There’s a silence after Dorcas’s confession.
A stunned silence from both participants, really, her confession in the sunlit meadow having been an impulse decision egged on by weeks of testing feelings.
A silence in which her shoulders fall imperceptible to any one aside from the boy sitting across from her.
Not for the first time, her eyes roam over him, his body tense and twitching in a way that whispered to her and only her what exactly Regulus Black was feeling.
Well, her and Benjy perhaps. She and the Pakistani boy had spent time and time with Reg at his highest and his lowest and everytime in between that he had allowed them.
They knew him best she boldly thinks, perhaps even more than his blood-brother or self-proclaimed siblings, no matter how Dearborn could likely make a solid argument otherwise.
And so, her exploring eyes reads the hesitation in the lines of his body, and she backs down.
”Hey, nothing will change between us if you don’t feel the same. I already told you. I wouldn’t ditch your dork ass if you said no.”
Even Dorcas Meadowes can be wrong, sometimes.
Regulus, with unthinking swiftness that seizes her heart in pride, reached out to interlock their fingers gently.
”I do, kind of, feel the same. It’s complicated..”
Reg entwines their other hands together again and she reciprocates with a slow sway of her hand tugging both of theirs to rest in an equally slow swing.
She waits for him to continue to speak.
”I love you. I do, but I don’t think it’s different from the love I feel for Pandora or Benjy or any of our friends. I think I can love you more, I can love you with the intensity you desire.. and I want to, so badly. I’m sorry but I think I could love Benjy or Pandora the same way if they had asked and I’m not sure if it’s fair to you if I can’t feel the same special way that you do”
At the not-quite rejection, she lets out a low breath and resist the urge to lay her forehead on his shoulder instead to look him in the eyes. “Regulus, your love, in any way, shape or form, is precious to me. I love what you give me now, and if you could love me in intensity matching as I do you, then I think I’d like to give us a chance.”
”I don’t like.. I don’t do sex either” He splutters out, breathless as though a crushing weight had been lifted from his lungs and he had yet to remember to breathe.
”That’s perfectly fine with me.”
His breathing seemed to settle to normal then, as he subconsciously adjusts it to match her own.
His hand cards through her locks with hesitance, before he lifts it to cup her cheeks.
”I don’t mind kisses if you..”
As she had been given cue, Dorcas tugs him to her lips and sinks into his warmth.
It was as sweet as honey-glazed tea, just as expected, even if she didn’t think it would happen like this.