Title: Things Hideous (Fancy Them Neat)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3,073
Summary: Regulus can't control his life: theDark Lord and his mother do that for him. Instead, he finds escape in different places and companionship in different people.Voldemort and his mother can't have everything.Written in 13 parts.
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns these characters, I have no permission to use them and I am making no money out of this. No infringement of copyright is intended.
Notes: Beta'd by the lovely phantomphanson, with a million and one thanks to her. Small potential spoiler for HBP.Warnings for drug use.
You see things hideous, fancy them neat
Eat poison, but taste sugar sweet.
-- Rabi'a Balkhi
VIII.
Regulus wakes to find he is not alone.
First he registers surprise at being in a familiar bed with an unfamiliar presence—or more accurately, an unexpected presence. Then the images and memories of the night prior return to him and he settles into an attitude that he feels these mornings must require. He has never had drunken one-night stands, and never intends to permit one, but this is the closest he feels he has come: to wake up in the morning and feel no attachment to the person sleeping next to him. He lies quietly on his side and breathes deep breaths of stillness.
Dawn spreads slowly through the crack in the hastily drawn blinds. The light paints the floor shades of orange and pink. Dust rises. Regulus breathes. The air is cold enough to see his breath: clouds like ghosts drifting from his parted lips.
I.Regulus does this to escape his head: the empty spaces that form from bubbles and the detached pieces that collide and chafe and cause him to massage the back of his neck.
The smoke tastes sour on his tongue, thick and rich and unappealing in its weight, but he savors it. Inhales the cloud in his mouth and holds it—feels it penetrate and constrict his lungs until the point of suffocation—then slowly, slowly like he's counting cracks in the ceiling lets it out and finally breathes. The air is cold and crisp and hurts his teeth when it rushes in to fill his collapsed lungs. He chuckles, smiles a brittle smile, and passes the fag.
Peter takes it; their fingers brush over the thin paper but they don't look at each other.
IX.
He is naked and his skin prickles with nothing to cover him. The thread-bear quilt ("Family heirloom," came the sneer, "Fold it and place it on the chair; we won't need it.") is pulled tightly around his bedfellow, leaving none for him. Blindly, he feels behind him to stretch an abandon corner over him, something to trap the little heat that is left, but Pettigrew hoards everything, even his body heat, and Regulus is left with the morning chill and open eyes.
Sinful deeds come to light without the cover of night to hide them. Regulus shivers.
III.
"What do you mean." Peter says in a lethargic tone.
He could really care or he could just be curious. It doesn't matter. The drug allows Regulus not to care what he says. The vacant spaces in his head bubble and twist and expand. He feels weightless and empty, anchored on a long tether that lets him drift and slide without ever really leaving.
He picks the forgotten cigarette from Peter's fingers and helps himself to it before replying.
"I wish I were anywhere but here," he says for clarification. Then, "I wish I had more friends."
"Me too." Peter folds his hands over the rail and shuffles his feet against the packed dirt.
"I wish I could go back to yesterday and do everything better. The way it should be done."
"Me too."
When they speak, their breaths mist on the air, graying white against the dark. It's lighter and thinner then the smoke.
X.
His head aches from the night before; the cold increases his discomfort. Other places hurt too but Regulus knows this pain. His shoulders, his hips, his knees: muscles sore and stiff from use and joints twisted out of place. He likes this pain; it means he has power. The fact that he can batter his body and batter his senses proves that Voldemort and his mother do not control every part of his life. This is his claim to freedom, to wake freezing in a bed to a broken body. Whatever doesn't kill him must make him stronger. Whatever makes him stronger means one more thing that cannot kill him.
It is a trial to move. His muscles protest much. But he stands, his feet so frozen that he does not register the coldness of the wood on the floor, and looks for his robe. It lies in a pile by the doorway, another act of rebellion ("Hang your robe here," is the order, "This isn't a brothel") and wraps it loosely around his shaking body.
It smells of dust from the floor and dried blood. Smoke from the dried weed he carries in rolled paper packets lingers in the creases and by the collar. They used half his stash last night; he ponders the amount it will cost to replace it. Pettigrew's robe is a few feet from his own. More tattered and older then his, it is still fashionable. It looks like one from school. Regulus feels for the pockets and comes up with four knuts, a sickle and Pettigrew's wand. He takes the money to replenish his stash and leaves the wand. He could get little enjoyment from stealing it.
V.
Regulus is quiet and takes a second drag, still smelling blood and eggs on his fingers. This time Peter doesn't complain. He might not even notice. The drug weighs heavier on his tongue as he rolls it around his mouth. It tastes less stale, or perhaps more stale and Regulus has dulled his senses too much to notice, but equally sour. When he finally breathes it in, he involuntarily closes his eyes and relishes the feeling of airways tightening and brainwaves lessening. A heady sense of excitement sparks somewhere at the back of his throat and radiates pinpricks through his arms and legs to lower, less appropriate, parts of his anatomy. He stands for a time tracing and understanding the sensation.
