unspeakable | jegulus

baby, you're so vicious

chapter title: vicious by lou reed

content warning: mild sexual content
(not smut)
a nonconsensual kiss

His pyjamas were unfolded, he tossed them onto his unmade bed. Peter opened his mouth when he emerged from the bathroom and James silenced him with nothing but a white hot stare. He grabbed his wand.

"See you around, Remus," he said, numbly.

"Where you headed?" James glanced at him, and smiled slightly.

"I'm going to see my boyfriend." Remus frowned. James rolled his eyes. "What? He makes me happy."

"Does he?" Remus raised an eyebrow.

"Whatever." James tucked his wand behind his ear. He grabbed a thick poetry anthology from his trunk, his notebook, a quill, and an ink bottle. He stuffed it all in his book bag. "Actually, before I go, do you have a spare pack of fags?" Remus tossed him a slightly dented pack of Players. A pale box striped with shades of blue. "Cheers, Moony. See you later, yeah?"

He didn't go to see Regulus. Not immediately, anyway. First he went outside.

Before he was even through the front door he had a cigarette between his teeth. The sunlight was cold, but the smoke he was inhaling warmed him up a bit (that was what he told himself it was doing, anyway). James walked over the snow toward the lake, trying not to think, trying to think. He stopped at a tree by the lake. The same tree he'd laid under in the sun on that warm day in October, when Regulus was still just an ally instead of... what he was now. A lover? His boyfriend? Had they even talked about this? They had, that morning after Halloween, but Regulus said he didn't want to figure it out. James wanted to. He needed to. He sat at the base of the tree, back and bottom cold from the snow, and lit another cigarette off of the end of his first, like he'd seen Sirius do hundreds of times. He flipped through his well-loved anthology of poems while he smoked, trying not to think, trying to think.

He lingered on a dog-eared page.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

He closed the book. His vision blurred. He felt sick, so sick. And never stops at all. He blinked harshly.

He opened it to the same page. He read the poem again. His favourite poem burned his eyes when he read it now. He felt like a vampire trying to read the bible with a damned soul. He turned the page, another Emily Dickinson poem, this one oft neglected by him, yet, now, it burned in a different way than the other poem did. My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun. He lingered on the last stanza.

Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without - the power to die -

Something about it, the speaker of the poem a weapon, and the hopelessness and rage, compared to the last poem he had read, knocked the breath out of him. He took out the notebook he kept his poems in and meticulously copied it there, along with the date. December 11th, 1977. He read another Dickinson poem while he waited for the ink to dry. His cigarette was nearly at the filter. He lit another off the end again, smoking until his throat felt raw.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?

How did she have every feeling he did, a hundred years ago? Was Emily Dickinson a witch? James copied another poem in his book, writing the title in neat cursive: After great pain, a formal feeling comes –