Lethargy

The moment the Potion touches Regulus' lips, he knows he is lost.

(it's fine, he knew this the moment he decided to go against his Master)

"I order you to make me keep drinking," he had told Kreacher, "and not to let me stop, no matter what I say."

Every mouthful burns like acid in his throat as it goes down, but that is not the worst of it. No, the worst are the visions that paint themselves against his closed eyelids: all his regrets, his every fear, every single time he wishes he had done things differently.

(there's Sirius, laughing at him, mocking him – sneering at him and growing further and further away without Regulus realizing it. Sirius, whose bed Regulus used to smuggle himself into before Hogwarts, when the noises in the House were too scary, who had once told his little brother that he'd keep him safe from everything but who had turned his back on his family as soon as he had had the chance)

(his parents, who were never as proud of him as they would have been of his brother, who pushed him until he became everything they wanted him to be and forgot who he truly was, who would be so disappointed if they could see him now, on his knees and crying, seconds away from his death)

(and Barty, oh Barty, the boy he had never thought he could… well, some things are better kept silent. Barty, the man who made all this worth it, even for just a little while, whose face chased away the flashes of green light that haunted his dreams, whose voice chased away the screams lingering in his mind)

(Barty, and how sorry Regulus is to leave him like this)

He barely hears it when Kreacher grabs the locket. It sounds so far away already, almost like he is already gone.

Water. Regulus needs water, and the lake is there – but there are Inferis, Kreacher told him that, but surely this is no more than what he deserves for all that he has already done in the service of the Dark Lord (Merlin, he can still hear the screams).

He reaches into the water, his mind a crescendo of pleads and finallys, and lets the hands pull him down. It doesn't feel like dying. It feels like, like floating, like he's finally breathing again, even as he knows he really is choking on the dark water.

When the hands pull him up – that feels like dying. The bony hands dragging him down claw at him, digging into his cold flesh. He thinks if the creatures could speak, they would be screaming. 'He is ours,' their gaping dead mouths seem to say, 'you can't have him!'.

There's a crack, echoing all around him, and the burning heat of flames, and then… nothing. Only darkness.

Opening his eyes outside, seeing the starry night sky one more time when he thought he never would – that feels truly extraordinary. Despite the pain and the chill already settling deep in his bones, looking in the eyes of his savior, he feels… quiet. Peaceful, almost.

Barty is warm by his side, but tense. Regulus can feel the questions already on the tip of his tongue – oh, how that must burn, to have to hold them back.

"Thank you," Regulus finally says once he thinks he has gathered back enough control over his breathing and rampaging heartbeat. His voice comes out croaked, and softer than he had meant it to, but it is still steady.

This is what you're supposed to say when someone saves your life, isn't it? The thought flares in his mind, quicksilver and ever so bright, and Regulus has to bite back nervous laughter.

(no one has ever saved him before)

(it feels kind of nice)

"You're welcome," Barty replies in the pompous tone he always uses to hide his emotions. He stays quiet for a moment, but Regulus can see how white his fists are, clenched as they are against Barty's legs. "I'm going to yell at you later," he finally whispers.

Barty is always quiet when it comes to his feelings. It is oddly endearing, this way he has of confessing himself only where no one can overhear – or at least that's what Regulus thinks.

Regulus simply nods. He had expected as much.

They stay there until the sun starts to come up, the first rays of light turning the sea beneath them aglow with fire.

"Now what?"

"Now," Regulus replies slowly, as if tasting the words in his mouth, "we figure out where to go from here."

.x.

They can't go back to London – can't go back to a place where the Dark Lord would find them so easily.

"Why?" Barty asks him once they're settled in a disgustingly muggle hotel room in a disgustingly muggle village. "Why would you betray…"

Our Lord, he doesn't say, but Regulus hears it anyway. Barty has always revered the man more than Regulus had, and now the youngest Black simply hopes that whatever it is they share is stronger than the bond Barty bound himself with to the Dark Lord.

Regulus uses the time he spends muggle-proofing the room to consider his answer. In the end though, there really is no two ways about it: Barty (and Kreacher, who brought him there, who found the loophole in Regulus' orders that allowed him to save his Master, and Regulus has never been prouder of anyone in his life) deserves the truth, no matter what comes of it.

"I just… I couldn't."

