ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴇʀᴇ ᴏɴʟʏ ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴᴛᴇᴇɴ | 𝑅𝑒𝑔𝓊𝓁𝓊𝓈 𝐵𝓁𝒶𝒸𝓀 𝓍 𝑅𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇

25 ✧ 'I Love You' and Speechlessness

1978 May __________________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

The end of the year was heeding and it didn't seem like it was going to stop; soon it would just be Regulus and Y/N, Y/N and Regulus – no James, no Sirius, no Remus, no Peter, no Lily, and certainly no Alexander. Marlene's conversation with Y/N had caused her to enter a downward spiral of 'everything is my fault' – she would be correct. Y/N desperately wanted to patch things up with Alexander before the school year was over and he had to make his choice between protecting family or protecting friends. Yet, that choice was already made. Alexander knew what he had to do, but what he was going to do was entirely different. 

"Y/N, are you okay?" Regulus asked, brushing his hand over Y/N's, the feeling of his cool rings sent a shiver down Y/N's spine. 

"Yeah, just peachy." Y/N smiled back, his worried expression never failing to enchant her. "God, don't look at me like that."

"Why?" Regulus asked smugly. "Does it make you want to tell me what's the matter with you?"

"Yes." Y/N's breathing hitched.

"Good." He chuckled. "Tell me what's wrong, please?"

"It's just Alexander, he's worrying me." 

"I suppose he's gotten the talk too?" Regulus sighed, resting his chin against his hand, his other intertwining with Y/N's. 

"The talk?" Y/N inquired, raising one of her eyebrows. "We got that talk before going into Hogwarts, or at least I did-"

"Not that one!" He lightly blushed, just a small twinge, although you'd never be able to tell him that he was in fact blushing – he would refuse to believe that he, Regulus A. Black, had his ears being heated up by embarrassment. 

"You're so cute when you're like that."

"Shut up." He grumbled. "I meant the.." He paused, changing the volume of his voice to nothing louder than a hushed whisper. "Dark mark talk."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh." Regulus nodded. 

"You've had that talk then I suppose."

"Last summer, my parents insisted I be told about the dangers of ending up like my brother, they want me to take on... you-know-what since Sirius isn't there to do so." He sighed. "I fucking hate that I have to take on all of his responsibilities, he's never fucking there for me, if I had him than at least maybe we could have worked things out together, as brothers, but now it's just 2 against 1 – them vs me." 

"Hey, hey, hey." Y/N whispered, she lifted his pale hand up to her lips. "Don't say such nonsense, it's 2 against 2 no matter what; you and me vs the evil parents."

"I appreciate the sentiment, love, but let's be honest here." He dryly laughed. "It will always be 2 vs 1 in our respected houses – I'm not always going to be attached to your hip." He then paused, the moment was beautiful to him, everything was perfect, except for the topic of conversation. "When we go home, you to the L/N Estate and I to Grimmauld Place, it'll be us by ourselves, us being isolated because your brother probably won't go home." 

"What do you mean by that?" She took her hand away so she could lift her drink to her lips. 

"He won't take it." Regulus shrugged, leaning back in his chair, pushing around the foam that covered his own drink. "He wouldn't jeopardise his life like that." 

"You're probably right." 

"It's okay, because you'll have me this summer, I hope you didn't forget Narcissa and Lucius' wedding." Regulus smiled lightly. 

"If it's anything like their engagement party it's bound to be fun." Y/N winked at Regulus. 

"Fun is what you'd call that?" Regulus scoffed. "More like bloody suffocating, you chose to not answer me at all that night." He suppressed the need to laugh, the fondest of memories seemed to come from the horror of their own self-inflicted stress. 

"Yeah yeah." 

The table fell silent, the two just sat looking into one another's eyes, simply speechless due to the beauty of the ones before them. 

"I love you." Regulus blurted out. 

More silence. 

"I mean, I love you if you love me to the same degree." He backtracked, feeling rather awkward. 

"To the same degree and more." Y/N smiled. "I love you too."

"Isn't that sweet?" Regulus laughed. "Enough to make my little heart cry."

"Shut up, you said it first!"

 __________________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

a/n 

Just a bit of fluff to separate from the bad; apologies for it being so short, I've been writing this whole ordeal back to front. 

- E