On a High
Upon further inspection Regulus found that he was most definitely his and Barty's age, maybe a year older, the most noticeable thing about him were the bright yellow rubber gloves that went up his forearms, disappearing under the sleeves of his hoodie. He was shorter than Regulus by a few inches and he seemed to be in the middle of shoving food and drinks into his bag which was hanging off his front.
"Where the hell did he come from?" Barty looked over to Regulus who hadn't let his eyes wander from the unknown kid whose face quickly turned to one of panic.
"Holy shit-" The three of them stared at each other before he shoved one last thing into his bag and ran out of the store through the back.
"Should we go after him...?"
"I don- I don't know," Regulus looked over at Barty who gave a small nod before abruptly running after him. Regulus sits there, shocked that his best friend, heavy emphasis on best, had just left him. Like he was nothing. "What?"
Regulus let out a huge sigh, before tensing up, the bells on the door ringing.
"Regulus!" He quickly dived behind a shelf, hoping she would assume that he had run off somewhere and leave but she didn't.
"Please, Regulus, I know you're in here! I need to give you something!"
Regulus balled his fists up in his hair, lightly tugging at the strands that slipped through his fingers, before standing up and turning to face Dr. Neé. "I'm not going with you," Regulus said, although he guessed that the way his voice trembled that Dr. Neé didn’t believe him. He really wasn’t going to.
Regulus found he was much braver when Barty was around.
"No no that's not what this is," She waved her hands up in the air and proceeded to reach down into her jacket pocket and pull out a necklace. "Just if- if you ever need help just press this button and hold it for three seconds, it'll lead us to you."
"Why would I need your help? And how do I know it only tracks us when we press the button?" Regulus asked, slowly reaching towards her outstretched hand.
"I swear on my life that it doesn't, Regulus." She replied and Regulus couldn’t tell if her words were genuine or not. Either way, he didn’t have much time to think about her words as they were interrupted by the bell on the door ringing.
"Bella!" Regulus watched the man closely as he entered the store, his hand firmly grasped the necklace and pulled it out of her hand.
"I told you to wait outside." Regulus watched as her whole demeanor changed, going from nice and gentle to stern and commanding in a second.
He had wanted to leave and catch up to Barty as soon as possible but it didn’t seem like that was happening soon. "I should go. Thanks for the necklace but I doubt I'll need it, I'll just be on my way-"
"I can't let you do that." The man whose name Regulus still didn't know stepped up, reaching towards the gun resting in the waistband of his pants.
His eyes flashed a brief orange that had the man backing up a few steps. "You told me we'd be able to leave." Regulus disregarded the man and looked straight to Dr. Neé.
"Regulus, we can't let both of you go. An Orange and a Red that hasn't been taken by the camps- it's something we can't let pass us by." The man continued talking, his voice was grating and annoying and Regulus wanted it to stop.
Regulus simply stared at him, his lips pulled back into a sneer, "I'm leaving, and whether you leave here, dead or alive, is up to you because I'm not against killing you right here and now to get what I want."
He turned sharply on his heel and got a few steps before he heard the clicking of the safety coming off the gun.
"Either we get one of you or we get both of you."
Regulus ran to catch up to Barty, who had long since gotten the boy to let him in the beat-up blue van. He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, he wasn't fond of the stains he had gotten on them.
The minivan they were in was beyond repair, and not just on the bumpers but on the side of the doors and roof. The lights were shot out and cracked and the black paint was flaking off in clumps.
The only nice part about it was the cursive logo along the sliding door: BETTY JEAN CLEANING.
"Barty!" He watched through the window as his friend jumped, startled by Regulus' sudden appearance. Regulus waited at the door, looking behind him now and then to make sure no one was following him.
"Regulus!" He heard in the distance.
"Barty I swear to god if you don't open this goddamn door right now, I'm gonna strangle you!" The door was quickly unlocked and opened and Regulus grabbed onto the hand that Barty held out to help him get in.
Barty made his way to the back of the van. "What took so long? I thought they kidnapped you."
"You wish." Regulus gave a small smile to his friend, looking out the window and cursing when he saw Dr. Neé and her friend running around, looking for them most likely.
"Get down!" He hissed, grabbing Barty by the neck of his hoodie and pulling him down. "What the hell did you do to him?"
"What're you talking about...?" Regulus' words died out, remembering that there was in fact another person in the van with them.
"Who are you?"
Barty slapped him hard in the chest, "Don't be so rude! And his name is Peter."
The boy, Peter, didn't pay them any mind and instead grabbed a paint-splattered white sheet. Regulus looked over at Barty. "He's gonna suffocate us."
"I'm- no just be quiet, I'm not gonna suffocate you." He shook the sheet out and threw it over them.
