Chapter Text
It’s the same dream but it feels different; the colors are more vivid, and they’re there, instantly. Regulus awakens to his dream and it’s colorful already. This has never happened before.
The ocean is under a high, blazing sun, casting a brilliant radiance over waters that sparkle, and the air’s filled with salt again, carrying warmth. The sand around Regulus is untouched and sprawling, glistening almost as much as the ocean. Here and there, the occasional seashell or piece of driftwood lies scattered, giving Regulus’ dream more texture.
It feels like trespassing somehow. Like Regulus shouldn’t be here.
He has never had this feeling in a dream before. His dreams are comfortable usually, especially since he started having them in colors. It’s the one place where Regulus goes, where he doesn’t need to hide any secrets. Like taking a walk down your own private book room. Like lying down in your bed after the smell of Sirius’ sweater. Regulus’ dreams are inherently dipped in nostalgia somehow, which might be part of the reason why he struggles to find sleep in the first place.
It’s harder to confront nostalgia when you know it’s going to lead you down thoughts of disappearances and death.
This dream, though, doesn’t feel dipped in nostalgia.
It feels like an infraction, intruding on someone’s dream unannounced. Like when the door to his pod opens without his explicit agreement. Somewhat wrong.
It’s not terrifying, but it is uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, because unusual.
In Regulus’ life, and on the ship in particular, very little is left to the imagination. So Regulus is walking in this dream like one does on eggshells; carefully, looking around and taking notes of the variations, keeping his heart rate under control.
It’s almost the same dream. It’s just brighter.
And then, the boy—Jayyigmeseuh—appears. Too bright, too comfortable, he doesn’t look perturbed. Or confused. Or—overwhelmed by the vividness of this dream at all. In fact, like he’d done the first time, he ignores the setting, attention fully focused on Regulus…which doesn’t happen. To Regulus. Ever.
Parts of him are revered—his Black name, his pure blood, and parts of him are useful—the mere fact that he exists as spare, now heir, but no part of him is ever worth, just, attention. Certainly not worth whatever focus the boy seems able to muster up. Like Regulus…matters. Like he’s worth being seen.
The boy’s eyes aren’t set on the not-white sun nor the not-black ocean. He isn’t marveling at the fact that this dream is extraordinarily packed with colors. And Regulus is no stranger to color by now, but even for him, this is something else, like a dial turned way too high. It’s calling his attention, his own eyes unable to fully focus on the boy’s, shifting to the ocean, the sun, the reflection of light on the sand, back to the boy, and everything is mesmerizing. Overwhelming, almost.
The boy’s hand reaches out to shift in front of Regulus’ face, calling his attention back to the boy himself. Blinking, Regulus shakes his head, tries. His eyes settle on the boy’s face, attempting to stay there. He almost loses the battle, Regulus’ eyes skimming his jaw, up the slope of his strong nose, taking note of the shades and the stubble, the heavy brows. Something comes out of the boy’s mouth—an expletive of sorts, sounding pleased and surprised—and his entire face lights up, cheeks pulling his lips upwards, skin wrinkling at the corners of his eyes. He’s wearing a strange contraption on his face, framing his eyes, which is exactly when everything proceeds to take a turn.
Regulus’ eyes travel beyond the frames, hook into the boy’s, claws in deep, and suddenly there is nowhere else Regulus would rather look than there.
It’s clarity, a focal point in the swirling mess of Regulus’ attention. Energy passes through Regulus at an incredibly high speed, like a new network being plugged into a system. It’s electrical, body bursting into shivers, and Regulus can’t look away. The boy doesn’t seem any better off, eyes hooked in and sinking, and Regulus doesn’t know colors very well, but he does know this: grey was never his favorite color. He just hadn’t known that this was an option.
This, is what feels like a stellar nursery; an interplay of light and matter, eyes that emit their own gravitational pull, and Regulus is sucked in. Captivated.
