[NC-17, NON-CON] Boy's Dormitory 3 (Regulus, Cormac, Antonin, Gellert)

[I'm here for a minute then I gotta go for a while... Unfortunately. I'll be back by 7:30 latest, I hope.]

Regulus stumbles in, looking nothing short of zombie-esque. He doesn't even process that Gellert is in here, and falls face forward onto his own bed, wishing he would just stop breathing.

Gellert looks up as Regulus enters, half-amused as he falls face-first into his blankets. He stands up, grin sliding away as he tilts his head to the side, trying to see Reg's face. "Hey," he says, quietly, tentatively, "am I allowed to ask if you're okay?"

"Nnnnnghh."

Twitch.

[-is here for the night... she thinks.]

[OH. you're back. yay!]

He sits down on Reg's bed next to him. "I guess that was a stupid question--with an obvious answer." A moment's silence, where he looks, for a moment, at the back of Regulus' head and back, the only parts of him that were visible. His voice is hushed. "what happened, Reg?"

"Over. It's over. He's gone. For good. My fault," he said to his pillow, unmoving.

He processed what Reg had said very quickly. He and Krum were over, and Regulus was crushed. Wasn't dead, at least, but he was vulnerable, and Gellert had to hold back a smirk as he talked to his pillow, which was, he realized, slightly hot. Something crossed his mind--perhaps Krum was dead--but he mustn't hope too soon. No, they'd probably just broken up. "You and Krum?" he asked, battling to keep the revulsion out of his voice, and he shook his head, saying quietly, "If it's over, it's not your fault. Don't blame it on yourself."

"No. It is my fault. I'm a horrible person. He was so good to me, and I fucked it all up. He found the cocaine. I dropped it. He said he gave up on me and left, for good. I don't deserve him," he said, his voice shaking as he emerged from his pillow to look at Gellert, tears in his eyes. "I've ruined everything."

He locked eyes with Regulus, making sure the watery grey ones had found the icy blue. "That's where you're wrong, though," he tells him, taking note of his pale skin and the dark circles under his eyes, "He didn't deserve you. If you--feel bad, about lying, about pretending, then you don't know really know him. He was all an act, Reg, and it hurts now, I'm sure, but you deserve...better."

Regulus stared at him incredulously. "How can you say that?! He never lied to me, not once, never! I mean, he didn't tell me about Fabian, but that was only because he cared about me. He cared about me, and I abused him. I don't deserve better, I don't deserve anyone!" Tears slide down his cheeks as he looks utterly lugubrious.

He touches his hand lightly to Reg's shoulder in sympathy, then brings it back to his knee, his low voice consoling. "I care about you, Reg, and I hate to tell you this but...don't you see? Krum never really cared about you. He never really cared about anyone. He came to Hogwarts pretending to be somebody else, and when he found you, he realized how much you were worth, and took advantage of you, and when he was done, he just--made you feel worse." Gellert lets out a sigh, "I've been wanting to tell you this all along, but I knew that you wouldn't believe me. I told you that I know what he's done. I know I'm biased, but Reg, he was never good for you. You were allowed to make your own decisions."

Regulus flinched at Gellert's touch, but relaxed when he looked into those cool, blue eyes, the ones that always won him over. "But that's not true," he said uneasily. "He never pretended anything. I'm the one not worth anything. He only ever loved me," he said, unsure of his own words, and saying them out loud as if he needed to hear them for himself. "He just... he just cares about me, he doesn't understand that I need it, or I wouldn't have lied, I would have told him. But he'd never understand," he said sadly. "He didn't take advantage of me. I took advantage of him, and his kindness, and love."

"His kindness and his love," repeated Gellert, half incredulous, half scornful, "he's a better actor than I thought. You don't have to listen to me if you don't want, Reg. I don't think it does to dwell in dreams, but some would rather believe that everything was fine than learn the truth, and if that's what you want, I swear, I respect that. But," he paused, his eyes sliding over Regulus's features, "You're too good to be hurt so much, and I can also tell you the truth...if you want to hear it."

Regulus sat up, hugging his pillow and staring at Gellert wide-eyed. "What do you mean, the truth?"

Gellert surveys him for a moment in silence, and when he speaks, his voice is low and quiet. "I told you, a while ago, that I didn't like to talk about what happened between us--what made me hate him," he bites his lip, making sure to still look sympathetic, "when we were at Durmstrang, I, uh, I had many friends, he didn't, and I think that was alright with him, he focused everything on Quidditch, and, well, you see how he is now. Well, my friends were...very loyal to me, and together we would pull pranks and do magic and show the world--or the rest of the school, at least--who we were. One day, two of my closest friends were carving this symbol," he gestures to the Hallows tattoo on his wrist, "onto one of the walls when Krum saw them. They were talking about...about things that I only shared with those closest to me, things about what I--what we--were going to do, and Krum overheard them." Gellert closes his eyes, as if recalling the memory, and his 'friends', was causing him physical pain, "They saw him, and he, always jealous of me, took advantage of the situation--the same way that he took advantage of you. The three of them got into a duel. Only one of them came out of it alive, unscathed. He killed them, and he hurt me, and now he's hurt you, too." He looked back into Reg's face, not breaking eye contact.

