Chapter 4
So, it turns out the summer wasn’t going to be too long. James had his books, and a slowly dwindling pile of editorials and magazines to go over. He also had his mystery.
He hadn’t seen any out of the ordinary events since his seizure and he was slowly beginning to doubt if the events that had occurred were actually real.
This meant no more handsome men popping into existence, no more mysterious cups of tea, and no more floating books.
It was rather depressing because he KNEW, he knew something had happened. Their conversation had felt so real? It was authentic and if it wasn’t, it surely was not something that James could have come up with in his head.
Regulus had seemed posh, (even his name was beyond fancy, I mean who names their child after a constellation?) and he had been polite and rather kind. From what James had imagined, he had been a little snarky, but it wasn’t in an offensive way.
If the event had been his imagination, it had most likely stemmed from James’ perfect type and his slight loneliness.
He had broken up with his last partner Lily about 4 months prior, and he wasn’t really into the whole hook-up thing. God. He was so pathetic.
The only curious thing was, why the fuck would he name his new imaginary paramour Regulus of all things. Literally the stupidest [most stupid?] name ever.
From what James’ could recall of his high school astronomy club, Regulus was the darkest star in the [northern hemisphere?], pretty wicked but that fact did require googling; which made James’ doubt his ability to name cool characters.
Anyways, off the topic of handsome imaginary men, James had consulted over telephone with his neurologist. Their conversation went something like :
James : Hello Mr. Crawley, I’m ashamed to say that I’ve had another seizure.
Mr. Crawley : Oh. Well that isn’t optimal, how are you feeling?
James : Fine for now, the headaches are gone and I’m pretty much back to normal.
Mr. Crawley : Well that’s good, do you want to come in for an appointment?
At that, James rolled his eyes. Who in their right mind wants to have that freezing gel spread all over their heads; have medically induced seizures, and then up their dosage? Def not him.
James : Not preferably, but if I must I will.
Mr. Crawley : You seem to be fine, so it’s up to you to schedule one. Please do, if you have any of the symptomes we talked about.
Those symptoms were basically all the ones James got from his anxiety, so they didn’t really matter.
James : Of course I will. Have a good day, and thank you!
Mr. Crawley : It was good to hear from you James, take care.
James : You too Mr. Crawley, you too.
He hung up and smiled. There was NO way he was making an appointment. It wasn’t covered by healthcare, and rather an expensive rate for a struggling author. He also didn’t really see the point of wasting a whole day of transport and effort and pain just to hear what he already knew. He still had epilepsy, and he had to try and be more careful.
He couldn’t exactly explain that a man had popped out of the air and shocked him into a seizure.
James sighed, his life was sort of impossible. Or maybe it wasn’t and that was just the medication making it seem impossible. He put his head in his hands and groaned, why was he like this?
“Okay. I’ve got this,” He said out loud, “I don’t know exactly what, but I totally do.”
“You absolutely do!” Said a voice beside him, and James jumped ten feet in the air.
“oh my GOD what the hell?!”
The translucent man laughed, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t entirely sure you could hear me.”
“Yeah, well maybe don’t form a habit of whispering in my fucking ear all the time even if I can’t hear you!”
Regulus smirked, “You’re making it seem like I follow you around all day, which I do not.”
“It’s a little hard when I can’t see you, so you could be lying!” James was a little pissed off by now, this stupid figment was hella annoying.
“I don’t exactly lie, James.” Regulus floated up in the air and did a little spin, “What would be the point? You would just hate me, and then-”
“Then what?” There was literally nothing James could do, it didn’t seem like he could just stop imagining something he didn’t know he was imagining.
“You could ignore me?” Regulus frowned a little, “Or you could leave.”
Well that was always an option.
“What would stop you from just following me?” This was exasperating, and James now had the sudden urge to just go drown in the bath.
The man scoffed haughtily, “If I could leave this house I would definitely NOT follow you around.”
“Wait, you aren’t in my head?” James cocked his head, “That means I can’t make you go away?” At least he wasn’t going crazy.
“I’m glad you aren’t crazy, but a little hurt that you want me to go away.”
Shit, he must’ve said that outloud.
“I mean- I don’t exactly mind having you around? It’s just a little freaky, and no offence but it’s slightly strange to have a ghost in your house.”