It’s inevitable, the accidental step forward Regulus suffers. He just wants to get closer. He wants to touch the universe with his hand, glide his fingers over what looks like the Beginning. Foot shifting in the unsteady sand, he inadvertently loses balance and breaks eye contact to right himself, and—breathes.
It comes out as a cough, too long without oxygen, which is unheard of. Breathing is regulated by his autonomic nervous system, he shouldn’t have to think in order to breathe.
The hand comes almost in slow motion. It appears from the corner of his eye, luscious and meaty and large, extending to touch Regulus’ shoulder, right him from his sway. It’s warm where the boy touches him, and he’s a furnace, the touch a branding iron on Regulus’ skin.
The boy, at that instant, briefly strikes Regulus as the most threatening entity he has ever encountered. Like the imminent intensity of a star on the brink of supernova, the ominous precursor of a gamma-ray burst. Then the boy’s smile wanes, and the threat abates—for now. There is a deliberate patience in his softened smile, and he…crouches down. Drags his finger through the damp sand with a focused determination, his tongue peeking out between his teeth.
Regulus is just…transfixed. Gaping, really, at the obscene way the boy’s clothes strain over his shoulders. It’s not—it’s just that—Regulus’ people do not take up space, not the way he does; unapologetically. It’s more than the physical space though, it’s the surrounding space around him that almost seems to shift and transform around the boy, warping the very air around him. Like he’s twice his actual size. Perhaps Regulus is hallucinating, or perhaps just not thinking straight.
He’s still not entirely sure where the boy comes from, why he’s there, in Regulus’ dream—or at least, what Regulus thinks is his dream. There is nothing, and then there is him, sitting cross-legged in front of Regulus, smiling up at him, ready for anything.
He’s done his research of course, and a lot of interesting information has come from his book on lucid dreaming, though it’s all theories at this point. But this, this is something else. The vivid colors, the vivid sounds, the vivid boy—
He’s drawing shapes in the sand, hunched over on his toes, and after a few seconds he turns around, looking mighty proud.
Regulus looks down, and oh.
J, A, M, E, S, spelled out in
Latin letters.
Regulus is looking at latin letters, eyes shifting between an alphabet he knows and the boy, and—oh.
The boy puts his hand on his chest, says, “Jayyigmeseuh.” Clearing his throat and trying again, eyes speaking silent sentences layering over his gestures as he points at each letter and makes the appropriate sound. “Jay-mes-euh.” Again. “James,” like Regulus ought to know by now, pointing between himself and the letters drawn on the sand.
“James,” Regulus repeats.
The boy nods. “James.”
“James,” Regulus repeats, like an idiot.
James tilts his head, and looks at Regulus, and looks, and—looks, and—
It comes to Regulus all at once, like taking a meteor to the face.
“Ssōmnia thyr ēyss,” Regulus gasps. Out loud. And immediately realizes the implication of that sentence.
It’s someone else’ dream.
This is James’ dream, Regulus is dreamwalking, he isn’t lucid dreaming at all.
James looks at him and frowns, though he doesn’t seem particularly shocked, or confused the way Regulus is. He’s mouthing shapes with his mouth, trial testing them. Then,
“Sohmneeah thee ace,” he enunciates carefully, pointing at Regulus. Pointing at himself, “James.” Back at Regulus, “Sohmneeah thee ace.”
It shouldn’t be funny.
It shouldn’t, but Regulus is taken aback by the boy’s resourcefulness, rolling with the punches like this the most unproblematic situation, and Regulus does something rare. Something he normally doesn’t do, even in real life. Something he stopped doing ten years ago.
He laughs.
The sound emerges as a hybrid of a cough and a choke, his lips contorting in an alien gesture, before the laughter breaks loose. It is raw and unpolished, untethered and underused and free.
James’ gaze fixates on Regulus, expression stuck on a strange expression of shock, for a moment. Then. The smile that overtakes his entire features could power up Regulus’ pod for weeks. The laughter subsides, giving way to a grin brimming with teeth, which then mellows into a gentler expression.
Regulus shakes his head.
Points a finger at himself.
“Regulus.”