When he opens his eyes, Peter is looking at him with a strange expression. He has moved closer and stands so that their shoulders press together. Regulus notices the point of contact, the weight of Peter pressing through his heavy cloak and robe and underneath the white shirt that is soaked through with a cold and nervous sweat. He can almost feel the press of Peter's pasty skin against his own, taught and pale.
The flittering excitement expands.
"What?" Regulus asks breathlessly, trails a smoke slithering from his nostrils. His mouth struggles to form some return expression but all it can do is twitch in suppression and make Regulus more uncomfortable.
"Nothing," Peter replies, just as quietly. He's almost whispering. "You're face goes all funny when you do that." His lips also twitch—Regulus can see them despite the darkness; their faces are close enough that he could just lean and—before sliding into a sluggish grin. A rumpled, wheezing giggle bubbles out before Peter stops it and transforms it into a breathless cough. He smiles again and looks up at Regulus with half-lidded eyes.
"This could be flirting," Regulus mumbles, his brain too foggy to catch him as he leans forwards and kisses Peter.
XI.
His shirt and trousers lie across the foot of the bed, crumpled and disheveled from a night spend ignoring them. He shrugs off his robe and pulls on the slacks. His shirt is to follow but it smells too much like Pettigrew—sweat and saliva and cum. He tosses it across the room with a mind to replace it as soon as possible. He doesn't want any souvenirs from their excursion then the bruises curling around his hips and the bite mark in the hollow of his throat. He runs his fingers over the mark self-consciously.
Snape preferred his throat to any other part of his body. Like a vampire, he would bite and suck until blood bloomed beneath the skin and Regulus cried out in pain. His call would earn him Snape's palm pressed forcefully against his lips until he was silent again and their night could continue. In the morning he would always wake warm under the black sheets with bruises that resembled strangulation marks.
Snape took so much pleasure in the pain he caused that the tender skin soon lost its sensitivity. Regulus can barely feel any sensation has he runs his fingers over the shallow teeth marks. He smiles secretly to himself, though there is no one to see his expression. He likes to keep these little death to himself.
Dressed but no warmer, Regulus looks around him. He suddenly feels lost in the room that he cannot call his own. The effects of the drug still linger in his brain, upending his thought process and he stands for a moment in contemplation. His body feels empty, deprived, and he cannot tell if he is cold or hungry. Something stirs in his stomach that could either be want of nourishment or something else all together. The hangover of depression is settling itself over him and he wants a warm bath, a good book, and his lungs filled with gray smoke to reconcile his nerves. A memory of a Muggle screaming interlocks in his mind with Pettigrew's groans of pleasure. It leaves him uneasy. He must leave soon. He has work to do.
VI.
Peter's mouth is warm and viscous with drying saliva. He tastes how he smells; the smell of smoke pervades Regulus' senses—overpowering, nauseous and stimulating. Peter is suddenly as addicting as the drug, because thereof or for other reasons. Regulus doesn't spend time pondering them. He moves his mouth slowly, his tongue even slower, and keeps his eyes open until he remembers to close them.
Peter stumbles at first at what is required of him. He bends his head one way so that his nose collides with Regulus' ear, then overcorrects and sticks his nose into Regulus' mouth. Regulus doesn't care, isn't annoyed and isn't dissuaded. (This is what he wants: he's stoned enough to want it and sober enough to actively reach for it) He grabs Peter by his baby cheeks and realigns their mouths. He brushes Peter's tongue with his own, feeling heat and desire and heat rush through him as Peter moans and wraps his arms under Regulus' cloak.
XII.
Pettigrew snores softly in the bed that does not belong to him either. He is cocooned in the quilt ("Family heirloom, Regulus," he hears in his head), oblivious to the October cold and the absence in the bed. Regulus studies him as he sleeps, feeling more like a foul rapist in the room of a sleeping child then a man watching his lover rest. A thick bicep holds the blanket in place. It looks as though it contains no muscle, only fat and pasty white flesh, but Regulus knows the surprising strength that lies in his friend's arms. He remembers how he was pushed into the mattress, the speed with which his robe was torn from him. Wisps of shaggy blond hair move slowly with every breath the wizard exhales and inhales. Same-colored eyelashes shadow long trenches under flickering eyelids. A heart-shaped face with baby cheeks rests snugly into the pillow.
In the orange light of dawn, Pettigrew looks innocent. If Regulus could not see the snake burned into his forearm, he would believe he was looking at the boy who befriended his brother, who ran circles around Potter when he was king and not a father crippled by fear for his unborn child. Instead he knows he is looking at the man he took to bed: the Death Eater, the betrayer, the rat they call Wormtail who can be as vicious and conniving as any Slytherin.
Regulus is pleased that he can still find both the man and boy locked in Pettigrew's features. It might mean that there is hope for him. There might be hope for them both.
II.
