cold feet

“Where have you been?”

Those are the first words that come out of his mother’s mouth as she steps into his room, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Hi to you too, Regulus thinks. He has to make a point of turning his phone screen off as slowly as possible, and putting it down beside him on the desk so that she will not suspect anything at all.

“Oh, hi,” Regulus says, attempting to keep his cool. Just stay level-headed, as if you’re running your program, and she won’t know a thing at all. “Um, I just went out.” 

“Yes, to where?” she asks. She’s quick to head over to his bed and take a seat, and Regulus quickly realizes she won’t take a vague answer. “It’s eleven at night, and you just got back? Do you not have a 5:30 practice with Lucius tomorrow?”

“I do,” Regulus responds, his brain going a mile a minute. Think, think, think. “Sorry, I was with Barty.” The lie’s easy enough—he’s gone over to Barty’s house plenty of times before. And he was over at someone’s house; it’s just not at all who she thinks. Other than that, it’s completely believable. “We were doing research for our programs.”

“‘Research?’” she quotes back to him with a raised eyebrow. When Regulus nods, he knows he’s going to have to come up with more. “Haven’t you seen Phantom of the Opera a million times? I thought that was why you picked the music.”

“Yeah, it was,” Regulus responds. “We were just watching other people who have skated to our music. Seeing if we could take anything from it. Except we went down a wormhole of watching programs, and I lost track of time. Sorry.”

“So you’re trying to copy others?” she says. “Regulus, you’re supposed to make it your own. If you try to imitate whatever the hell Alina Zagitova was doing with her program, I swear to God—”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Regulus responds, the mere mention of that program making him grimace. At least this part is completely genuine. “I was talking more Meryl Davis and Charlie White, Yuzuru Hanyu—”

“So you’re copying them?”

“No!” Regulus exclaims, nearly standing up from his chair and walking out of his room right there. Jesus, he knew she would be a little pissed about this, but this incessant nagging is next level. “I just wanted to see how they interpreted it. That’s all.”

“And that required you being with Barty?”

“We thought it would be more fun to do it together.”

”For three hours?”

“Yes! I told you, I lost track of time,” Regulus defends, exasperated by now. He’s not sure how much more of this he can take.

“You lost track of time?”

“Yes,” Regulus confirms again, wanting nothing more than to jump out the window. Unfortunately, the fall  to the ground is short, and he thinks he’d survive. Which would only mean more questions. “Ask Barty if you don’t believe me.”

It goes silent as she eyes him up and down, Regulus currently feeling like he is failing whatever assessment she is pressing onto him. Her eyelids only narrow, and the pit of despair in his stomach continues to grow.

Finally, she purses her lips together, nodding. “Okay.”

And then she is standing up and leaving, only uttering a “Get some rest, mon caneton,” on her way out. She doesn’t close the door behind her.

Regulus breathes a sigh of relief before looking back at his phone, where his text back to Sirius remains unsent. He repeats in his head what he has just written, trying to see if it sounds right.

regulus: haha maybe they were… who knows. either way that assist was INSANE

He reads it once, then twice, then three times. Then about a million more times. He attempts to get his heartbeat under control as he shakily presses send.

He waits a moment, then drafts a second text.

regulus: miss you. do you wanna call soon?

He looks at the text for far longer than he should, an entire war taking place within his head. There is nothing stopping him from sending it, he knows that. Nothing except…

Sirius not agreeing. Sirius saying no. Sirius being glad that he’s far, far away from Regulus, and not missing him a bit.

Before Regulus knows it, he is furiously pressing the ‘back’ button and  shutting his phone off. It isn’t long afterwards that he goes to sleep, the unsent words being the only thing he sees as he closes his eyes and his world grows dark.

❅ ❅ ❅

As Regulus steps through the doors of the rink, the sight before him nearly makes him drop his skate bag and run out altogether.

No, he thinks immediately, freezing totally in his tracks. No, no, no, this cannot be happening. He supposes he should’ve figured out yesterday that she wasn’t going to let this go—no, not even figured out. He should’ve just known. 

