The Story of Regulus Black - Years 5-7

LXV. Break

CW: mentions of child abuse & brief emetophobia

Regulus was in an empty corridor of the dungeons. It was dark, it was cold, it was uncomfortably damp, and he was crying. He had been for quite a while.

The bottle of alcohol that he had absently taken with him lay on the floor in front of him, glass shattered and liquid spilled. That had been the intended target for the blunt end of his anger, the thing that he would have liked to blame for the end of his relationship. However, he knew that the liquor was not the main culprit in the case of Barty and Regulus's failed relationship, the mystery of what had gone wrong. For, it wasn't a mystery at all. It had been him, Regulus, that tore it all down and watched the pieces crumble before his very eyes. He had lied, he had broken promises, he had kept secrets, he had done everything that he had always been so afraid of someone doing to him. He has turned into the person that he feared. He had become his own worst enemy.

He just needed to fix it. More than anything, Regulus needed to fix what had been broken. He didn't care what it took, he didn't care what he had to give up, because he would do it for Barty. He would do anything for Barty. He had been blinded by fear, pushed into a corner by his own thoughts, not tried to maintain something that he thought was destined to be broken. But it hadn't been destined to be broken, right? Would it feel this awful if it had been?

Even if it was, Regulus wasn't going to give up. He wasn't going to let Barty give up. He was going to push through for the both of them and hope that he was enough. Because he would fix it. He would fix what he had broken if it was the last thing that he did.

So, he began to compose what he needed to say, how he needed to say it, and what would change as a result.

He entered the dorm room cautiously. Even with Theodore Travers and Evan Rosier out of the dorm so often during term, Regulus still found it quite odd to not have to worry about either of them for the time being. It felt freeing in a way. Though, of course, the regret, guilt, sadness, and anxiety were doing quite a good job of strangling him and making him feel as though he would never be free from anything ever again.

The curtains around Barty's bed were open, as though he hadn't had the energy to close them. Regulus could make out his form in the dark, just a heap beneath a pile of heavy blankets. It wasn't until he got closer that he realized that Barty was facing away, so he made a point to be just a bit louder in his movements to let Barty know that he was there. The least that he wanted to do was startle Barty on top of everything else.

Regulus stopped at the end of Barty's bed and stared at the boy. He couldn't see his face, could barely see his hair sticking up over the top of the blanket, but he could see the light shake of his body and the intermittent sniffling, as well as the poorly timed whimpers that escaped him, were filling the room. A piece of Regulus's shattered heart fractured into two.

He was slow and deliberate with his movements, sitting down on the very edge of the end of his bed. Barty felt the mattress dip, and every single muscle in his body constricted so much that it physically pained him. However, he was in enough physical pain as it was, so he really didn't see much of a difference at all. His entire body was shooting with it, the pain. The ache in his chest that spread like some nasty virus, infecting his body and making him feel like his blood was slowly but surely turning to cement, his bones eroding, his muscles melting. Barty had never known that love could bring a pain such as this, something so raw and intense, but he figured that it must. After all, he had always described his love for Regulus as a painful process that he had never wished to give up. Even now, if given the chance, he wasn't sure that he would change the way that he felt about Regulus. Perhaps that was what made it hurt even more.