Archive of Our Own

“You’ll get ‘em next time, Prongs,” Sirius assured James instead of congratulating his own bleeding brother. Regulus peered over from his robes hook on the other side of the change room to see Sirius sprawled out on one of the benches, hands cradling his head and long dark hair spilling out haphazardly while James Potter peeled a sweat-slicked undershirt up over his head. The shirt caught his glasses and when they fell to the floor with a small clatter, Sirius leaned over from his lounging restfulness to pick them up and hand them to the Seventh Year Gryffindor boy. Best friends . Regulus thought, sardonically. What a waste . 

“Thanks,” James replied, both for the glasses and for the hollow assurance. He’d do no such thing. James Potter was a two-Knut flyer on a shite broom and Regulus slept well each night knowing that even if his good-for-nothing-at-all-really brother thought the sun shined directly out of James Potter’s arse, he was still going to catch the Snitch each game. Regulus smirked to himself, hanging his Slytherin team robes on his hook. 

“Ready, then? Moony and Wormtail will be waiting back in the Common where I don’t need to suffer you staring at my little baby brother like that,” Sirius nearly yelled. Ever a right arse, Regulus rolled his eyes not bothering to turn around. He knew he’d only find the sneering leer of Sirius’s contemptuous face. They were brothers once. Close, even, but that all changed when Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor and it only got worse once he fell in with the self-proclaimed Marauders . Regulus’s stomach clenched with a heated mixture of annoyance and resentment at the loathsome name.  

“Good show, Reg.” The sudden hand on his back made his skeleton nearly jump from his skin, but when he whirled around Regulus was met with the familiar face of Emma Vanity, his captain. “Really good. Looking forward to next game.” Regulus muttered a thin ‘thanks’, and sighed as she and his arse of a brother left him in merciful peace. Leave it to Sirius to tarnish what was supposed to be a brilliant victory. 

Regulus was great on the pitch, fast, faster than anyone else in school right now and too nimble for the Snitch to trick. He was brilliant out there, but he was small. Even being in Sixth Year, Regulus felt he appeared like he’d stopped growing after Fourth. Sirius, of course , had shot up like a bloody tree after Fifth Year, and he, James Potter, and Remus fucking Lupin walked around the school as though they owned it. As though they were Headmasters, each. 

He’d gotten so sick of being called ‘little Sirius’ or ‘young Sirius’, or ‘little Black’, that in an effort to differentiate himself, Regulus trimmed his hair to an elegant length that draped over his brow and came just to the base of his neck. Much more fitting for the youngest son of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, rotten though it was. Still, he hated showering in the Quidditch change rooms. They were wide open and while most people didn’t care one tosh, walking around naked as pixies (even the bloody girls), Regulus could not stand the idea of someone making fun of him for being so…little. So he waited. After every game, he waited until everyone else had left, or at least cleared out of the showers. 

Still clutching the winning Snitch in his hand, Regulus made his way around the old stone wall to the white tiled showers just behind it. He snapped his fingers activating the Charms that turned on the spray and set the temperature to near scalding, sighing. Winning should feel good. It should feel bril even if his brother was an imbecile and his friends were even worse. Even if Regulus wondered what on earth they saw that was so bloody special in Sirius. Was it the same thing his parents saw? The one that had them bending over backwards for him even though he didn’t give two shites to rub together about the Black Family legacy at all. Regulus looked at the little golden victory in his hand, rolling it between his fingers to study its filigree swirls and patterns. It really should feel good to win. 

"Thought you were small, but you’re actually quite fit, aren’t you?” The voice slammed into Regulus like a perfect Hex and he felt every muscle in his body tense, his hand clenching the Snitch in his tight fist as his heart wrenched and slammed in his chest. “Must be why you’re so bloody fast.” Regulus scowled to himself, his teeth clacking together and gnashing as the water ran over his head, slicking his dark hair to his furrowed brow. 

“What do you want, Potter?” he muttered, keeping his eyes on the silvery bath fixture in front of him, even though James Potter’s arrogant presence was so intrusive he could see him smirking, arms crossed, one ankle draped over the other as he leaned against the open doorway to the large showers out of the very corners of his eyes. Didn’t help that the boy was mockingly attractive. Almost as tall as Sirius, but filled out much more than his near waifish brother with thick muscled thighs Regulus would not at all complain about being crushed betwixt. Fuck’s sake . 

“Came back for my jumper,” he said. “Heard the showers and thought ‘blimey, who’d be in here a blooming hour after the game?’” He mocked his own West Country accent, and Regulus felt a conflicted sort of discomfort, finding that funny amidst the blinding panic and embarrassment that sent his blood surging into his skull.

