Paint the Night

He paints his skin.
He puts his heart and soul into every movement.
His whole body goes into his art.
He paints in blues and greens and purples.
Dabbing and dotting a mottled night sky against his pale skin.
He paints the night. He paints it dark.

Purple-red ovals overlap.
Deep blue-black splotches mix and blend.
His sky.
He paints the sky as he sees it.
As he feels it.
Swirling, spinning, swishing.
Dark, deep, endless.
There are no stars in his sky.

He's had enough of the stars.

No. Regulus’s sky—

It has comets.

Burning rocks throwing themselves through the emptiness.
Coming from nothing, racing toward nothing,
But moving, moving.
He dips his brush in reds and pulls the comets across his skin.
Bright red lines across dark sky.
And come morning, when his sky fades to yellow and green,
the comet tails will fade to white.
Gone, but not forgotten.

He paints until he is drenched in his art.
He paints until he begins to feel.
He paints until he has nothing left to feel.
He paints until every inch of his outside
Expresses every bit of his inside

Until the night
Has soaked his skin.

(…)

“Regulus?”

Regulus freezes, his wand tip still pressing against his thigh.

It’s an empty classroom in the middle of the night. No one is supposed to be here.

“Reg?” the voice repeats, sounding a bit shaky now. “What—what are you doing?”

Regulus looks up from his masterpiece and sees Evan standing in the doorway, a scared, confused look on his face.

“I--I’m painting.” Regulus’s shocked mind stutters. It’s not quite the truth, but it’s close enough.

“Painting?” Evan asks, his voice still tinged with fear. He takes another step into the room.

“Yes…” Regulus drawls, not quite sure what else to say. He vaguely wonders if he should throw his robes over the art, but he can’t quite make himself move.

“Can—can I see?” Evan asks.

A jolt of fear rushes through Regulus. His brain runs through a thousand excuses, but none of them make any sense. He’s caught.

“No.” Regulus says, simple and direct.

His hand itches to move his paintbrush. He wants to keep going. There’s a bit of blank canvas to the left of his knee. It would look so good in dark purple. Or maybe with a bright red streak. But he can’t do it, not while Evan is watching.

Evan is examining Regulus from his spot by the door. His eyes taking in the grasped wand, the deep bruises on Regulus’s thighs, the droplets of red on his skin.

“Regulus…” his voice is a shaky warning as he takes another step forward.

Regulus presses himself into the chair he’s sitting in.

“Stop.” He says. “Don’t come any closer.”

Evan immediately obeys, holding up his hands in surrender.

“Okay. I’m not coming any closer. But you need to put down the wand, Reg, okay? Let’s just talk for a sec.” His voice is eerily calm, like a hostage negotiator’s.

“I don’t want to talk.” Regulus says coldly, gripping the brush tighter.

“That’s okay.” Evan says a bit too hurriedly. He quickly corrects to the placid monotone, as if the mere inflection of his tone might offend Regulus. “That’s fine.” He drones. “We don’t have to talk. Not right now, but you need to put the wand down, Regulus. Please.”

Regulus frowns. Evan sounds frightened. Desperate, even. But that’s not right. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.

Regulus puts his wand on the floor.

“You should leave.” He says icily, almost threateningly. Evan is making him uncomfortable. He can’t paint with Evan here.

If the threat intimidates him, Evan doesn’t show it. He juts his chin out defiantly. “No. I’m staying.”

Regulus isn’t sure why, but the words twinge strangely in his chest. Not pleasantly, but not unpleasantly. He quickly squashes the feeling.

Evan starts to move along the wall of the room, not coming closer to Regulus, just edging his way around some of the desks separating them.

Regulus watches carefully as he goes.

“I want you to leave.” he grits through clenched teeth. Evan can’t stay. It isn’t right for Evan to stay.

A beat passes. Several emotions skirt across Evan’s face before it settles on a soft, pained expression.

 “I know.” he nods. “That’s why I think I need to stay. I can’t—I’m not letting you do this.”

He speaks it like it is a challenge, like he’s daring Regulus to disagree.

Regulus doesn’t answer. He looks down at his painting. He traces a finger over the raised ridge of a long-healed comet. It is a puckered white mark, one of the ones his mother put there. It was her who started the painting, years ago. Regulus trails a hand across a bright red slice. These-- the newer, redder ones-- are Regulus’s own additions, his masterpieces.

He looks back up at Evan. There is no way out of this. “Okay. Stay.”

Those two words loosen some of the tension in Evan’s shoulders. He lets out a long breath and settles himself on the floor of the room, back against the wall, watching Regulus.

Regulus tries to ignore his stare. There is something disconcerting niggling in his brain. Something he doesn’t want to recognize. Something scary.

