Regulus sat at the edge of the bed, his hands trembling as he traced the seams of the blanket. His thoughts were a blur, fractured memories of the cave crashing over him with each breath—airless, suffocating, the cold, wet hands of the Inferi dragging him down, pulling him under. He could still feel it, the pressure in his chest as he fought for air, the panic clawing at him as the world turned black. He hadn’t thought he would survive, hadn’t thought anyone would pull him out. But Kreacher had.

The recovery was slow, painfully slow. After the cave, after the horrors he'd witnessed, Regulus could barely remember who he was before that day. The darkness of hiding—of being away from the world, locked away in some small corner of it—was suffocating, but it was the only choice they had.

But it wasn’t just the dark lord he was running from anymore. It wasn’t just the war, or the horrors he’d seen. He was running from something else now. Something inside him.

Every time his partner reached out, touched him—whether it was a brush of the hand or an embrace—Regulus felt it all over again. The cold, the wet, the panic. He couldn't stand it. He couldn’t bear to be touched. Not by them. Not by anyone. The one thing that should’ve been a source of comfort, of solace, had become his greatest torment.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to banish the images, the feelings, but they wouldn’t leave. His body was no longer his own, betrayed by the ghost of the inferi’s touch. He pushed his partner’s hand away, the contact too much, too overwhelming.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. But the words felt empty, meaningless. He was sorry for so much—sorry for being weak, for being broken, for not being able to love them the way they deserved.