“Whatever,” Regulus spat, hoping James would just go. Unlike Severus, Regulus didn’t give the Marauders any reason at all to waste their time with him. He didn’t care about their pranks or popularity. Didn’t give a tosh what anyone in Gryffindor House thought of him, and had absolutely no interest in the girls constantly hanging off of the four as if his brother wasn’t constantly bollocks deep in Remus Lupin’s stretched arsehole. 

“Flew well,” James said, and Regulus somehow managed to scowl deeper at that. Did he think they were having a conversation? That they were sat around for tea, musing on the weather and faffing about like chums? 

“Fuck off,” Regulus snapped, but this time he chanced a glance up at James. The arse had the audacity to smile at Regulus, just a small grin that ticked up the corners of his mouth in a way that made him seem…nice? No, that couldn’t be right. Regulus looked away again, splashing his face with the water that suddenly seemed more steam than spray as though it was evaporating around him.

“Really well, actually,” James went on as if Regulus hadn’t just told him off. “You’ll have to teach me how you did that corkscrew spiral-y thing sometime.” Regulus scoffed.

“I most certainly do not,” he argued. “What do you want, James?” 

“Ah, good, so it’s James now.” 

“What? No, it’s not—”

“Yes, it is, you just said it,” James pointed out, making Regulus roll his eyes, annoyed and also wishing desperately that he was not naked in front of his brother’s friend. His hot friend. With messy dark hair and bright siena eyes. His brother’s hot friend who was easily a head taller than Regulus with broad shoulders and a sort of roguish handsome quality to him that, much longer, threatened to send the blood pumping through Regulus’s skull to somewhere even more embarrassing. 

“Fuck off,” Regulus huffed. “Don’t you have to go meet my brother?” 

“Do you want me to go meet your brother?” James asked, and the question slid beneath Regulus’s skin and lit his insides ablaze. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Regulus retorted, feeling a heat rise to his cheeks he wished he could blame on the steam. James chuckled a gentle laugh, his expression remaining irritatingly arrogant and overly comfortable while Regulus felt he was entirely dissolving inside. Like his soul was leaking out of his arsehole and sliding down the bloody drain like the shampoo from his hair. 

“You really did fly very well, Regulus,” James explained, and he seemed unmistakably earnest. Kind, even. Friendly in a manner that made Regulus’s sides clench with discomfort, all while his stomach tightened with an obvious, unavoidable, and mounting anticipation. 

“Whatever,” he attempted to deflect, but then, “thanks, I guess,” tumbled from his lips, absent of his will. James visibly perked to that, his eyes brightened by what appeared a genuine desire for Regulus to like him for only Merlin knew what reason. 

“You could come join us,” James offered, and Regulus brought his hands to his face in a tumult of annoyance over this whole ordeal before shutting off the water and grabbing the towel he’d laid out nearby. 

“You could fuck off,” he snapped. And to James’s credit, 

He did. 

Regulus kept that Snitch with him after that, though he did not know why given it only reminded him of that dark moment in the showers. He held it close even as he put in excessive effort to maintain the distance between him and James Potter that week. It had never been difficult before. He was in Slytherin, James was in Gryffindor, they had almost no overlapping classes at all and the only times during the day they would even be in the same room were meal times. So, explain then, why was it James was suddenly fucking everywhere ? Down every corridor, around every corner, at the top and/or bottom of every bloody staircase Regulus needed to utilise to carry on with his life even in the aftermath of what had happened in the showers. 

His skin still crawled when he thought about it, which was often and frequently, bordering on constantly, really, and Regulus thought he might just curl up and die at any given moment from the utter mortification. Worse yet, Slytherin and Gryffindor were in their series gauntlet and Regulus had yet another match against them tomorrow. Emma Vanity sat down by his side in the Great Hall and Regulus let out a long sigh as she did, blonde curls cascading over her shoulders in a meticulously manicured show of well…vanity. 

“You’ve been weird,” she stated. Emma was a walking foil to Regulus in every meaningful way. She was a pretty girl with a bubbly personality, loads of friends, and a family that sent her letters just to tell her how proud of her they were. She was perfect, ostensibly, yet for some unknown reason, she had taken a sort of liking to Regulus that he found to be both warm and uncomfortable like an itchy sweater. 

“What of it?” he retorted, forking some peas around on his dinner plate as though an elementary school child pretending to eat, so he could go play. Emma put her arm around his shoulders and squeezed him affectionately which made Regulus cringe and shift trying to draw away from her constricting unwanted touch. 

“You’re my star Seeker, and we have a match tomorrow,” she informed in her crystal clear, posh accent like the storybook princess she was. 

“Ah, so all business, then?” Regulus asked, sarcastically, feeling more than seeing the way Emma scowled with evident insult. Her hair smelled so strongly of peach blossoms he felt he may yet retch. 

