[He doesn't even complain about "Reg". That's where he's at, right now.]
[He doesn't answer for a moment. He's trying not to answer, not to let everything come tumbling out all at once - trying to get his thoughts in order, and marshalled into something calmer and more rational than he feels.]
The... [When he gestures, shadow follows his movement, afterimages drifting like smoke. Or fog.] The bubbles. The past.
She lied. I believed her. But she lied.
[The room is very cold. Around them, the shadows - there are a lot of shadows, this is a house inhabited by shades and vampires, after all - pulse and shift oddly, as though fidgeting.]
[As his voice rises, just slightly, Regulus is starting to pulse and shift, too. From slender youth to black-cloaked, skull-faced void; from pale to dark; jittering and shifting like shadows on a windy day.]
And it was the same lie! Just like Aunamee, just like...
[He trails off there. He never knows how to refer to Him, these days. Dark Lord is too respectful for how he feels; Riddle too blunt; Voldemort too much like an invitation.]
I keep believing people. Believing in people. And it's always the wrong people, and I should know, because it's always the same lie, and I'm just...
[Without entirely realising it, he's gone intangible. There's a dark mist hanging in the air, vaguely human-shaped, and even that is flickering into the now unnaturally-dark shadows around them. His voice seems to come from a distance, and from nowhere in particular.]
no subject
[He doesn't answer for a moment. He's trying not to answer, not to let everything come tumbling out all at once - trying to get his thoughts in order, and marshalled into something calmer and more rational than he feels.]
The... [When he gestures, shadow follows his movement, afterimages drifting like smoke. Or fog.] The bubbles. The past.
She lied. I believed her. But she lied.
[The room is very cold. Around them, the shadows - there are a lot of shadows, this is a house inhabited by shades and vampires, after all - pulse and shift oddly, as though fidgeting.]
[As his voice rises, just slightly, Regulus is starting to pulse and shift, too. From slender youth to black-cloaked, skull-faced void; from pale to dark; jittering and shifting like shadows on a windy day.]
And it was the same lie! Just like Aunamee, just like...
[He trails off there. He never knows how to refer to Him, these days. Dark Lord is too respectful for how he feels; Riddle too blunt; Voldemort too much like an invitation.]
I keep believing people. Believing in people. And it's always the wrong people, and I should know, because it's always the same lie, and I'm just...
[Without entirely realising it, he's gone intangible. There's a dark mist hanging in the air, vaguely human-shaped, and even that is flickering into the now unnaturally-dark shadows around them. His voice seems to come from a distance, and from nowhere in particular.]
I'm stupid. Was I always this bloody stupid?