"Is he trying to hide us? If so, I don't think it's going to work."
"I can still hear you. Now shut up!"
"Fine, fine." Regulus shifted onto his back, trying to get somewhat comfortable. He felt Barty tense next to him, "Someone is coming. Two of them."
He tried to slow his breathing, trying to make it seem like he wasn't even there but there was no way it actually worked.
"---I swear to god it was her, James!" The voice was deep, but he definitely wasn't an adult. "And, look, I told you he'd beat us back. Peter, have you run into any trouble?"
The other car door opened, Someone else---James?--- let out a relieved sigh.
"Thank god," he said. "Come on, come on, come on, get in, you're taking forever and I don't know what's going on but I don't wanna stay long enough to find out. The skip tracers were bad enough---"
"Why won't you admit that it was her?" The other voice snapped.
"---Because we ditched her in Ohio, that's why---"
Over the sound of James' voice, Regulus could hear another voice.
"Regulus! Regulus!"
Dr. Neé.
"What the hell did you do to them? I thought they let us go?" Barty whispered,
"Doesn't matter what I did. What does matter is that there are other people in this damn van and your little friend Peter hid us from them, meaning we shouldn’t be here-"
“Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid?” Barty had said this knowing that Regulus would get upset, he always did that. Always said things he knew would mess with Regulus. So when Barty looked over to Regulus just seconds after his comment about him being paranoid Regulus was staring so hard into Barty’s soul that he had to turn away and cover his mouth to stop himself from laughing.
The only thought that Regulus could comprehend was that Barty’s face was looking more and more punchable by the minute and the longer he had to stay cramped against Barty the more agitated he got. He could barely stand sharing the same cabin with him so how was he supposed to deal with this for god knows how long?
Regulus only tuned back into the conversation that was going on in the front of the van when he heard the gunshots.
The first one popped like a firecracker. Or at least what Regulus remembered a firecracker sounded like. He couldn't tell if it came from a distance, or the trees and the undergrowth muffling it, but it seemed harmless. Or at least he hoped. A warning maybe.
"Stop!" Dr. Neé or Bella screamed. "Don't shoot---!"
"JAMIE!"
"I know, I know!" The engine sputtered to life and the next thing Regulus knew they were driving off. Regulus tried to brace himself, not really though, the most he did was grab onto Barty and hope for the best. The car tossed them back and forth and at one point Regulus' head cracked against the plastic side paneling and drink holder, but no one was paying attention to the strange noises in the backseat when someone was shooting a gun.
"Shit, is your head alright, Reg?" Barty whispered, his breathing ragged. He pressed the palm of his hand against the back of Regulus' head and slightly peaked around the sheet.
"Peter, did something happen in the gas station?” The voice Regulus had identified as James pressed. There was an edge of urgency to his words, but not panic. They had been driving for a little over 10 minutes now and were well away from the guns. Peter shook his head, his eyes darting to the two kids hiding under the tarp.
"Oh my god, more skip tracers? What, were they having a convention? You realize what would have happened if we'd been caught, don't you?" he rambled, "And they were shooting at us! Shooting! With a gun!"
Somewhere to the right of Regulus and Barty, Peter let out a laugh. "Well, I'm glad you find it funny!" the other one said, "Do you know what happens when you get shot, Peter? The bullet rips through--"
"Remus!" The other boy's voice was sharp enough to cut off whatever glory tale he was about to share. "Calm down, okay? We're fine, That was a little closer than I would've liked, but still. We'll just have to make better mistakes tomorrow, right, guys?"
The first voice, Remus, let out a strangled groan. "I'm sorry about before," Remus said, "Next time I'll go with you to get the food and James can go by himself. You're not hurt, right? No gun wounds or anything?"
"Nope, I'm all good," Peter replied, already used to the way Remus would go all mother hen in these situations.
Regulus let out a quiet sigh and turned to Barty, "My fucking head hurts,"
"Mhm, I kinda wish we just stayed in the hotel." Regulus didn’t answer, simply sighed and shut his eyes.
The vibrations from the road dulled their voices. A loose penny was clattering around in the cup holder and Regulus wanted nothing but to grab it to stop the noise. When the three of them did start talking again, Regulus had to strain his ears to hear them.
"Did it sound like they were looking for someone?"
"No, it sounded like they were shooting at us!" Regulus felt the feeling drain from his hands, he felt bad. Extremely bad. They had unknowingly put themselves, their lives, on the line for him and Barty.
“Regulus.” Barty whispered, “I can tell what you're thinking and I want you to stop, ok? They’re fine, we’re fine, everything is fine.”
“--a number of things,” James said, “but let's try to focus on finding East River, which should be easy enough--”
“Should we like, reveal ourselves? I feel like a stowaway,”
“Because we are stowaways, Barty. I’m surprised they haven’t heard us yet with how loud your damn voice is.”
