The Story of Regulus Black - Years 5-7

C. Liar

Chapter Notes: really quick, i just want to thank all of you for sticking with this fic for so long! the fact that this is the one-hundredth chapter of the second book is just absolutely insane to me, and i cannot express enough gratitude to everyone who has read this far and who will continue to do so. you all truly do mean the world to me, and i cannot thank you all enough!! <3
all italicized dialogue is being spoken in french

Barty and Regulus didn't know how long they stayed there, wrapped in one another's warm embrace. It was welcome, it was familiar, it was like a breath of fresh air. They melted, and the entire world melted with them. The trees dissolved into the dirt, the ground beneath them warped into nothing, and it was just them - just Barty and Regulus.

Perhaps they stayed there for minutes, maybe hours, maybe even days. They couldn't tell because they didn't want to tell. They wanted to stay there until the very world ended, until the center caved in on itself, until the entire world was set ablaze and Barty and Regulus were the only things left; just their love. The love that felt so limitless, as though it could stretch beyond the barriers of life and death, warp them and create exactly what they wanted it to be.

It was powerful. It was boundless. It was them.

Barty was the first to pull away. He was careful to keep his hands on Regulus, to keep touching him, to keep the feeling of Regulus's skin beneath his fingertips as constant as he could make it. He trailed his hands up Regulus's body, over his shoulders and up the sides of his neck until he was cupping Regulus's cheeks. He stared into his eyes, into the shadows that seemed to have swallowed the brilliance of their color completely, and he wanted to make it all go away. The shadows, the memories, the haunting reminder of what had happened to them. He wanted to kiss Regulus until Barty's lips - his touch, his scent, his taste - were the only things that consumed the brilliant and captivating mind of Regulus Black.

"Barty," Regulus breathed, because it was the only thing that he could think to say. His hands were wrapped gently around Barty's wrists, his touch delicate so as not to disturb the bruises that had yet to heal. He just wanted to feel him, to feel his pulse, to know that he was alive in more way than one. He wanted to hold Barty and never let him go, to be enveloped into the warmth of Barty's embrace and never be released. He just wanted Barty, and that was exactly what he had.

"Reg," Barty whispered back, and he rubbed his thumb gently over the tear-stained cheeks of the boy before him.

"I thought I'd lost you." It was almost a whimper, just an unimaginably strong string of words said in an impossibly weak voice. It was the only way that he could think to speak, to articulate his thoughts into words; it was a miracle that he had a voice to speak in at all.

Barty shook his head slowly. "You didn't lose me, Reg. I'm right here." He moved his hand, Regulus's hand moving with it, and he slid it down to Regulus's chest. He placed his hand over his heart, the steady rhythm beating against his palm, and he smiled that soft smile that he had briefly worried he would never get to smile again. "We're right here."

Regulus swallowed back his emotions and traced Barty's face with his eyes, traced the beauty of his features and the way that his dark eyes contrasted so beautifully with the paleness of his skin. He looked at the way that his eyelashes framed his eyes perfectly, how his hair did the same to his face. He looked at the sharp line of Barty's jaw and the softness of his cheeks, the shape of his lips and how they curved when he tugged the corners upward. He looked at Barty, in all of his beauty, and he longed never to look away. He wanted to stay there, entrapped in Barty's lovely gaze, until time itself ceased to exist.

He leaned forward, and he placed his forehead against Barty's, and he stared into his eyes, and he allowed himself to breathe. Barty stared back, his breaths shallow and tickling Regulus's lips, one hand staying on Regulus's cheek and the other hovering over his heart. Regulus shut his eyes, and he felt Barty's forehead against his own, his hand on his face, his touch lingering over his heart, and he inhaled. He inhaled until it felt as though his lungs were going to explode, and he held it all in as his eyes stayed shut and horrible images surfaced behind the dark cover of his eyelids. And just when he felt on the verge of danger, he exhaled. He released all of it, the fear and the memories and the spirits that haunted him. He expelled them from his body, forced them into the particles that floated through the air, and he felt his muscles relaxing by the smallest bit as they swirled away.