Third installment in the series; sequel to ch.3 of Seirios Aster's Little Lion Man, Play With Fire.

Bottle it Up

"I don't claim to know much, except 'soon as you start, to make room for the parts that aren't you, it gets harder to bloom in a garden of love … love, love, love…" ~Bottle it Up by Sara Bareilles.

. .

His hazel-eyes were hazy; he had yet to actually truly pass out cold, but he heard Regulus talking, almost as if through a fog … The blond might have responded to what the youngest Black son was saying, but then again, he might not have … Hard to tell; this sudden thick storm was clouding up his judgment substantially. He couldn't even really remember his name, let alone what had happened a minute previous –

"Sobrius." A flash of what looked like fire, and then, suddenly, complete clarity. Well, at least, his mind wasn't all muddied up from whatever was making it feel like he was walking up to his armpits in muck trying to get from one thought to another anyway. Reaching up, he put a hand to his forehead; damn – what the fuck had happened? Barty had no idea, which was probably not a great sign, but damn did his head hurt … In an external kind of way; not a headache-y kind of way.

"Eugh," he murmured, throat feeling burned and raw, which made it horribly difficult to do that thing called speaking. "Why do I feel like I ate a Brillo pad and washed it down with vomit?" It was probably the most eloquent thing he'd said in a while, but it still made him mentally wince as he said it; super smooth thing to say, huh? Shivering as he realized he was absolutely freezing, Barty touched his face, breathed on his hand slightly and sniffed, trying to figure out if he had actually thrown up or something, because if that was the case he probably needed to clean off Reg's shoes or something—

"You drank a bottle of firewhisky." The answer was quiet, almost as if his mate was saying it under his breath for some reason. Blinking, Barty forgot entirely about his lack of body temperature, or the fact that his head felt like it was being cleaved in two the proper way this time – from the outside in. He knew that tone; and that trained down gaze that said he wasn't meeting Barty's eyes without some fancy talking … Fuck, he thought to himself.

"Reg, what's wrong?" he asked, knowing immediately that Regulus would of course deny anything that might have been some semblance of wrong, but it didn't matter. The fact that he was so trained away from Barty told him that the blond had done something to upset Regulus, or Regulus had done something that he thought would upset Barty, and of course, he couldn't remember anything from the past … He had no idea, how long, actually.

"Nothing." Pfft; yeah. That answer was the most convincing thing he'd ever heard in his life. Coupled with the way Reg was attempting to gnaw a hole through is bottom lip – yeah, right. Reg definitely was convinced something he'd done – hell, something he'd thought was going to upset Barty, or make him angry or, he didn't know, make him blink sideways for pity's sake. Reg was always doing this. Sighing heavily, he managed to drag himself out from under the quilt, managing to move over to the brunet so that he was next to him and ignoring the erratic shaking that his body was doing to try to indicate that he was cold. Blue lips were trying to do the same thing, but of course he couldn't exactly see those.

"Reg," he said, sitting next to him, but not exactly touching him, knowing not to crowd him at the moment, though he knew staying away was the worst thing he could have done right then, "you don't look like nothing's wrong." Watching his face carefully, he could see those dark, gray-blue eyes brooding underneath his thick, dark eyelashes, and they were only getting darker as time went on – meant he was thinking very hard about something, and he wasn't telling Barty what was wrong, so he was only digging himself deeper into his own depression.

"Regulus. What's wrong?" Barty asked a little bit more fervently, voice tense, and quiet so that he didn't wake up anyone else in their dormitory. He needed to get Reg to respond – to answer him, or he was going to work himself into a bad one, the blond could tell. He didn't want a repeat of when his brother had gone to stay with that friend of his; he had honestly thought Regulus wasn't going to make it. It had scared him; a lot. He wasn't going to let the teen go through something like that again. But Reg wasn't saying anything – wasn't answering him; it was starting to make the blond very nervous.

"I swear, if you—" honestly, Barty had no idea what in the fuck he had planned on saying; it didn't matter. All thoughts were suddenly gone from his head, hazel-green eyes widening slightly in shock, unsure of how to handle what exactly was happening … Mostly because his brain was finding itself all but unable to wrap around the simple fact of the matter –

Regulus was kissing him.

Him.

Bartemius Crouch Jr.

Either he had entered bizzaro-world, this was another dream, or something was extremely wrong.

