Only the Brave

Chapter 41: Heartbreak

For someone who has been tortured and branded, starved as a child and locked in closets with no light for hours on end, the threshold of bearable pain is pretty high. Higher than most people, Regulus reckons. After all, he didn't faint when Riddle marked him, and that was impressive enough that even Bellatrix made a fuss. 

Regulus is pretty sure he's going to faint now.

The door to the Come and Go Room shuts closed behind him, and Regulus leans against it, letting his head fall back. He knows James won't come after him. Not this time. Not after what he said to him.

That's so fucking cruel, Reg. Why? 

If James knew exactly how cruel, how selfish Regulus has been. Because James is right. Regulus knew this had to end and he did it anyway, because he's loved James since before he understood what love was, and he was weak. A better man, a stronger one, would have refused him when he first showed up. Would have said no. Stayed away. Regulus wasn't strong or good. He was just Regulus, and James was looking at him, listening to him, taking him on fucking broom rides. How was he supposed to say no?

You used me. 

That one hurt. It hurt because Regulus didn't, not really. Not in the sense James meant. Regulus is fucking choking on how much he loves James. He fell just as hard, if not harder. He fell first. So, yes, he didn't say it was temporary, and he was fine letting it get out of control, but that never, for a second, meant it wasn't going to break him, too. Regulus let James take a hit but never one Regulus wasn't taking himself.

I forgive you already. 

Fuck.

Regulus knew he was bad for James. That he'd ruin him. But he never truly understood just how much until he said that. Until James Potter, hero-extraordinaire, looked a Death Eater in the eye and forgave him without hesitation. Regulus hates that he did that. That he corrupted James that fucking much. James always deserved better than Regulus. He needs a person who won't taint his soul, drag him into the darkness. James deserves another sun, not twisted shadows.

He'll be safer, happier, without Regulus.

That's why he had to do it like this. Why he had to make sure James will never chase after him again. And yet... Regulus wants to take it back. He can't. But he wants to.

It was the hardest thing he's ever done. Looking at James and telling him he didn't love him, not really. That it was all just teenage infatuation blown out of proportion. That it didn't matter as much as he thought it did.

Regulus stood in that room and watched the sun fade. Every blow that Regulus delivered made its blazing warmth flicker a little more. Until the ink from the mark on his arm reached out and snuffed it out completely. The look in James' eyes when he saw the brand will be forever etched on the inside of Regulus' eyelids.

That was the moment Regulus knew. When he saw the light go out behind James' glasses. Hazel eyes, dulled by shock and pain and sadness so deep, so thick it could flood the entire world. And it was Regulus who did it.

He stood there, and snuffed out the sun, and then Regulus gave himself over to the shadows. Cold. Pain. The cage opening inside his chest, welcoming him back. Bones and blood and silence in the endless darkness. Because what is left when one's turned off the sun?

It has to be this way, Regulus tells himself. He's been over this. There's no other way. He has to do this, keep James safe. Find the Horcruxes and destroy them so Riddle can die. End the war. Give his people a chance at a life.

For James. For Dorcas. For Sirius.

Regulus goes into his cage willingly. He steps inside, breathes the cold in. Ice like spiderwebs spreading over his skin, seeping into his flesh. Pain is known to him. Comforting even though it shouldn't be. He's here now, and he thinks, yes. I know you. I know this. Emptiness and jagged shards of things that used to be and aren't anymore.