Said ghost sighed deeply, “If I wasn’t in this house then I wouldn’t exist.”
James got the impression that he had wanted to call him stupid.
“Oh.”
“Yeah! So I’m sorry if I’m a bother, but I do slightly enjoy existing.”
ah. Well. James didn’t really know what to do, he was literally talking to a floating blob of light. And, to make that better, the light could be all in his head. Holy shit.
“How do I know that you’re real?”
“I literally just told you that I am?”
“You could be my imagination trying to trick me into thinking that you’re not!”
God fucking dammnit he really was going insane. He groaned and face planted onto his bed. He didn’t want this to be happening.
He felt a brush of cold air pass through his hair and he turned around to find Regulus crouching next to him.
“You have such beautiful hair.”
~~
“You have such beautiful hair.” Regulus hadn’t even meant to say it, but it was true. He watched as James’ cheeks turned red, his eyes blown wide.
“Thank you?”
Regulus brushed his hand through the dark mess again, the curls simply couldn’t be tamed. It was a little endearing that James even tried to do something with it.
“You should grow it out more,” He said, “It would be very pretty.”
James coughed, “I might take that into consideration then.”
Regulus smiled, “Do that.” He sat down next to James, “What should we do?”
“What?” The poor man seemed surprised.
“What do you want to do?” He repeated, “Should we talk? I could help you unpack or something.”
“I- uh, um, talking would be a good start?”
“Where should we start?” Regulus asked, even though he knew what the first topic of conversation would be.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up here?”
“How did I die?” Regulus gave him a small smile, “It’s okay to ask, you know. It’s etiquette in the ghost world.” As if he’d ever met another ghost. For all he knew, this was some crazy elaborate dream he was having, and he’d wake up and forget it.
James nodded shyly, “D-did you die here?”
Regulus snorted, “No, I didn't.” He took a seat on the floor in front of James, “Story time, I guess. You might need some background information though.”
James nodded eagerly, he was quite ready to listen apparently.
~~
When Regulus was five, his mother told him the story of his grandfather who lived in the attic. Reg had been curious about why he wasn’t permitted to go there, and his mother had thoroughly frightened him into never wanting to go again.
His grandfather had died in a tragic boating accident when he was at the ripe age of seventy-five. He had been trying to untie the rope from the pier when it was taking off, and his hand had gotten stuck. The boat, for some reason or the other, had started to move before he was completely untangled. His hand was wrenched from the socket, he was pulled overboard, and was left hanging in ten feet deep water.
He wasn’t an overtly tall man (Blacks tend to be mid range) and he struggled, he couldn’t pull himself out because the ligaments in his wrist were broken, and his other hand was too busy trying to grab onto the rope.
By the time his boating buddies had come back for him, he had ingested too much of the water and was floating head to chest, at the bottom of the lake floor.
The curious part was that a week after the family had stopped grieving, he had appeared in the attic. He never said a word to anyone, only glared at them with a deep frown on his face. He would drift in and out of vision, always sitting in one chair or the next looking at books.
As a child Regulus never really questioned why he wasn’t haunting the lake. Now he did. All the time actually.
-
The day before he left for his second year at boarding school, his father pushed him down the stairs. He had been angry about something inconsequential, he could no longer remember exactly what it was about. All he remembered was the brief moment of breathlessness, and free fall. And then the pain that erupted in his arm.
He was sent to school with a bottle of pain medication, and an order to wait a couple days before going to the school infirmary.
His father had written him a scathing note a week later, apparently the nurse had rang him, worried about his home life. He was forced to spend the Christmas break at school as a punishment.
He had been sent a photo album of their christmas feast and present opening.
-
The summer he turned thirteen was life changing in many ways. He kissed his first boy, and his father punched him for the first time. There would be many more of both.
Halfway through the month of June, his mother caught him reading a book about two women who loved each other in very unplatonic ways. She slapped him, a disgusted look on her face.
He was locked up in his room for a day, missing both lunch and dinner.
His older brother Sirius had slipped him a piece of toast for breakfast the next morning along with a note that said, “Keep your head up Reg, it’ll get better.” This caused him to suspect things about him- but it didn’t matter. At least there was one person in his family that still loved him.
He went back to school with a black eye, and a patchwork of bruises on his torso. After that summer he was no longer invited to spend holidays at home. He was forced to go back for summer, but he would spend them in his room, avoiding his parents.
