Chloe

Regulus is still wearing his rehearsal clothes when James finds him – thick black leggings clinging like a second skin to thin hips, the collar of his dark long sleeve hanging loosely from the jagged center point of his sharp collarbones. He is all fragile bone, sharp edges, and thin skin cold as ice, and James is terrified of him. 

“Baby,” James called quietly. It felt wrong, somehow, to speak at a volume higher than a whisper in this empty parking garage. “Regulus, what are you doing?” 

Regulus peeked at him from over his shoulder, thin neck craning to see him. A dark curl fell into his slate grey eyes, red-rimmed and brimming with unshed tears. Looking like he was, curled up into a tight ball and sitting on the ledge of the top floor of a parking garage, James already had a sinking feeling about Regulus’s intentions. 

“I’m okay,” Regulus whispers desperately, sounding all the world like a confession. Like instead of saying ‘I’m okay’, he was really saying, ‘I’m about two minutes away from bursting apart at the seams’. 

James was slowly edging closer, hands creeping up at his sides. Regulus’s eyes were darting around rapidly, looking like a cornered animal with the long edge of his body drawn tight as a bowstring and his thin chest rising and falling rapidly with quick puffs of air. 

James was four feet from the ledge now, almost within grabbing distance if he moved quickly enough, and –

“James,” Regulus keened, eyes snapping shut. 

“Just breathe, Reg,” James whispered, terrified that the force of Regulus’s panic would snap his frail, bird-like bones.  

Regulus inhaled sharply, then– “I love you, James,” Regulus whispered, and James had to bite his lip to the point of bleeding to stop the sob from falling out. 

“I love you too, Regulus. So much,” James said. “So just come down, okay? Let me take you home. We’ve been worried about you.” Regulus sat up a bit then, and for a moment, James thought he would listen to him. That he’d climb down from the ledge, and let James wrap him up tight to keep him warm and to keep all his stray pieces from flying away, and that he’d let James spoon-feed him chicken broth and that he’d stay safe, and healthy, and alive. James could see the light just at the end of the tunnel. 

“Please don’t look, Jamie,” Regulus whispered.