The sound of rain against his window was what woke him. The darkness of his room was a welcomed sight in the haze that was a post-sleep reaction. Dreams still clouded his visions, as vivid as the white linen sheets before him. Dreams of him, of the sun, of soft kisses and the love born between the sun and stars. How the world was full of light, glorious, holy, light. Light of love, light of beauty and something that would have lasted forever. Dreams of him.
Regulus was so sure the boy who bore the mark of the sun haunted him, constantly invading his thoughts, his dreams, his every waking moment was cursed with the knowledge that the one he loved so dearly, so truthfully, so wholefully, was an ocean away. In some distant, unknown place that he could never hope to reach. His dreams were of James, how beautiful he always looked in them. With his white shirt untucked from his pants, his hair a mess of relentless curls and deep brown eyes that looked as if they were looking right into his soul. And Regulus could reach out to him, the tips of his fingers grazing his skin, his lips parted with his name on his lips. James. James. James.
Every morning he woke, and for a moment he could swear that James was beside him. Sometimes he almost said his name. James. Something so simple, but something so holy, too. Sacred. Like it was a secret. Something that Regulus shouldn’t speak aloud about in fear that the very syllables of his name would be taken from his tongue. His James was far away, and instead of being encaptured within his arms every morning he woke with a strange sense of emptiness sitting within his chest. Like something horrible was missing. His James had been gone for so long, and Regulus feared with each passing day that he might never return. Never return to his arms. Safe from the brewing storm that swelled outside his window, banging against the glass window.
The grey clouds like a mist over the sky. His room is full of shadows, memories, things he would like to forget. Regulus would like to forget a lot of things. Sometimes he felt he might feel more like a person without the memories that haunted him so relentlessly. Like, maybe if he was given the peace of forgetting, he might be able to reach out and take that feeling of peace that always floated so far from his grasp. He could never grab onto it, even when he was a young boy, before he knew the feeling of betrayal, before he knew the feeling of ice, when he was a boy the feeling of peace brushed his arms and blew at his hair. Sometimes he wondered what it would have been like if he had somehow harnessed that very feeling of peace, captured it within his heart, how would things have gone? Would he still be here, rubbing his grey eyes with the palm of his hand as he stared up at the ceiling. Gathering his thoughts.
Pandora. Where was Pandora? As his memories resurfaced in his brain he began to make out exactly why his sheets were so scrunched up, ruffled and tossed. Why his door swinging open. Why the smell of lavender lingered upon the pillow beside him. It had become something strange between them. Regulus knew Pandora, he knew her better than anyone. She was his, as he was her’s. She knew him, in all his sinful glory. Flaws, scars, monstrously grotesque pain and suffering. She knew him as he bent down over the toilet bowl, spewing his guts up. She knew him as he laid in her arms, his eyes bloodshot red. She knew him. Not in the way friends know each other, how people can learn about another’s life. How people can look and touch the crooks of another human’s body and pretend that they know them. No, Pandora knew him. In an unspoken way. In a single look. Under the dim glow of firelight, she knew him in a way a God knows his creation. She didn’t need to speak to him, he didn’t need to look at her. It was a feeling that passed between them, silent and a promise. A promise meant only for them.
Yet there was a time after graduation, after the downfall of saints, after the breaking of tides, that they did not speak. Dorcas was gone, Barty was nowhere in sight, Evan’s funeral had been held a few weeks before. It was when she showed up on his doorstep, her hands shaking and her cheeks stained with tears. They didn’t need to speak, not even then. There was no need for Regulus to ask her: “What’s wrong, Pandora?” Because he already knew. Just by looking at her. And she had fallen into his arms, her sobs racking her body. All shakes and cries. They had fallen down on his doorstep, and for what felt like hours he held her in his arms just like he did when they were kids, stroking her hand and whispering words that meant nothing into her ear as she cried out with a withering sense of pain in her own heart.