“Don’t be dour,” she snapped, in so much as she could snap out anything in that sweet melodic voice like a bleeding angel. Regulus heaved a great sigh, and Emma managed to squeeze him even yet tighter. “I care about you, Reggie, you’re a little brother to me whether you like it or not.”

“I decidedly do not,” Regulus muttered, and Emma kissed him on the head.

“Perhaps, you’re just a bit…” she paused, then pinched his cheek. “Frustrated.” Regulus’s eyes went wide with brewing ire as the lunatic mussed his hair entirely askew. “I’m sure there are plenty of cute boys around the change rooms,” she remarked before kicking her legs over the bench to skip , actually skip away. Regulus grumbled, attempting to fix his hair without a mirror after the destruction Emma had caused, placing his winning Snitch, that had become something between a token of luck and a torturous reminder of his mortal embarassment, on the table. 

It seemed her annoying ministrations had not disrupted the delicate equilibrium of his styled hair too greatly, but her comment stuck uncomfortably in him like an infuriating splinter. He tucked an errant lock behind one ear with his right hand while running his left over the top to flatten any wild strays considering her words and growing more indignant by the moment. Regulus fucked. He fucked often , thank you very much. Well, not as often as perhaps fifth year, and certainly not as often here of late, but still . He’d finished in a huff, and looked up to find, somehow, across the entire Great Hall, as though some cosmic joke with Regulus as its blighted punchline, James Potter staring at him. 

And he wasn’t even doing it right. He had the menacing glare all wrong, and his eyes were bright and warm and caught the setting sun like burnt caramel instead of narrowing with warning. If he was trying to get in Regulus’s head before their match tomorrow, he was doing an entirely rubbish job at it. Entirely rubbish. Regulus frowned, sliding his barely touched meal away from him, and standing to exit the hall intent on sequestering himself in his dormitory where Potter’s stupid burnt caramel eyes could not send a million doxies flitting around his insides like an absolute buffoon. 

He gathered his things, the Snitch, his Slytherin robes he begrudgingly wore over his tailored deep grey waistcoat and black dress shirt, checking to make sure he had all of his belongings in order, then stepping over the long hall bench to make his way back to the dungeons. And because the universe was one big cosmic joke with Regulus evidently its blighted punchline in perpetuity, he ran right into Sirius, Remus Lupin, and just the man he’d attempted to escape just outside. 

“Oh, if it isn’t my little baby brother,” Sirius called across the corridor. Regulus scoffed as he heard the clacking footsteps of all three boys on their direct path towards him, looking up a moment as if to ask the universe what he’d ever done to deserve this mistreatment. “Hello, baby brother.” 

“Don’t be an arse, Pads,” Remus hissed as they approached.

“I’m eighteen, Sirius, hardly a bloody baby,” Regulus snapped. He was eighteen, and Sirius was nineteen because they’d both been born late in the year. Sirius in November and Regulus mid-December the year later. ‘Irish twins’ as they say, though they were entirely English. 

“How are you eighteen?” James asked. “ I’m eighteen.” He sounded almost scandalised. Like he couldn’t possibly be the same age as Sirius’s tiny little baby brother. Regulus rolled his eyes, concealing the bite of James’s implication.  

“Late birthdays run in the family,” Sirius answered. “And Ori and Wally held us back from Hogwarts originally because they felt it was being ‘overrun with mudbloods’.” 

“Charming,” Remus stated. 

“Wait, you’re nineteen?” James asked Sirius.

“Prongs, you were literally there when we had my birthday in November,” Sirius said. 

“I thought you were turning eighteen!”

“The cake said nineteen,” Remus stated. 

“I thought it was a joke!” James seemed completely taken aback by all of this. 

“Good that we’ve established that we’re all adults, then,” Regulus intoned, catching the way James’s eyes flicked to him, then nervously back to Sirius. Remus saw it, too. He eyed Regulus a moment, inquisitively, then put a hand on James’s shoulder, turning him towards the corridor to Gryffindor Tower. 

“I’m sure we’ll see you at the match tomorrow, Regulus,” Remus said, mercifully, in that manner one employs to extricate themself from an uncomfortable conversation. 

“Indeed,” Regulus replied, stiltedly, turning on his heel and striding off entirely in the wrong direction. It couldn’t be helped. The dungeons and the corridors that led up to Gryffindor Tower were in the same direction and Regulus would rather eat nails than continue down the hallway with James . James, who seemed incapable of looking at him like a normal person. James, whose voice haunted Regulus’s thoughts like an annoying house ghost. James, whose white dress shirt had been unbuttoned at the top exposing the softly tanned skin beneath where his collarbone met his sternum, tie loose and hanging like an absolute derelict . 