James’ eyebrows lift up to the top of his head, right before a panicked expression overtakes his features. He opens his mouth—and pops out of existence.
Regulus jackknifes up in his pod. He’s sweating. He can’t believe, cannot believe—he was ejected from the dream at the same time as James disappeared, which can only mean…
“Holy shit, holy shit.”
“You’re very quiet.”
Regulus lifts his eyes from his portion—some sort of microgreen and mushroom, tomatoes, raw kale and potatoes. So. Much. Potatoes. Boring and nutritious, the same moto as everything else in his life.
Their ship has a closed-loop ecological system, so the food really doesn’t vary much. The ship workers use hydroponics, aeroponics, and aquaponics to grow plants without soil, minutely controlling everything from temperature, to light, to humidity, to nutrients.
LED lights, tailored to emit specific wavelengths, provide the necessary light spectrum for photosynthesis, a loop system to capture, purify, and reuse all water: moisture from perspiration in the gyms, condensation, any waste water—which is triaged and processed by decomposers and composting systems to break them down into nutrients that can be reused by the plants. They have Pollinators, who work in manual pollination in Lab 24. Aquaponers, who work in aquaponics chambers in Lab 41; the fish’s waste provides nutrients for the plants, which in turn purifies the water. Genetic Engineers in Lab 13. Bioreactor systems in Lab 12, where cellular agriculturists cultivate lab-grown meats without raising livestock.
The entire system is an autonomous network of food production that sustains its inhabitants, untethered from the cradle of a planet; a careful balance between technology and biology, everything meticulously engineered—as is everything on the ship, including its people.
“Regulus?”
Regulus’ eyes shift from his plate to his mother, whose eyes are lined with concern. “I’m just tired, Mom.”
“You haven’t come home in a while.” That’s his father, speaking to his plate instead of his son, looking like this meal is as much of a struggle for him as it is for everyone else at this table. Regulus knows where it’s coming from; it’s the empty seat right next to his, that invisible four. ‘That’s why I don’t come home,’ is what Regulus almost says. His eyes shift to the empty seat. It’s fast but his mother notices, the corner of her mouth twisting in an expression he doesn’t quite know how to interpret.
His pod is smaller, barely enough to fit a single bed, a desk and a tiny bathroom fitted with a dry sonic shower. They have communal water showers, but these are regulated to a few times a year only, in order to save up on resources. The room is big enough for Regulus to practice his kinesthetics, but only just. It’s also big enough to contain his forbidden books and his little notebook and pen. It’s too small, however, to contain all of his secrets.
“I’ve been busy.”
“Tom mentioned you have been quite successful in your Seeking, recently.”
Regulus hums.
His relationship with his parents has been strained for years. Regulus doesn’t know how to fix it. Doesn’t know how to stop resenting them from what they let happen to Sirius. How to forgive them for what they made of Regulus.
His father’s voice, tinged with something unplaceable, breaks through his thoughts again. “Your accomplishments are well-respected by everyone here, Regulus.”
It’s a rehearsed statement, a throwaway line tossed out to pierce the overwhelming silence. But praise from the Upper Level isn’t what Regulus seeks. What he craves is the warmth from the seat still holding the heat from his brother’s presence. Words aren’t fixing what his world fractured. Thinking of Sirius tightens something in Regulus’ chest; those questions left hanging, and the gaping void his brother left behind—it’s a silent scream inside.
“I appreciate that,” Regulus replies, voice distant. He doesn’t add anything else.
His mother nods. Plays with her fork. “We heard from the Greengrasses,” she says, and ah.
That’s the reason for the invite.
That’s the purpose of this dinner.
Regulus looks at the clock. Twenty minutes on the dot after his arrival, right on time.
And ten seconds after that, the crushing realization that his parents didn’t invite him to know how he is doing, that this isn’t a happy coincidence, hits him. Moves through his body and settles into flesh like dry ice. Disappointment like a static wave between his ears. This isn’t like before. This isn’t a family meal.
This is an intervention.
