Regulus Black (leonineserpant) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-08-26 23:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | amycus carrow, regulus black |
WHO: Amycus Carrow and Regulus Black
WHAT: Am opens up about his past
WHEN: Backdated Mid July
WHERE: Am's kitchen
RATING/WARNINGS: low, tw: child neglect (past)
STATUS: finished
Regulus hummed happily to himself as he scrubbed the dishes that they had left to soak. The girls were in bed asleep now, and as soon as they finished clean up, they had the rest of the night together, just the two of them. “Am, remind me we need new sponges? I don’t think the holes are supposed to be this big.” he laughed as he stuck a finger through a tear and started to slowly spin it around on his finger to avoid flinging sudsy water. “What do you want to do after this? Movie and popcorn, or should we tuck ourselves in?
*****
Normally Amycus did the dishes since Regulus cooked, it just seemed fair to him that they split it up but tonight Madison had proved difficult to get to go to sleep and by the time he finally got her to sleep and got back downstairs, Regulus had started them without him. “I’ll put it on our list love.” He said, putting the last of their leftovers away and moving to stand behind his boyfriend and wrapping his arms around his waist and squeezing him gently.
“Actually I was thinking I should tell you about my exwife. I probably should have before now but you know that’s a part of my life I want to forget about but my mum made a good point when we talked earlier - if I want to build a life with you, I have to be honest with you about all of the baggage in my past.” Even if he was terrified of what Regulus’ response might be.
***
Regulus let out a long, contented sigh as Amycus wrapped his arms around him from behind, and he leaned into the other man. “Thank you, I don’t know how long we’ve gone without noticing that. How are the girls? I don’t know what got Madison so wired tonight.” he murmured as he turned to press a soft kiss to his boyfriend’s jaw.
“Let me guess, your real name is James Bond, and your ex is actually a spy of some sort, right?” Regulus teased gently, hoping to lighten the mood. “But for real, anything that you ever want to talk about or need to talk about, just let me know. Help me dry and we can talk over coffee? Hot chocolate?”
***
“I have no clue. I swear I didn’t load her up on sugar before you came over.” Amycus said softly, nuzzling under his ear gently. “They’re both finally asleep though. Aslan is stretched out in the hall right now between their rooms. Playing guard dog.” He said, he loved these peaceful moments when they could talk about their girls and their dog.
He laughed softly at Regulus’ teasing. “Oh I wish love. I’d have a much better car if I was.” He sighed and gave him one more squeeze before stepping away and moving over to grab a dish towel and start to dry. “Do you want us to be as wired as our little girl? I could brew us some tea?”
***
Regulus tilted his head to the side as Amycus nuzzled at his ear, silently begging for more. “Maybe she found your secret stash and hyped herself out, then. You’ll have to see if your gummies are missing.” he teased gently. He knew that she wouldn’t have done that though, or at least would have shared with her sister first. “He is the best guard dog. And deserves a treat later for trying to guard them both at the same time.”
Regulus pretended to think for a moment and shook his head. “Not necessarily. Your cool spy car wouldn’t be able to fit in their car seats, so you had to trade it in for more room. Still cool hidden gadgets somewhere.” He smiled as Amycus grabbed a towel to help him dry. “Tea is good, then. With the mana-tea strainer.”
***
Amycus smiled and placed one more kiss under Regulus’ ear when his boyfriend tilted his head that way. If he let himself get distracted right now he’d lose his nerve to tell him what he had to tell him. “I’ll check later. If they’re gone well...someone still has to show me where he got that massive bag online.” He teased back.
He laughed softly and shook his head. “If they are...they’re very well hidden love.” He sighed as he started drying. “I’m never not going to make tea for us and not use that.”
***
Regulus shivered at that kiss under his ear and let out a soft noise. “Mmmm… I need to do that anyway, don’t I? So you can pick your own favorites next time. Still, you can’t go wrong with gummy sharks.”
He laughed at that and flicked water at Amycus, playfully. “Hey, I don’t know what you do when I’m not in the car with you. You might use them all the time. And I figured that you wouldn’t.”
***
“You know my favorites love. Gummy bears. Gummy worms. Any gummies that aren’t sour.” He whispered into his ear, nuzzling gently.
Amycus gave him a flirty grin as he flicked the towel at him. “I think you’re confusing me with our little button mashers. I’ve got a new appreciation for my parents refusal to get automatic windows in any of their cars when I was little. They knew what they were doing.” He moved away from the sink to start brewing their tea once the dishes were done.
“Sugar love? Cream or are you still not willing to try that?”
***
“Maybe I am, but I think they had to get their button mashing ways from someone. And it sounds like that someone was you, Love.” Regulus teased him.
He sat down at the table and watched Amycus as he started to brew the tea. “Sugar, please, just sugar. Cream only goes in coffee.” Maybe one day Regulus will try tea the way his boyfriend insisted was the proper way to drink it, but his American brain was still a little weirded out by putting dairy in it. “Do we have any cookies left to go with it? I have a feeling it’s going to be a tea and cookies type of conversation.”
***
Amycus laughed at Regulus’ teasing, putting the last dish away after drying it.
