poison
“Regulus, look at me, please,” James begs. His voice cracks in the middle of the last word.
Regulus stares at the ground. His fists clench until his knuckles ache, and his nails bite into the flesh of his palm. If he looks at James, he’ll break, and he can’t risk that. He has to go through with this.
“Don’t do this, love. Whatever the problem is, we'll fix it together.” James’ voice sounds so far away. The twelve kitchen tiles between them feel like miles. Regulus grits his teeth to stop himself from taking it all back. To stop himself from telling James to forget about it. Telling him it was all a big misunderstanding, and that they can go back to curling up together on the couch, so close that they won’t be able to tell where one ends and the other begins.
“Reg, are you listening to me? Can we talk about this?” Regulus hears the anger creeping into James’ words. Good, he thinks. It’s easier if he hates me. Anger he understands like an old friend. It was the first language spoken in his house.
It always goes back to that house.
There is something wrong with Regulus. The Black family madness, or whatever you want to call it, runs like poison in his veins, and he refuses to wait around until it consumes James too. They have been fighting lately. Small things that shouldn’t be as hard to let go of as they are. Regulus collects each bitter word as evidence.
“There’s nothing to talk about. This is over. You didn’t honestly think it would last,” Regulus hears himself say.
“How can you say that so easily? You can’t stand there and tell me the past few months meant nothing to you,” James argues, taking a step towards him. Trying to wade through the ocean between them.
They meant everything to me, Regulus thinks.
“It was fun while it lasted,” he says. “But I wasn’t foolish enough to buy into the notion that this was forever.” He hears James make a wounded noise.
“I know you're lying,” James spits at him. He takes another step, raising his arm. Regulus recoils. James inhales sharply and stumbles back three steps, hitting the counter hard enough to bruise. The ocean remains uncrossed.
“Regulus,” James pleads. But the fight has left him.
Regulus ruins things. His words are corrosive, twisted with vitriol, meant to burn. He’s been practicing a long time. By the time he was fifteen, he had become an expert in self-sabotage. He tries to reason that if he leaves now, James can find someone better, someone easier. Someone who doesn’t wear hostility like armor. Someone who won’t flinch at the lightest touch on days when the ghosts of other hands haunt his skin.
But the truth is Regulus is selfish. He has to be the one to end things. Because his greatest fear is that one day James will wake up and he’ll see the rotten parts that Regulus has tried so hard to cut out, and James will leave. If James leaves him too, Regulus will shatter.
So maybe it’s self-preservation that causes him to pick up his bag and walk to the door. James follows him.
“I love you,” James says. Regulus can hear the defeat in his voice.
I love you, too.
“I’m sorry, Jamie.”
Regulus twists the handle and steps across the threshold. He closes the door behind him.