Chapter Text
The sun makes things smell nice, Regulus has noticed. Freshly cut grass, her pillow in the morning when the shitty blinds streak light into her eyes and she can't find contempt in her heart, even the school halls all lit up make her drop some of the tension in her shoulders. It's a heady scent of warmth that brings out the best in things, a weighty sigh of rebirth, or in Regulus’ mind, an oh-no-here-we-go-again. Regulus knew Jamie’s stupid strong Adidas spray reminded her of something. Now she's made the connection, she can't go outside without thinking about her not-girlfriend. Not long ago she would have made an unkind and vaguelly nonsensical remark in her mind, something about Jamie having to make everything about herself. Now she just pulls her sports bag higher up on her back and presses her lips together, fighting nausea at the looming prospect of seeing Jamie for the first time since last Saturday.
Managing to avoid the most extroverted person she’s ever met for a week should lend her some extra credit to boast to in uni interviews, Regulus reckons. Her friends would disagree.
“Mate, you owe me a shirt,” Barty whines, twisting his neck impossibly to look at the neckline of his top shirt -which she admittedly pulled on with all her might as soon as she’d spotted Jamie coming into the library and looking around searchingly.
Regulus shushes him, stressed. “Keep your voice down, for christ’s sake.” Regulus snips as she peers over a row of books at Jamie approaching. “And half your necklines are stretched anyway.” Her back is turned to Regulus, but she’s sure her conscience is not imagining the dissapointed drop in Jamie’s shoulders, a quirk of Jamie’s she’d started noticing years ago and now regretted, at finding the table they’d had their first full conversation at empty.
“That’s a statement, this was a new shirt,” Barty whispers with an audible pout. “Cost me a perfectly good fiver.”
She hears rustling behind her and assumes Evan is throwing his arm around his boyfriend’s shoulders. “I like your shirts better stretched out, anyway, love.”
“You better, it’s you wrecking most of them, anyway.”
Regulus mimics throwing up without anyone noticing while not losing track of Jamie as she walks back out of the building.
“She’s gone,” she announces, standing up.
“Great,” Evan says, standing and lifting Barty, who’s cuddled up in his neck in a gross couply way with him. “Now, d’you mind explaining what all that was about?”
“Nothing,” Regulus dismisses.
“Last Friday you and Jamie were close to fusing together, now you spot her outside and you drag us to a corner that hasn’t been vaccuumed in, God, decades ,” Evan says as he dusts off his pants. “-to avoid her seeing you, and you’re saying nothing’s happened in between?”
“Yup,” Regulus decides. “Nothing important enough for you to get involved in, anyway.”
“That’s just hurtful, Reguli,” Barty frowns. “I’d bare my soul to you if you asked.”
Regulus makes a face. “I’m not asking to see your bare anything.” Barty sticks his tongue out and Regulus does it back.
“Seriously, Reg,” Evan says. “If something happened, you can talk about it.”
Regulus sighs and curses herself for finding good friends. “Last Saturday, something did happen,” she admits. “Nothing… nothing bad , per se. Just, I could use some space from her at the moment. To think.”
“Okay,” Evan says, with an air of acceptance but upset.
“I dunno, nothing good ever happened from thinking over things,” Barty contributes.
“You would think that,” Regulus teases, and that's the end of it. Forever.
**
Their parents don't come by often enough for it to not make her jump out of her skin but it’s not rare enough for them not to form an oppressive gloom over the sky that Regulus can't place until she
comes home from practise to find her mother sitting on her bed like it's burning her and her dad standing with his hands behind his back like he's part of the royal guard.
“Oh, hi.”
Her mother, who had been eyeing the untidy state of her desk -really, the one time she doesn't sort her laundry right away- stands and holds her arms open, waiting for Regulus to hug her. She steps forward and wraps her arms around her mother and tries to move past the stiffness of both their arms.
“Darling, how are you?” Walburgs says once the hug is mercifully put to death.
“Things are going well, normal. Just, normal. Everything's the same.”
Walburga's brow ticks like she saw tbrough that awful performance, but it evens out and focuses on the wall behind Regulus as soon as Orion speaks.
“Good. And the grades?” He drones matter of factly, like he’s in a business meeting.
“They're good. Also the same. I just got a 9 on a History essay, actually.” Her and Jamie had spent three nights in the corner of the library last week. Between Jamie’s hyperactivity and her anxiety that quickly sets off and spirals whenever she struggles with something in school, they hadn't made much of a conscious effort to study together, thinking it wouldn't be much beneficial to spiral chaotically. But they'd kept each other focused, and taken breaks together to get hot chocolates from the machine. With night dawning outside the window, with the gentle clacking of keyboard keys and scribbling of pen on paper, with Jamie right opposite her whenever voices spoke up about her switching some dates and what it said about her greater character, chewing her pen and making insane expressions in her focus, with the walk home in the pitch dark save for the outdated yellow street lighting reducing the world to the two of them, blurring the theory and reality of the space between the two of them and the stars floating above them; it'd been quite productive. But Regulus isn't thinking about that right now, or trying not to, trying very hard not to, suddenly fearing one of her parents gaining psychic abilities and asking what happened at Nando's.