The library did not prove any level of sanctuary as the scene in the showers played itself like a Jinxed gramophone on an endless loop. What did he even mean ‘rather fit’? Who bloody says that? Regulus’s mind tortured him with even the minutae in a perfect reenactment of the moment as it had for the entire, seemingly neverending, week. He slammed his Advanced Ancient Runes book shut, irritated and frustrated and feeling stuffy even in the draughty study area of the library in the evening. Whatever. He’d sleep this off, play the match tomorrow, and ideally one day, perhaps in the distant future, the noose that was the memory of that encounter would either loosen or snap his bloody neck so he could be over it. 

But, even in sleep, the universe mocked him. Regulus dreamed of that day as though constantly thinking about it were not enough to slake the insatiable thirst of his mind. His dream skewed some of the more reasonable details, and in it, James, too, was nude. That tanned skin Regulus had seen between the split collar of James’s shirt coating his whole tall, fit body in a near golden glow. He was hung like a bloody centaur, too, which Regulus, in his waking state, would simply attribute to his body’s natural attraction to large cocks. He still leaned against the wall of the showers with his arms crossed over his broad chest sparsely dotted with dark brow hairs that trailed down over his tight abdomen to…well, exactly where one would expect them to go. Still with that look that had started off arrogant and annoying and had sort of melted into something kind and almost…sweet and still entirely annoying. 

Regulus did not feel so exposed in his dream as he had in the moment. Instead, free of the constraints of the waking realm, he felt somewhat…enticed. He was gay, for Merlin’s sake, not an imbecile. He knew James was attractive, and he knew he was attracted to him, but what he could not fathom, what made entirely no bloody sense, was why . James was everything Regulus was not, and it would take almost no effort at all to picture him cuddled up closely with someone more like Emma than like himself. Two perfect people being perfect and happy together, how droll. There was also one key difference, one notable shift from reality that entirely altered the outcome of the dream. 

Dream James did not leave. Dream James stayed. He stayed his way towards Regulus under the hot spray of the shower, a look of sweet warmth like fresh jam playing with his expression. Stayed his fingers gently over Regulus’s cheek, flushed pink with the water’s heat along with his obvious discomfort, along with his obvious arousal. Dream James stayed his soft lips against Regulus’s and stayed his deviant tongue into Regulus’s mouth. He’d kissed boys before. It was entirely impossible to go to Hogwarts and be a teenager, away from home, and surrounded by other teenagers whose pheromones were as pungent as Professor Babbing’s perfume, and not snog boys. Or girls or whomever it was one might be into if that was what one wanted. All of that to say, Regulus had not kissed boys like Dream James kissed him. Not even close. 

Dream James was so much taller than Regulus that he had to tilt his chin up and stand up on his toes to reach. The water cascaded over James’s sunlight skin like warm honey, and Dream Regulus had shown no reluctance to run his hands all over it. In fact, Dream Regulus was just as much a bloody slag as Dream James, it seemed, because only a moment after they kissed, he’d slid to his knees on the wet tile, and took Dream James’s hefty length between his kiss-chapped lips. And fuck he tasted good because this was a dream and dreams made everything seem so much better than he was sure this would be in real life even if the point was entirely moot because this would never ever ever happen in real life.

And the noises he made. Gemini be damned . Dream James was a sensory explosion. His fingers twisted in Regulus’s damp hair and his hips rocked gently against Regulus’s face in this overly polite almost alarmingly cordial way that made even Dream Regulus want to sink his fingers into the meat of James’s tight arse and shove his fat cock down his throat, for Merlin’s sake. The feeling of his throat working around Dream James’s girth and the taste of each demure pearl he lapped away from the swollen pink head pressed against Regulus’s soft palate had his thighs trembling and his own prick hard enough to chip a bloody diamond. Stars, it all felt so good. It all felt so warm and bright, and—

Regulus woke up with a gasp, rousing as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice water onto him, and then cringing at the most painful morning erection he’d ever experienced. The memories of the dream that got him into this damnable situation were so crystal bloody clear that they played out in perfect recollection behind each blink as he turned to the clock on his wall. His soul nearly burst to confetti. Merlin’s tits , he was going to be late for the fucking game! Regulus jolted out of bed, grabbing an entirely out-of-season wool coat that came down far enough to cover his brutally hard cock that screamed so loudly for relief he was uncertain if he would be able to hear the bloody scorekeeper. Or stay on my broom . He considered only a moment before rushing into the locker room to the annoyed stares of his teammates and his captain. 

