Trust Me, Babe
Regulus was six when he started pitying his mother.
She was trying on clothes for some formal event they were attending and Regulus was sitting by the edge of her bed, looking at her in admiration. The two had a complicated relationship. Regulus always loved his mother, but not really in the sense one was supposed to love their mother. He all but worshipped her, almost as if she was godlike. Walburga was always a higher force to him. She was the cruellest woman Regulus had ever met, but then again, she was the best mother Regulus could have imagined.
She was also the only example of a mother Regulus had back then.
“Ugh!” his mother exclaimed angrily. She had been looking through her clothes for the past hour and a half and Regulus just sat there, quietly. She rubbed her temple in exhaustion and then turned around to meet Regulus’ gaze. He immediately straightened up. “Regulus, dear, could you tell Mummy what time it is?”
Regulus, who had just recently learnt how to read time, looked up at the gigantic grandfather clock in the corner of the room and squinted his eyes at it for a moment, before he knew it. “It’s 7:31 p.m.” Regulus remembered her telling him earlier today that the event would start at ten. His mother just sighed and then sat down on the floor beside Regulus, who was still sitting on her bed. She looked a little smaller than him now.
“I don’t know what to wear,” she stated, as if Regulus didn’t know already. She seemed a lot more sad now, and if Regulus would’ve been able to grasp the concept of complex emotions at the age of six, he might’ve been able to tell that this wasn’t just about clothes.
He wasn’t, though.
He looked at her sympathetically. Walburga’s hair was a little tangled and he reached out to fix it for her. She leaned into it. “That’s okay,” Regulus said with a small voice. “You’ll find the perfect thing. You always do, Mummy.” She mumbled something and stood up again to go back to her gigantic closet.
Sometimes it felt a lot like Regulus was the parent and she was the kid, because he was always the one comforting her. Maybe it felt that way because she was so young when she had him. Twenty-one when she had Regulus, nineteen and a half when she had his brother, Sirius. Their father was thirty-seven. It was a strange kind of love, Regulus realised. They barely talked and even though Regulus was just six, he knew that their love wasn’t ideal. He didn’t really have anything to compare it to, so he wasn’t even sure if love always looked like this. To be honest, Regulus didn’t even know what love was.
He looked at his mother, who was now fuming in front of the closet again.
He was sure that she didn’t know either.
***
Regulus stared at the words in front of him. He reread it at least thousand times and still couldn't bring himself to send it out.
“Reg, are you done?” Barty called impatiently from the next room. Regulus pushed his doubts aside and quickly opened Twitter, clicking on Post before being able to change his mind.
To calm himself down, Regulus closed his eyes briefly, but quickly opened them again, because behind his closed eyes, the media was already buzzing around and making him nauseous. He sighed in resignation and walked out to his roommate.
“I did it,” he said hesitantly. Regulus was already anxious about the hate that would come his way.
He was still feeling sick and turned towards the bathroom before Barty could even say something. Regulus quickly shoved his phone into Barty's hands so that he wouldn’t start looking at the reaction of people. Barty didn’t need an explanation for shy Regulus ran off so quickly. They talked about it. He knew Regulus was nervous as shit.
The bathroom door closed behind Regulus. He stood in front of the mirror in silence, his hands clutching so tightly to the edge of the sink that his knuckles were turning white. He sometimes did this to stop his hands from shaking so much. It didn’t stop the stress, but the struggle of keeping his hands calm.
Regulus stared at his reflection uncertainly.
He had changed a lot, there was no mistaking it. His previously pitch black hair was now dyed dark blue and had gotten a little longer, there was barely a difference in the way it looked but in certain angles and with good lighting, someone might’ve been able to see the blue perk out — if they paid enough attention. A piercing on his nose and tongue. He liked to play with them when he got nervous. He also had several tattoos now, one stretching along his neck. Another small one behind his ear. There were some on his arms, and, less noticeable, but still very much present, on his legs. He was all but covered in the black ink.
He really liked this style, but knew how many people hated it. He was afraid that these people would also take out their hate on him. Technically, still no one had seen him up to this point, but at some point they would. After this tweet, the media was probably out and about to find him, take pictures and then mock him back into ghosting everyone and everything.
Barty had changed with him, and also withdrew from the media when Regulus did. He wasn’t an actor, like Regulus was. He had an Instagram account though, with a couple thousand followers and ran a pretty successful blog online, one might say was only intended for gossip. He deleted everything when Regulus went ghost.
Suddenly Barty’s excited voice came from the living room, “Dude, your phone is exploding!” Immediately Regulus felt dizzy again and it took him a few tries to get his hands off the edge of the sink. Nervously, he closed the bathroom door behind him and walked down the short corridor to the door of the living room. Barty came running towards him, waving his phone wildly.
“Give me that,” Regulus said in a broken voice as he felt even dizzier from trying to recognise anything on the moving screen. He felt like he was going to pass out. As a precaution, he sat down on the couch before starting to scroll through the comments.
@karmaismybtch: Wait ru back for good??
@almondmilk_: The press is gonna go crazy for this one
@hash_hannily: EVENT OF THE YEAR
|
|
|
|
@notjuli8: EVENT OF THE CENTURY!!!
He breathed out a sigh of relief. Barty punched him in the shoulder. Regulus turned around to see his grin. “See? It couldn’t have gone better,” he said, laughing at Regulus’ previous panic.
@HOTMESS233: someone ask james if hes doing ok haha
He knew it wouldn’t last long.