“One day I’ll get you to drink it properly. It’s a goal I’ve set for myself. At least get you to sip it.” Amycus said, pulling out the cream for himself and then putting sugar in both their cups.
“I think there might be some cookies in that cabinet. ...It’s definitely not going to be a fun conversation Love. Once I get started telling you all of it...I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop until I’m done. Because if I do I might not have the guts to start up again.”
***
“Maybe sipping some of yours, then. I might try that, just not a whole cup of for myself.” Regulus murmured as he started rummaging through the cabinets to find the cookies. He grabbed the box as well as a small plate and brought them to the table, placing it between them.
He gave Amycus a sympathetic look and reached out for him. “You’ve got my undivided attention, Love.”
****
Amycus poured tea for both of them when the kettle started whistling to let him know it was done, adding the cream to his and stirring it in before putting the cream up and then carrying their cups to the table and sitting down beside Regulus’ chair. He reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together and took a deep sigh before starting to speak.
“You know I went to boarding school. And then college here in the US. Everything changed when I moved here. My accent got me a lot more attention from girls than it did there, family money carried more weight with my classmates. All of it just took me by surprise. I met someone in my classes and...I fell for her. Or for who I thought she was,” he said, stopping to take a drink of his tea now that it had cooled some. “We dated all through college and I asked her to marry me and we were planning our future. Or I was planning our future and she was trying to figure out how to convince me to give up my plan and take her back to England with me. I didn’t realize it though. Not until it was too late. We planned on getting married after graduation but then she got pregnant with the twins and I - I made the decision to move the wedding up.” That was the first mistake he knew he’d made with her, the first one he could point to definitively.
“I wanted something small. Intimate. Just family and friends and she...invited everyone we knew. Even clients that I’d mentioned having met once or twice since I was already interning at the firm. It turned into this huge, spectacle that I’d never wanted but I went along with it. It was what she wanted to make her happy so I let her do it. I thought it was the right thing.” He looked down at their joined hands, rubbing his thumb over Regulus’ gently, needing that comfort of just having him there as he tried to think of how to start on the next part.
***
Regulus squeezed Amycus’ fingers as he listened to him. He was quiet, nodding as his boyfriend went along. He didn’t want to interrupt him in case it threw him off track, and he knew how much whatever this was was bugging him, and that he needed to get it out. He took a sip of his tea and reached for a cookie when his boyfriend paused.
“I’ve never understood the need to invite everyone who ‘you’ve heard of even in passing to a wedding. It just seems like it would be exhausting, just to remember who everyone is and introduce people…. Why on earth would someone do that to themselves willingly? It was bad enough when one of my cousins got married and her mother kept coming up with more cousins and aunts and honorary aunts none of us knew about.” Regulus always had a huge family, and he knew that. But that was overwhelming even as a guest, he couldn’t imagine it as one of the people involved.
***
“I think for her it was just the prestige of being able to say there’d been a celebrity at our wedding if any of them showed up, which they didn’t, but I think it’s what she wanted. She wanted so badly to be someone and I didn’t realize it at the time but I was her ticket to that in her mind I guess.” Amycus said, taking a sip of his tea before continuing.
“Things only went downhill from there. My family...my parents have a title. Because of something some ancestor did generations ago that none of us even know what it was. And she - she wanted that life. The life of a lady. No matter how many times I tried to tell her the title belonged to my father not to me she was adamant that if we moved to England with the girls, moved into my parents estate, she could have that life. She would have a title. And it didn’t matter to her that that wasn’t the life I wanted. I liked living in New York. I liked my work. I liked not having the responsibility of being the heir to the title. Things just got worse and worse between us. And the girls were born and the second I saw them - I fell in love. They became what mattered most to me. Taking care of them was all that I wanted to do. Whatever I had to do for that to happen. Even if that meant working 14 hour days and coming home to tuck them in and read to them and take care of them. I was so focused on them that I didn’t notice everything else falling apart.”
“I didn’t notice her starting to be drunk more or the evidence that she was on some drug. And I wasn’t home enough to notice that she was never there. Or when she was there there were other people there too. Other men there. When the girls were 18 months old I came home from work I guess earlier than she expected and she was gone and so were the girls. I asked the neighbors and finally found out that one of them had called social services because they were worried about what was going on in the apartment when I was at work. They’d tried to call me but I was in meetings all day and didn’t stop off to get my messages on the way out from my secretary. I figured whatever it was could wait until tomorrow because if it was urgent they’d have passed it along to someone who could handle it right then.”
Of all the times for him not to drink much. He could really use a stiff drink right now but he had his tea and he had Regulus right here. He could handle this reliving of his history.
***
Regulus squeezed Amycus’ hand harder as he talked. He knew whatever the divorce was over had to be bad, but he had no clue that it was anywhere this bad. No wonder he had such a hard time opening up. Trusting anyone… it had to be hard, if not almost impossible. “Oh my god… I don’t even know where to start. ….You made it so she can never see the girls, right? Somehow?” Not only did she not deserve to, Reg couldn’t imagine how bad being in contact with her could be for the twins. “And it wasn’t your fault… when they said who they were, your secretary should have interrupted the meeting. ...God, none of this was your fault.”