“ There you are,” she exclaimed, her upturned nose pinked and her plump lips pursed in annoyance. Regulus rolled his eyes, not at all in the right state of mind to deal with Emma’s tosh. “Where the hell were you?” she asked, then, “nevermind, just get dressed, so we can go over the plays.” 

“I fly fast, I catch the Snitch, what more is there to it, Emma?” Regulus snapped, his cock no longer felt as though it was going to burst through his trousers, but the heated unease of waking up from such a visceral dream lingered yet still. He just needed a second. Just a bloody second to catch his breath. 

“Potter, get that skinny arse out here before I light it on fire,” came the telltale brogue of Mairi Grier McGonagall, the Gryffindor captain, only a moment before Regulus heard his voice. 

“Yeah, yep, I’m coming, don’t have a cow!” Regulus watched James stumble over himself as he tripped on one of the benches attempting to run in their Bracing Charm boots designed to keep their legs from shattering should they fall from their brooms. They were rigid and clasped down tightly over their calves and entirely not suitable for running. “Be right there!” He called, and Regulus cringed inwardly at how much Dream James sounded just like Real Life James. So very like. Fuck. He thought. Just get through the damn game and you can toss yourself out the bloody window after. 

“Regulus, I swear to Merlin if you don’t get your arse out of that ludicrous coat and into your uniform-”

“Yeah, alright, alright,” Regulus waved Emma off grabbing his uniform and sprinting around the corner to the change rooms separated from the rest of the lockers by only a thin curtain. Just a thin curtain like what remained of Regulus’s rapidly dwindling composure. James was hot, sure, but this felt an entirely disproportionate level of fucked up to feel over someone who was ‘hot, sure’. This was madness. It was daft and what’s worse was even just hearing James’s voice had Regulus feeling that wildly inconvenient heat building between his thighs. 

He dressed as quickly as possible while Emma spouted all sorts of tosh and pomp regarding a game they were all but certain to win. Slytherin had only been beaten once and that was by Ravenclaw only after the Snitch hovered in front of their Seeker’s face right as the time out was up. Gryffindor had yet to beat them. James just wasn’t as good as Regulus was. Not as fast. Regulus had his boots clasped, his robes buttoned and his mind (mostly) focused as he stepped back out into the lockers and found his team huddled around Emma. 

“I think they’re going to try something sinister,” she stated, keeping her voice low just in case there were lingering Gryffindors. “I think we need to play this one safe, alright?” She turned, blue eyes wide on him, and Regulus scowled. 

“What? Me?” He asked. 

“You fly like you’re trying to escape the icy reach of the Grim Reaper, lad,” the Slytherin left flank Beater (Tannis) said, ginger brows tucked together in the middle as though this were an intervention. Regulus scoffed.

“I catch the Snitch every game, what more do you want?” 

“I want to make sure you are able to catch the Snitch the next game, and the one after,” Emma explained, putting a black-gloved hand on his shoulder. Even she was taller than him though not by much. Not as much as James. Merlin, get it together . “If you get injured, we’re done for the season, Reg.” Her voice was caring in a way that felt entirely disgusting. Even if all she cared about was Regulus winning games for the Slytherin team, why did she have to go about it like that ? 

“Fine, safe, whatever,” he grumbled, grabbing his broom from his equipment rack. The team walked out to stand behind their gate, waiting for the commentator to announce their arrival to the pitch. Emma rested her hand on Regulus’s shoulder, and even though he knew it to be intended as supportive and kind, it just felt unwanted. He shifted away from her touch, and she glanced down, giving him a sort of understanding expression that felt even worse. She didn’t know him. She didn’t understand fuck all. All she did was pluck him from class one day and say ‘sorry, mum, that’s my new Seeker’ to his professor. Whatever. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting this shite done. 

The day was unseasonably warm for March which only made the coat Regulus had worn that much more ridiculous. The sky was clear for days, a rarity in the Scottish highlands, and finding the Snitch in all this sunlight would be mercifully easy. He toed the ground with his boot while his teammates shifted eagerly from side to side, bats tapped against boots or pads, and the Chasers snapped their fingers to keep their hands warm.

“Needing only one more win to solidify their place in the finals against the Ravenclaw team, here’s Slytherinnnnnnnn ,” the announcer called, adding about twenty unnecessary ‘n’s to the teams name. Regulus and his team mates lunged forward, mostly of them deft and nimble enough to kick into the air even before fully straddling the brooms. Regulus kicked one leg over his Comet Series 9, the newest broom in the line. His mum had bought it for him after the second season he’d gone undefeated. Took her two years to stop calling Quidditch a ‘waste of time’. Regulus was certain she still thought it to be such, but at least she kept quiet about it now. The Gryffindor team was already on the pitch, and when Regulus landed heavily on the grass, warmed to soft and pliant by the rare sunlight, he stood face to face with James. 