It had been months. Months of silent mornings and nights filled with desperate intimacy. Their bodies clinging together in a terrified sort of way. Terrified and far too eager. Once a friendship so innocent turned into a love so complicated. They didn’t need to speak about it in the morning, all they needed to know was that they were scared of losing the last people they had left. Scared of being alone in a world that seemed now so unforgiving. A world that was filled with only violence and bloodshed. Before Pandora it was only secret missions, meetings with a Dark Lord that made his stomach churn. How the mark of darkness placed so forcefully upon his arm in his youth now seemed so heavy. Before Pandora there was only planning, planning, and more planning. He had it all sorted out. He knew his path, he knew how to take it. Regulus had learnt how to die, but Pandora brought a new set of ties back into his life.
She had punctured his solitude with forcefulness. His solitude had been one of usefulness, it was constructed, a recent sobriety from life that he was slowly learning how to let go of. Long walks down the city streets in the dead of night, hour-long showers, the deafening sound of complete silence that came with being a walking dead man, and of course the constant scribbling of words in his journal. His plans, how exactly he was going to do it, how Kreatcher would help. How he would finally be a hero of sorts, no longer a coward, no longer a shadow of a man. But Pandora had punctured that. Regulus gave her everything without giving himself away, he gave her a place to cook cake, a place to put her books on his nightstand. Whispering back and forth in the dead of night, their bodies pressed against each other. Sometimes he didn’t know if this was a blessing or a curse. If she was his curse.
Adulthood was a strange thing. Vicious, violent. A hungry bitter thing that screamed and screamed and screamed. It was all claws and teeth and bitter indignation screaming this isn't fair, it's not fair, it's not fucking fair! It clawed within the chest of the man that had endured and endured. The voice of bitter cruelty screamed within the ears of Regulus Black's ears until he could swear they might bleed. Virtue, virtue, he prayed. Regulus prayed upon his knees until they were blossoming violet, violent. He devoured, he was dangerous. Far too much so.
A bird, he wondered, what would it have been like to be born a bird? If he had been born free would he still be consumed by this longing? The same coldness that consumed and consumed him. Sin was something Regulus allowed herself to indulge within. Sin of his forefathers haunted all, the Black's were a great and holy name. A name of significance, a name of honor, a name of justice and purity. Purity, did Regulus know the meaning of it? He knew the sting of crimson liquid pouring from a gaping wound. He knew the small scars he hid under soft fabrics from the prying eyes of his mother.
In a way it was a routine, pretending. Pretending that he did not detest the views on blood purity his mother held so dear. Pretending he'd rather hold a quill and paper than a book of battle. A book of dark words and sinful acts than words of poetry and love. But Regulus knew the act of deceit well and played the game with ease. Everything was a game, and he controlled far too much power than he should. Hiding behind careful looks and pretty clothes and pretending that he would not raise his hand with a dagger placed delicately between his slim fingers and not press it to his enemies’ throats. That he would not do what it took to hold onto what he has, his life. His life and the only family he had left. It was all he had, and he would turn to the cruelest of monsters before he forfeited such a station.
Adulthood, full of blood and lies. Regulus thrived within it.
The haze of his sleep began to wear off, and he was suddenly overcome with the intense feeling something was awfully wrong by the sound of the front door slamming in the distance. Regulus felt a groan rise from his throat, turning on his side he propped himself up by his elbow. His hair hadn’t been cut in a long, long time. It hung in front of his eyes. He pushed himself forward, his hands reaching out he could hear a bone in his shoulder pop, his hands slithered under the mattress of his bed. Regulus sunk his teeth into his lip as he moved his hand around under the mattress, only to find that he could not feel anything.
This alone was enough to pull him from whatever sludge he had been in as his heartbeat sped up just a tad. He found himself pulling himself from the warm comforts of his bed, his knees hitting the wooden floorboards below as he pulled up the mattress to look under. Regulus always hid his notebook under the mattress, he always pulled it out in the morning to write. And now he came to the discovery that the notebook was, in fact, not there.