***
Amycus sighed and shook his head. “She has the right to supervised visitation. That she’s never decided to use. The night I found out the girls were gone. I waited for her to come home - drunk off her ass when she walked in - and I told her we were done. I’d been willing to overlook everything else that had gone on between us. All the other problems we’d had but - she lost my girls and I couldn’t look past that. I left, went to a hotel, the next day I met with Social Services and started fighting to get them back. Jumping through every hurdle they put in front of me. Found an apartment of my own, legally separated from her, hired a nanny, started divorce proceedings. Went to every meeting and visit that I had with them. It took me six months to prove that I was a fit father for them. That I deserved to have my babies back.” He looked up at the doorway when he heard movement there, letting out a relieved sigh when he realized it was Aslan and not one of the girls.
“They asleep buddy?” He asked, putting his free hand down for Aslan to come over and get loved on. He looked up, an almost strained smile on his face as he started up again. “I got them back right before their second birthday, the divorce was finalized and I got full custody. She’s never even tried to see them. When I got the transfer offer to here - I followed the judge’s orders. I had my lawyer contact the lawyer she’d used in the proceedings to let her know that I would be moving the girls out of state in pursuit of my career. And there was no response. Not a surprise there but...I was relieved. And I did what I was told I had to by the court. She had 90 days to respond, to object to me removing the girls from the state and she didn’t. And then we moved here. And I met you.” And things were better than they’d ever been since he’d moved here. He was happier than he’d ever been. His girls were happier. They adored Regulus and had stopped asking about their former nanny. Entirely.
***
Regulus couldn’t imagine how Amycus must have felt, what he must have been going through, without the twins. Those girls were his life, and his heart ached for him. For all three of them. “I am so, so glad that you got them back…. God. I can’t even imagine…” He didn’t want to imagine. He loved those girls as if they were his own. The idea of them being in foster care or adopted was heartbreaking. “I can see why you never talk about her.”
He looked up when he heard the noise from the doorway, and visibly relaxed when it was just Aslan. “Good boy. You’re such a good guard dog.” Reg whispered as he reached out with his free hand to scritch near his tail. “I’m glad that she didn’t object. Or try to insert herself into their lives after the divorce. She doesn’t deserve them, and they deserve so much better than her.”
***
“I would never have stopped fighting to get them back. It was hell and a nightmare and expensive but my parents helped and...every night I get to tuck them in their beds reminds me why it was worth it. Why it was worth every step I had to take, every chance I had to make to my life. It was all worth it.” Amycus nibbled at a cookie, buying himself time before starting on the last part of it.
“After the divorce - I wasn’t interested in women anymore. Not like that. I’d always been attracted to men but I’d never acted on it. After that I wasn’t looking for a relationship - you knew that. Falling for you was one of the best surprises I’ve ever had. But you also know that I wasn’t exactly a virgin when we got to that point with one another. There were a few...friends that I trusted in New York to help me explore that part of myself. I’d spend the night with them. Never at the apartment. Never around the girls but - now you know every bloody part of my past. Every...decision I’ve made that probably wasn’t the brightest.” He looked up at him almost shyly.
***
“I know that you wouldn’t have, Love. And I am so glad they’re with you, where they belong. I’m glad your parents helped… I just. I can’t imagine them not being around. And I’ve only had them in my life a fraction of the time you have.”
Regulus squeezed his boyfriend’s fingers again and he gave him a soft smile. “I do. And I’m glad that you told me all of it. And that I know everything. I love you so much, Amycus. And she might not have been the brightest decision but… we have two amazing girls because of it. Thank you for telling me.”
***
Amycus squeezed his fingers back and smiled at him. “Our lives are so much better with you in them. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. And so are the girls. Even though Madison won’t admit it - her whole face lights up when she sees you pull in the drive Love.” He told him, laughing out loud as Aslan raised his head up to butt their hands. “And Aslan here just about loses his mind when he realizes you’re walking in the door.” He said, untangling their fingers so that he could scratch at the overgrown puppy around his ears and cheeks. “You do. You do. You love when Daddy comes in the door don’t you?” He murmured, grinning over at Regulus.
“Why don’t you go pick a movie or whatever you want to do tonight. And I’ll wash up these dishes and come join you. I’m yours the rest of the night.” He felt lighter somehow now that it was all out on the table.
***
Regulus couldn’t stop grinning. At the thought of his little standoffish Madison waiting by the window for his car and lighting up when she sees it. About Aslan going crazy when he realizes he’s coming in. “I have the same reaction to coming in to see all of you guys.”
He leaned across the table to steal a kiss before standing up. “If you’re sure you want to finish up? I’ll go with Aslan to wait for you back in our room. Want to help me pick something to watch with Dad, Aslan? Good boy.” he murmured as his tail wagged.
***
Amycus kissed him back sweetly. “It’s only fair. You washed up from dinner. I won’t be long Love. Nothing scary though. Aslan has horrible nightmares. He won’t admit it but he’s a big scaredy cat.” He gave him another kiss and stood up, gathering their dishes and starting to tidy up, whistling to himself as he did.