Chapter Text
The air had gone still. Not the peaceful stillness of a warm afternoon, not the hush that came with rest. This stillness was different—too thick, too heavy. It wrapped around the farmhouse and the fields like a wool blanket soaked through, pressing in on everything. The lavender rows that usually swayed in rhythm with the breeze stood rigid and upright, like soldiers bracing for orders. Even the insects had quieted. Not a single cicada chirped from the old gum tree near the shed.
James noticed it first as a silence in his body. His shoulders, usually slack from long mornings at the easel, had tensed into a hunch. The back of his neck itched from heat and unease. He stood barefoot on the porch, sweating through the cotton of his tank top, and stared out across the field. The sky was all wrong. Clear overhead, but too still, too bright—unnatural. Off in the west, thick grey clouds crouched on the horizon, unmoving.
The kind of clouds that made the land hold its breath.
He heard the rattle of a tray behind him, the soft clink of ceramic on wood. Regulus. Of course. Always two steps behind, carrying the weight of the day like he didn’t know how to set it down.
“You should be inside,” James said without turning.
“So should you,” Regulus replied. His voice was clipped, practical.
James finally turned to face him. Regulus was carrying two mugs of tea, though the heat was unbearable. His hair was looking wild, flyaways sticking to his damp cheeks. He wore his harvest apron over old jeans and a tank that clung to his back in sweat-splotched patches. There was a streak of dirt on his arm, like a shadow of the garden clinging to him.
James gestured vaguely toward the sky. “It’s coming.”
Regulus followed his gaze, squinting into the horizon. “Looks like it.”
“Been building all day.”
“Mm.”
They sipped in silence, standing side by side on the porch as the silence stretched. Somewhere behind them, the screen door creaked in the windless air and banged once, a sound that startled both of them more than it should have.
“We should bring the canvas boards in,” James said finally.
Regulus didn’t answer right away. “They’ll be fine for a few more hours.”
“They’re exposed.”
“I said they’ll be fine.”
James looked at him sharply. Not for the words, but the tone. Flat. Dull. Like everything lately.
“I’ll do it myself then.”
“Suit yourself,” Regulus muttered and turned to go back inside.
The screen door slammed again, harder this time. James stared after him for a long moment before stepping down onto the baked dirt path that led to the barn.
He’d walk to the barn. He’d carry each of the five canvas boards back himself if he had to. It wasn’t about the storm. It was about how Regulus didn’t care. Or worse—how he cared too much, but had stopped showing it.
That was the part that scared James the most. Not anger. Not detachment. But that strange, quiet space where love once lived, now emptied out and echoing.
—
The walk to the barn was short — no more than fifty paces — but today it felt longer. The kind of long that comes not from distance, but from weight. The weight of something unspoken.
The sun pressed down on his back like an accusation. James kept his eyes on the ground as he walked, stepping around brittle tufts of grass and dry pebbles that crackled underfoot. The sky to the west had darkened another shade — not dramatic yet, but brooding.
Inside, the barn smelled of old wood, dried herbs, and faint turpentine. Light filtered through the gaps in the planks in thin, trembling beams. The canvas boards were propped up along the back wall, still in their frames. He moved to them, ran his hand across the edge of the topmost one. His sunflower piece. Bright yellows, bold brush strokes, and a wide sky — finished just last week, back when Regulus had still been humming in the mornings.
He hated it now. It was too hopeful. Too clean.
James leaned the board against his hip and moved to collect the others. They weren’t heavy — not physically — but something about carrying them, alone, under this sky, made his chest ache.
He stacked them carefully and turned back toward the barn doors. Just as he stepped into the light again, the wind shifted. Barely — a whisper across the field, a murmur in the trees. But it was enough.
Enough to make the hairs on his arms stand up.
Enough to tell him: something’s breaking.
James paused in the doorway, canvases pressed to his chest. From here, he could see the house — pale and rectangular against the brown-green field, the porch still shaded, the screen door half ajar. He watched it sway in the almost-wind. It moved like a heartbeat.
Regulus wasn’t in the window.
James' jaw tightened.
The wind picked up again, higher this time, whistling faintly through the top beams of the barn behind him. He turned and caught his reflection in a broken shard of mirror that had been leaning against the wall since last summer. His face looked older. Not aged, but tired. Weathered. The way the barn looked after each storm season — still standing, but changed.
He looked away.
When he returned to the house, the screen door opened without resistance. He slipped inside, arms aching from the awkward load. Regulus was in the kitchen, tying bunches of mint with jute string, methodical and silent. The kettle was still warm. The air smelled of tea and rosemary.
James set the canvases gently against the wall, straightening them until they stood at even angles.
“I brought them in,” he said.
“Thanks.” Regulus didn’t look up.
“I didn’t want them to warp in the humidity.”
Regulus nodded, still working. “Good thinking.”
There was a long pause.
“I can help you with the wreaths if you want,” James offered, unsure why he said it.
Regulus' fingers slowed. “It’s fine. I’ve got a system.”
James almost said, You always say that now.
Instead, he said nothing.
The silence expanded again — thick as the heat.
