure that would come later.
“So, shall we go as it’s written or speed it up a bit?” Regulus asked James, feigning ignorance of the cellist’s rising distress. “It’s somewhat more appealing at an upped tempo, but if you prefer-”
“It’s fine as it’s written,” James cut in, his voice almost weak. “I mean, since it’s just a warmup. Wouldn’t want you to try anything too crazy when you haven’t practiced in so long,” he added in a stabler voice after he cleared his throat and offered Regulus a smile full of poorly hidden panic.
To his credit, he got through the song. He certainly didn’t play through the song, as his frantic notes only occasionally approximated what the sheet music dictated, but he got through it nonetheless.
Regulus was secretly pleased that hehad played the sonata perfectly, not missing a single note, dynamic, or other dictation. He thought this was something of a feat, as what sounded like a confused, severely dehydrated and constipated cat next to him accosted his ears before burrowing in his brain to die of humiliation. But Regulus kept his face blank as he turned to James, even as he saw Barty and Evan dying of silent laughter behind the cellist’s back.
“So,” he eventually spoke, breaking James from some strange, intense reverie, doubtlessly brought on by shame, “are we all warmed up, then? Suppose I wasn’t as bad as I could’ve been.”
James stared at Regulus for a good few seconds, his mouth slowly falling open. It was a humorous sight, and Regulus relished it because he knew what it meant. It meant James would leave the ridiculous quartet because Regulus was just too good, too haughty and altogether intolerable. James, who had seen him as a mess that very morning, would now see him and remember the obnoxiousness that came with his skill, rather than what had happened earlier.
“Yeah,” James finally choked out, still staring intensely at Regulus’s face. “Think I could borrow that music? Practice, you know.”
Regulus internally rolled his eyes at the lame excuse, sure James would rather burn the music in a rage-induced inferno than practice it. He’d likely come up with some apology for its destruction, a freak flood or over-eager nephew with new crayons. Though Regulus liked the piece, who was he to stand in the way of a much-needed catharsis?
“Of course,” he agreed, keeping his face blank. “It’s such a nice little song, isn’t it?”
James nodded feverishly, already packing up his cello and stuffing the offending sheet music under his arm. “Well, I’ve got to be going. Pete.”
Evan, having regained his composure, offered James another charming smile. “We’ll see you here same time next week?”
James nodded again after a second, slipping past Pandora and Barty and out of the dorm. Once the door was safely closed, the facade dropped. Barty and Evan wore competing cat-ate-the-canary grins, and Pandora had on a beaming smile, betraying her amusement. Regulus, for his part, was smirking at where James had been standing, knowing he had - once again - won. And for the first time in years, winning brought him joy instead of fear. He had nothing to prove: he’d already done that. And it had been enough.