unspeakable | jegulus

angel

chapter title: tin angel by joni mitchell
(there's a sorrow in his eyes / like the angel made of tin / what will happen if I try / to place another heart in him?)

content warning: sexual content

James obediently, stiffly, sat on his silken bedspread. It was so soft, and cool as water. Regulus took his hand, also cool. James wondered if he was cold here when he was alone. In this green room, in his green bed, with the mark of his ancestors looming over him in his sleep. "Do you want to talk about how you're feeling?"

"Sick," he whispered immediately. "Sick, and scared."

"I'm scared too." Regulus took off his shoes. He flicked his wand at the door and muttered, "Colloportus. That should keep my parents out."

"Wouldn't they be angry you locked them out?"

"I've slept with my door locked since I was six years old." Regulus stretched out on the bed. It was big, considering the size of his room. James took off his shoes too. Something about tying and untying his shoes always made him feel younger. It brought to mind his childhood, his mom teaching him to tie his shoes, two bunny ears, hopping around each other... "It'll be okay, you know that right? We're going to make it through this."

"I know." James stretched out on the bed beside him. Their fingertips touched. Regulus turned his head and looked at him, his eyelashes so dark, and his eyes so full of light. "I know," he repeated, like that would make it truer somehow. "I'm still scared."

"It's smart to be scared in a situation like this." Regulus looked at the ceiling instead of his face. "You should sleep in here tonight, with me."

"Are you sure?" He didn't see how that could be a good idea. Regulus' father hadn't even wanted them to be alone together. "We're not married. Your parents wouldn't like it."

"Are you going to propose now?" Regulus smiled, a quick, sharp little thing. His crooked teeth, his pronounced canines, so sharp in his little mouth.

"You need to ask my parents for my hand first, Regulus Black." James leaned on his elbow, gazing at him helplessly because he couldn't bring himself to look at anything else. How had these feelings grown so much when he didn't want them? How could he make them smaller? "Then I'll get on one knee and ask you, and you can wear my family crest on your finger instead of just around your neck."

"And you can wear mine instead of that plain one." Regulus touched his engagement ring. The softness in his expression contradicted his harsh words. His fingertips lingered on the simple silver band. "You already said yes. I think about it all the time."

"Why?" Regulus sighed. He looked away from him, at the ceiling again. James liked to look at him when he wasn't being observed in return. He could study the curve of his nose, straight save one little bump at the top, so pointed. He could look at the downward curve of his lip. The sharpness of his cheekbones. The softness under his chin and at the edge of his jaw. The remnants of baby fat that kept getting carved away the longer he knew him, the same way his voice had stopped cracking so often, and stayed low. He was almost seventeen.

"I never thought I could have you. Not really." Colour blossomed in his pale cheeks, like rose petals. So delicate. He was beautiful. He had the face of an angel. "You always seemed so out of reach, but I have you now and I get to keep you. It's strange. I never expected this. Not from my life. I never get what I want, no matter how hard I try."

"Not never, surely." James wanted to touch him, but he didn't. He kept staring at him, watching him watch the ceiling instead of looking into his eyes. He was mysterious to him. He always had been, but the feeling kept growing. The more he got to know him, the more it felt like he was truly unknowable. Behind the first mask Regulus was wearing, there was another mask, then beneath that mask, this face. Was this face a mask too? Was there anything inside of him? He reminded him of a nesting doll, infinite Reguluses tucked inside of him. That meant he had to have something in the centre. Some kind of heart buried deep down. The more he got to know him the more he understood Sirius' anxieties about him. His assurances that: No, James. You don't know him. You never will.