“Regulus!” calls out his mother, who is occupying the bench that stands in the middle of the lobby. “There you are.” Right next to her sits Barty, who looks just as uncomfortable as Regulus currently feels. 

He attempts to flash the both of them a smile, though he’s sure that at best it’s done with a trembling jaw. “I didn’t realize you were coming in today,” he replies as he walks towards them.

“Well, regionals are next week, aren’t they?” she asks, flashing him a smile that is somehow even more disingenuous than his own. “Figured I’d come in and watch your programs. Except you weren’t here, so I was starting to get worried.”

Thanks, Maman, Regulus thinks to himself, having a gut feeling that wasn’t the only reason she came today. As if the competition anxiety wasn’t enough all on its own, now he has to deal with his mother breathing down his neck. 

Regulus nods. “Ah,” he says. He supposes this is what he gets for trying to grab lunch in between sessions. “Well, I’m here now,” he adds.

“Good,” she responds, flashing him a smile that is colder than the ice he skates on. “I’d hope so.”

Regulus attempts to feign amusement as he returns the smile. “Well, I have to get my skates on,” he says. He doesn’t wait for a response as he quickly attempts to brush past her. He doesn’t have much time anyways—the next freestyle session begins in less than 10 minutes, so it makes a perfect excuse for him to get the hell out of here and dodge any questions she might have. “I’ll see you after,” he adds, already dreading what that is going to entail. He can practically hear it all in his mind, can hear the harsh, merciless criticism he will receive, and he is prepared for it. He’s also prepared for the many corrections she will give that will be impossible to fix in a week, and vows now not to overthink any of it even though he knows he is going to.

“I gotta go too,” says Barty quickly after, and in his peripheral vision Regulus watches as he practically leaps up and begins to walk away from her. He makes a note to apologize to Barty the second that they’re out of sight—he cannot imagine the interrogation he must have just gone through. It’s entirely his fault Barty was put through it. “Good seeing you, Walburga!” (The tone in his voice, only readable to Regulus and Evan, tells Regulus that it was in fact the opposite).

“Have a fun practice,” she echoes back pleasantly—as pleasant as his mother can be, anyways. 

“We will,” responds Barty as he joins Regulus, their steps now in sync as they rapidly shuffle away from the lobby and the stifling air his mother’s presence creates.

Soon, Regulus opens the door to Rink B for Barty, the cold front they are greeted with never feeling better. “After you,” he mumbles, not daring to look Barty in the eye. 

Barty doesn’t say a word as he steps in, and Regulus doesn’t blame him. Regulus is quick to close the door behind them as he rushes over to the nearest bench and throws his skate bag onto the ground, sitting down and pulling his skates out of his bag.

For a minute, it’s silent. Regulus is quick to kick his shoes off and begin lacing up his skates instead, tugging at the laces so hard that his fingers begin to burn furiously. And the entire time he is tying his skates, Barty stands in front of him. Regulus knows the question is coming—but it doesn’t mean he looks forward to hearing it.

At last, Barty speaks. “So, let me get this straight,” he begins as Regulus pulls the strings tight on his left skate and switches his hands over to his right. “You went out for like, three hours yesterday without telling your mom, and you were supposed to be with me?” Regulus notices that he doesn’t sound angry, doesn’t sound irritated. Moreover, he genuinely sounds baffled. (And maybe a tiny bit… sad? Regulus isn’t sure what that other hint of emotion in his voice is, and Regulus doesn’t see why Barty would be sad. But it’s the best word he can use to describe whatever it is that is there). “Doing research for our free skates, or whatever it is she said?”

Regulus stops tugging at the laces on his right skate for just a second, and takes a moment to glance up at Barty. And seriously, what is with that face? Barty’s never liked his mother, and Regulus cannot comprehend what it is about this lie that wounds him so deeply. “I didn’t know she’d ask you about it.”

“Yeah, join the club,” Barty says, letting out a dry laugh. “I walked into the rink and it seemed like she’d been waiting for me. Scariest moment of my life.”

“What’d she ask you?” Regulus says, his stomach twisting as he anticipates the answer that his friend might give him.

