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Winter
Regulus has never been in love, not really. When he was 16, a girl in his human biology class asked him out over the group discussion of chapter 7: The Heart. They dated for almost four months before breaking it off. They never spoke again.
When he was 18, he got into a one and half year relationship with a close friend who did nothing but feed on his vulnerability and split open his palms. He knew from the moment they touched lips and his tongue tasted salt and blood, it would never work.
And he would ask himself why he bothered to let the other boy rip into his flesh with sharp teeth and eyes glowing red. He would ask himself and receive no answer. Because that’s the thing about being young and thinking you want love.
You let yourself hurt, just so you can say it happened.
Now in love's place, exists the confusing lovesick admissions and soft pink lips of his brother’s best friend. James Potter.
He never thought someone would be able to shape his frown into a grin simply from the sound of their laugh.
But James did.
These days, Regulus is not entirely comfortable with labels and defining his sexuality, but he can’t think of being with anyone else but James.
It’s been two months of Regulus living under the roof of Sirius’ flat. By extension that of course includes his best friends: James, Peter and Remus (who is also Sirius’ boyfriend).
It’s been two months since Regulus finally left the firm grasps of his mother.
Two months of teasing jokes and awkward hugs. Meeting the boy that took his brother in. Lips that ache against cherry cheeks and eyes that linger moments too long.
Regulus watches James with every passing second he gets. And he maps out the stars to every feature he deems just as pretty as the glimmering sky. If not, prettier.
“Stop staring,” James tells him time and time again. Teasing, blushing, looking like he wants to reach out and pull him in.
And each time, red will flood Regulus’s flesh in a brutal, scorching flush. He’ll feel it seep into his skin and mark its territory. And it’ll never want to leave the cracks of his bones— it’ll inhabit itself within them and ache until they rot. He thinks he might just die from this and this alone.
He doesn’t think himself strong enough to ever survive this. These pitting fires and scorching skies.
When Regulus first learnt of who James Potter was, it was during a call with his brother. Sirius spoke of him like he was made of the sun. And Regulus yearned. He just sat there and yearned. Yearned to know what that meant, what it felt like— to know someone that is capable of burning the ice.
He yearned for it then and he yearns for it now. Because he finally understands it. He finally has James Potter in the palms of his hands, burning and bright. The sun. He is every bit of it. He is every ember and every piece of warmth.
Regulus yearns for this man he cannot even love.
“I’m not,” he finally responds, voice in a whisper.
The air grows sticky and hot. His throat is dry and scratchy. He’s being torn into by the heat, and left a lone dessert in the snow.
Regulus is sweating in winter.
He writes about it later, in a letter to James.
I am sweating in winter. I walk the path to hell in winter. I’m burning alive and it’s winter. This is not a symptom of love. I can’t love you like this James, no matter how much I wish to. I’ll surely kill myself and I can’t let you hand me the dagger.
So, he’s never been in. Not even with James Potter— even if his stupid heart swore by it.
My tongue burns like I'm tasting something molten and you sit there, cosy and warm in a jumper you stole from your friend. You’ll probably get out of bed soon and ask if I'd care for a mug of hot chocolate. You’ll twirl hot pasta around a fork and find comfort in the steam that hits the roof of your mouth as you chew. Peter’s cat will rest in your lap as you curl up in front of the crackling fire in the late blink of the night. You’ll rest your head on Sirius’s shoulder, pull an arm around Peter, and poke at where Remus sits in front of you. And then you’ll plead for me to join. You’ll keep longing for heat and I fear I can't breathe any second longer in it.
“Just… come here please.”
He leaves his desk, and carefully climbs in next to James. “I think I have a fever or something,” Regulus admits after a moment.
This isn’t love, he thinks. This isn’t love.
“Well,” James starts, staring deeply, “I think you’re still trying to get used to it. Being here. With Sirius. With the others. With me. You have to let yourself breathe Reg. You’re going to burn yourself out.” He shifts on his side and draws out a tentative hand.
“I think I already am burning,” Regulus whispers in response. “I think i’m fucking dying.”
Do something, he silently pleads. Give me something, anything. Take me in and cool me down. Save me, James. Fucking save me.
His jaw is being grazed gently, and he feels his eyes shut. None of this is blissful, none of this is calm. None of this is love.
James doesn’t say anything more and Regulus doesn’t expect him to.
It’s the last month of winter when Regulus meets James’ new boyfriend. Peter likes to joke over the physical similarities between him and Regulus. Remus watches him closely as if waiting for some kind of reaction, a crack in the bored look he plasters across his face. Sirius remains for the most part, oblivious.
And Regulus? He floods himself a mess of blood and tears as soon his bedroom door shuts behind him.