Probably not. Neither of them is looking at her, anyway.
“Yes, well, history's not the sore spot, we know that. How are your Economics GCSE’s coming along?” Orion says.
“Those aren’t for another year, dad.”
“Universities really rely on the GSCE's, darling,” Walburga insists.
“I know, but I have to focus on the tests I have coming up now. It's worse for me to have a huge drop in grades because I was too far ahead.”
“It doesn't hurt, though, to work ahead.”
“I am, but GCSE’s- I mean, most people in the year ahead won't have started on them yet.”
“You can't follow the example of your peers, Regi, if you want to go above them.” Her mother’s chin has tilted down, giving her pale blue eyes an almost uncanny look that’s always freaked Regulus out a little. This and the matter of school makes her heart beat harder, becoming a tangible organ in her chest.
“I'm already studying for- well, everything. All the time,” she defends meekly.
Walburga eyes the calander above her desk. “All the time?”
“Yes,” Regulus insists. “When I don't have practice or I'm with my friends.” The words at the tail end do a weird stumble as she realises what she’s saying and she pinches her mouth shut. Even Orion is looking at her now, a blunt heavy instrument next to her mother's piercing gaze, preening her apart, and suddenly she's seven years old, standing in front of a pile of broken glass, formerly a vase.
“Well, you know how your father and I feel about prioritising friendships over schoolwork, but,” she sighs, heavily but controlled at the edges, always a glass figurine, her mother, “Ultimately it's you who chooses your path.” She smiles, a painful thing for every party involved.
“Who are you friends with here?” Orion asks.
“Evan Rosier and some people from the team,” she says. “We’re not close, or anything, I just talk to them sometimes. When I said I was with friends I just meant-”
“We're not angry, darling,” her mother laughs, clear as a bell and forces Regulus’ shoulders down from earlevel. She keeps her hands there, and her skin crawls as much as it is grounded. “We’re your mum and dad, we're only trying to make you see the best way to do things.”
Regulus nods, attempting a smile. She knows her mum can tell just how genuine it is, but it's all the same to her, and she flashes one back, just as fake, a kind of unconditional love. For a moment, Regulus feels home.
They eat a meal in complete silence at the most upper restaurant Regulus could think of in a college town, Walburga has disinfected her every utensil and plate rim but been nothing but a mask of decency to their waiter, and Regulus will be out of the booth and walking her parents to the parking lot within minutes if her mother would just stop eating the chicken wings with a fork. So, as far as family dinners go, Regulus has had worse.
That hopeful sentiment gets thrown out of the window, however, as soon as a group of students enter the restaurant behind Regulus, one voice, laughing, standing out stark between them and, despite the circumstances, still striking up something unnamable in Regulus’ throat, like she felt whenever she was excited to see Jamie before this week. Then the second realisation quells this mercilessly. Because if Jamie’s here- her mother’s ashen face confirms it.
“Oh,” Sirius says, unfortunately landing next to their booth and visibly horrified to have stumbled upon this ensemble. Then his demeanor shifts to something Regulus has never seen her brother be in front of their parents; brutally honest. It’s in the sway of his shoulder, the deep breath he takes, an openness in his features that seems almost acted for how real it is. “I didn’t know you were visiting.”
“We’re just here to check in on our daughter,” their mother says, a processed defense in it.
Sirius looks at Regulus, who can’t control her own stiltedness at the despairing situation. “Yeah.” His gaze swings over to their parents. Orion hasn’t looked up from his empty plate once. “She’s doing really well, isn’t she?” Regulus can’t believe how quickly this has gone wrong.
The stretched thin line of a plastered on smile still holds over Walburga’s face. “She is.”
“Is that why you’re visiting? To make it harder on her?”
“Not everything’s about you, kid,” Orion drones.
This, shockingly, seems to get to Sirius. After another glance in Regulus’ direction, one she doesn’t meet and bizarrely doesn’t feel like she could with how stiffly her limbs are held, Sirius blows a breath out through his nose, before letting tension drop from his shoulders. “Nah. You’re right.” The smile doesn’t drop but Walburga’s eyebrow twitches. “Have a nice meal,” he says, and turns to leave.
“Sirius? Guys, where’s-” Jamie’s voice calls, and there’s that flutter again, that horrible twisted hope, wings weighed down with tar and held behind bars of the unfortunate situation of Regulus’ life. “There you ar-Regulus?” Jamie’s eyes are big behind her glasses, and Regulus realises her mistake of looking up at her all too soon. Even without any greeting, her mother’s hawklike perception spots the familiarity between them and that tilt of Regulus’ weight speeds a crack through Walburga’s carefully held facade.