His mother takes a steadying breath, continuing, “Some journeys are meant to be taken with others, not alone.”
Regulus pauses. Thinks of Sirius. Of Pandora. Of this ship and all the people it took from him. Of Remus. Of James.
His eyes trail to the empty seat next to his, and his parents’ incapability to look him in the eye as they try to matchmake him.
“I had a brother,” he says.
The room goes dead quiet. So Regulus stands up gently, and exits the room.
No one tries to stop him.
His mother, his father, Regulus can almost picture them eating the rest of their meal in the dead silence he left behind, the clinking of cutlery against the unspoken tensions.
His steps guide him away from their living quarters. He bypasses his pod, seeking the only thing that could provide him with some amount of comfort—the observation deck. It’s empty at this time, the temperature slightly lower than usual—though that could just be from the chill he feels inside. He walks to the port section of the bay, descends the trio of steps, and settles into a cross-legged position, gazing out of the viewport.
It’s nothing but deep space. Nothing for eons but a vast, unobstructed view of the cosmos, faraway stars against the background of the universe’s pervasive darkness. It’s isolating, not to have a single planet in sight, which is ironic, considering it’s also how he feels; isolated.
He loves his parents. It’s hard not to love one of the only sources of warmth he’s ever known. But there is a rift too, widening with time, both parties seemingly powerless to halt its expansion. Each morning, Regulus wakes up to an increasing divide: the love he holds for his parents, and the love he holds for Sirius.
It’s one family, yet the love cannot coexist; it isn’t singular. The love within his family exists in opposition, unable to merge or support one another. Everything is tainted with Sirius’ absence. The love he holds for his brother intensifies, while his affection for his parents seems to diminish. It’s not what Regulus would prefer. It’s what he has.
Well, that and memories.
He has rules in place, his mind like a museum, everything cataloged, and Sirius doesn’t get to escape his carefully labeled box unless Regulus allows it. But have you ever tried to contain a brother?
It’s easier, containing Pandora. She settles in her labeled box and waits for Regulus to take her out. Always happy to come out and play, always happy to be put back where she can rest.
Sirius doesn’t rest. He rages—knocking the box over, wandering over to other boxes, and filling them up with memories of him. It’s untameable chaos. Regulus has tried to keep him where he belongs, to stay here, let me live my life, I beg you, but Sirius doesn’t listen, and why would he? Sirius was deceived. Betrayed, and Regulus didn’t help.
So Sirius rages, and Regulus gets headaches.
He reaches up to hold on to his temple now, ignoring Sirius on his way to Pandora. He doesn’t think he has it in himself to deal with Sirius’ memories right now; ‘I had a brother’ took everything from him.
Pandora’s playing with her shoes, tapping them twice and waiting, tapping them twice again, a game Regulus never understood. She jumps up when he approaches, eyes gleaming with that peculiar light that seems to illuminate her from within. She’s a sprite, her presence both calming and invigorating. She may be a memory, only alive in Regulus’ head, but she’s a good one. Carefully crafted from all of the interactions he had the chance to have with her before she died, in all her strange and wonderful ways, like her ability to shift mood like phases of a moon.
“Reggie, you look like you’ve seen a ghost—or perhaps, lost one,” she says, her voice lilting.
Regulus settles next to her, his body language opening up despite himself. “It’s just family things,” he says. ‘Just’ might be an understatement, but he doesn’t feel like talking about it.
He’s sitting alone but there’s a soft presence next to him. He doesn’t feel alone. But…
“How are you?” she asks instead.
It comes out all at once, impossible to stop. “Lonely.”
He isn’t expecting comfort—he’s learned to navigate loneliness’ contours. But nothing can bring comfort to loneliness, aside from the presence of someone who is here. Pandora isn’t. She’s a beautiful figment of his imagination, forever paused at the precipice of adulthood, young and dead. And yet.
“Me, too.”