The door slamming, his journal gone, Pandora.
“Pandora,” he breathed out, his eyes going wide as he sprung up with a sudden burst of energy. Pulling on a random pair of jeans that laid spurred out on the floor, grabbing a jacket that hung over a chair and throwing it on Regulus knew exactly who had his journal, and he knew exactly what they would have read within that journal. And he knew exactly what type of conversation he was about to have with a certain blond-haired woman.
Regulus rushed down the stairs, skipping every second step. He walked past pushing out the front door and into the rain.
She was a vision to behold, sort of like a corrupt angel. Preternaturally beautiful, but with a devastating quality that hinted at an unspoken depravity; madness. Within that vision, that line of sight Regulus glared with sharp eyes, she was unforgettable. This image of her burned into his mind right then and there, like a polaroid's edges being burned by a bright red flame that only darkens the edges. Her unnerving face could persuade even the mightiest of gods to kneel before her, if she asked it of them flowers would sprout from the green ground, one word and even the most depraved animals would lay down.
Yet he had never seen her like this. Cold rain belted down upon her skin, dripping, her hair wet and the eyeliner she had put on last evening was smudged slightly under her eyes. Once a face of softness was now sharp, edges that could cut glass. One hand clutched a book, a journal - his journal to be exact. The one he hid underneath his mattress, the one that detailed his plans, his missions, and the awful things he had done under the disguise of inhumanity. He looked at her, really looked at her. With the type of intensity that was only reserved for the love of your life or your most evilest of enemies. Regulus didn't know which one Pandora was at that moment.
They stood out on the street, dark clouds overhead. Her clothes sagged as they became more and more drenched with the intensity of the storm. Her chest heaved. Her other hand clutched a wand, her wand. Regulus watched her, the feeling of being completely soaked in cold water did little to comfort him.
It was sad how far they had come. From second year, her head on his shoulder, their fingers intertwined as they whispered their deepest, darkest secrets. How far they had come, now standing outside his empty home with opposing beliefs. With opposing sides. But it wasn't all black and white. Nothing was ever black and white within this world. Regulus knew by the wild look in her eye that she knew exactly what he intended to do within the next few days. Exactly what he had done. And he didn't know whether he should smile or ask for forgiveness, was it wrong to say he was proud of her? Even now, even then, pride of her swelled in his chest.
"What are you doing?" Regulus asked, almost stupidly. They both knew. they both knew the other knew. Regulus asked a stupid question, but intentionally, a soft sadness to his tone. Like he already knew what was about to happen.
"This is a wand in my hand, Regulus," She began, a foreign kind of fear in her voice. As if Pandora didn't really know what she was doing, what she was feeling. Was she acting in anger, an erratic feeling of betrayal? Or was he scared, fearful of him, losing him. "I'd advise you to be careful of what you say. But then you have always been careful, haven't you? Careful of everyone, of everything." Her words cut like knives.
"Well, I've never seen such a side to you, Dora. Hm, do you mind if I smoke?" He asked, his fingers slipping into his jacket's pocket and fumbling with a packet of cigarettes nonchalantly.
"You may do as you please, but you have very little time to do it in." Pandora shot back.
"Do you mean you wish to kill me?" Regulus questioned her as Pandora raised her wand.
"I mean just that." her words were short, still strained with that awful sense of fearfulness.
"Well, go ahead. I doubt it'd matter, I'd be gone in a few days anyway."
She flinched at his words, like he had grabbed his own knife and cut her with it. As if they were sparring with swords, back and forth, both with the knowledge of each other's weaknesses.
"You can't do it, you can't say the words. you can't do it, Pandora," Regulus took a step forward, inching towards her. "Because you love me." Pandora took a sharp intake of breath, Regulus was hurting her. He knew it. And the boy who had held her hand when they were thirteen screamed within his chest for him to stop. But he didn't, he just kept talking.