-
The key moment that stood out to him was the July before his fifth year. He had gone on a run in the park near their house, and he came home to find his room torn apart, his bags packed and his father standing at the door with a stony face.
He swore up and down that he had only been exercising, it was true after all. He had limited contact with any of the boys he had been seeing, and wouldn’t dare dream of meeting with one of them in person.
It didn’t help. He was kicked out of the house, still in his damp sweats and joggers with nothing but a suitcase and his school backpack. His father had spit in his face and told him to never come back.
He honestly had nowhere to go. His only friends lived abroad during the holidays, and he had no money. He sat on the stoop for a solid half hour before his father came out and punched him straight in the face, and yelled at him to leave.
It sucked to say the least. He walked to the park and sat on a bench for hours. Sirius found him around eight in the evening. He handed him three hundred pounds in cash and told him to find him at the train station when they left for school.
Turns out, three hundred pounds cannot rent you an apartment for a month, but it can rent out a room in a sleazy hotel.
Fifteen year old Regulus Black was officially homeless for three solid weeks, and then he headed back to school.
He didn’t have much that year. His friends abandoned him once his father sent a scathing letter to their parents about his homosexual tendencies, and he had to apply for a scholarship when his mother informed the dean that they would no longer be paying for his tuition.
Reg had to admit, he sort of spiralled that year. It was a blur of bundled up nerves and anger that dissolved into nothing but grey. He was sent to the psychologist and prescribed antidepressants, but they were the shitty kind that didn’t work. Maybe none of them did, though. (At least, that’s what he thought)
-
Summer before his sixth year was a mixture of hell and bliss. He had nowhere to go for two weeks before he met a man named Nickie. He let him crash at his place, and didn’t mind that Regulus would spend days on the couch doing nothing.
Then, one day, Nickie had dragged him from his makeshift bed and sat him upright. He had told him to take a goddamn shower because they were going to a club. That night was the night that he gave his first blowjob.
It had been interesting, he was pressed up in a filthy bathroom stall, looking at this guys leaking dick, and he had never been so satisfied. After he had made the rando come he stumbled back to the dance floor, determined to find someone else to blow.
And that was his summer. Nickie dragged him to different gay clubs all over the city and he gave, and received a LOT of attention. It was bliss, and it made him smile to think of the absolute aneurysm his father would get if he knew.
Nickie kissed him one night, while they were drunkenly stumbling home. His lips were soft, and he tasted bitter and tangy- like vodka and lime. Reg sunk into the kiss, melting beneath the other mans’ touch. They melded together beautifully, and when they arrived home, Nickie dragged them to his bedroom.
He was Regulus’ first. It was good.
Nickie stretched him open until he was a sobbing mess, and when he sunk into him, it felt like euphoria. It was painful, sure, but it felt right, he felt so full, and so happy. Nickie took care of him after everything was over, and as they fell asleep that night, Regulus couldn’t remember ever feeling so loved.
Sleeping together began to be a regular thing, and every time felt like the first. Reg began to notice how Nickie seemed to be holding himself back around him, and when he told him it was okay to let go, it began to be rough.
Every time they fucked (it wasn’t making love anymore) Regulus ended up sobbing in relief when he came. It was hard to approach Nickie about being more gentle, or to let up on the biting. When he finally did, Nickie didn’t talk to him for three days.
It started up again the second time they had sex after their argument.
Two days before he had to return to school, he told Nickie that they had to stop. It was too much for him, the constant barrage of desire from his friend. To be candid, he couldn’t take to constant fucking. That was the first and last time that Nickie would hit him.
Regulus had been in shock, how could his friend treat him like that? He rushed out of the house after hastily packing his belongings, but not before hearing Nickie yell that no one would ever love him. It was true to a certain extent. Not only was he unwanted, he was perverse and spoiled. Even if another boy or girl (god forbid) decided to love him, he had lost all sense of purity.
He met Sirius at the train station two days later, looking rather rough according to his brother. He got changed into his wrinkled uniform in one of the bathrooms and sat down to listen to his brother prattle on about his wonderful summer.
That whole year was him avoiding people. They would trip him in the halls, purposely mark him absent during lectures and blame accidents on him. Before sixth year he had never gotten a single detention, now he had gotten three and it was only October. He began to triple lock his closet, but nothing could be done about his bed. He had already climbed in to find shit fill sheats, and slurs were permanently scratched into the oak frame.