Barty chose to ignore the jab and continued with the conversation, “Should we tell Peter first? Y’know so he can be prepared?”
“Prepared for what? You make it sound like we’re about to commit a crime,” Barty didn’t say anything, and Regulus could tell there was another question brewing in his brain.
“Should we be quiet about it? Or like- make a lot of noise?"
“Barty?” Regulus looked him straight in the eyes, his mouth pulled into an annoyed smile.
“Yeah, Reg?”
“Stop asking questions.”
Barty didn’t say anything after that and Regulus kicked the sheet off of them and took a deep breath, happy about finally being able to breathe. Regulus yanked Barty up by his shirt and watched as he almost tumbled back to the ground before steadying himself on the rear seat.
There were two teenage boys in the front seat, facing the road. It was raining a lot harder now, the drops of rain falling too fast for the windshield wipers to keep up.
Regulus didn’t spend as much time admiring the view of the outside as he would’ve liked but he had other things to do. Such as getting out of the van.
James, the driver, was wearing what seemed to be a plain black shirt that was clinging to his arms from the rain. His hair was a dark brown, basically black from the rain. Every now and then he would look beside him to the other teenager in the passenger seat, but it wasn’t until he cast a quick look into the rearview mirror that Regulus saw his eyes were hazel, the light reflected off of them and he could see the green flecks in them.
“I can’t see out of the back window when you--” His words cut off as he did a double take.
The van lurched to the right as he spun around in his seat and turned the wheel with him. The other kid, Remus, let out a strangled sound as the car jerked to the right, towards the side of the road.
Peter glanced back towards Regulus and Barty, his expression caught somewhere between surprise and exasperation.
James slammed on the brakes. Both of the other passengers gasped as their seat belts locked around their chests, but Regulus, unfortunately, had nothing holding him back from practically flying between the two middle seats, whereas Barty had a good hold on the rear seat. that he let go of to stop himself from laughing too hard which resulted in him falling as well, he curled into a small ball, his hands cradling his nose.
"Yeah, it's not so fun when you're the one falling huh?" Regulus sent Barty a scalding look but Barty simply ignored him in favor of standing up and getting a good hold of his bag before handing Regulus his.
Regulus peeled himself up off the floor with absolutely no help from Barty, que harsh look from Regulus.
"Peter!" Remus cried, looking back and forth between the three of them. Peter merely folded his hands in his lap, rubber gloves squeaking and simply looked at him. Like they had no idea how they had come across the stowaways.
"We all agreed--no strays." The other boy shook his head. "That's why we didn't take the kittens!"
"Oh for the love of... " James slumped down in his seat, pressing his face into his hands. "What were we going to do with a box of abandoned kittens?"
"Maybe if that black heart of yours hadn't been willing to leave them to starve, we could have found them new, loving homes."
"B- black heart! It's not like I wanted to leave them," James half whined, and Regulus spared a glance to Barty, “We should leave before they notice us again,” he whispered.
“Ok! Out we go,”
They were already at the door when the two teenage boys noticed them, “Where are you going?”
“James, why are you asking where they’re going? Just let them leave,” Remus whispered, exasperated.
“You’re supposed to be the reasonable one here, Remus, not me. Why aren’t you asking where they’re going, hm?” Regulus tried to reach for the door handle but was a few seconds late as James quickly hit the button to lock the doors.
“Why are they even arguing about this right now?” Barty didn’t answer and instead brought his hand up to the handle and proceeded to aggressively yank on it but to no avail because it was locked. As Regulus had tried to tell him multiple times but he didn't listen.
“Barty, you’re gonna break the door.” Regulus lazily drawled, leaning back against the door that Barty was trying to pull from its hinges.
“Barty.” As much as he loved his best friend, he had absolutely no patience. A flaw that had him in trouble more than once with the psi’s. Regulus felt his eye twitch. If there was one thing he absolutely hated, it was being ignored. “Bartholomew!”
Barty spun around, an offended gasp leaving his lips, “What the hell! That’s not even my name you freak!”
“I’m the freak? You- If anything you’re the freak here, you’re a re-” Regulus cut himself off, he wasn’t offended by Barty calling him a freak but he loved getting a reaction out of people. It was fun. But he can’t go out and say that Barty was a red, that’s just plain stupid. “A ridiculous piece of shit. That is what you are.” The van got quiet.
“Sorry but I think I may have broken your door handle,” Barty confessed with a sigh, an apologetic smile on his lips.
“I think all those chemicals from cleaning shoes really made you stupid, why would you even think that would be a good idea?”
“Well! I didn’t see you doing anything!” He said accusingly, his arms crossed against his chest.