“Good game, Regulus,” James said, and perhaps the most infuriating thing was that it seemed he honestly meant it. It seemed he was entirely unaffected while Regulus’s mind was split apart and pieced poorly back together. He shifted, his feet planted on either side of his broom, feeling just off like his axis had shifted less than a degree and his whole world was different because of it. He stared at the grass beneath James’s boots. 

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Good game.” The ref loosed the Snitch a moment later and it flitted around James face like a bee causing him to scrunch up his face a bit as though it tickled him. Regulus felt his heart crawl into his throat and beat against his bloody tonsils. His blood thrummed through his veins too quickly. Why was he doing this? James let out a breathy laugh, and Mairi gave him an assuring wave just as the Bludgers snarled and snapped into the air. They hissed, feral and thirsty for pain, soaring high overhead into the beaming afternoon sky. Regulus needed to focus. And the more anxiety he felt about needing to focus the more his body panicked. Adrenaline laced into his veins like a drug and when the referee finally signalled for game start he launched himself into the air as though intent to rocket straight to the bloody moon.

“What’s got you tamping, dwt ?” Regulus groaned, rolling his eyes, at the loathsome and literal diminutive his Welsh Keeper, Maddox Morgan, known mostly as ‘The Mad Lad’ to the team, used for him. It was a wretched term, a Welsh word for something…well, something small. 

“Fuck off,” Regulus snapped, pretending he was so focused on finding the Snitch, he couldn’t chat. 

“Alright, alright, no need for that,” he rambled in his jaunty accent that had all the girls at Hogwarts wet between the thighs. “Keep it tidy, lad, we’ve almost made it.” 

“And whose to thank for that?” Regulus muttered to himself, quietly enough that his words laced among the early spring breeze. He took a deep breath, squinting in the unusually bright sunlight and scanned for the Snitch, but his eyes seemed to catch everything but. In the stands he spied his brother and Remus, cheering loudly for the Gryffindor team amongst a sea of red and gold. Their eyes locked on James. Always on James. As though Regulus did not even exist. He sighed, letting that frustration ground him in this game. Fuck James. Fuck Gryffindor, and fuck ‘safe’. Regulus would win this match like he’d won all the rest—dancing on the knife’s edge. He caught only the most fleeting glimpse of James by the Gryffindor goals, as Emma slammed the Quaffle through the far left hoop for ten points, pumping her fist in the air and speeding back with her two flank Chasers and Beaters towards the Slytherin goals. 

Regulus took this opportunity to act. He shot off towards the meridien (known to most as the ‘merry’, the middle line of the pitch), directly into the oncoming cluster of bats and bodies. Part of being a good Seeker was that Regulus was distracting. He was fast, and it was impossible to tell when he’d seen the Snitch and therefore needed to draw the Beaters’ focus or when he was just fucking with them. He swerved into the fray, weaving amongst elbows and arms, bats and Bludgers to draw the Gryffindor focus from Emma and her ilk to him. 

It worked. It always worked. And what was better was that it was easy. Like ants to spilled candy, they followed, peeling off their own Chasers and leaving them unprotected. Emma snatched the Quaffle right out of the air on a brilliant interception that had her, and her two flanks charging back towards the merry and onto the Gryffindor goals. It was only a moment later, Regulus heard the telltale ding of the scorekeeper as the commentator shouted ‘ten points for Slytherin’. Where’s your team now, Sirius?  

A Bludger skated past Regulus’s face so closely he felt the whoosh of its wake and heard the snapping snarling as it went. He had to shake it off. Keep his mind here, though it seemed hellbent to wander like a hapless fool just then. Surging ahead, Regulus eyed James who still hung back towards his team’s goals, hunting, searching and Regulus was almost appalled that it would take him so long to find the blighted thing in this much daylight where it glinted off every sunbeam like a tiny flashing beacon. 

“We’re up a mile, Reg, cool down!” Emma lectured as she ripped past him, a Bludger and both Gryffindor Beaters on her tail. Regulus scoffed an annoyed sound, and as he turned he spotted the tiny golden son of a whore, piece of shite, little bastard skirting the base of the Gryffindor goals. Just by James, as though it, too, felt drawn to all that empty-headed optimism, and just wretched dressing sense. Dropping his right shoulder, Regulus tumbled down, corkscrewing under the swinging pendulum that was the cluster of Beaters and Chasers to make his way towards the goals. Just as he did, however, he heard Mairi give a shout. 

“James! Get your eyes in the game, lad, they’re on it!” she snapped from her Keeper’s perch, and when James turned to acknowledge her, Regulus saw his eyes spy the Snitch, only a pitch’s width away. Regulus didn’t breathe. He didn’t consider the breakneck switchback he’d have to make to skirt around the goals. He did not think of stopping. He only saw the Snitch, saw James, and thought, I’m better than you . 