This is what does it. Her words shatter the fragile veneer of composure Regulus has so painstakingly maintained, tapping into a well of suppressed grief. The impact is immediate, visceral. Regulus is holding it together, and then his shoulders are shaking and everything he’s holding is falling from his fingers, cluttering on the cold hard floor and he’s crying. He’s disintegrating quietly, which is just as good. Expressions of raw emotions like this are as out of place as anomalies in the void of space.
Throughout it all, Pandora sits beside him. “It’s all right, Reggie.”
Regulus sniffs. “Is it?” he asks, though he feels the tension begin to ebb from his body, his sobs subsiding into quiet sniffles as the initial surge of emotion fades into a dull ache. There is a peculiar sense of release, like purging poison.
Pandora turns to look at him. “Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re seeing the far away potential end instead of the beauty of it, how very pessimistic of you,” she says, and Regulus wants to crumble. ‘You’re not allowed to repeat yourself,’ he wants to say, but then again…Pandora only lives in his imagination, now. There is only so much she can say that won’t circle back to conversations they’ve already had.
“Why did you leave me?” he whispers instead, which tumbles right into, “Why does everyone leave?” and space isn’t big enough to contain the depth of Regulus’ lonely. His lonely is so violent, banging about and causing scenes, asking to be seen by something, someone, please.
Pandora is quiet, tapping her shoes together twice, again and again, eyes drifting upward to the ceiling. “I didn’t want to, you know?” she says softly.
Regulus nods, because of course. Of course Pandora didn’t ask for any of this. She never asked to be born different, never asked to shake the status quo of the Chosen families. She never asked to be born at all. She never asked to die, either.
“But,” she continues, “sometimes bad things have to happen for good things to come out. The universe seeks balance—negative and positive forces, interdependent relationships, all interconnected. Every relationship you have is a symbiotic biome of sorts. You all need one another.”
Regulus shakes his head. “You’re gone. Sirius is gone. James isn’t—”
“You cannot think of life as gains and losses, Reggie. Life isn’t a give and take. Everything is a gift, and what isn’t a gift still is one. Perhaps just one you can’t see yet.”
“I don’t want gifts. I want my brother back.” He turns to her. “You, too.”
Her gaze meets his. “You can’t have it all, Reggie. That, too, is a gift.”
He frowns, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“You have to trust your intuition,” she advises instead. “Intuition is the music of the cosmos. It’s always playing, but we only hear it when we truly listen. When we’re lost, it’s the pull that leads us home.”
“What did you think it sounded like?”
“Music?”
“Yeah.”
Pandora hums, a slight smile touching her lips. “Like the vibration of a star and the hum of a nebula speaking to one another.”
“Those aren’t sounds,” he skeptically points out.
“They’re waves,” she chides. “Waves are a dynamic rhythm, and rhythm is sound. Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but they vibrate all the same.” He’s about to object, to this isn’t how it’s done, when she adds, “You’re so analytical. You should try to break free from what’s familiar once in a while. Sometimes, breaking away from the gravitational pull of others helps to find our true orbit. Tell me,” she says, glancing at the ceiling, “why do you think there are 1,347 bolts up there?”
Regulus follows her gaze up, to the bolts he’s never paid attention to before. It’s random, nonsensical even—like she was. “I never counted them.”
“Because you’re always looking out, not up. You never look in, either.”
“I’m looking in right now,” Regulus counters, a little offended that a figment of his imagination is complaining about him not looking inwards.
She waves him off, deflecting his defensiveness. “Do you know how light can travel for years just to reach you, to be seen by you?” Regulus nods. “Have you ever thought that we might be doing the same? On our way to being seen, to finding where we belong.”
“According to my parents, I belong with a Greengrass daughter.”
Pandora’s laughter is as surprising as it is loud. “There are much bigger plans for you than the Greengasses.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“I’ve always thought so, Reggie.” She takes her time, weighting her words. “There’s always been something about you. I’ve never been able to put my finger on it, and now…” she trails off. Now, I’ll never be able to, is what she means.
“I wish you were here,” he offers, his left hand unfurling, praying for a phantom touch of her fingers on his.