There was a moment, a long, grueling, most likely seconds-long moment, in which his brain made a very powerful argument. If this is a dream, then who cares what happens? If this is reality, then who cares why he's doing it – it's not like you used an Imperius on him or anything; this is entirely his doing … and Barty, for a moment, was inclined to agree with it, because technically, it was true. He didn't know what in the everliving fuck was going on, but it wasn't like he was forcing Regulus to do anything – for some reason, he was doing this of entirely his own volition. But that was just it; it was 'for some reason'. Barty needed to know what the reason was.

Forcing himself – and let me tell you, it was the worst struggle he'd ever gone through in his life – to move, he reached up, shaky hands grasping the dark haired teens arms just below his shoulders before squeezing lightly and attempting to pull his best mate off of him.

Nothing doing; Regulus made a noise, something akin to a protest, and the blond felt the other's arms snake around the back of his neck, as if he didn't want to be pulled away. Oh god, was the only thought that occurred to the only son of the Crouch family, breathing a little short suddenly as he tried to do everything except relax a little – he knew if he allowed himself to enjoy this, even just for a moment, to think about how soft Reg's lips were against his, or how warm his body felt … He would have already lost the battle he was fighting.

"Reg," he attempted to say against his lips – god, his lips – as he continued to valiantly struggle to get the other Slytherin off of him. Hazel eyes closes as he veritably squirmed a little, attempting to break the kiss and eventually, after what felt like forever and a half, managing to turn his head to the side. By this point oxygen had been a luxury, and so, his breath came in short little pants as he kept his face turned down and to one side, so that Reg couldn't do that again … At least not until he got some answers.

"R … Regulus …?" he managed through his pants; his hands were still on Regulus' arms, though it was more like he was clinging to his friend at this point, instead of trying to hold the dark haired teen away. Eventually, he managed to get his breathing under control to a degree, failing to notice that Reg's patterns of air intake matched his own. "… th-the hell … mate ...?"

And once again, the youngest son of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black refused to look at the blond in the eye – which meant one of two things. Either he thought Barty was angry at him, which the blond was guessing at this point was the case, or … Something else. He wasn't sure what the something else could be at this point, but cut him some slack – he had just been snogged by his best mate, whom he'd had a crush on for going on probably three or four years now. Possibly longer; that had just been when his hormones had realized what a crush was and how to identify one.

"Reg; mate … You've gotta explain …" he started; if his best guess was that Reg thought Barty was mad at him, then he had to reassure the teen that he wasn't – otherwise he wasn't going to get anything out of Regulus except dodged glances and mutters. However, he was still having a bit of a hard time thinking; he wasn't allowing himself to reflect on the earlier action bestowed upon him just yet, but he couldn't help the quiet 'wow' that his mind kept offering up as almost a peace offering. "… What was that all about?"

Nope; carefully neutral, if placating tone wasn't doing it. Reg was still trying to avoid looking at the blond, which meant that even though he knew Barty wasn't mad at him, whatever was bothering him was still bothering him. Well … if he wasn't worried that Barty was upset with him, then the only other thing, like a little kid, was that Reg felt like he had done something wrong … However, if Barty wasn't mad at him, then he would know that Barty wasn't judging him as far as 'two guys kissing is wrong', so … That meant that …

"Reg – come on," he pleaded, stomach slowly dropping, like a bungee jump with the speed turned waaaaay down, "tell me what happened." He was trying not to panic, but come on – it was literally his best kept secret. He had never uttered anything to a soul – had never even said the words 'Regulus Black' and 'Love' in the same sentence before, he was pretty damned sure … He had said something hadn't he? While he was drunk – that had to be it. Oh god … … Oh god … Oh god. Oh god, ohgod ohgodohgodohgodohgod, his thoughts were hyperventilating even if he was forcing his slightly erratic breathing to stay still. What had he said? He knew what Reg was doing – he felt like he had some sort of stupid obligation to do what Barty wanted because he was his friend, or something –

"Nothing happened Barty, I just …" Wait a second. The blond watched his friend reach up and awkwardly put a hand on the back of his neck, still not looking at Barty even after he'd let go of Reg's arms in another pacifying gesture. If this was something that he felt uncomfortable about, this was not the way Reg would be acting at all; he didn't look embarrassed, like when Lily Evans had looked across the table in the library at him and asked him something or another about a book he had in his stack. No – this was something else; it was almost a … guilty look …

"—ur letter and—"

"What." Slowly, Barty's brain was catching up with Regulus' body language, and the words he had just spoken, even if he'd only heard him say part of it. Something about a letter – his letter? What letter? Had he written a letter? He couldn't remember. He'd stopped listening to Reg's explanation if he was giving one, trying to remember what in the fuck letter he could be referring to—

Had a good hard wank though thinking about fucking that friend I said I have.

