ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 76

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𝕽egulus bends his arms over his head, twisting and turning, stretching out his torso.

For the morning after a party, he's feeling remarkably refreshed. An experience he doubts is shared amongst the celebrants partying hard until passing out anywhere and everywhere at the crack of dawn. He'd been long tucked up in his bed by that time. He'd been long tucked up in his bed by midnight, a single trace of alcohol in his system.

Politeness was the sole reason for showing face, shallow affection and skin-deep glory not a tickle to his fancy. There's more to him than Quidditch and his looks, the layers hidden within running deeper than most. Strangely, no flickers of fear are detected at the thought of those layers little by little, staring to be peeled away, exposing the vulnerability he's preserved on Walburga's strict instruction for so long he's forgotten what it feels like to be open. Feeling.

He was feeling yesterday when encased in the proud arms of Sirius, responsible for the stupidly soul-lifting, heart-mending, genuine grin as their shoulders playfully bumped. She'd been quiet then, Walburga, the relentless berating and chastising whispers in the back of his mind losing their voice. She couldn't get to him. Not with Sirius in the way. The play out of their troubled childhood in a nutshell.

He inhales slowly, bringing the sharp razor sitting on the sink edge to the lower half of his face, beginning to shave the dark stubble he hadn't gotten around to the past couple of days. Because that's what he likes. Another layer of his hidden identity gone, bare and fresh and true to the world tangled up in the misconception a proper, mature man grows and maintains facial hair. Feeling. Regulus wants to feel himself, as much as the ugly symbol inked into his forearm will let him.

He doesn't stop when he hears noise from his right, merely stepping back from the sink to accommodate the yawning spindliness entering the wide mirror's domain. It's not the mirror he'd thought would be blessing him the image of her this morning, but no fibre of his being endured disappointment. Because as magical as the strange mirror he'd planned to waste away under the nose of is, it's potential doesn't measure up to the original. Freshly awoken from dream land, pink pillow line cheeked Romie.

He rinses his blade under the water trickling from the tap as Romie silently swipes from the pot her toothbrush and toothpaste, setting in motion a scene that's so blissfully domestic, Regulus catches himself about to flatten his free palm against the small of her back. Gently smooth his thumb over the two dimples at the base, just above the nether regions she's made a poor job of covering up. Deliberate. She's too bright to forget to adjust her shorts.

Too bright to be oblivious to what the open display might do to him. Nothing. His hormone affected body's natural reaction to the open display is nothing in comparison to that of the moments after excess cream and water is dabbed from his clean jaw and residue minty toothpaste is spit into the gurgling drain.

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