A/N: Hello, my lovelies. This will be a 50 chapter long drabble series comprised entirely of slash and femslash pairings, for HedwigBlack's Slash/Femmslash Boot Camp Challenge.

So you have been warned: boys who like boys and girls who don't.

Prompt: 4. Question

Pairing: Regulus Black/Gideon Prewett (Credit for this pairing to the lovely Mew and Mor!)

Regulus is cracking. He knows it, he feels it. There's two sides of him, pushing and pulling and falling and flying and he's being ripped in two, ten, a million pieces.

And each piece has got Gideon Prewett scrawled across it.

They meet in the library on cold nights.

Gideon wears his long hair tied back, but Regulus has his scraping the base of his neck to stave off the cold. Gideon is in his pyjamas, because it's late, but Regulus wears his perfectly presentable uniform, tie and all. Gideon is smiling, but Regulus is not.

It comes to him, burning the tip of his tongue, and before he can stop himself, Regulus speaks.

"What if things were different?" he asks.

Gideon looks at him with sharp and curious eyes, and Regulus blushes under his gaze.

"Then maybe I could love you without feeling guilty," he says, as if it were all that simple.

Gideon closes his book over with a small smile.

"But I do, you know. Love you," he says, and reaches for Regulus' hand.

Regulus lets Gideon run his thumb along the soft pad of his palm, and all the while he wonders how to say it back.

"Gideon. I'd give it up for you. If I could," he promises, but he pulls his hand from Gideon's and closes it tightly around his own forearm.

"I know. Goodbye, Regulus."

And that is the last time that Gideon sees Regulus alive.

This is because Regulus trips and falls and cracks, and he chokes on the secrets he's found (and maybe also the water that fills his lungs). He thinks that maybe he's brave enough for this.

He finds a locket, leaves a locket, and drowns.

In his mind he thinks only that it was all worth it, that Gideon will be that much safer.

(And maybe even a little proud.)

What if I was different, Gideon?

And then he dies the hero that he never thought he could be.