The problem isn’t the boyfriend, a brunette named Ryan. He’s possibly one of the nicest guys Regulus has ever met and the problem isn’t James, who has every right to date around and find someone else for himself. The problem is Regulus.
And James continues to look at him like he shares this very thought— because he believes this too. The problem is Regulus.
I am the problem. It’s me. I am the problem. It’s always me.
Sirius is speaking, James too, and Regulus doesn’t know where the fuck he is. He thinks someone could put their hand right through him and he wouldn’t feel a goddamn thing.
Maybe this is all a dream and he’ll wake up tomorrow to Sirius calling him from this flat and Regulus is still stuck in his childhood home with parents who carry knives for hearts. But at least then life wouldn’t be so fucking dreadful.
It isn’t that he doesn’t want to be here— finding home with his brother, but he fears he’ll break James Potter in half the longer he stays.
Regulus forces the thoughts away and zones back into the present.
“Are you doing something special for tomorrow?” he hears Sirius ask.
James hums, tilting a mug to his lips. It’s silent for a moment, almost like he’s waiting for Regulus to open his mouth and finally say something.
He realises the silence is starting to feel awkward and now they’re both looking at him. “Uh– what’s happening tomorrow?” he finally gets out, choosing to settle his gaze on Sirius.
Lips part to answer but James is quicker. “Valentine’s day,” he blurts, and then quieter, he adds. “I’m taking Ryan out for dinner or well, he’s taking me out. He’s the one that asked.”
“Oh? Where to?” Sirius questions absently, and turns his back to them. He’s so utterly blind to the growing tension in the room that Regulus wants to hit him over the head with a frying pan and yell, “Can’t you see? Can’t you see?”
But it’s not Sirius’ job to watch his brother and know exactly when he’s on the verge of overheating. It’s not his job to pull him back and cool him down.
Regulus finally looks back at James and he carefully leans forward in his chair, resting palms to his face. He raises an eyebrow curiously, waiting.
James doesn’t take his eyes off Regulus. “Uh i’m not sure…some fancy restaurant I think or something…”
“You hate those sorts of dates,” Regulus bites out, shaking his head in disagreement. “You’ll hate it.”
James freezes. He’s now stone cold ice and Regulus is in flames.
“Regulus,” he warns, setting his mug down. Regulus barely notes trembling fingers and white knuckles.
“What?” he asks through a laugh. “Clearly the guy barely knows you if he’s taking you to a fucking fancy restaurant–”
“–What the fuck is wrong with you? Seriously?” James interrupts, rising to his feet. Regulus is quick to mirror him.
They’re standing on opposite sides of the table. It’s so fucking hot and Regulus is running dead end cliffs in his head, searching for cool oceans and a way out. He doesn’t want to argue.
This isn’t love.
He’s still laughing. “I’m just fucking saying okay? I know you and–”
“Yeah, do you? We’ve known each for three months!”
“Can you stop fucking interrupting me?”
“Well can you stop trying to dictate what I like and don’t like?”
“That’s not what I– James. James come on, I didn’t mean it like that. I just–”
“You just what? You won’t even look at me anymore! And now you have the nerve to be what- jealous? You can’t even admit it!”
And it hurts because he’s right. There are a lot of words that scar, but Regulus comes to find that it’s the ones James throws that make for an ugly, scathing mess.
Most of the time, they only exist because of Regulus’.
Spring
James and Ryan don’t last long. No one really expected them to. Regulus thinks that when Ryan first met him— looking him up and down, sighing through a tight-lipped smile— that even he didn’t expect them to last.
Everything sort of goes back to how things were before. No one brings it up. James pretends everything is okay with his bright smiles and easy laughs. Sirius keeps shooting Regulus suspicious looks, Remus and Peter try to keep a hold on things and Regulus doesn’t really know what the fuck he’s doing. Which is all relatively normal.
It’s Spring and James picks flowers from side streets and nestles them in hoodie pockets for Regulus to find later on.
“You’ve still got that fever?” James asks him one day. It’s supposed to be a joke but Regulus knows what he means by it.
“It’s gone,” he whispers and carefully interlocks their pinkies.
“Do you like the flowers?”
Regulus’s breath hitches. He’s warmed lovingly by golden cheeks next to his.
“Yes,” he says with a smile, and thinks maybe this is love.
“I’m glad. Sirius doesn’t get flowers you know.”
Regulus laughs and hides his face in the crook of James’ neck. “I know,” he murmurs and grins against fresh, dewy skin. “Thank you.”
It’s not in rapid beats— the way his heart is moving. It moves like flowers blossoming under sunlight. It moves like it’s finally coming alive. Regulus thinks he might just be in love.