“I am,” Pandora replies, though his hand remains cold. “Every time you remember me, every time you make a choice that honors who you are, I’m there, cheering you on.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s what I’m here for,” she responds eventually, which isn’t a lie. “I think I’ll go back now,” she adds, and Regulus knows better than to beg her to stay. He cannot live in the past, just as she cannot live in the present.
It’s a soft, careful brushing against the delicate skin of his fingers, like the shape of a hand. Regulus’ eyes shift from the viewport, and he redirects them back to space. He resists the urge to look to his left—knows he’ll find nothing beside him but more space. It’ll hurt more, if he looks. So he presses his hand against the illusory pressure of a hand in his, allowing himself to believe, and lets Pandora hold his hand.
It’s Regulus’ dream again.
He has cracked the code. His dreams are muted colors like his brain is adjusting still, unable to really showcase the array of shades when it’s so recent, so new. These are the dreams Regulus has the most control over, able to anchor himself in it like it’s the only dimension worth existing in.
It doesn’t work as well when he is in what he has decided to refer to as James’ dream.
He has put the pieces together, truth settling into his bones—James seems too much at ease in his own dream environment, like he’s in his element, like he knows this place better when the colors are brighter. In there, Regulus cannot control the space as much, not the way he has started to learn to shape his own dream. James’ dreams are malleable, but less so; like he can put some input but it has to be validated and approved. Like he’s acting from behind a veil. Like there are limits to what he can push, limits he does not have in his muted dreams. When they’re in James’, Regulus always feels like he’s trespassing.
It’s funny how the brain works, how incredibly malleable it can be, turning obtuse and rigid if it’s raised that way. The problem is, the brain needs to be trained to want more; to want different. The brain believes what it is told repeatedly.
James is already here, looking thoroughly unbothered by the muted colors, though there is something different about him. He’s almost careful in his excitement, walking quickly to Regulus with sure steps and an expression dipped in something pleasant, but he’s breathing carefully, looking at Regulus as though from a distance; like he’s forcing himself not to put all his feelings on display.
Lessons through experience. After all, every time they’ve had an emotional outburst, it has resulted in one of them leaving the dream.
So James smiles, and though the colors are muted, James isn’t. His smile is resonant and resonating, echoes of it shaking Regulus. He’s helpless to stop his own smile from blossoming, more careful than James’ but there, important all the same.
There is a moment, for a second, where Regulus thinks James is going to extend his hand and touch him. And in another reality, he does. Regulus can almost feel the phantom graze of James’ fingers against his own. He isn’t sure what occurs, but James opts out, smile turning apologetic before it’s replaced by a playful glint of mischief. He retreats, putting deliberate distance between himself and the ocean’s edge, three measured steps back and dropping to his knees.
Finger in the sand once again, James slowly, carefully, intently, writes his entire alphabet over five rows. Twenty-six letters and one life changed because Regulus recognizes the alphabet. It’s the same as the one he came to learn while studying Latin. Then French.
And the implications of that, well.
The both of them are breathing steadily, consciously taking deep breaths, in and out, in sync with one another. It’s shared meditation; Regulus is acutely aware of his own slow heartbeat, sensing the expansion and contraction of his lungs, taking all of the space that isn’t weighed down by James. He’s anchored, steady, chest heavy and full and this is not pain. This is the opposite of pain. The closer he is to James, the more grounded he feels, like a planet aligning with its gravitational core.
He’s never spoken latin out loud before, but…“Latinē loqueris?”
James’ head snaps up, eyes widening before a frown creases his forehead, eyes hooked on Regulus’ awed expression.
Undeterred, Regulus tries again, switching tongues, sidestepping Greek, which has always felt like another branch of language, and opting for French.
“Parles-tu français?”
His transition prompts another visible jolt from James, whose eyes dart from Regulus to the sand and back again. Hands that were still a moment ago now shift, fingers clenching and unclenching.
James stares at Regulus for entirely too long before carefully, carefully, carefully, “I speak English.”
And this, well.
This, Regulus can work with.