Choices Quotes

“Don’t go to troy.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“You know,” he says, swallowing with some difficulty. “I always thought I was Achilles in this story—the over controlling mother, the famed heritage, the great expectations,” he smiles wryly. “But here I am James, wearing your armour, rushing off into battles I have no business fighting. Playing the hero, and failing, like the secondary character I am,” he laughs. “But that’s—“ he has to clear his throat. “That’s where the metaphor ends okay? Fuck fate, fuck prophecies, let someone else handle it. Let someone else save the day. You just…go away somewhere okay? Go live your beautiful life. Fade into obscurity, leave the heroics to people who have less to offer the world. Don’t go to Troy.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Suddenly it seems important. Important that they know. That somebody know; that after everything, Regulus Black finally made the right choice.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“I would do it all again, you know. I would relive every miserable moment of my miserable life just for the chance to be yours.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“For a boy who walks around like he's made of stone, Regulus touches like the sun.”
― messermoon, Choices

“It takes centuries to grow this kind of love.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“James flattens his palm over the letters, like he's trying to press them into his skin. Like he's trying to force a hole in space and time and go back to when they were written. He knows what they mean of course. Knows what this is.

It's an I love you.

Reg never said it back that last time.

He carved them into stone but he couldn't say it.

Not when James was walking away.

The same way Sirius had walked away.

I love you.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Sirius is well acquainted with what James’s voice sounds like when he cries. Choked and thin. It’s a sound that could call Sirius from a mile away—tell him he was needed. That someone was going to die because, as far as he’s concerned, no one makes James Potter cry and gets away with it.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Now when he closes his eyes, the darkness is full of stars.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Give me caviar or give me death”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“You have to decide what you're willing to lose."

Remus tenses at that. "I'm not going to lose him." The thought sends such an ache through him that he has to say it again, just in case the universe didn't hear him the first time; "I'm not going to lose him.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Je t'aime."
Since I was eleven.
James's lips press against his.
And he isn't even real.
Isn't even here.
Isn't even him.
But oh how he feels. Warmth filling him up, breaking him open, pulling him apart. It's too much. Too much. And not nearly enough. Everything that's been keeping him in falls away. Regulus is boundless, intertwining with James, the pair of them nothing but ash. Nothing but dust. Nothing but love.
Love.
Love.
The garden disappears.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Regulus isn't surprised it took so long for this room to be found again.
It takes centuries to grow this kind of love.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“James pushes further into Sirius’s side wondering when it’ll stop. The crying. The pain. He isn’t at all certain that it will. This heartbreak feels endless. This heartbreak eats him whole.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Please call me your majesty.
Will you bow to me Regulus ?
I could, but I'd rather get on my knees for you.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“I've always said Remus is my best quality.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“The only reasons I can think of for you listening to Dumbledore- and don't give me that following orders bullshit Remus, I know you too well, you're as much of a rule follower as I am- so either you really, honestly, don't trust Sirius or... or you're punishing him. Because you and I both know that the easiest way to hurt Sirius Black is to leave him.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Not really. Still, he can’t help thinking the same thing he always does:

Just a little more time.

Just a little more time with him.

Please, please please.

He’s not even sure who he’s asking anymore. Himself? The universe? The rest of the Wizarding World? Please don’t start your war yet. I’m not done being loved by him.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Sometimes, Lily will catch James staring off into space, eyes out of focus, expression sober. Sometimes she’ll catch sight of a little red ball passing back and forth between his hands.

She’s never sure whose heart is breaking more in those moments.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“You spend so much of your youth trying to convince everyone that you’re grown, but the minute the world turns around and says “you, you’re an adult, you’re responsible” you can’t help but feel that a terrible mistake has been made.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“How can you fix a life that was rotten to begin with?”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Gods are a Muggle invention and from what Regulus can tell they are rather unreliable when it comes to keeping people safe. But then, he’s not sure that magic has ever really protected anyone he loves either.

He stares at the door for a long time after James leaves.

Bring him back to me.

Bring him back to me.

Bring him back.

But Wizards don't know how to pray. And Regulus doubts the gods would listen even if they did.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“The sun and the stars and the storm.

Orbiting around one another.

Above. Below. Watching.

“It’s sad,” a voice in the void, “that we will never grow old together.”

In and out of one another, leaving traces behind.

“But can’t you see it? Don’t you know?”

Warmth that bleeds into every corner of the universe.

“That oh from us, so much will grow.” ”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Welcome to the little slut club with the rest of us pre-marital sex having heathens—Jesus Christ Peter,”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“I'm sorry James," he says eventually, when his eyes come back. "Really I am, but I don't want to die."

Those last words come out as a whisper.

He sounds so young.

James just wants to hold him.

James just wants to scream.

“It’s not a choice between life and death Reg,” he finally manages to say, but Regulus remains unmoved.

“I think it is though,” something shifts, a new determination in his eyes. He steps forward, still too far to touch but closer. “Listen, I could protect you.”

James blinks, not quite understanding.

"If you switched sides, I could keep you safe, I know how to survive them. I’m good at it, I swear.”

James just keeps staring at him, brain moving too slow. “What?” and then, two words hit him in the pit of his stomach.

Switch sides.

“You want me to join the Death Eaters?” he asks numbly.

“I know how you feel about them,” Regulus presses on despite the horror on James’s face. “But they have connections, they have power, there’s a lot to be gained from being connected to them. Security above all else.”

“Security,” James repeats, still not able to comprehend what he’s hearing. Regulus takes another step forward, hands outstretched.

