James was sitting by the black lake with his fellow marauders when he heard it, a whispered "self-mutilation". Mutilation? he had never heard it called that before and suddenly his head was flooded with images of the deep red lines that littered his thighs. "-ames, James you listenin' " "huh? oh sorry, umm I've gotta go, have some homework to do''.
As James walked back towards the castle tears began to gather in his eyes blurring his vision and he allowed his legs to take over as he became lost in the thoughts whirling in his head. James suddenly felt himself come to a stop and looked up in confusion as he realised he had zoned out, as he became more aware of his surroundings he recognised the familiar wall in front of him as the door to the slytherin common room. James figured that in its distress his mind had taken him to the one person he knew could help, his boyfriend Regulus. the thought caused a small smile to appear on his face, it quickly faded however when he remembered that he had never learnt the password to the slytherin common room despite walking through it many times.
James decided that he would wait outside for regulus as he would be out soon to head to lunch (he liked to leave early to get there before the rush). As james waited for regulus on the cold dungeon floor with his arms around his legs his mind began to spiral. Mutilation they had called it, was it really so ugly as to deserve that word? James started to wonder how regulus could even bare to look at him with such love when he had seen that ugly part of him. Does he even love me, he's probably thinking about how to break up with me right now. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he felt a wet warmth on his cheek, when had he started crying? his head snapped to the side as heard the door to the slytherin common room open and he froze as he saw his boyfriend emerge and step into the corridor.
A frown materialised on regulus' face as he caught sight of his distraught boyfriend, he took a cautious step forward. "Oh baby what's wrong" he said, crouching down to match james' eye level, that was apparently the wrong thing to say as james burst into a new bout of tears. Regulus quickly wrapped his arm around him as that was the only thing he could think to do (he had never been very good at comforting people) "oh mon soleil let's go upstairs to my dorm and we can talk there, this floor can't be very comfortable hm", regulus was reassured when james replied with a minute nod and began to stand up with regulus' help.
As they made their way to regulus' dorm he began to ponder what could have happened to make his wonderful james so upset had someone hurt him? said something mean? regulus thought it better to wait for james to tell him than lose his mind worrying over every possibility. When they finally reached his dorm regulus at them on his bed and looked at james whos tears had subdued, " you wanna tell me what's wrong baby" he whispered sincerely, james merely shook his head and returned a muttered "can we cuddle? m' tired" " of course we can baby, we'll cuddle then we can talk about it when we wake up yeah" james simply nodded his head and began to lay down with regulus behind him spooning him.
When regulus came to he looked to his right and saw james sitting up staring into the distance and picking at his cuticles, regulus gently grabbed james' hands and brought them to his lips for a sweet kiss. James' eyes flickered over to him and he took this as a sign to sit up in order to be level with james "wanna tell me what's going on" he said, james lowered his eyes as he mumbled " it's not important, just something I heard someone say". "well if it upset you this much then it is important mon soleil",the nickname caused a small smile to grace his boyfriends face before swiftly disappearing.
James began to grow nervous as he realised that regulus wouldn't let this go until james told him exactly what happened. James steeled himself with a deep breath before stating " I heard someone talking about self harm near the black lake and they called it self mutilation" he heard a soft "oh" uttered beside him and opened his eyes that had previously been closed due to fear to turn towards his boyfriend. "oh baby" he heard and suddenly regulus was holding him tightly in his arms " how did that make you feel", james shrugged but continued " it just made me feel like I had done something ugly and disgusting to myself and it made me realise that I will always have these marks on me forever and I cant do anything about it" james spoke as he began to quietly sob into his boyfriends shoulder.
"oh my love" regulus said as he pulled back to look at his lover keeping his hands on his shoulders "I promise you that I don't find the marks on your thighs ugly at all, in fact i find them quite beautiful as they signify that you were strong enough to do what you needed to in order to survive" james rebutted " but there's nothing I've had to survive, nothing bad has happened to me". " Oh my sun" said regulus "just because your struggles didn't come from an external source doesn't make them any less of a struggle, any less of a thing that you have to survive".
With that all of the doubts in james' head began to subside and he forgot all about the insignificant words of the students by the black lake as he laid down to cuddle with his boyfriend that had and will continue to reassure him as they move through life together, supporting each other when they could not support themselves.