Timeless

Regulus

My brother had found love, he'd really found it, and somehow I didn't doubt it was real, not anymore. He was the exception supporting the rule. True love didn't exist, soulmates or not, except for him. And I was happy for him, I really truly was, but I also hated him for it. Hated him for running like water, pouring down the drain and still somehow flowing into a clear lagoon with the night sky reflecting off of it and finding his happiness. I was stuck. Frozen. I would not be able to flow. If I tried to fly off into the sunset I would fall and shatter into a million pieces.

The promises these two made each other were so… vulnerable. So honest. So. So so so.

Sirius promised to laugh and cry with Remus and I was suddenly painfully aware of not remembering the last time I did either, not really. Everyone seemed to be wiping away tears and I had nothing, I didn't belong here.

I also couldn't take it. This setting, this place, this… all of it. It was too much. The love and the happiness and the sadness wrapped between the words were suffocating me because it was air I could not breathe. I was drowning in oxygen but needed carbon dioxide to breathe. I was a fish on the shore that nobody realised was dying. 

I left just as they said “I do-s.” I was glad they made it, that I knew there were two souls in this world who could call themselves happy, who wouldn't end up alone in endless crowds or try and disappear into the darkness each night. 

I walked through the gardens alone.

The leaves belonged to the trees. 

The trees to the soil. 

The soil to the continent. 

Sirius to Remus.

Remus to Sirius.

And me?

I didn't. 

I didn't belong.

Not here, not home.

Not to my parents nor my future husband.

Not even to myself.

I just. Didn't. 

I couldn't make myself look back when I pulled out my wand. I didn't know where I was headed yet, I didn't want to spend the rest of the few weeks I had before my wedding stuck in my room but neither could I stay here. If it was between these two I'd go back to London. I'd let Kreacher sneak me books and I'd bury myself in them and I'd waste away without noticing time's passing and I would just be dust on the shelf, never quite there but yet always present.

“Reggie, wait,” James' voice made me flinch. More than anything I wished to turn around and stare at him a while longer. To lock these eyes of every shade of every tree in every forest this only living planet had ever grown all at once with mine and hold on. Hold on for dear life and pretend he saw me for more than the pretty girl from the ball. 

To pretend he saw me. Wanted to see me. 

And then pretend nothing else mattered. Pretend I was not betrothed, tied to my death by twines around my wrist. Pretend the world was fair and happy and beautiful.

But.

There was always the but. 

And in this case, it was that I could not take any more pretending. Could not force on a facade and stay here and look at him in his suit, hair still a mess of curls, skin glowing bronze under the light of the sun. I'd spent half the ceremony trying to force my eyes off of him. I could not-

“Please,” he said. Couldn't he just say something more alike him, something mannerless and stupid that would remind me how little I liked him, I closed my eyes and wanted to scream at the world. 

“James-”

“No. Regulus. Listen,”

“No, James, you listen,” I spun around, and when his face came to be just inches from mine I forced my face even as if it did not make my heart break and mend, mend and break, beat and stop, stop and beat. I wanted to trace the constellation on his face and was suddenly terrified by the new tiny spark in me that really wished I'd have one of my own to match. No. No, I was angry at him. He kept meddling, thinking he had the right to go on and get me to come here after I refused, and now, to make me stay. No, “I came here to see my brother get married. I did. So I am leaving. Don't stop me. Why would you?! I don't belong here, I know that, you know that, everyone knows that. So go on and tell your ministry buddies to set me free for I'm going home,”

“No.”

“What?”

“No. I'm not letting you go like this. If you want to go home I want to see you actually want that,” his face closened by another inch and I immediately stumbled back, “I want to see your eyes sparkle at the thought of returning, instead of them dulling. If that happens, I will ask my friends to drop the case. But not now, not like this,”

“James. I want to go home. I will go home. You cannot stop me.” I had to get out of here before he asked me something I would not be able to refuse. Before he- No. I didn't even like him. I hated him. And he didn't like me either. He was doing this for Sirius. And if he did like me then he fell for the girl I'd been pretending to be and-

He grabbed my hand before I could apparate.

“James, let go,” he did, immediately.

“Sorry,” his face was all heartbroken apologies and self-blame I was too familiar with. 

I sighed. Why was he so… I don't know. “It's alright,”

“No, I. I should've asked,” 

Merlin the things this man was causing me to feel were more dangerous than a million atomic bombs in the hands of a psychopath. I did not want to feel those things. Especially not for him. I had to go.

“Regulus.”

“What?!” 

“If you go back you will never live,”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you wanted to know what it was like to truly live. To Remus, you said that. So why the fuck do you keep running back to the place that makes you feel dead?!”

"I'm going to murder Remus right now, I swear to Merlin-" I'd trusted him not to tell, I'd given him a secret only in exchange for his. If he thought his marriage to my brother was going to save him-

“Regulus. Don't you dare change the topic!”

Fuck you, James. Go to hell. That's what I wanted to scream in his face. But it would not accomplish anything, wouldn't get me out of here faster. “What do you want, James? What the hell do you want me to do, huh? Stay? Because I won't,”

"Let me show you" he was suddenly quiet, words leaving his lips the same way a flower spreads its petals for the first time - careful, defenceless, soft and gentle. A shiver slipped down my spine.

"Show me what?"

"Life worth living" 

“Absolutely not,” I forced myself to laugh instead as if it was hilarious he'd even suggest that. I hated myself for it. 

"Why not? You're afraid you gonna like it too much?" okay, the flower voice was gone and somehow his teasing and blaming and flowing over with frustration was no less attractive and it made no sense because I do not like emotional people or emotions, or people, and he was all of it and all I wanted to do was to say-

"Fine," the word slipped out before I could stop it.

"What?" he hadn't actually expected me to give in, I guess. To be fair, neither had I.

I smirked, though, glad I at least had that much power over him, there was no going back now, "Show me then. Show me that life or whatnot you have in mind, I dare you," 

In silent question, James extended his hand to me and I took it. It was stupid and reckless and so unlike me that I didn't even recognise myself but all I could think about was that there was just a thin layer of glove fabric separating my skin from his and that tiny idiot in me who wished for him to be my soulmate was imagining sparks and golden strings and everything else that's supposed to go along the first touch between soulmates. I hated that tiny stupid dude within me almost as much as I hated James Potter and his stupid charm. 

James apparated us away.