Instead, he focuses on a stray drip of paint slowly making its way to the floor. He watches as it leaves a tail of red. When it finally slips off of his leg and onto the stone floor, Regulus stands up from the chair. He can feel bits of old, dried paint splitting and cracking as he moves, but he ignores it. He can neaten it up later. There is no more he can do tonight, not with Evan here.

Regulus slumps onto the ground a few feet down from Evan, his back pressed against the hard wall. He expects Evan to say something, to ask more questions or demand explanations, but Evan is true to his word. He does not speak. He does little more than glance over at Regulus before turning his eyes back to the empty desks. He seems content to wait, just to sit with Regulus in the room.

For a bit, both boys stay like that, side by side, not speaking, absorbed in their own thoughts. It isn’t an awkward silence, nor an expectant or demanding one. It is just a silence. A pause.

The strange fear in Regulus’s brain grows more and more restless the longer he is still. He can feel it rooting around and digging through the recesses of his mind. It is trying to find something, trying to be heard.

Regulus isn’t sure how much time passes before he speaks.

“Evan?” he asks quietly.

Evan doesn’t turn, but Regulus can tell he’s listening. He isn’t quite sure what he is going to say to Evan, what words are going to come out of his mouth next, but something needs to be said. Something needs to give.

Regulus grazes a finger across a blue-black splotch on his outer thigh. “I don’t—I don’t know why I do it.” he says softly.

It’s not entirely true, but it’s true enough.

Regulus has heard of people hurting themselves. He’s heard that they do it for the pain, because they think they deserve it, or they need it, or they like it, even. But it isn’t like that for Regulus. For him, it’s more of a morbid curiosity. When it started, it was just deepening the wounds already there, scratching into the scabs and cuts just to see how far he could go. Would it soak through his robes? Would anyone notice? Would anyone say anything? From there, it grew. He’d make his own marks. He’d add to his own sky. He’d see how deep he could go before it bled, how dark his pale skin could become. It was never about pain, it was an experiment.

Evan’s lips press into a thin little line, not quite believing Regulus, but not offering any reasons of his own.

Regulus is glad he doesn’t speak. He’s not sure he could say this next part if Evan were lecturing, or consoling, or pitying. It’s better if he is completely silent.

“I think…” the sentence trails off as Regulus gathers his courage.

“I think I might be dying.” He whispers, giving voice to the strange worry in his head.

At this, Evan reacts. He huffs a little laugh and rolls his head against the wall to look at Regulus. The left corner of his mouth quirks upward, but it is not a smile. It’s much sadder.

“Yeah. Yeah Reg, I think you might be.”

Regulus smiles back.

He doesn’t mean he’s dying right now. He isn’t. He’s perfectly fine. But it felt like the right thing to say. Like it might be true in some greater, profounder way.

I think you might be.

Regulus supposes the sentiment should make him feel something. Anger, fear, sadness, something. But it doesn’t, not really. There’s just a resigned sort of contentment.

He might be dying.

Yes.

He might be dying.

Evan slides closer to Regulus, closing the two-foot gap between them. They are still not touching, but Regulus can feel the heat coming off of Evan’s body. It feels nice.

They sit like that for a long while. Evan doesn’t press Regulus to say more, and Regulus doesn’t offer anything. After a while, Evan’s breathing slows, and his head gently lolls onto Regulus’s shoulder.

It’s late. Regulus has classes in the morning. He should be asleep, too. Both of them should be tucked up in their dorm room sleeping comfortably. But Regulus can’t sleep. He doesn’t want to close his eyes. There is too much to do.

He knows it’s sick, perverse, even, but Regulus can’t help but admire how beautiful his painting is. The colors melding and molding, swirling and daubing. He’s proud of it. It tells a story. Each slash and scar is an accomplishment, something he created and something he overcame. Each line and bruise speaks for him, forming the words his mouth never could. It is a part of him. A representation of him. Maybe to Evan it just looks like a painful mess of color and flaking skin, but to Regulus, it is an ever-changing artwork.

Regulus knows he shouldn’t. He knows it isn’t right. It isn’t natural. Some deep buried piece of him understands Evan’s look of fear, his insistence to make Regulus stop. Perhaps part of Regulus even wants to stop. But he knows he won’t. He can’t.

There is nothing he can do with Evan in the room, but eventually, Evan will leave. Eventually, Regulus will find himself alone again. Maybe in a different room, maybe behind the closed curtains of his bed, maybe in the dark cover of the forest, but Regulus will find a way. He cannot rest until he has found a way.

He is an artist, and the art is begging him to create. It is begging to be freed, to be released from the confines of his mind and become something visible, something tangible. Regulus cannot sleep not because he isn’t tired, but because he isn’t finished. He is restless with the need to paint. His brain, his heart, and whatever semblance of a soul he has left are all screaming at him, screaming at him to get it out before it is lost. Screaming at him to tell the story. Screaming at him to create. To dig. To destroy.

To Paint the night.

Paint it dark.