Barty shakes his head now, shrugging quickly. “She asked me what I was up to over the week, said it felt like she’d barely seen you. I told her you were with me and Evan a lot, because you were, and then she started asking about yesterday… I had a feeling it had to do with something you did, so I said you were with me, and then she told me the story you gave her. I thought I was being interrogated the entire time.”

As Regulus processes those words, he glances back towards the door of the rink, where his mother will be walking in at any given moment. And then he rests his arms on his knees, propping his face up in his hands. “Jesus,” he mumbles. “I’m so sorry, Barty.” 

“Uh-huh,” Barty says plainly, and honestly, he should sound way more pissed about all of this than he actually is. A moment passes before he speaks again. “So, you wanna tell me where you actually were last night, or is that just gonna remain a mystery?”

Regulus’s heart drops at that question, the inevitable question that he should’ve seen coming from a mile away. Barty still, throughout all of this, only sounds curious. Like he just wants to know what’s happening in his life. But honestly, how the hell is Regulus supposed to tell him? He doesn’t even know where he’d begin. “Hey, remember James, the hockey player everyone here knows and loves that I fucking despised with all of my guts a couple of months or so ago? Well, it turns out I don’t think he’s all that bad, and I went over to his house a second time yesterday only I couldn’t tell my mother that because she hates his guts possibly even more than I did so I lied and said I was with you.”

Well, that’s the gist of it, anyways. And Regulus knows that he has no reason to dodge around this with Barty, no reason to leave him in the dark when all Barty has ever done is tried to help him, but it’s scary. It is. And Regulus is scared. He’s always been so angry, so spiteful, but underneath all of that is fear that he’s not sure he’s as good as concealing as he thinks. Maybe that’s one of the reasons that his mother unnerves him–because despite all of his lies to her, despite how he tries to upkeep the facade he’s fabricated, she is the only one who is capable of unveiling it, of showing everyone else just how terrified of everything and everyone he actually is.

Off of the ice, he would normally be okay with this, okay with the fear that is consuming him. Let his entire life crumble apart when he is not skating–he doesn’t care. But over the past couple of months, that fear has begun to eat at him when he is on the ice too, and it’s tearing him apart. He knows the only way to stop it is to confront everything head on, and that’s what he’s been trying to do. So far, it’s been going pretty okay. He’s texted Sirius, he’s gone over to James’s, which are two things he could’ve never dreamed of when the summer was ending. But it’s hard. It’s so, so hard, and he’s exhausted of everything in his life shifting so severely in the direction it has.

Now, Barty wants to hear all about it. He wants to hear Regulus actually talk about his feelings and his life, something that Regulus so rarely does when it comes to him and Evan. It’s stupid, because he knows they’re friends and that he should be able to tell them anything. They’ve told him so much, haven’t they? Yet it never feels that way.

He supposes that when it comes down to it, he’s never gotten over the internalized fear instilled within him that every other skater at this rink is nothing more than his competition. It’s a fear his mother’s planted in him ever since he was young–“Never let them in on anything you’re feeling,” she used to say on competition day, right before Regulus would run over to them and greet them. “They’ll use it against you. They always do.” Back then, it didn’t seem like as big of a deal. They were only preliminary skaters, and it never really mattered. But now they are junior skaters, and Barty and Evan will probably be competing senior next season. Regulus should follow them, if he can ever successfully land a quad. And Regulus has seen how competition can shatter amity. He doesn’t want that to happen to them. He doesn’t want to give them ammunition to set it into motion.

But this is Barty that he’s talking to. Barty, who isn’t angry at him or annoyed about any of this at all. Not in the way he should be. Barty, who’s never viewed Regulus as a rival so much as a friend. Barty, who always says to Regulus that he can tell him anything.

Regulus concludes, finally, that it couldn’t hurt to just say the truth. And that is what he does.

“I went over to James’s,” he says, before clearing his throat and glancing up at Barty. “Potter,” he clarifies. “James Potter’s.”

Barty nods, his eyes quickly widening. “Yeah, I figured.” Regulus assumes that out of all the explanations in his mind, that was not one of them. “That’s where you’ve been hiding away?”

“Not hiding away, but yeah,” Regulus says, wasting no time in looking back down at his feet. “Wasn’t the first time either. I… was there on Sunday too.”

