unspeakable | jegulus

you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice

chapter title: one of us cannot be wrong by leonard cohen

He could just make out his dark hair ahead of him, in the frosted grey wilderness. It was easier to see his pale white shirt in the dim light shining down on them.

"Wait!" He called after him, jogging over the icy, twisted tree trunks. The trees here were so tall and ancient, and their root systems were knotted over each other so many times, it was like a net, or a knit sweater. "Are you trying to lose me or something?"

Regulus looked at him incredulously.

"Of course I am. I don't want to tell you any of this."

"You have to tell me. It's not optional. If you lie, I'm out of this collaboration," he mocked him, and Regulus looked away sharply.

"Let's find somewhere to talk."

-

This clearing was different from the one they'd done the last two rituals in. It wasn't as symmetrical. The sun shone down on them and reflected off of the snow in the tall grass, blindingly bright. Regulus was trampling through the underbrush in his shiny black shoes. James wondered how he managed to look so graceful on ice in shoes without any grip on their soles.

There wasn't anywhere to sit, so they stood. Staring at each other. Regulus bit his bottom lip, and James watched it turn red and told himself he didn't want to kiss the pink off of his mouth. This boy was going to be the death of him, maybe literally.

"Are you ready to talk now?"

"No." Regulus crossed his arms, and raised a dark eyebrow. His pale face, pink cheeks, and black hair looked so right surrounded by white snow, like he could have been a painting. This infatuation was getting out of hand. James forced himself to look away. You're angry with him, he told himself firmly.

"Do you think I'm bluffing about ending this, Regulus?" He could feel all of the stress of the past few months weighing on him, a beast on his back he had to carry everywhere he went. The idea of shrugging off that weight, leaving it behind, was tempting. But, not if he had to leave Regulus alone. Then again, why did he care about Regulus? Regulus didn't trust him. "I'm not. You need to tell me. Now or never."

"You don't want the truth, James. I promise you don't."

"You don't know what I want. You don't know what my reaction will be to whatever it is you haven't told me, so tell me." Regulus wouldn't look at him. "Reg, you have to tell me. It's not optional. This is bad anyways, you need to be brave to do this, right? You need to be able to do hard things. You can't even be honest! That's dangerous. If you have to do something in there-"

"Being there, doing the things I'll be expected to do, that will be easy for me. This is a lot harder. My life hasn't been like your life, James. We're different people."

"Easy?" Regulus glared.

"Yes. Easy. I was raised to do what they expect of me. It comes as naturally as breathing."

"This is easy too, telling the truth." James looked down at him and tried to make his voice sound warm, which only seemed to make him angrier. "It'll make you feel lighter. Not heavy, like lying."