Regulus gaped at him, horrified. "That's a lie! It has to be! Viktor would never hurt anyone, never!" he cried out, looking thoroughly disturbed, more so that Gellert had held his gaze the entire time, not once breaking eye contact. He would have paled but he really could not get any paler, and reached out to touch Gellert's wrist, tracing the symbol with his finger. "There must be something more to this. Viktor wouldn't just kill someone."

Regulus's fingers were cool on his arm, and they sent a shiver up to his shoulder, his eyes moving from Reg's eyes to his hand to his lips and back up to his eyes. "You aren't one to say he would never hurt anyone, look at you!" he says, then his voice softens, "All I know is that he killed two men who did nothing to him, and then went off to ride on his broom and run away from his guilt and pretend to be kind, and warm, and, whatever it was. He sought you out, Reg, because he saw something special in you, and once he got tired of it, he made you think that you weren't worth him, when it's really the opposite."

Regulus sighed, and looked up at Gellert, looking more or less like a sad, drugged out kitten. He'd be shooting up right now if he had the will to move, but he just doesn't, and his hand stays on Viktor's wrist. "But he loved me, I know he did," he said stubbornly, looking at the ring on his finger and showing it to Gellert again. "He loved me."

"Wear it, then. Wear the ring on your finger, and your heart proudly on your sleeve, you can close your eyes to everything else, but the fact is, we're only having this conversation because I want what's best for you, and in the long run, you're not gonna be better suited to pretend. You deserve somebody who respects you, and you don't have to find him now, I understand, break-ups are, well, they're complete and utter shit." He leans a little closer to Reg, all too aware of the fingers that lingered on his wrist, "But this is just to say that if you need it, I have a shoulder to cry on. Two shoulders, in fact."

Regulus sat up straight, staring at Gellert, then back at his ring, then back at Gellert, then back at his ring. He slowly removes his hand from Gellert's wrist, and tugs the ring off of his other hand, his eyes not leaving Gellert's. "I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to love him anymore, and I don't want to wear my heart on my sleeve," he says, mostly speaking his own thoughts out loud. He carefully places the ring in the drawer of his bedside table, with the scarf he had been gifted, then shuts the drawer to look back at him, the saddest look in his eyes. "Thank you, Gellert," he whispered, and he meant it, too, as another tear slipped silently down his cheek.

Gellert reached out his finger to wipe the tear away from Regulus' cheek. "You don't need to thank me," he told him, "You don't need to think about him--about it anymore, if you don't want to. Forgive and forget, that's what they say, and to be honest, I've never learned to do the former. Forgiveness takes a long time," he says, the same hand that he had used to wipe away the tear tucking a piece of stray black hair behind his ear, and then leaving Regulus's body, "but there are...things...we both know you can do to forget."

Regulus' cheeks flushed at Gellert's touch, and he quickly looked over his shoulder instead of at his eyes. "I will never forget him. And those little things don't work, Gellert. Even the blow doesn't help anymore. I still see him in my mind, I still miss him, I still want him," he said quietly, forcing his gaze back at Gellert.

"I know," he says, "Telling yourself to fall out of love doesn't make that happen. Making a list of all the things that are wrong with being together, that just makes you want to do it more--I understand, Reg, I really do." Eyes locked with Reg's, he keeps his face arranged in sympathy, in serenity, disguising the desire that had risen inside of him. "And there are better ways than little things. Better ways of forgetting that you...want him."

Regulus looks at him, his face full of sadness and his lips in a pout. "Like what?" he asked, his voice small and filled with hurt.

His pouted lips were like an invitation, and Gellert leans forward, his face inches from Regulus'. "Like this." He says, closing what little distance there is between them, his lips crushing down onto Reg's, his tongue sliding, feverishly, for a moment, into his mouth as Gellert waited, wondering if he would be pushed away.

Reg's eyes widened in shock, and he placed his hand on Gellert's chest to push him away, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Why should he? Viktor was gone, gone forever, never coming back, and here he was, Gellert's lips against his own, his tongue plunging into Reg's mouth. His eyes slowly close, and the hand on his chest, placed to reject him, tightens into a fist around his shirt and pulls him closer as Regulus returned the kiss, opening his mouth slightly to encourage him.