His heart thundered as they converged, the Snitch darting around the back of the goals, drawing Regulus and James behind it as it barreled under the green and silver checkerboard stretch of the pitch’s retaining wall. He could feel James at his boot, could see how the Snitch flitted onward, intent to fly right into the action. Fuck ‘safe’ . Regulus reminded himself, urging his broom faster, faster, faster . Fuck the next game.

Time slowed then. Regulus’s arm outstretched, reaching and using every screaming muscle in his body to stay balanced on his broom as he dove under and cut around what felt like every single person in the bloody world. His eyes stayed trained on the Snitch and the Snitch alone, hair blown back with his breakneck speed and James nowhere in sight. He had it. He had it again. All that was left was to—

Crack . The Beater’s bat sent adrenaline and cortisol coursing through his blood just as his fingers tapped the swirling golden surface of the little nightmare that was the Snitch.

“Watch it!” The warning came at the same time Regulus’s hand tightened around the glinting ball. The weight of it was a familiar triumph. It would have been entirely perfect had, a split second later, a screaming Bludger not slammed into his left side like he’d been run over by the Hogwarts bleeding Express. The air was forced from his lungs in one awful hacking breath, and it refused to go back in. Regulus squeezed the Snitch instinctively to his chest even as he slipped from the smooth handle of his broom. The fall did not help matters, as the air whooshed past him, his robes fluttering by his face, he hit the Safety Net Charm on the pitch and then the grass below it in a hard thud , still unable to get a breath in. The whistle was a blaring din in his ears and then Emma was by his side, her flushed face and widened blue eyes only making the pain all the more apparent. 

“Someone get Pomfrey!” Emma yelled. Regulus sputtered, his chest burning, eyes watering. 

“No,” he rasped, shaking his head. “Don’t.”

“What?” Emma snipped, her dark golden brows tugging together in the middle. 

“M’ family,” he managed. “Weird about Healing.” She scowled, obviously intent to argue if the expression on her pretty face was any indicator. Regulus pulled his hand from his chest to reveal the Snitch within, and took great relief in the way Emma’s breath hitched in her throat. Her features tightened into a pained sort of look, and Regulus blanched as her delicate hand covered his own, squeezing it, tenderly, letting the inert Snitch slide to the pitch between them.

“Stupid,” she stated, and then added, “foolish.” Emma picked up the little golden orb, then helped Regulus sit up, his breath having navigated its way back into his lungs. Everything hurt. Breathing, sitting, standing, walking, it was all a wretched cacophony of pain that had Regulus gritting his teeth in the lockers trying to perform the most menial of tasks. Emma offered to help him undress, but it would be a cold day in the pits of hell itself before Regulus accepted that offer. 

“What if Tannis did it, then?” Emma suggested as if that wasn’t a billion times worse. 

“No, Emma, for fuck’s sake, just leave me alone,” Regulus huffed which bloody hurt . And to their credit, they all did. People did not so much mind leaving Regulus alone. He was about as friendly as a pissed off Ashwinder in the rain, and only half as cordial. Still, there was something in him that deeply regretted sending Emma off as her absence made the pain all the louder. Stars, it hurt something terrible. Nothing felt broken , but it must have come awfully close. His whole left side ached, and even the smallest motion sent a white hot pain rippling through his body. Bending forward to get the bloody boots off turned out to be an impossibility, and no matter which way he twisted or reached, the pain lanced him like a molten rapier with each failed attempt. Regulus sat on the bench, knuckles white as he gripped its edge, infuriated with himself. Infuriated with his team. With the sport. With everything. 

Tears threatened his eyes which only made his self-loathing grow deeper and more vitriolic. Of course. How cliche that he would disobey his captain’s wishes, and get hurt and that he’d push everyone who deigned to give a shite about him away, and then bloody cry about it. His face felt so hot, Regulus wondered if he’d just burn away right there and end this hell. The pain in his side twisted his stomach and seemed to wrench the tears from his eyes absent of his dogged determination to allay them.

“ Fuck ,” he breathed, catching his face in his palm. 

“You alright?” The voice was pink Himalayan rock salt jammed into his open wounds. Why him? Regulus thought, rubbing his eyes. Why now?

“I’m fine,” he said, curtly, feeling the way his nose ran, but not wanting that entirely damning sniff to give away his current frustration. 

“Rough hit,” James said, and Regulus heard his locker clang shut a moment later. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Merlin’s clenched arsehole, I would slit my throat if it meant people would stop bloody asking me that,” Regulus grunted through teeth gritted so intensely the muscles in his jaw ached. 

