Sometimes,
I still can't believe it. That you happened
and I happened, and this was the best we could
do. Our nest of rubbish, our flowerless
garden – we slept here. Made love among
the bottle caps and ants and mold.
Uninhabitable, Sierra DeMulder
Look, I never believed in soulmates. I never really believed in souls. Didn't think much beyond the here and now until – until he gave me reason to, I suppose. Until soulmates sounded like the only real explanation for the way he seemed to be able to reach his hands inside of my chest and still the frantic hive. Quiet the buzzing in my head, the one that sometimes felt like something trying to burst out of me. I called him my beekeeper. Not out loud, of course, not so anyone heard, but I thought of him like that. Saw him geared up, protective glass in front of his grey eyes, reaching his gloved hands where not many others would. Where the sting was, to some, guaranteed. Where it was not worth the honey.
I tried my best, I promise, to gift him all the sweetness I could. He deserved it. Needed it, even. He was soft in a world that expected only sharpness from him. A boy turned man turned shadow of a man. He was a ghost made of flesh, somehow. Sometimes it was hard to see him, to really see him, and I think he liked it that way. He had spent so long trying to go unnoticed, to be forgotten. His name walked before him into every room, his bloodline screaming his purity, his skill, his expectation. He wasn't the only one, of course. He wasn't even the only Black. Others crumpled under the weight of it. Some reveled in it, danced with their duties and slipped easily into the spaces carved out for them in the hanging branches of family trees. But not Regulus.
Maybe that's what drew me to him in the first place. He radiated calm and quiet. An air of certainty. He knew who he was, what he was. He didn't need to broadcast his insides for validation, didn't care what you thought of him. If you thought of him at all. He knew his duty, knew his path. Didn't need you to know too. Didn't need anyone to know anything. Didn't need anyone.
I wanted that. Envied it. Wished I could forget everyone else and be content in my own head. I thought, at the time, that's what he was – quiet and content. My own mistake. Mistook his silence for confidence. His serenity for certainty. His calm for strength. I didn't know he was a reconstruction. That this building had been burnt to the ground long ago and here I stood, looking at an artist's rendition, the next best thing. Even after we had known each other's skin, after we had tasted each other's regret, I still hadn't uncovered all of the damage. It took a long time roaming the halls of his mind before he let me peek behind some of the doors.
We were sixteen when we took the Mark together. We stood side by side but stared straight ahead. From the corner of my eye, he was stone. I struggled with the pain, the burning in my arm. Biting my lip to keep from crying out. Fighting my muscles to stop twitching, telling my fingers they could not ball into fist. But Regulus, Regulus was a true soldier. A statue man. Still and silent and grey-faced. The Dark Lord praised him, called him a true Black heir. He was right. Of course he was.
I'm sorry. It's hard to remember. Us. Not because I can't recall, but because I've buried the sweetest parts of him deep enough that I could forget them if I really wanted. He is now the ghost boy I always thought of him as. Exists only as memory. Lives in the minds of a handful of people, half of whom wrote him off as traitor. Wished for his death, spit their good riddances at the mention of his name.
I like to think the real Regulus lives with me. In me. I remember him like this, you see: with two good hands and a love of the stars. With impossibly soft skin. With the rising tide of responsibility in his lungs. With fingers intertwined. With his mother's shrill voice like needles in the back of his head. His brother's betrayal shanked into his spine. My head tucked up under his chin. I remember his voice, the kind of low that you could feel humming in your bones. I remember his whisper tickling the crook of my neck. I remember his hands, his two good hands, and how they held me so still. So safe. How I felt present. How I felt home. How I felt quiet, and calm, and still. My beekeeper.
To be honest, I still don't really believe. Or maybe I won't let myself. Maybe I can't believe in soulmates, because then there's a chance we weren't meant to be. I can live with a world where we found each other regardless of whether or not soulmates exist. Built a home in each other. Destiny or not, we were here, and we happened. If there are soulmates though? If it's true? Well... I don't think I could ever be important enough, lucky enough, to be Regulus Black's soulmate.
But if you asked, I'd say he was mine.
A/N: Written for the Hogwarts forum's June Writing Club using the following prompts:
Character Appreciation: 10. Regulus Black
Count Your Buttons: Barty/Regulus; serenity
Showtime: 9. Destiny
Em's Emporium: 3. Cho Change: Write a character study