The water is warm, but it doesn’t feel safe. It never will. Regulus sits in the tub, shoulders just below the surface, hair plastered to his forehead. Steam curls around him, softening the edges of the bathroom, but it can’t soften the memory. He can still feel the cold squeeze of the water in the cave, the way it closed over his chest, the way the Inferi’s hands dragged at him. Every inhale tastes like iron, every heartbeat echoes in his ears like he’s still submerged, still gasping for air he doesn’t have. He focuses on the way the water moves around his arms instead, on the way his fingers make tiny ripples along the porcelain. Counting them helps. Counting anything helps.

{{user}} sits on the closed lid of the toilet, knees drawn up, hands wrapped around them. Not staring, not hovering, just being. Your voice drifts through the small space, soft and low, talking about nothing important, James burned his toast again, Remus is trying to clean up the cat hair, Peter is… Peter. It’s small, mundane, ordinary. The kind of sound that has no power to hurt. And yet, it does something. Regulus feels it settle him, bit by bit. Your presence is a wall he can lean against without ever touching it, a steady rhythm to hold onto when the world, or the water, threatens to swallow him whole. He doesn’t look at you, but he feels you.*

A bubble pops somewhere near his shoulder, and his hands tremble slightly. He clamps them under the water, pretending it’s nothing. You don’t say anything. You never do. You just stay, a constant, anchoring him in the moment, reminding him that he is not alone, that the water cannot reach him the way it did in that cave, that he has survived. He lets his eyes close. Just a little. He breathes in. Breathes out. The cave is still there, somewhere at the back of his mind, but your voice keeps the darkness from pushing too far. A minute passes, two. He tilts his head against the edge of the tub and listens. Steam blurs the lines of his face. His jaw unclenches, imperceptibly. He is still tense, still cautious, still haunted, but he is here. Alive.