Oh. Christ.

"Reg," he interrupted what his friend was saying if he was even saying anything – at this point, Barty didn't even know. What he did know was that he remembered, in very broken quotations, some of what the 'letter' Reg was referring to had said. Barty forced himself to take slow, even breaths; getting upset was not going to help this situation, no matter how much his body seemed to want to. "Reg, are you talking about the letter I wrote while I was drinking that bottle of firewhisky you mentioned?" there was a waver in his voice that had little to do with the fact that his body was still shivering from the cold and damp in the dungeons mixed with the alcohol poisoning he had recently sustained. And his head; god his head – it was killing him; he'd forgotten about it in lieu of all the exciting developments that were taking place rapid fire …

Regulus nodded mutely; if Barty cared, he probably would have thought that the dark haired teen was trying to figure out if the blond was angry or upset or what exactly. Honestly, Barty didn't really know himself, which was sort of frightening to the sixth year Slytherin. However, he must have at least sensed that whatever emotion or mix of them that Barty was feeling, it was negative, because he started to try and talk to remedy the situation.

"Barty, listen – I know how you feel, and I—"

"No." Uh-uh. No way in hell was he going to do this. He knew what Reg was doing; he didn't think of Regulus being selfish or anything; there wasn't anything in this for him as far as Barty could see. He was doing that self-sacrifice thing again; he was trying to push his mind into a mold that it couldn't conform to.

"… Barty—"

"No."

"I just—"

"No."

"Will you just listen—"

"NO REG," he hadn't meant to raise his voice, but he was slowly getting a little panicked, especially with that pleading tone his friend was starting to take with him. He hated that tone; it was the tone Reg used when he was upset or confused or thought he needed something – it was the tone he used when he was lost and wanted help. He needed to shut his friend down as quickly as possible to do the most preemptive damage control. Barty didn't notice that someone across the room was stirring – and he wouldn't have cared if he had either. So much for damage control.

"No – I'm not listening to this; it's bullshit," the blond said almost harshly, leaving no room for argument as he tried to put some space between them. His robes made it hard, but right now he could not be that close to Regulus – he couldn't look him in the face for a moment either for the moment because he knew he was too weak to tell him off while looking at those goddamned eyes … He talking as he slid across the bed, attempting to disentangle himself from his robes as he did so to give himself something, anything besides Regulus to focus on.

"We are friends, Reg. Friends. Nothing else – not more, not less. I am not going to fuck that up," it was almost like, for a second, Barty wasn't even talking to Regulus, He hadn't lowered his voice either – if anyone was listening, it wouldn't be hard to hear what was going on – but due to his increase in blood pressure, and the fact that this situation was making him light headed, and not in the happy-go-lucky, lovestruck dizzy sort of way, he didn't notice.

"Not for me," he continued tersely, not giving Regulus time to get a word in edgewise, "and sure as shit not for you. You like me, Reg – you do not love me. I don't have tits or red hair, so I'm out of the running. I know – I get that. Don't wave it around in my face like I'm as oblivious as you are." Yeah; he had called him out on it. He'd teased Regulus countless times before that he had a thing for that girl his brother and his friends hung around with, some sort of flower-name-what-have-you. She had been an alright bird, and it had been funny watching Reg try to function around her; but he was relatively sure no one else knew about that little secret flirtation he'd had with her.

"Because I'm not." Body nearly jittering now, from the adrenaline from yelling and the shivering throughout his entire being, his feet hit the ground a moment later, and that light headedness hit him again – so hard that he nearly pitched over. Reg might've said something – he couldn't be sure what, but he could feel the dark haired teen attempting to grab his arm to steady him, and he shook him off, nearly hitting the pale teen in the process.

"Don't touch me, Reg," he said in a warning tone of voice, though really there was little threat behind it; he was shivering enough that he almost knocked himself over. Before his mate had a chance to get a hold of him, because then he really wasn't going to be able to shake the git off, he started across the door unsteadily and left, hand braced on, well, anything that was close enough to him and more stable than he was, to help guide him forward …