At least his grades were still perfect.
-
The next summer he elected to undergo an internship in the science department. It gave him extra credit for the upcoming year, and it would be useful on any resumés in the future.
It was probably his best summer, there were no boys involved, no drama, and no heartbreak.
His teacher was kind to him, and let him eat lunch in the teachers’ lounge instead of the great hall with the other students who tended to ignore him. He would study ahead for his classes, and as a result, excelled in all of his classes.
It was a good year, Sirius stuck by his side for nearly half the year making it hard for bullies to target him. He worked at a bar in a nearby town and saved up enough to rent a flat after he graduated, and he met some fun lads.
When he graduated, he said goodbye to Sirius, flipped off his graduating class and never looked back.
-
If he thought that his school years had been difficult, it was a walk through the park compared to his university days. Central London was still quite closed off to the idea of queer people, and that made it hard to meet like minded people. He was quite lonely for the first two years, and he spent a lot of it nursing black eyes and bruised ribs. He learned after a while that straight men would frequent gay bars and target weaker looking men.
It was tough to say the least.
He got fired from his part time job after the second year, apparently he looked to feminine to work at a “man’s bar” according to his supervisor. He was too busy to find another job without dropping any of his classes, and he refused to write to his brother for a loan.
After three months of living off weeks old food he ran out of money to buy his medication. That was when it really began to get hard. Before, he could deal with all the real life shit with a decent mindset. After, it was hard to get out of bed in the mornings, he began missing classes, and he stopped going out to clubs and bars after this fiasco with a group of rather malicious men.
He didn’t really know what made him go to the bridge. There were a couple factors : His life was looking bleak, and it seemed like it wouldn’t get better for at least another three or four years and he was SO tired of trying to keep afloat. His friends were slowly moving away, London’s hostility was getting to them as well. He just couldn’t seem to do anything right, and he longed for something more. He wanted to feel that closeness that he felt with Nickie before everything went to hell, and he just wasn’t in the position for that to ever be possible.
He had stepped up onto the railing, looking down at the river below, and could imagine what it would be like to feel the water filling his lungs. He used to swim before his tuition was revoked. It was such a freeing sport, but now it felt like relief to just..stop swimming.
Regulus guessed that could be a metaphor for his life so far. Everything was so goddamn hard, and he had been swimming against the current since before he was fifteen. It felt like time to just surrender to it.
He stepped, one foot after the other over the barrier. He sucked in a large breath of air, and simply walked over the edge.
He was in free fall for about twenty seconds, and it was the best twenty seconds of his objectively short life. The next thing he knew, he was in the freezing cold water, ribs hurting. It was only another three minutes of struggling before he finally let go.
-
He woke up to blue light shining in his eyes. Regulus was bewildered, wasn’t he supposed to be dead?
He looked around him to see that he was in a musky attic, a blue stained glass window being the only source of light.
He was suspended in time for minutes, in shock. Was this the afterlife? Was this his fate, to haunt an attic for eternity?
He stayed there until he heard a trap door creak open, and an old man with balding grey hair climbed through. He peered around and Regulus froze, but the man just stared right through him. It was curious. He looked down at his hand and shrieked, it was fucking transparent???
He nearly jumped out of his skin. He felt a strange sinking feeling and looked down. He was three feet off the ground, floating above the wooden floorboards.
That was the moment he realised that this was not his eternity or his afterlife. This was real life, and he was cursed. It seemed like life wasn’t done with him just yet. Fuck.
He was a ghost.
-
“Damn,” James tried to smile, “Epic origin story?”
Regulus huffed out a breath, “Yeah, basically.”
James took inhaled a stuttered breath, “So..you’re gay?”
Regulus froze, “I never really took to girls, so yes.”
James smiled for real, “I guess that makes two of us.”
Just his luck. Of course this bloody gorgeous, kind, man was gay. The only person who he had been able to talk to in decades was gay, and yet still unattainable.
James raised an eyebrow, “Wait. If you- died, then why are you haunting my house?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. I hadn’t visited this place when I was alive, and I have no idea where it even is. Honestly, the only explanation for this is that I must have a purpose here.”
James nodded his head, “Makes sense, I guess.”
Reg smiled, “Yeah it does.”