“You two know each other?”
“We don’t,” Regulus answers reflexively at the same time Jamie explains “I just know her by name, Sirius talks about her sometimes.”
Money is pressed into the table and indulgantly expensive fabric scootches over and out of the booth. “Mom, please don’t-”
“We wouldn’t want to keep you from having fun with your friends.”
“They’re not- I-”
“We’ll see you at Christmas.” Walburga and Orion respectively stride and shuffle out through the doors. Regulus is left with skin burning with embarrassment.
“Reg,” Jamie starts, before Regulus’ hand on her arm stops her reaching out.
“Don’t let them hurt you,” Sirius says, though he looks like he can’t get a read on his sister. “They’re just embarassed, for some stupid backward reason they’ve convinced themselves of.”
“I know,” Regulus says firmly, and Sirius nods in understanding, which rushes a relief through Regulus. To Jamie, she says “We… we really need to talk.”
Jamie seems taken aback. “Oh. Okay?”
“Can you do it right now?” Regulus asks then winces at how juvenile it sounds.
“Yeah, of course, let’s go.”
The nearest place to be alone that Regulus selfishly thinks won’t remind her of this talk every time she sees it after is unfortunately the swings she'd sat on a week ago.
“So, what's been going on?”
The roiling mess of knots that calls itself Regulus’ stomach tightens. Despite this, she opens her mouth.
*
Regulus storms in. “Evan, Evan I-” She squints at the barebones dorm room. “Dude, you have got to decorate sometime.”
“Fuck you, I like it like this,” he says without looking up from his book.
“The walls are so white, it's like walking into a photobooth.”
“Did you come here just to shit on my room?”
“No, but that would've been valid.”
“Okay miss ‘I don't know where to put my Ladybird poster, my family sized calender's too big'”
“Okay, one, at least I'm on top of my shit, two, Ladybird is a fucking great movie and don’t you dare get into this right now when I'm vulnerable, and three,” she sighs deeply, “I'm in huge shit and I need your advice.”
For the first time since she's entered the room Evan looks up and raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, you are, you look awful.”
“Alright, see ya,” Regulus says as she goes for the door.
“No! No, I meant it.” He sits up and gestures vaguely at his own face. “You're, like, even more pale than usual, and your hair, you never do it that messy.”
Regulus stares incredulously. “Is that meant to make me feel better?”
At that moment Barty walks in. “Oy, Reggie, you're here, Christ, y’alright? Like, emotionally?”
“Obviously not! My only friends are muppets!”
Barty, deeply hurt, tries not to show it. “Right. So that was said in anger, and I want you to not worry about it, because I understand.”
“Seriously, what's going on Reg?” Evan asks.
All the fight raged out of her, Regulus crashes onto Evan's bed and tells them all about her not-relationship with Jamie, including their talk at the swings. A week ago.
“So, you’re together?” Evan concludes.
“No, we're not,” Regulus says listlessly.
“Then why did you kiss last Saturday?” He's referring to that time after practise wrapped and she’d habitually kissed Jamie goodbye in front of Barty and Evan. They hadn't stopped teasing and grilling her about it, but Regulus, stewing in despair at her circumstances for the past week, hadn't let up even a little.
“That’s part of the issue.”
“And that issue is…?” Barty draws out with squinted eyes.
“You don't like kissing?” Evan asks.
“The kissing's fine, it's- it’s really quite nice, actually.” She shakes her head so as not to get sidetracked. “But it's happening because of a lie, now. It's like…like fraudulent kissing.”
“And the lie is that you are… not together.”
“No, the lie is that we are.”
“And you want to break up with her.”
“Yes.”
“Because?”
“Because? Because! It's wrong!”
“Regute, I love you with all my heart but it might be too complicated to be wrong.” Barty says as he massages his temples, strewn out on the carpeted floor.
“No, it did become lying when you didn't tell her you didn't know you were together on the swings.”
“Thank you, I know. Bad.”
“But the worse thing was to ignore her for a week before that, that did suck of you,” Evan continues, gesturing in the air with a vacant air like he's A Beautiful Mind -ing it.
Regulus scoffs. “I was trying to figure things out!”
“It is good to gather your thoughts,” Barty validates, taking his hands off his eyes. “You both are always telling me to think before I speak.”
“Thank you,” Regulus says to Barty.
“But communication is also key. Jamie didn't know, still doesn't know y'all were- are- aren’t dating?”
“She doesn't.”
“You're gonna have to clarify which question that answers.”
“She thinks we're together, but we're not. Really.”
