@jeggyverses-jegulus-microfic - 7. Opposite - word count: 478 cw: implied mcd
Some people are raised with sharp edges, and cold touches; Regulus is one of those people. He is raised in the cold and in the absence of heat. From early on, he has learned to be relentless, to be unforgiving. To curse and insult those who are beneath him.
Others are taught to soften every corner they touch, to shine a light in the dark; James never learned how not to. He is raised in the warmth of hugs and forehead kisses. Being surrounded by love and care since birth made it impossible for him to close his heart, even to the cruelest of people.
It was never supposed to work; the two of them were too different. Like the cold and the heat, like the sun and the snow, like day and night – never meant to meet. But that which should have made it impossible, that which made them opposites, was what made it work – made them fit. They understood each other in ways that no one else ever could. They tore apart in ways that no one will ever know.
With a war approaching choices had to be made. What side will you follow? Who will you leave behind? Will you choose the Light, or will you choose the Dark? A question asked to teenagers, young and impressionable, easily swayed by promises of grandeur and victory.
A small question that will determine the remainder of their lives, a question to which they pretend the answer has not yet been determined. As if a boy raised in the darkness could ever reach for the light without burning. As if a boy, raised in the warmth of love, could ever survive the cold touch of the dark. As if they had ever been in the middle long enough to make a choice.
The wall they had built around them had never been solid; it only felt like it and, if you didn't look too close, it seemed that way too. Built to keep them safe, but trapped at the same time. The differences that had once completed each other began to misalign. Small cracks would appear in the wall, imperceptible at first; later it just became easier to ignore. Cracks grow and spread, until they cover every wall and meet in the middle. Sometimes opposites are meant to meet in the middle and support each other, but other times they are meant to erase each other so that neither one remains.
Once the cracks finally met, the wall came down, crumbling and collapsing around them, a ruin that could not be saved. But perhaps, in the end, they were equal, for leaving did not make Regulus softer; it only gave him nothing to lose. And for James, leaving did not make him colder; it only gave him more to fight for.
In the end neither of them remained.
