unspeakable | jegulus

i saw the boy break out of his skin

chapter title: break it up by patti smith

TW: suicide/self-harm threats, emotionally abusive manipulation, intimate partner violence.

this one was tough to write. it kind of put me through hell. i'm sorry in advance

There was a long, thin shadow standing sentinel on the stairs out of  the dungeon. A boy in silhouette. James hesitated for a moment at the  sight, the ground oddly unsteady underfoot with his sleeplessness  sitting heavy behind his ribs and inside of his eyes. Any bright light  burned him when he emerged from the dungeon. The murky light that  existed under the lake was a blessing when he "woke up" each  morning. He needed dimness and quiet, and long stretches of time with  Regulus alone before classes, staring at nothing, breath hardly more  than a whisper, sinking over the edge of his own horizon, determined to  plunge himself into an eternal twilight, a forever half-light of  nothingness and safety.

His dreams weren't safe, so he hadn't slept at all. Not even for a moment.

He  feigned sleep, then when Regulus drifted off James watched him in the  dark, and watched the handful of glowing lake creatures drift aimlessly  in the abyss-black water outside of the window, and could not close his  eyes without panic forcing them open again in a matter of seconds. He  knew it was a slow death. He knew it was driving him mad. He couldn't  make himself do anything else. The skin around his eyes felt thin and  tender, and he felt unmoored.

Not sleeping gave him a  strange, unreal sense of time, as if the entire world was moving around  him in fast forward and he could barely keep up. Everything was too  much. He felt as solid and tangible as a cloud of smoke.

He  was so tired he felt nauseated. His bones were beginning to protest his  lack of sleep, aching at his every joint as if he was sick. His entire  body was flu-like with exhaustion. His ankles screamed at him standing  still, and so did his knees. Even the joints on his fingers punished him  when he curled his hands into fists. Despite the pain, he wanted to run  in the cold. Desperately. It was like medicine when he felt the  stinging snow in his eyes, or let the burning, punishing sunlight gather  inside him and force his loudest thoughts to the periphery of his mind  where he could avoid them the way he avoided every other awful thing in  his life.

Running like a coward was a lot easier than  standing there in front of his friends trying to string together a  sentence while shame ate him alive.

The shadow moved for the first time, silhouette turning profile, and James recognized the owner of it instantly.

Remus.  His intake of breath was pathetic, too loud. He turned on his heel  instantly, footsteps too loud too, clumsy and awkward and exhausted, and  went back the way he came, down the corridor that led to the Slytherin  common room. He heard footsteps on the stairs and moved quicker, ducking  behind a prejudiced portrait in the hallway, ("Slytherins are supreme.") and  scurrying like a coward down the skinny little secret passageway he  knew would take him out of the dungeons without having to see Remus face  to face.

He shook dust from his clothes when he was on  the first floor, the sunlight momentarily blinding him, and nearly  bumped right into someone.

Remus knew every secret  passage James did, he knew James well enough to know exactly what he'd  do if he was confronted with him and cornered in the dungeons. He was  waiting precisely where the secret passage ended. Shit.

James froze like a deer in headlights.

Remus  stared at him in return for a beat, arms crossed over his chest, then  his mouth opened and James took off instantly, panic nearly blinding him  along with the unholy sunlight. The whole world was white, gold, and  horrific. James felt better in shadows than he did with this bright  light washing him, revealing too much of him, revealing too much of everything. He needed the quiet dark. He needed silence.