unspeakable | jegulus

and the rain, the rain, the rain

chapter title: chimacum rain by linda perhacs

TW: Suicidal Ideation, mentions of abuse.

if you'd like you can add:

'Last Words of a Shooting Star' by Mitski / 'Tempest' by Ethel Cain / 'Eternal Sunshine' by Flower Face

to your queue.

Though he knew the castle like the back of his own hand, James got lost on his way back to Gryffindor Tower.

Under his invisibility cloak he wandered blindly down corridor after corridor, taking no notice of corners he was turning or stairs he was climbing beyond watching for the pool of blood he still saw every time he closed his eyes, not wishing to leave a trail through the castle, up these many winding flights of stairs, down darker and darker hallways to places he couldn't recognize through the haze of his own misery. James had no wand, so he opened no locked doors. He paced in shadows, he ducked under cobwebs and peeked behind tapestries, finding one hidden passage he'd never seen before that caved in fifteen feet from the entrance, full of an eerie magical light that made his skin crawl. He spun on his heel and went back the way he came, driven to do nothing but keep moving, as if he could escape what he'd done if only he ran away fast enough.

His wet hair was dripping on the back of his neck, and in the cold winter his soaked clothes, his soaked hair, all of it made him shiver. James paced in one place, pacing just to move. He needed somewhere to hide and run at the same time.

He needed somewhere safe, and warm, where Regulus couldn't find him, but it was impossible. James left the map with him. He'd left him with the key to any door he cared to open, and the surety James would be behind it. They'd just used that tool to kill a man, and like an idiot he left it in his hands. Sometimes he wondered if he'd feel this stupid forever, or if it was a consequence of knowing Regulus. Could he ever go back to the way he had been before? James missed himself desperately. The boy he'd been would know what to do. He'd know which direction to walk in with purpose instead of panic. He'd know. He always knew. He was always so goddamn sure of himself before, and now he wasn't sure of anything, he trusted himself with no one and nothing, his faith in himself led him to ruin but he still wanted it back. He used to be confident. He never felt confident anymore. He felt small, and pathetic, and childish, and so fucking stupid, stupider and stupider every day, with every lie he believed, with every trick he fell for, with every story he told himself about their relationship to help him sleep at night, and look at his own fiancé without vomiting. It had to break eventually. How could Regulus expect him to carry this much misery forever without snapping? Did he really think they'd keep playing his cruel, fucked up games forever? It was unendurable. All of it was unendurable, and he couldn't even kill himself for fear of what Regulus would do to the people he loved in life once he was dead. Even the comfort of death had been stolen from him. He could still hear the whisper he always had at the back of his mind when he was in pain as huge and vicious as the pain he felt now, it would be so easy, just like sleeping, why didn't you do a better job last time? You should have been more careful. You shouldn't have left a note. You wouldn't be feeling a thing now. You'd be dreaming. If you don't do it now, just imagine how bad it will be the next time you're here, imagine, James, what will happen to you, if you don't kill yourself, if you don't die you have to live, in hell, but he couldn't give in, and the grief at the loss of even something as hideous as suicide was so huge and yawning and awful and bottomless, the hole it opened between his lungs nearly brought him to his knees. If I can't die, am I even human anymore?

James couldn't stop moving. He was blind, and his connection to his own body, his own actions, felt tangential and thin. He felt like a ghost possessing himself. A shadow of the person he'd been when he was alive, only a memory of the real James.