unspeakable | jegulus

tangled up in blue

chapter title: tangled up in blue by bob dylan

That night, after another surprisingly painless meal at the Slytherin table, James went through the portrait hole to Gryffindor tower for the first time in two days. Conversations lowered to a whisper as soon as he came into the common room. He tried his best to ignore it. He knew they'd been talking about him. How could they be talking about anything else?

The warmth of the fire felt suffocating, even though it was on the other side of the room. He silently walked past a sea of eyes, all looking at him with varying expressions of anger and pity.

He wanted to run past them, but he forced himself to walk as he normally would. Up the stairs and into his dorm, closing the door behind him. It was blessedly empty.

He got fresh clothes and went to the bathroom. He would have to be quick.

It felt blissful to stand under the hot stream of water. He felt like he was washing away all of the pain of the past few weeks. His cut had finally begun to scab over, it was an angry looking red line on his arm, the skin around the scab was pinkish and irritated. He wanted to scrub off his bruise. He wanted to scrub off his cut. He wanted to scrub off every single painful part of him and watch it spin down the drain with dirty soap bubbles. He brushed his teeth and put a comb through his hair while it was still wet. If he tried to brush his hair while it was dry it would puff up into a frizzy unmanageable mess.

He wiped steam off of the bathroom mirror with the palm of his hand. He looked thinner than he had a few weeks ago. New hollows were appearing under his cheekbones and his collarbones looked more pronounced. A dark, wine coloured bruise wrapped around his cheekbone. It looked sickly and greenish around the edges. James put on his glasses and closed his eyes. It felt strangely right that he looked different on the outside. He certainly felt different on the inside. He had never been sad by nature, but now he felt sad almost all the time.

The dorm was still silent when he went back in. He quietly stowed his robes in his trunk and started when he heard a voice behind him.

"You're back." Peter sounded angry. He couldn't remember the last time Peter had been angry with him. "You were right to be scared to show your face in here. I don't know what you're doing with Regulus, but it's not worth all of this mess. I'm sure you know it isn't."

"You don't understand, and I don't expect you to-"

"Yeah, I really don't understand this. I thought you were a good person, James. I thought you cared about the people you love. Now I think you just care about yourself, which is odd, because I've never thought that about you before."

James didn't look at him, folding his clothes with trembling hands.

"Why is it I have to be perfect all the time for you lot to care about me? Have you ever counted how many times Sirius lashed out at us? Or Remus? And the minute I fuck up and do something selfish I'm the bad guy. No one cares about how I feel."

"That's not a fair comparison and you know it, James. Sirius is traumatized and Remus is a bloody werewolf, you're just looking for an excuse to be a shitty person without facing any consequences for it." James turned to face him. Peter's blue eyes were hard and angry. His face was red.

"How long have we been friends, Peter?" Fifteen years. As long as he could remember. They'd played together as children.

"It doesn't matter, James. You need to apologize. You need to try to make amends instead of acting like you're allowed to just do whatever you'd like because you've never been a prick to us before." He crossed his arms over his chest, and James felt his eyes get shiny. He couldn't cry now. He had to make them hate him. He knew he did.