He walked to the sink, poured himself another glass of water. The ice had melted. Of course it had. Everything was softening, melting, blurring around the edges. Except for the space between them. That was getting sharper.
Out the window, the sky was darker. The storm was closer now. The kind that didn’t blink.
“We should put the shutters down on the west side,” James said quietly.
“I’ll get them,” Regulus answered, already moving toward the back door.
James watched him go.
He hated this part — the coordination. The logistics. They had always been a good team before. Running the farm. Painting together. Planning festival displays. Picking lavender in synchronized silence, the kind that had meant comfort back then. Now, every interaction felt like managing a company with two failing partners. Still functional. No longer gentle.
He drained the glass and stared down at the basin, where tiny flecks of dried paint still clung to the edges from this morning’s clean-up. Yellow, green, violet. Like the lavender field caught in a time warp.
He missed the way Regulus used to look at him when he painted. Like he was witnessing something sacred. Now Regulus barely even looked at him. Not really.
James pressed his fingers to the edge of the sink, grounding himself in something solid.
Another breeze pushed through the open windows, stronger this time, carrying the scent of rain — sharp, metallic, and cold.
He shivered.
Outside, the storm was coming.
But the storm inside had already started.
—
By the time Regulus came back inside, the light had shifted. Not in the golden, romantic way it did at sunset, but in that eerie, storm-drenched way where shadows grew too long and everything looked slightly askew. The farmhouse windows flickered with dull gray. The lavender fields beyond looked like brushstrokes washed in soot.
“They’re all down,” Regulus said, shaking rain from his sleeves.
James nodded. He tried to meet his eyes, but Regulus was already moving past him toward the hallway.
“We should unplug the studio power boards,” James offered.
“Already did.”
Of course you did, James thought, biting the inside of his cheek.
He stood alone in the kitchen a moment longer before following the familiar creak of the hallway floorboards into the bedroom. The space was dim — they hadn’t turned on any lights yet. A storm ritual, maybe. As if keeping the room shadowed made them safer, less visible to the rage outside.
Regulus was by the window, pulling the last blind closed. He paused there a moment, his back to James, arms resting lightly on the sill.
James crossed to the bed and sat on the edge, fingers twisting the hem of his shirt. “Do you remember the storm last year?” he asked.
Regulus gave the slightest nod.
“When the power went out for two days and the road washed out?”
“Yeah.”
“We made soup on the outdoor burner. You put that ridiculous camping lantern in the center of the table and called it ‘fine dining.’”
Regulus gave a faint smile, but didn’t turn around.
“You laughed so hard you spilled lentils all over the porch,” James added, quieter.
Regulus' shoulders rose with a shallow breath. “That feels like a long time ago.”
“It wasn’t that long.”
Regulus finally turned. His expression was unreadable — not cold, just… restrained.
“It feels like it,” he said again. “Doesn’t it?”
James swallowed. “Sometimes.”
Regulus walked over and sat beside him on the bed. Not touching — just close enough for the space between them to mean something.
“It’s not just the storm,” Regulus said, voice barely above the hush of wind outside. “We’ve been circling the drain for months.”
James closed his eyes. “I know.”
A beat passed.
“I don’t want to fight,” Regulus said.
“Then don’t,” James said, too fast, too sharp.
Regulus looked away. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
The silence came again, thick and stretched tight.
Rain began to spatter softly against the window. Not the downpour yet — just the warning drops. A few seconds later, thunder rolled across the hills in the distance.
James broke the silence first this time. “I don’t know how we got here.”
“Yes, you do,” Regulus said gently.
James looked at him.
Regulus' eyes weren’t angry. They were tired. Brimming, but dry. That was somehow worse.
“You shut down,” Regulus said softly. “After your dad died. After the festival last year. You stopped letting me in.”
James opened his mouth, but no words came.
Regulus continued. “I waited. I tried to stay soft. But you—God, Jamie, you turned quiet in a way I didn’t know how to hold. I didn’t know if you still wanted me here.”
James stared down at his hands.
“I did,” he whispered. “I do. I just didn’t know how to ask for help when everything felt—loud.”
“I know that now. But I didn’t then.”
More thunder. Louder this time. The window rattled slightly in its frame.
“We could try again,” James said, voice cracking.
Regulus closed his eyes. “I’m not saying we can’t. I just don’t know if what we’re trying to get back still exists.”
James blinked hard. “So what? We just let it rot?”
“No,” Regulus said, his voice breaking, “we let it rest.”
Outside, the rain picked up. The farmhouse creaked — not in fear, but in recognition. It had stood through worse. It would stand through this.
James stood. His legs felt shaky.
He crossed to the dresser and opened the drawer where he kept his sketchbooks. Pulled one out, flipped to a recent page. A loose drawing of the field after harvest — stalks short and scrubby, sky huge above it.
“I don’t think it’s rotted,” he said. “I think we forgot how to feed it.”
Regulus stood too. His gaze lingered on the sketch.
“That’s beautiful,” he said, voice hushed.
“It’s what’s left after the storm,” James replied.
They stood in that dim room, a breath between lightning strikes, a pause in the thunder.