The night binds the space between them, pulling them closer and anchoring one boy to the other as they lean against the shaky wooden fence. A field of lost crops and hidden shadows and color stretches out around them, making them feel like they're alone in a world that's forgotten them anyway. It's quiet and cold and the cherry of the fag glows brighter then their eyes.
"Know what I want?" Regulus says as Peter takes a drag. His cheeks are hollow. Moments later a ghost of smoke erupts from his parted colorless lips.
"Hmm?" Peter asks, voice raspy and made lazy already from the effects of the drug. He hands the joint to Regulus in a wavering gesture. His knuckles brush the gray wool of Regulus' cloak.
Regulus takes it from loose fingertips and takes another drag; his muscles still tense but feel looser and the wind not as biting with the warmth of the weed in his veins.
"I want," he says through an opened-mouth haze of smoke (He inhales a small amount a second time; Peter whines his protest and rakes accidental nails over the bare strip of pale skin at Regulus' wrist), "I want to live my life.
"You know?" he adds when Peter looks at him with uncomprehending watery blue eyes and gives back the joint.
Peter quickly takes a hit and keeps the smoke in his lungs. He rolls the joint between two fingers and his thumb, and looks out across the snow-less field.
"Yeah, I guess," and the smoke escapes.
They stand silently. Regulus does not ask for the fag. He watches Peter watch the black horizon and thinks of the warmth his readily reddening cheeks must hold. Wind ruffles the wispy blond hairs on Peter's bare head and stirs the gold-and-maroon fringe on his scarf. (Gryffindor scarf, Regulus remembers. Peter was a Gryffindor. He forgets sometimes.) Peter doesn't turn his head to look at him but Regulus knows he can feel him staring. The white of his eyes disappears as the blue iris swivels to study Regulus instead.
IV.
There is blood on Regulus' clothes and on his hands. It isn't his. It belongs to a Muggle woman—old with graying hair and a navy dress in a house smelling too much like cat food and pain ointment. She was housing a young witch with ties to Dumbledore's Order. It was a routine mission: get in, capture the witch, find out what was wanted by his Master and then wipe her memory. There wasn't supposed to be death—Crucio isn't murder—but it never happens that way, Regulus has learned. The old Muggle, maybe a widow, maybe an old maid, wasn't something he planned for.
She hit him from behind with a pan of some sort; it smelled like eggs. He turned and backhanded her, scared and surprised and feeling like a little boy awoken from a nightmare to find the shadows of his room resemble the monster in his head. He hit her harder then he meant, knocked the teeth out of her mouth. He thought that they had been false until afterwards, when he saw the blood on the cuff of his robe and staining his fingers.
He cried then, stifled sobs of shock, and Peter had placed an unsteady hand on his shoulder, face drawn and pale. He witnessed the breaking of the witch, asked her questions to which she may or may not have had answers. He always trembled after doing such things. Snape did as well, though not as violently and never in public. There was something about betrayers that made morning revelations so shocking.
Regulus thinks he too would shake in the morning every time he relived his treachery. He wonders how long it took Sirius to lie still.
VII.
There is a wooden house not far from the field. Regulus knows the owner, knows he won't be back until morning, and in a voice made raspy and quiet from kissing tells Peter so. Peter nods, uncomprehending
"A house," Regulus says, leaning his forehead against Peter's. "It'll be warmer. We can, we can. If you want." He keeps his eyes closed.
"Okay," Peter whispers.
He nods against Regulus in case he wasn't heard over the pounding of blood in their eyes. Regulus nods in return and takes a moment to find his legs. They're where he's left them, attached to the ground, cold and dirty and numb of feeling. He moves his feet doggedly against the persistent lethargy and mindless melancholia that has sunk deep within his pores.
The house isn't hard to find, broken and dark like always. Regulus releases the wards unconsciously and pushes Peter into a drab sitting room overrun by books. The furniture is in disrepair and the colors fade into each other, throwing dark shadows over both boys as Regulus leads them up the rickety staircase, Peter at his side.
"I want to live in a wooden house, where making more friends would be easy," Peter says and Regulus laughs, low and husky in his throat, and kisses him on the temple.
The bedroom's straight ahead he thinks he says but he never hears the words leave his lips. Peter doesn't need the guidance. They find the bed and Regulus sighs.
"Want to live my life and have friends around," he murmurs as Peter kisses him again.
XIII.The dawn has stretched into morning. Regulus cannot linger any longer. They should not have picked this place to stop. Spinner's End is the type of neighborhood that gives no notice to two boys smoking gillyweed and smelling of fresh blood but the one who owns the house is a different matter. Snape will not be pleased to find a ruined Death Eater asleep in his bed. Regulus does not intend for him to find two.
"We never change, do we?" Regulus quietly asks the sleeping figure on the bed. "We never learn, do we?"
They were friends and now they have been lovers. It is time for them to become enemies. Betrayers are labeled such for a reason. They do not change their ways, even for each other.
Regulus has a locket to find.