One week in April, Remus visits his family in Wales and takes Sirius with him. Peter is staying at his girlfriend’s as he often does.
The house is quieter without James and Sirius’ roaring laughter.
Regulus can focus on the birds singing in the morning and lets out airy giggles in the cracks of the wind. Maybe he’s selfishly in love, but days like these feel awfully domestic.
“Reg?”
He hums in response, eyes lost to the window, staring out into golden-blue skies and big white clouds. A minute passes, maybe an hour. There’s a hand covering his own and he’s pulled back into reality.
“You’re doing that thing again,” James says.
“What thing?”
There’s a sigh, a frustrated sound that pricks at Regulus’s skin and draws blood. He doesn’t like hearing it, and decides then, that maybe silence is even worse than words.
“The thing where you’re here… but you’re not really here.”
“I’m here James,” he murmurs and his mouth curls into an easy grin. “In fact I think I like being here more than anything in the world.”
I think I could love you forever, James. This love doesn’t burn me anymore, it doesn’t want to kill me. This love was hidden from me, waiting to jump out and dress me in flowers. Lilies, daisies, tulips, roses. I’m a fucking garden and–
“What changed?”
It’s asked so abruptly, Regulus’s words in a reverie slip out from his grasp before he can turn them into ink in another letter.
He exhales, squeezes his hand. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
Regulus knows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
James looks like he might be on the verge of tears, hazel eyes twisting with gloss and cheeks tinting rosy as if they’re preparing for the abyss.
“Don’t do this to me, Reg.”
So, Regulus kisses him instead.
Summer
Regulus has taken every piece of James there was to offer and claimed them. He’s taken every piece and locked them away in the realm of his heart.
He writes by the ocean, watching his boyfriend clawing at Sirius’ back in a half-assed attempt at a piggyback.
I want to bathe you in sunlight and never look away. I want to bury you in melted ice cream just so I can lick it off your face.
When James clasps his hand and drags him into the water, he’s nervous.
But I’m not enough for you James. Don’t you get it? These days with you, I don’t feel like myself. I’ve fallen for you in all the wrong ways. Who you know, is not me. This is not the lover you think it is.
I am not Regulus. I am existing in the body of someone I feel like I have to be when with you.
I am not Regulus and you’ll never have him.
He allows the water to consume him, to flood his skin and bones. He’s cold and he’s drowning and summer has only just begun.
One night, Regulus leaves. He gets in his car, and drives with the windows down and the radio on. He lets the warm summer air touch his skin and imagines this, as the bittersweet aftermath of James Potter.
I know I'm brutal. Cruel. Cold. For this, I am unable to justify myself. I have no good reason to break your heart, other than the fact that loving you feels like drowning. Which means I don’t love you at all. Not even a little bit. I can’t tell you I want to fly back to France, but I think about it every day.
You’re crafted from saccharine hands, and me, sour.
James is no idiot— he knows. He feels life freezing over in the middle of summer and he can’t do a thing to stop it. To break it. To convince Regulus he loves him.
They both know what’s already lost can’t be saved.
When Regulus is back in his room later that night after arriving home, James is sitting up in bed, waiting for him.
“Hey,” He whispers and falls back into the sheets beside him. He stares up at the ceiling and waits for James to speak.
“Where’d you go?”
“Uh– the beach. It’s beautiful at night.”
He hums. “I can imagine.”
“You’d like it.”
“Is that why I wasn’t invited?” he questions, and the calm tone in which it escapes, clogs Regulus’ brain with salt water.
Shit.
“Well?” James prods and Regulus shakes his head. “You’re so… I don’t understand you.”
There are tears filling up silver eyes without warning. He’s used to it, so he lets the tears crusade alongside the waves. His throat is swimming in it all, and it aches to use. “I’m sorry,” he croaks out. “I’m sorry James.”
“I fucking– I fucking miss you,” the other man admits. He sniffs and Regulus weeps even more knowing James is too. The bed is a mess.
At least we’re both drowning.
“I don’t know where you went and I– I want you back so bad.” He continues. “Sirius promised you. He promised you summer here, in London with us, with me. But he’s just wrecked as I am Reg. You’re never here. I keep wondering where you are– how long it will take before you’re going back home because you can’t seem to find that here.”
Regulus watches James's heart break in his hands. The pieces fall lost to ocean floors. “Jamie,” he whispers.
“What? You want that, don’t you? You can’t stand it– to be around me. You’re drowning.” He says it almost mockingly and it clicks in Regulus’ head what he’s referring to.
“James.” He sits up immediately.