Regulus could go on – could describe the way the Dark Lord made at least one Horcrux (but probably more, because the man had said he had gone 'further on the road to immortality than anyone before'), and the kind of depravation it took to sever parts of your soul and lock them away.

He could describe the way he can't remember the last time he had gotten a full night's sleep, the last time his dreams hadn't been full of blood and death – the way he still hears the pleas of his victims wherever he goes but that drowning had at least quieted them for a little while.

He shivers, despite the artificial warmth he and Barty have spelled into the room. "I couldn't," he repeats, louder, hoping that Barty will understand his meaning without him having to explain it, because Regulus doesn't think he can.

And miraculously, Barty does.

Barty runs a trembling hand through his hair, heaves a deep sigh but when he turns to Regulus his eyes sport the same shadows Regulus sometimes sees in the mirror, when he dares look at his reflection.

Something in his chest tightens, and Regulus he is absurdly glad that of all the people he knows, Barty is the one Kreacher chose to go to – that Barty is the one here with him now (that the Dark Lord paired them up on that one mission, never guessing what would come of it).

"Okay," Barty says, his voice slightly shaky. "Okay. We can run away from the Dark Lord, it's fine, it's not like he doesn't kill traitors…" They both shiver, remembering the 'examples' the last traitors had been made into. "Merlin Regulus, what were you thinking?"

"I told you what I was thinking."

"Please, as if that was explanation enough! You're not a, a Gryffindor. You don't just rush in – I know you, Regulus, you had a plan, and that plan couldn't have been to simply die in a cave full of Inferis just to spite the Dark Lord. You're better than that."

Despite himself, Regulus feels the corner of his lips twitch up. He's always liked to see Barty getting worked up. Thankfully, Barty doesn't notice.

"What would you have done if Kreacher hadn't found me? Regulus, you could have died," Barty continues to rant.

"That was sort of the plan."

Regulus shrugs, unable to help himself. It had been the plan though. Living through it, surviving? That is just a bonus, and not even a very nice one, as now Regulus has no idea on where to go from here.

"You're an idiot," Barty breathes out, his eyes wide. "You don't – you don't have a plan?"

Regulus shrugs again. "We could run," he suggests half-heartedly, already knowing that they won't.

It would be nice though, to leave all of this behind – or it would be, if Regulus could get rid of the guilt that easily.

"I'm not joining Dumbledore's merry band of idiots, or the Ministry," Barty warns, but he sits on the bed next to Regulus, no longer pacing.

"I'd never ask you to," Regulus laughs wryly. "Besides, I don't want to join them anymore than you do."

Beside him, Barty hums something inaudible. Suddenly, the events of the previous night seem to crash on Regulus, and he finds it hard to breathe.

Barty's presence next to him helps though, and eventually the panic passes.

"So… If we're not going back to the Dark Lord, not joining Dumbledore or the Ministry, and not running, what do we do?" Barty finally asks, his breath warm against Regulus' neck.

"We make it up as we go?" Regulus suggests, only half-joking. He is tired too, a bone-deep kind of weariness that makes it hard to think.

He thinks about the Horcrux, by now probably somewhere in Grimmauld's Place as Kreacher tries to destroy it (please let him destroy it), and about the war, dragging on and on, destroying more lives every day.

He thinks about that woman's face – the one he had killed what feels like centuries ago, a flash of green light on a tear-stained face – and about Barty, warm and maybe most importantly, there with him.

Maybe, he thinks, this was always where he was – where they were - supposed to end up.

Barty scoffs. "Your track record for improvisation isn't exactly the best, you know." His voice is fond though, and that's how Regulus knows that he's onboard.

"So we get better," Regulus shrugs. "It can't be that hard."

"You're mad," Barty replies. He doesn't sound surprised, exactly. More like… Astounded?

"I wonder what that makes you since you're following me," Regulus muses aloud with a light smirk.

"I haven't said yes," Barty points out.

"You haven't said no either," Regulus counters, and for the first time in what feels like months, he starts feeling truly alive again.

Barty slaps at his arm playfully, and Regulus surprises himself by slapping back, a smile teasing at his lips.

"I must be bad as well then," Barty finally jokes, but his hand finds Regulus' and doesn't let go.

And there, finally, Regulus feels something like hope again.