"It takes a very brave, and a very cold woman to do that, Pandora. I don't think you can." Her hand trembled, shaking under the weight of her own indecisiveness. She didn't speak, only watched him with a strange look in her eyes. "Isn't that true? Isn't that why you're waiting?" Regulus questioned.
"That's not true." She finally cut in. Her words anguished in the need for him to believe her, or was it she that needed to believe? Was it Pandora who was so greatly trying to convince herself her words were true?
"Or is it that you wish to watch me beg for your forgiveness, your mercy? You want my heart to tear itself apart with agony, my hands to shake, you want me to plead for my life so you can make the generous gesture of letting me be."
Pandora interjected fast, her words like a spear being thrown through the air. "You don't think I'll do it! That's why you're so brave, you don't think I'll do it. You wouldn't be so brave otherwise, you're a coward at heart! You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. And you prove it, again and again. You lied to me, Regulus. You deceived me." Her words became more and more stricken with pain, thick with the type of agony that was only ever evoked from the strongest of heartbreaks.
Yet the gravity of her words cut deep. He was a coward, a man with little care. Little empathy. He ran and he ran, he didn’t stand up for his own beliefs. He allowed himself to be dragged into a mess of blood and steel, a mess of war and power. Hatred, pure loathing. Even despite his own mesley want of peace. Regulus was a coward who did not deserve the care Pandora and others gave to him. But why didn’t Pandora see? This, this plan he had formed, the things he had learnt, he would die a hero. Not a coward. A man who tried, wasn’t that better than saying he hadn’t tried at all? Why did she not see that? Conflicted feelings gripped his soul, rocking it back and forth in a battle he didn’t even want to know who would win. He had seen more than enough battles already.
"You tried to deceive me," Regulus cut through.
"I'm tired of listening to you!" She cried out.
Regulus didn't miss a beat within his reply. "You gave me your heart you know," Pandora's eyes grew wide. Her hand lowered an inch, her breath once again stuck in her throat. "You'd like me to give it back to you whole again... but I won't." Regulus moved forward, slowly and precisely. Like she was a scared doe who would bolt at any second. He moved in front of her, his hand gently coming over Pandora's, gently pressing his hand to hers and bringing the wand down.
"You will live a long time yet Pandora, an eternity without me. You will look into the faces of passers by hoping, praying for something that will for an instant bring me back to you. You will find moonlight nights strangely empty, because when you call my name through them there will be no answer. Always your heart will be aching for me and your mind will give you the doubtful consolation that you did a brave thing." His other hand glided over her arm, pulling her close into his chest, his lips pressed against the top of her head.
"For me, there will never be another woman but you." He listened closely as a small noise came from her lips, a croaked out sob. His heart wrenched, and he wished to bring her in closer, despite the distance already being closed. He wanted to bring her in as close as possible, shield her from the rain, to give her the happiness she deserved. Yet he couldn't.
"I love you, Pandora. you might as well take my heart, it's already so full of you."
Pandora's hands raised to his chest, she pushed her palms against him in a weak attempt at hitting him. her tears stained her cheeks, more visible than the rain. "Please just stop!" she cried out, painfully begging him to stop this. to stop it all.
"What is it? What's wrong my dear?" He questioned.
"It's like you know nothing about me, it's like you've only ever known me for a minute!"
"A minute?" Regulus gave a soulless laugh in disbelief. "Pandora, I have known you all my life."
Her own laugh came from her lips, weak and bitter. "All your life?"
"It's true! When I've heard beautiful music I've thought, she'd like that. I've looked at flowers knowing that I'd always give them to you." Pandora gasped in an attempt to stop her sobbing, and Regulus could only look at her with sorrowful eyes.
"Oh, stop it, stop it!"
"But there is a love that must come before you, my Pandora. The love for the betterment of our world." In the rain Pandora's head found the crook of regulus' neck, burying itself there as she cried desperate tears. her hands clinging to him in an attempt to get him to stay. An attempt to cling to him, to their childhood, to the days of bathing within the sunlit fields of flowers and dancing with smiles on their lips.