The next words out of Barty’s mouth are completely unexpected. “Wow, already at the ‘meeting the parents’ phase.”

”What?” Regulus asks at first, the statement not immediately processing. Then it does, and his head snaps up towards Barty as his mouth drops open. “Wait, no, no, no! That’s not what I meant!”

But it’s too late for Regulus’s poor face, which has already turned bright red in embarrassment at the misconception. He couldn’t believe…. how could Barty even think of something along those lines? He and James, they are nothing like that. He’s never been like that with anyone before, has never even dared to imagine it. To assume otherwise, and to assume that it’s James, whom he’s just barely started tolerating not even a week ago? To dare assume it was anything more? He cannot even fathom where Barty got this from. 

Barty throws his hands up in the air, and to Regulus’s absolute humiliation he is laughing a little. “Woah. Relax, I was kidding.” When Regulus doesn’t respond after a moment, Barty’s follow-up is somehow worse. “You do kind of look like a tomato right now though.”

”Yeah!” Regulus exclaims in exasperation, gesturing wildly towards Barty. “No shit I am. Because you thought we…”

He cannot even finish that sentence, cannot even think to articulate it. The fact that Barty didn’t seem all that surprised at it either, that he didn’t seem to question when Regulus began to warm up to James? That should be cause for concern on Regulus’s behalf. Has he really done that horrid of a job at hating him that everyone else has noticed it too? God, this is bad.

“Regulus,” Barty suddenly snaps, putting a firm hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t actually think that. It was a joke.”

The contact is enough to bring Regulus to his senses, but still not enough to make him feel any less uneasy. “Okay,” he says after a moment. Then… “Are you sure—“

“I swear on my life that I was joking,” Barty responds, completely deadpanning.

Regulus still has his doubts, but he decides it’s probably less humiliating if he just lets go of the statement. “Okay, sorry. I got it.”

Barty turns his head away from Regulus now, pulling his arm back to his side. The expression on his face has abruptly dropped and shifted, and Regulus for the life of him cannot figure out why. “Right, so anyways… what were you doing there?”

Regulus looks down towards the ground, his cheeks still warm even in the freezing cold. “Watching Sirius play,” he says eventually. “He invited me last week and I didn’t think I’d ever go. But then…”

He can’t quite figure out where to even begin when it comes to what made him change his mind, because even he himself doesn’t have a clue. So instead, he groans, his hands returning to his face. “Jesus. I don’t even know.”

The silence that falls between them is broken by the creaking of wood, and as the weight of the bench shifts Regulus realizes that Barty has just sat beside him. “I think you do,” Barty mumbles eventually. “I think you like him a lot more than you let on.”

When Regulus’s gaze shifts over to Barty, he notices something about his eyes, about how they’re refusing to meet his own. But his time to be confused over that is cut short as Barty speaks again.

“Listen, um… I’m always happy to cover for you. Just give me a warning next time, maybe? I seriously thought I was going to die today.”

Regulus can’t help the small chuckle that comes out of his mouth at that statement, slowly bringing himself to nod. “Yeah,” he says at last. “Yeah, I will. Thank you, Barty. I mean it.”

Barty offers him a small smile in return, his elbow lightly jabbing at Regulus’s  side. “What else are friends for, right?” Regulus’s mouth turns upwards at that statement, and for a moment, there is understanding.

Then it is gone as Barty turns away and stands up, patting Regulus on the shoulder one last time. “Alright, I’m getting on. I’ll see you out there,” he says, and Regulus watches as he practically dashes out onto the ice.

Regulus wastes no time in getting up, and instinctively he begins to follow. “Hey, wait for me!” he exclaims, rushing after him as quickly as his legs can carry him. He’s off of the bench, then he is almost to the door, then he crosses the threshold and pushes off—

And almost immediately as Regulus steps onto his right skate, he proceeds to completely lose balance and splat right down onto the ice ass-first.

Once he recovers from the absolute humiliation of falling from doing absolutely nothing, he can hear Barty laughing somewhere ahead of him. He pulls his head up from the ice to see Barty skating right towards him, with a shit-eating grin on his face.

