sink or swim - r.a.b

[016]

𐙚 chap. 16

      It'd been around a week since your 'date' with Regulus. You'd felt awkward the whole time after titling the hang out that. He, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine. He must not have noticed your stupid wording when you agreed to it in the great hall. Stupid Regulus. Stupid 'date'. 

      You highly doubted he's even noticed the way you phrased it, and figured you were just hyper-fixating because you'd noticed your feelings for him were of that beyond friendship. He didn't make a big fuss about how you had called it a date, so he didn't notice.. right? But then again, he was the observant type, so maybe he figured you just said it mindlessly, and didn't mean anything by it.

      Did you mean anything by it? You didn't even know at this point.

      To take your mind off of it, you tried to hang out with Pandora and Emi, but per usual, they were to entrapped with each other's presence, so they didn't exactly provide you with any solace. Finally going to your last resort, you went to hang out with James and his idiot friend-group.

     As always, the second you stepped into the Gryiffindor common room, you got a handful of odd looks, of course the amount of looks had decreased, and everyone but the first-years and the occasional introverted second-year knew you were in the dormitories often, just not all of them knew why. Hearing the familiar sound of quiet muttering and the occasional snicker from the circle of armchairs the boys had set up, you knew where they were.

      You walked over to the corner, and sat on the window sill beside Remus, whom of which was not an active participant in the conversation, and was wrapped in his own little world of doing homework the boys would all scramble to in an attempt to copy sooner or later.

      "Ah, the lady of the evening has arrived." James pointed out. "My dears Padfoot has told me that you were on a date with his infamous little brother last week, tell my dear [Y/N], is this true?"
      You rolled your eyes in response. "Who did Sirius even hear that from?" You gave the obsidian-haired boy a pointed look.
      "Hey, hey don't look at me. Crouch just might've let it slip to Rosier while I was in the vicinity."
      "By that, you mean you were spying, don't you?"
      "Well.. maybe?" He responded. You rolled your eyes once again. After a minute, the three of you had fallen into mindless chatter, even Remus popped in a few words from time to time.

      Of course, after what didn't feel long, the sun was setting, and you just yearned to go stare at your ceiling earlier than usual in hopes you would fall asleep sooner. So, you bid the group of boys farewell, and made your way back to your respective common room. Before you could get there, though, you bumped into Regulus, and he was being him usual self, and this made you start overthinking your wording in the great hall even more.

      After what felt like hours--although it was only a few seconds--of small talk, the two of you excused yourselves, and you  finally were able to make it to the solace of your room, but based off of the brief interaction with Regulus you'd just had, you decided it was better to just accept that you were going to kiss those wished upon extra hours of sleep goodbye.

      When you'd finished grieving the loss of your sleep, you stripped down, and got into your comfiest pajamas you could find. If you weren't going to sleep, you might as well feel comfortable as you contemplated your existence for the sixth night in a row. Climbing into bed, the thoughts already started to crowd your mind. Stupid meaningless 'what if's that had no place in your mind taking sleep from your exhausted body and mind. Great.

      Eventually you drifted into a restless sleep, slowly going crazy at the shear amount of times you were woken up by the hot of an owl or the closing of the door a floor below or above you.

A/N
_____
i'm back.. for now. sorry for
the short chapter, but it's 
the best you're going to 
get for a while. life is
crazy to put it simply,
and i think the ao3
author curse is 
catching up to me

stream the fic's playlist
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/32e3WyLCuXwBIlvQKHEkFP

- your inconsistent author xx