“Did you just escape from a camp?” Remus asks, stopping Regulus from answering the question that he definitely had an answer to. Of course, he had an answer, he always did.
“Yeah, we blew it up.” Regulus didn’t think Barty would actually tell them that they had blown up a place with children in it. The three teenagers in the van gave them both looks of horror. “W-we blew up the gate! Not the whole camp, just so you know. No death was caused by us.” Regulus tried pathetically to fix his friend's answer.
“Well I mean, it wasn’t even our idea to break out, it was the children's league-”
“Barty, you have an extreme oversharing problem. I need you to do some thinking before you speak, please.”
“Well, maybe you should clarify whether we talk about some things or not, Reg.”
“I thought it was obvious, Barty,” Regulus replied with a strained smile. Barty cast Regulus a look, his eyes squinty and mouth pulled into a thin line.
“Stop that, you look like my mom when she’s mad.” Regulus planted his palm on Barty’s face and pushed it away.
“The children's league, can we get back to them? You ran from them?” James asked, his face scrunched up, most likely done with their bickering.
“Yes, I rejected their offer and we broke out on our own,” Regulus answered, the necklace given to him heavy in his pocket.
“What does that have to do with anything, James?” Remus interrupted, “Just unlock the door and let them leave. We already have the PSFs and skip tracers after us; we don’t need to add the league of all people to the list!”
“I thought you said he was reasonable?” Barty’s comment went unanswered.
“They probably think that we took them, and if they put in a call that freaks are roaming around in a beat-up black minivan…” Remus couldn’t bring himself to finish.
“Hey,” James said, holding up a finger, “don’t talk about Black Betty that way.”
“Oh, excuse me for hurting the feelings of a 20-year-old minivan.”
“He’s right,” Regulus started, pulling Barty out of whatever trance he had been in, “We’re sorry, we don’t want to cause any more trouble for you.”
“You want to go back to them?” James was facing Regulus again, “Listen, it's none of our business, green, but you have the right to know that whatever lies they fed you probably aren’t true. They aren’t our angel network. They have their own agenda, and if they plucked you out of camp, it means they have a plan for you.” James blinked, his eyes leaving Regulus’ and darting to Barty, “You too,”
“You think we don’t know that?” Regulus shook his head.
“Okay,” he replied, his voice calm, “Then why are you in such a hurry to get back?”
There was nothing judgmental about the question but still, Regulus felt his face heat up. Oh god, his eye twitched, this guy was looking at him with all the sympathy and pity required of someone watching a stray puppy be put down. Regulus didn’t know if the emotion swelling inside him was anger or embarrassment, but he didn’t have the time to figure it out.
“No, but we can’t- I didn’t mean to drag you into- I mean, I did mean to, but-” Regulus had never had trouble speaking before, it had actually been one of his strong points but he really felt like he couldn’t do anything right today.
Barty reached out to him, his hands just inches away from Regulus’ arm before Regulus jerked away, sucking in a harsh breath. A hurt expression flashed across his face, barely there long enough for Regulus to realize.
“Do you want to go back to them?”
Remus was looking at James, and James was looking at Regulus. He had caught me with his eyes again, he thought, and I didn’t even notice.
Regulus looked away, and at Barty, his face questioning, Barty simply shrugged as if saying, what could go wrong?
“No, we don’t.” Regulus hadn’t even realized that James had asked him personally if he wanted to stay.
James didn’t answer, simply shifted the minivan out of park. Regulus’ eyes shifted back to the door knob, something in his head telling him to open the door and leave before he screwed everything up again.
“James.” Remus’ voice was firm, “If the league comes after us…”
“I’ll be ok,” James reassured, “We’re just taking them to the nearest bus station.”
Regulus blinked, that had been more than he had expected, “You don’t have to.”
James simply waved him off, “It’s fine. Sorry we can't do more. Can’t risk it.”
“Yeah, you’re right, so explain to me why we aren’t taking them to one of the train stations, which are closer?” James didn’t respond.
Not even 5 minutes later Regulus is sitting awkwardly against the wall of the van, his face scrunched up in annoyance at the sharp poke from Barty’s elbow digging into his side.
“Remind me again, Regulus right? I’m sure you’ve caught on by now, but I’m James, this is Remus and I’d hope Peter had introduced himself before letting you two in?” James cast a look towards the boy, eyebrows pulled tight together.
Expect Peter wasn’t paying attention, he had pulled his hoodie up over her ears and was twisted around in his seat so he could see over the top of it, out the back of the window. His lips parted but he couldn’t bring the words to them. The color drained from his face.
“Peter?” Remus asked, “‘What’s wrong?”
Peter didn’t need to say a thing, even if they hadn’t seen the tan SUV behind them, it would have been impossible to miss the bullet that blew through the back window.