”Hey genius, you forgot something!” he says, bending down onto his toe picks so that he is now level with Regulus on the ice.

“Oh, come on!” Regulus exclaims exasperatedly, using his palms to prop himself back up and ignoring the sting of the ice on his hands. “I was following you—“

He cuts himself off when he sees exactly what Barty is laughing at, and immediately, the embarrassment from earlier hits him all over again.

Right in front of him sits both of his skates, and his right one still remains almost completely untied. “Oh,” Regulus gets out at last.

Barty completely loses his shit.

Regulus would be laughing too, if it weren’t for what’s at stake next week. Holy fuck, Regulus, he tells himself, slowly rising back up to his feet. Get it together before it’s too late.

And one way or another, he will. He has to.

He’s quick to scramble back up to his feet and rush to the penalty box, taking a seat on the tiny bench in there as he begins to actually tie his right skate. As he does, he thinks about what he is going to do about this, how he has to approach this next.

An idea forms, somewhere in the back of his head—and immediately, he despises it. He absolutely hates every single aspect of the plan he’s just devised, and the thought of going through with it makes him sick. It’s devastatingly perfect.

Now, the difficult part is going to be actually going through with it.

❅ ❅ ❅

One week later…

Two days before regionals

As James enters Rink A, he’s never felt so out of his element in a place that he’s known all of his life. Maybe a part of it is due to the absence of his bag on his shoulder, the lack of his sticks in his hand. But more notably, he’s never felt the chill of the air hit his skin the way that it is right now. And he’s also never once been here when the sun is still rising outside.

His eyes scan around the rink as he approaches the boards, looking for the reason why he came here. This rink admittedly isn’t one he spends any time in at all—with the sheet of ice being Olympic sized, it’s reserved primarily for figure skaters, and the lack of any sort of glass or nets around the border of the ice means that no hockey events can ever take place here. As he reaches the boards, he takes a moment to prop his elbows on them—and then he spots him, already skating around the ice at the speed of light. The screen behind him that reads 5:48 AM doesn’t seem to bother him at all, nor the fact that he is the only skater currently on the ice. Rather, he looks strangely at peace.

As Regulus Black comes around the corner of the ice, James can feel it. He can feel the moment he is spotted, the moment his eyes land on him and everything else fades away into the background. And as he comes to a stop in front of James, the skid of his blades against the ice ringing throughout the rink, he finds his heart is suddenly pounding. He’s timid for a reason he can’t articulate, just anticipating the moment Regulus surely tells him that he made a mistake and to go away.

Regulus doesn’t say that. “You came,” he states instead, the surprise in his tone not lost on James. “I didn’t know if you’d—”

James shrugs in a pathetic attempt to be nonchalant about something that absolutely isn’t. “You wanted me to, so I did,” he states, although he’s still not entirely sure he didn’t just dream the text Regulus sent him the night before. He re-checked the text about a dozen times when he woke up, just to be safe. “Why?”

Regulus now looks away from him, putting both of his hands on the boards and leaning forward right beside where James’s arms are propped. James tries not to think about how close they would be if he was a few more inches to the left, and Regulus a few more to the right. Regulus takes in a deep breath, closing his eyes for just a second, and then he turns back to face James. “I need you to watch me skate both of my programs,” he says finally. “For regionals.”

James doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t that request. He doesn’t think he’s subtle about hiding the surprise in his face either. “Me?” he gets out, to which Regulus nods without hesitation. “Why—”

“Because I skate well when I’m terrified out of my mind,” Regulus gets out, still not meeting James’s gaze. “Will you do it?”

That statement catches James completely off guard, and it takes him a moment to process what it means. Regulus finds me terrifying?

James thinks that’s ironic, considering that he’s never been as scared as he is right now. But at last he brings himself to nod, because there was never a doubt that he’d say no, and Regulus would be stupid to think otherwise.

His answer is confident, unwavering. “Of course.”

And that’s all it takes.

Just minutes later, Regulus is in his starting position, waiting for his music to begin. And now James prepares to watch, his presence no longer something unwelcome. At last, it is wanted. He is wanted.

And he will not dare to look away for a second.