“Your side is going to lose James,” he says bluntly, eyes begging him to understand. "You must know that-the war has barely started and you've already lost. But if you switch sides now if you let me take care of you, I’ll keep you safe. And then, when it’s over we can go away somewhere. Somewhere far. From all of it. All of them. Start over. Safe. Alive.”

I wanted a life with you.

James closes his eyes briefly, unable to look at Regulus. At his pleading hands.

“Reg,” the name comes out as a curse. A prayer. A call for mercy.

“I know it isn’t what you want,” Regulus goes on desperately, like a man treading water. “But we can do it, I know we can. We can live. If you’ll just let me—“

“Reg,” James says again, choking the other boys words on their way up his throat. He opens his eyes, aching at the expression on Regulus’s face. “What would be the point?”

Regulus’s brows draw together. “The point?” he repeats nervously.

“In staying alive just to live in a world run by monsters?” and then, “In living just to become monsters ourselves?”

Regulus stares at him for a moment before his hands fall back to his sides. “To be together.”

James very nearly doubles over then, the pain so real he could swear someone has just driven steel through his chest.

“Regulus-"

“You’re saying no?” his voice is all business again.

James does his best not to wince. “I’m saying no.”

Regulus nods curtly, taking a step backwards, letting James’s rejection grow rotten between them. It feels like hours before Regulus speaks again.

“This is it, isn’t it?”

The world is spinning, the floor slipping under James’s feet. “I think so,” he whispers.

The pain is a wave that James can see coming a mile away. Feel rumbling in his bones. And he knows he needs to get out of here before it hits. Knows that he won’t be able to hold it together once it does.

“I love you Regulus,” he just needs to say it. Needs Regulus to understand that, despite everything, it’s still true. Even if maybe it shouldn’t be.

“Just not enough,” Regulus says cruelly.

James does his best not to choke on that. “I asked you to come with me. To be with me.” He had. So many times.

“I know,” Regulus says. And selfishly James wants to hear it back. One more time. Hell, he’d even take it in French. He wants Regulus to promise that he still loves him too, even if it hurts, even through the betrayal and the anger. But all he gets is silence. All he sees is a stone wall.

Shaking so bad he can barely walk, James moves for the door. Desperate to leave, feeling the wave of grief edging closer, threatening to send him under.

“I hope it’s worth it,” Regulus calls out to him when he gets his hand on the doorknob. “Being a martyr.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Until his hand brushes against something hard. There, beneath one of his t-shirts, is a small wooden box. For a minute James just stares at it. It’s been a long time since he’s looked at it—shoved all the way at the back of his dresser. He’s not sure why he kept it, except that the idea of throwing it away makes him want to be sick.

Eventually he gives in, reaching for it as he collapses down onto the floor. He runs his fingers over it, brushing off the dust, before he flicks open the lid, revealing the little miniature ball inside, initials catching the light.

J&R

Sometimes, he can’t even believe any of it really happened. It doesn’t sound real. Doesn’t sound like him—getting with his best mates brother. A Slytherin. A Death Eater.

He stares the Quaffle down like it’ll give him the answers. Like it’ll tell him what happened and why all this time later it still feels…like this. He’d told his mother he didn’t want Regulus to become a bruise and he’d gotten his wish. Regulus isn’t a bruise. He’s a tsunami. And every time James lets himself think of him, lets himself remember, he's overwhelmed. He loses sight of the shore. Forgets it even exists at all. He isn't even here, hasn't been, in a very long time, and yet somehow, Regulus still has the ability to wrap himself around James. To be all he can hear and feel and think. All he can breathe and smell and taste.

Which is exactly why he needs to stay at the back of James's dresser.

He snaps the box shut, eyes falling on what had been lying next to it. Black velvet, a jewelry case his mother had very politely not asked him about when she saw him buying it. This he really doesn't know why he kept. He sets the Quaffle down next to it, a matching set. He'd agonized about what to get Regulus, what could possibly match his gift. It couldn't just be something he bought, it had to be something he made. The problem was, James's magic has always been big and loud and strong, well suited to duelling not meticulous charm worm. Still he'd been determined.

He can't help wondering what Regulus would've thought, if he'd had the time to give it to him. If everything hadn't gone to hell after Christmas. If things had been different. It shouldn't matter now. He wishes it didn't.

"James?" The front door closes and James jolts, like he's been caught.

He throws the two boxes back in his dresser, slamming the drawer shut and trying to ignore the sinking feeling of guilt currently eating its way through his stomach.

"Up here!" James calls down to Lily as he heads for the bedroom door. Looking over his shoulder like he's expecting to see Regulus standing there. Like Lily could walk in on them. Catch him with the memory of the boy he used to love.

Still loves. When he lets himself. When he forgets about the shore.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“She takes a breath, steeling herself. “I don’t think Regulus was a very good person,” because she has to say it, because she’s worried that sometimes that gets lost. And it can’t. It’s important to her that it doesn’t.

James’s face grows sad again, and Merlin does it hurt, watching his lovely mouth turn down, his eyes squeezing themselves more tightly closed.

“No,” James finally manages, “maybe he wasn’t. But he really fucking wanted to be,” when James’s eyes open they’re damp and Lily can’t stop herself from reaching out and wiping the tears off his cheeks. “And that has to count for something right?”

She keeps her hand on his face, gentle, holding. “Yeah,” she manages, even though she doesn’t know if she believes it. “Yeah it counts for something.”
― MesserMoon, Choices