“I can’t read you– what did you expect me to do? I don’t understand you Reg!” He looks divine like this, casted under moonlight.
“How many did you read?”
James smiles sadly. “All of them.” Then he laughs. “Nice to know you what to lick ice cream off my face.”
“James,” he whispers, only half-amused.
“I just– I don’t care okay? I don’t want you to compare trying to love me to fucking–” He stops himself and shuts his eyes. “To fucking dying okay? So please for the love of god, stop trying.”
Regulus nods and processes the words. They don’t scar, they don’t even hurt. They barely graze his skin. “Okay.”
“I know you want to leave, but you’re not going to. You’re not going anywhere so you’re just going to have to deal with your feelings. You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Reg. I’m not killing you, you are.”
“I know.” He reaches out a hand, and presses fingers against tan, wet skin. “I’m so sorry James.”
He scoffs. “You should be. You’ve taken me and yet have nothing to give. You can’t do that sort of shit Regulus. You knew you couldn’t love me back in winter, so what the fuck happened in spring? Why did you even try?”
“I thought I could love you, I thought maybe with time it could just sort of happen. And it felt like love for a while there, it really did.”
“Felt like flowers?” James mumbles.
Smiling, Regulus holds onto him firmly. “Yeah it did. I think it was an illusion, some fantasy my mind created. I tried to live in it but…”
“I think I sort of know what you mean.”
Regulus exhales. “I have issues,” he admits.
James snorts. “You think?”
“Shut up,” Regulus groans and buries his head in the pillow. “Go to sleep.”
“Night Regulus.”
“Night.”
Autumn
On the night of Halloween, James’s parents invite them to a party.
The trees this season are akin to corpses. There’s piles of leaves on the ground. Regulus watches James kick them and listens to his brother’s laughter.
They’re all dressed up in their stupid little costumes. Even Regulus.
Summer came and went in harsh waves and Regulus never left. He and James don’t touch or kiss or hold each other anymore but he still looks at Regulus like he’s never seen anyone quite as lovely.
There are no fires for them to burn in, no flowers for James to pick, no oceans Regulus can drown in. There’s the fall of leaves and the taste of pumpkin. It feels like Autumn should feel like.
And yet.
It’s Autumn and you still love me. You wait for me like I'm a train that’s never coming to get you. You’ve bought a non-refundable ticket with everything you have in your pockets. There’s no turning back. You’re stuck by the railway lines, and you’re perfectly content. Why do you settle for a love you’ll never have?
When they arrive at the house, Effie ushers them in excitedly and hands them each champagne flutes filled with green liquid and gummy spiders swimming inside.
There’s music coming from outside and Regulus follows his brother and friends into the back yard.
Sirius immediately breaks off with Remus, leaving Regulus and James alone with each other.
They look at each other briefly and then look away.
“Uh– are you enjoying the night?” James asks when silence wavers between them for a beat too long to be considered comfortable.
“We just got here,” Regulus replies and squints his eyes up at James. “You don’t have to be so awkward and weird with me, you know.”
“I know,” James mutters and then blurts out the first thing he can think of. “Do you–” He pauses, looks ready to throw up his insides and he’s not even one drink in. “Do you still write me letters?”
Regulus blinks in shock. He didn’t know what he expected to be said, but it wasn’t that. They hadn’t brought up the letters since that summer night.
“Sometimes, yeah,” he confesses quietly.
“Are they still sad?” Do you still not want me, Reg? he’s asking.
His gaze drops to his feet. “They vary. Mostly sad though.”
“It’ll be a year, in four days.” James sighs through his words. It makes the air feel heavy and weighted. “I remember when we first met… you were so curious about me.”
Regulus laughs under his breath. “I was.”
“Not anymore though. Now you look at me and I see nothing there. At least before I could see sadness eating you whole. I don’t know what I did to deserve this but… it hurts.”
Regulus shifts on his feet. “Why are you bringing this up right now?”
He hadn’t noticed until now, the deep red bite marks carved into pink lips.
I stopped noticing you, didn’t I? I pulled back and tried to forget you. I stopped noticing you and now–
“I’m– I’m leaving.”
Regulus frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I thought I could do this, live with you like this but I can’t… I’m the one killing myself now. And I want to breathe again, Reg. I can’t do it.”
I saved myself but at what cost? You?
“Where will you go?” Regulus asks after a moment.
You want me to beg you to stay, you want me to do these things you don’t even expect. You don’t love me, just as much as I don’t love you.
“I don’t know. Somewhere.”
“Does Sirius know?”
They both turn their heads and catch him warily watching the scene unfold. James laughs, “Yeah he knows.”
And three days later, on the same day Regulus arrived last Autumn, James leaves.