Neither said I love you.
But it was there. In the silence. In the way they watched each other — not like enemies, not quite like lovers.
Just two people standing in a house still learning how to hold them.
And the rain fell.
Soft, steady. Cleansing.
The storm had arrived.
—
By the time the power flickered out, James and Regulus were already prepared for it — in the physical sense, at least. Flashlights lay on the kitchen bench, candles arranged like a mismatched altar in the sitting room, their soft glows casting pale gold halos against the walls. The hum of the fridge died mid-breath, leaving a deep silence in its place.
The farmhouse was still — and then not. The storm made itself known all at once, shaking the siding with a gust so sharp the window panes trembled. Dusty barked once from the corner of the room before settling again, tail twitching, ears alert.
James was on his knees by the old bookshelf, pulling out the heavier wool blankets stored in the bottom drawer. He tossed one across the back of the couch, then sat beside Regulus without a word. Their shoulders barely touched, but the warmth of Regulus' body beside him was unmistakable. Familiar. Aching.
Outside, the rain intensified. Not the scattered tap-tap of earlier, but a relentless pounding, as if the sky had decided to pour itself whole upon the fields.
“You think the barn’ll hold?” Regulus asked quietly.
James didn’t answer at first. He listened to the sound of the wind moving through the eaves — high, keening, unpredictable — and remembered the splintered tree limb they’d never gotten around to cutting down by the shed.
“It’s held before,” he said finally.
Regulus made a soft sound in his throat. Not agreement. Not disbelief. Just… something.
They sat in silence again.
Then James said, almost too softly, “Do you remember the blackout during the spring floods two years ago?”
Regulus gave a slow nod. “You made a sculpture out of egg cartons and candle wax.”
“It was supposed to be a flower.”
“It looked like a melted boot.”
James smiled — really smiled — for the first time in days. “You said it had character.”
“You insisted we keep it on the mantle for a week. Like it was some kind of offering.”
“Maybe it was.”
Regulus turned his head slightly. “An offering to what?”
James shrugged, but his voice turned serious. “To the version of us that knew how to make beauty out of chaos.”
The wind pressed hard against the walls again, and the window rattled. The sound was oddly reassuring — not violent, but insistent, like the weather itself was asking to be acknowledged.
Regulus exhaled slowly. “Maybe that version’s still in here. Just buried under a few seasons of silence.”
“I hope so,” James said.
A long pause stretched between them.
“You know I never meant to shut you out,” he added.
“I know,” Regulus replied. “But it still happened.”
James stared into the soft light of the candle on the coffee table. Wax was beginning to pool unevenly on one side, leaning toward the draft. He leaned forward, gently adjusted the glass base, righted it.
“It felt like if I let myself fall apart,” James said, “I’d never stop. Like grief was a bottomless thing and if I started sinking, I wouldn’t find the surface again.”
“You didn’t have to find the surface alone.”
“I didn’t want to drown you with me.”
Regulus let out a hollow laugh, the kind that didn’t touch his eyes. “Jamie, I’ve been standing on that shore the whole time. Watching you go under.”
That landed like a weight in James' chest. He looked over. Regulus' profile was illuminated by candlelight — the elegant curve of his jaw, the shadow beneath his eyes, the small line between his brows that deepened when he was holding himself too tightly.
They used to read each other’s expressions like second language. Now, even the familiar looked foreign.
“I kept thinking it would get better,” James whispered. “If I could just push through, fix the finances, land the gallery… Then maybe I’d feel like me again. The version of me you fell in love with.”
Regulus' gaze met his. “I didn’t fall in love with a version. I fell in love with you.”
James blinked. “Then why does it feel like I’ve been failing you for months?”
“Because we’ve both been pretending this is just a phase,” Regulus said. “But what if it’s not? What if it’s just… what we’ve become?”
The storm howled louder outside, wind screaming through the gutters. A tree branch scraped across the tin roof like a rake dragged over sheet metal. Dusty whined low in his throat and tucked himself further beneath the quilt at their feet.
James felt his chest tighten.
“I don’t want to become something that makes you feel small,” he said. “I don’t want us to be the couple who holds on just because they’re afraid of letting go.”
Regulus didn’t answer for a long time. He was looking at the candlelight again, watching it flicker like something fragile. Like something alive.
“What if we didn’t hold on or let go?” he said. “What if we just stayed here — in the quiet — until we know?”
James considered that. Not a fix. Not a promise. But a choice. To pause. To breathe. To stop trying to outrun the storm and instead sit in the middle of it — together.
He reached out, slowly, deliberately, and covered Regulus' hand with his own.
The contact was soft. No squeeze. No grasping. Just skin on skin. Warm. Real.
Regulus turned his hand slightly, laced their fingers together.
Outside, the rain softened for a moment, easing into a quieter rhythm. The kind that reminded you storms had middles, not just beginnings and ends.
James rested his head lightly against Regulus' shoulder. “Okay,” he said. “We stay.”
Regulus leaned his cheek to James' hair.
“For now,” he whispered.
And that was enough.
For now.
The storm raged on. But so did they — quietly, together, in the eye of it.
—