“Okay. And now you are acting like you're in a relationship, because even though you don't want to be in a relationship with her, you couldn't break up with her on the swings ‘cause you were scared to hurt her feelings.”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Evan says again, settled.
“Except I do like her and I might be in love with her which is just- yeah, breaking up now will ruin me forever. But yeah, you’re right I just have to do it.” She rises, determined.
“Nuhuh!” “What?!” Barty and Evan say at the same time.
“What? I'm doing what you said.”
“You like Jamie?”
“Yes, why else would I kiss her?”
The pillow poofs as Evan's faceplants onto it, which makes Barty scowl at her. “You broke my boyfriend.”
“I don't get you! I don’t get how I even got into all this.” She sinks back down, flopping down beside Barty on the floor and closing her eyes only to find her troubles behind her eyelids. Two warm lines of her friends’ sides settle against her on either side.
“Everything is gonna be okay,” Evan says.
“Okay,” Regulus accepts.
“You simply have got to tell that girl how you feel.”
“It's so embarrassing though. What if she doesn't want me back?”
“You can’t be taken back if you were never dating to start with.”
“Doesn't really count as a break-up, either,” Barty adds sensibly.
“I don’t even know if I can be in a relationship.”
“Well, there's a really excellent research base for that now.”
“This is common?”
“Oh, no, you're definitely the first person in the history of the world this has happened to, probably because of fantastical oversights in both your perceptions. But how has the last week been?”
Last week has been things going back to normal, really. The new normal. The explanation she'd given Jamie during their talk on the swings of just ‘having a bit of a weird week’ and ‘not being ready to talk about it’ was responded to with a painful amount of empathy and understanding, but afterwards they’d gone back to their usual repartee with a surprising lack of ‘talking about it’.
They’d talk at school, talk all the way to either of their dorm to watch movies or read or the library to do their schoolwork, and talk during breaks. There were no awkward pauses where Regulus felt observed and picked apart but not understood, no PDA she’d flinch from. The few times they held hands in public it was Regulus who initiated it, and more often than not Jamie would smile softly at her after and it’d feel like they were alone anyway.
“It’s been lovely,” Regulus admits in a small voice. “But it can’t be like this forever. And I can’t keep lying to her. She’s like a Teletubby that fucking adores the Godfather for some reason. And also is very hot.”
Barty groans. “You did not just put that image in my head.”
“You definitely have to talk to her. But, if the last week has been so great, why were you suddenly so freaked out?”
A roaring wave of anxiety passes over Regulus and, as it had spurred her to Evan’s room before, it now gets her out the door in the time it takes for her to thank her confused friends and yell a final bye.
“I didn’t know we were dating.”
Jamie’s mouth forms around several words that never make it out before holds up her hands like she’s caught her balance while sitting on her bed. “Whoa. Alright. Uh. What?”
“I’m so sorry. I thought I hated you, for, like, the longest time. So when we became friends, I was so busy trying to justify it in my head, I didn’t know you were putting moves on me. And then Sirius said we were together, and-”
“Sirius said that?”
“Yeah. We talked that night we were out with the team, at Nando’s.”
“And he said we're together?”
“That's sort of how I found out.”
Jamie's frowns deeply in confusion before it clears. “That bloody moron." She takes a deep breath and stands, hands awkwardly clasped together. Regulus, we're not together. We never have been.”
The blood drains from Regulus’ face mortifyingly quick. “Great. See you monday,” she says as she goes for the doorhandle. But Jamie and her stupid superior football skills dart across the room and catch her arm before she can.
“Hold on, please, let’s just try and figure this out a minute.”
“I don't know, maybe Barty’s right, maybe it's beyond comprehension and we should just never talk to each other again because all this,” she gestures between the two of them, “is beyond confusing and well in the realm of mortifying.”
The corner of Jamie's mouth pulls. “I knew we should’ve waited to get into sci-fi. Look, do you like me?”
“I do. If you do too.”
“Then you do. That's,” she laughs and straightens, relieved. “That's pretty cool.”
“What about when I kissed you? All those times?” With a start, Regulus flashes back to every time they've kissed in the past week, and for each remembers initiating with the idea that Jamie had kissed her first the last time. A nervous tremor starts up in her hands. “Weren't you weirded out?”
“After our talk on the swings I thought you thought we were dating and we were just taking things super slow.”
“So you thought I thought we were dating. And I thought you thought we were dating.”
“And we both went along with it,” Jamie adds, a slow smile forming.
“Because we're bloody idiots.”
“Who, apparently, do like each other enough to go along with all the weird stuff so maybe should get together without it?”
“I don't know, school been kind of busy.”
“Sure, and with practise and all…”
“Yeah, shouldn't we be on our way there anyway?”
“They can miss us,” Jamie says before pulling Regulus in by the back of her head. The kiss is like any before, like coming home.