Regulus could not help but think — how did they end up here? In another lifetime Regulus would have given her the world. He would have given her all those who took and took from her couldn’t. Regulus would have given her a home, a piano, a garden if she wished for it. He would have gifted her the stars, he would have hung the moon. In another lifetime they are small blue birds that fly in circles around each other, they don’t worry about bitter things like their impending mortality and the achefulness that came along with love and loss and how they forgot to get more milk for their cereal. He never meant to look for a way out of this life, only that it was necessary so people like Pandora could live on.
His words were true, Pandora would live on. An eternity without Regulus, without Dorcas, Lily, Barty and Evan. A forever sense of the need to scream at the sky. But she would also live, she would build her own home. She will plant her own seeds, maybe have a daughter. A daughter to teach things to like Latin and other dead languages just because old things are beautiful. A home with a green door and blue curtains. A lover to kiss her forehead and dance with her by the fireplace, providing her the warmth that he could not provide. Someone that deserved her, someone that would care for her in the way she cared so deeply about everyone else.
“Please, Regulus, I’m begging you,” she croaked out, her fingernails digging into the fabric of his jacket. Her tears stained his already wet clothing. Regulus seemed to be infinitely stained in things like tears. His fingertips dipped in blood, his hair graced with the winds of time. “Please don’t leave me. Don’t leave me here alone. I can't do it — I can’t do it without you. I need you, alright? I need you more than I can breathe. I don’t care about fighting, or fucking, or kissing, I just need you to stay with me. Just stay and I promise I’ll do anything — I’ll be anything —”
“Pandora —”
“I’ll be better. I’ll stop leaving my shoes inside. I’ll stop leaving my hair products in the bathroom sink and I won’t turn the television volume up so high you can’t hear your own thoughts. I’ll be better, I’ll be so much better. But I can’t — I can’t lose you, okay? I can’t do it anymore. I can’t. I love you, I love you and it hurts to breathe. Everything we do to ourselves is just cruel violence, why can’t we just stop? I can’t keep living in a world with this much pain.”
Regulus’ hands found their way to Pandora’s cheeks, pulling her head back with the gentle care of a flame to another. Making Pandora look at Regulus in his eyes, her brown gaze finding his grey. He shook his head, only a quiet mutter emerging from his lips. “You’ll be fine.” Regulus said with a tenderness so rare it must have been stolen from the depths of his soul. And that was all Pandora needed to break. To snap. Her body went limp, falling into the shelter that was Regulus’ arms. He could do nothing but hold her, knowing that it would only be a matter of hours, or days, before he held nothing but water for an eternity; an eternity without her.
Somehow they found themselves stumbling back indoors, out of the rain, up the stairs and out of their soaked clothing. Crawling into the bed they had shared for months. There was no sound, only the sniffle of Pandora as they clung to each other in the dim lit room. Tonight. Tomorrow. A thousand years within the future. They would always be just that. Clinging to each other in the darkness, surrounded by impending shadows that wished to tear them apart. In each lifetime, in each universe. Destined to fall apart, destined to love and lose. A pitiful ending for a pair of pitiful people.
☆
Within the next day break Regulus would slip from those sheets once more. Leaving a peacefully sleeping Pandora behind in his wake. He would give her one last fleeting glance, a look of love. True love. Not romantic, not platonic, just an intense feeling of pure love. And he would quietly, as to not disturb her sleep, pull on his clothes. Pull his journal from under the bed, scribble a note to a man who needed to hear the words he wrote, and leave with nothing more than a glance over his shoulder. Cold and cruel, but Regulus was no deity of mercy.
Pandora would wake to find an empty home, and a feeling of knowing inside her heart. She would sit in the lounge room completely still, grief swallowing at her whole body and soul. It would only be two days later did a newspaper appear on the doorstep:
Regulus Black, dead at Eighteen.