“Can’t help but imagine that if you did do that, you’d only get that question even more,” James retorted, astutely. Astutely and wittily. Regulus sighed and it hurt terribly, so he hissed a tight stream of air through his gritted teeth in that very obvious very telltale way someone does when they are in the buckets of pain he had hoped to conceal. “You’re not alright at all, are you?”

“Fuck off,” Regulus muttered, falling back on an old favourite. 

“If that’s what you want, Regulus, then have it your way, mate,” James said in a sort of sing-song sigh. Regulus heard him turn on the stone floor, he heard the first of his steps away and he heard the second one, too, his heart stumbled in his chest. He felt…sad? Not sad. No, what Regulus felt was far more complex than sad because at that moment, in as much pain as he was in and having pushed away every person who cared enough to offer him help when he most needed it, Regulus felt small. 

“Wait,” the word was free from his lips and flitting through the space between him and James before he could second-guess himself. The footsteps stopped. And then they started again. They grew louder and eventually the shift of the bench alerted Regulus to James sitting by his side. He drew his hand from his eyes to rest over his mouth, attempting to plan his next steps down a path he hadn’t thought existed only a moment before. He felt he still lived in the timeline where James left. Where he cried like a fucking idiot. Where he just stayed in the lockers, in his uniform because he was an arse who did not at all know how to ask for help. Or rather, how to deserve help that was offered. “I’m sorry, I’m in so much fucking pain, and I already have such a winning personality, you see, it’s all sort of mixing together in this just wretched display of petulance.”

“I could take you to the Hospit-”

“No.” Regulus said it more as a statement than a request, as though it were categorically wrong. 

“Why?” James asked, his tone one of utter confusion, and Regulus could understand that even if he could not explain it. 

“My family is weird about Healers,” he repeated the lie from earlier. Not a lie, really, perhaps more an omission. 

“Should have known it had something to do with Ori and Wally, ey?” James said, his voice light but there was a sardonic bite that played games with his usual levity. Regulus turned, too curious of what the boy’s eyes said on the matter. They were strained a bit, just at the corners, in a way Regulus hadn’t ever seen before on the one who had slid into his life and taken the only thing that ever mattered. What right do you have? Regulus found himself thinking. What do you know? “Do you need help with those boots?” The feeling of whiplash sent a sort of dizzying disorientation through Regulus’s already addled mind. He looked down at the aforementioned boots, knowing the answer even if he hated it. Even if the idea of asking James Potter for help was more foul than just sleeping in the change room and hoping Emma found him in the morning. Even if something very small and very pathetic inside Regulus wanted James’s help, and it made him loathe himself to his very core. 

“I’m just going to do it, and if you’d rather keep them on and walk around in them, then you just let me know, alright?” James said as though Regulus were bloody daft and then he was angry at the boy all over again. Quite the emotional ride. Regulus watched in an almost rapt silence as James shifted from the bench to kneel on the floor in front of him, hands finding the claps of his boots and pausing as he looked up with this awful sort of ‘is this alright?’ expression on his face as though he was about to suck him off or at least something far more explicit than unclasping Regulus’s fucking boots. 

“Merlin just fucking do it if you’re going to,” Regulus hissed, and James had the first clasp undone a heartbeat later with a cathartic thunk . 

“You could have dodged, I was a million miles behind you. Why go for it?” James asked, the next thunk coming shortly after his question. 

“I wanted to win,” Regulus admitted. It was not entirely a lie, but again more a lie by omission. I wanted to get away from you because you haunt my every waking and sleeping moment like a demonic possession and even now I am plagued by you . Regulus felt his hands grow clammy against the wood of the bench. James’s dark hair was an utter disaster, but still Regulus just wanted to touch it. The next thunk made him startle a bit, and James looked up with those deep amber eyes that looked at Regulus all bloody wrong. “I’m fine.”

“You didn’t need to take the Bludger to win,” James countered, and Regulus felt entirely cornered by his own design. “Honestly, just seemed like you wanted the game to end as quickly as possible, and you didn’t care how that happened.” Regulus chewed the inside of his cheek as a scowl so intense he could not conceal it contorted his features. “Pardon if I’m wrong.” 

“How—” Regulus began, then cut himself short when James’s eyes shot back up to him, brows raised just so in that innocent sort of ‘hm?’ expression like he hadn’t just flayed Regulus open and read his insides as though they were simpler than Babbity fucking Rabbity. “I thought you were the stupid one.” A thin chuckle seemed almost punched from James’s lungs at that. He shoved his fingers into the back of the boot to disrupt the seal, and tugged it free with practised ease. Because that’s how he did everything it seemed. With practised ease. His hands on Regulus, even through his grass-stained trousers, sent little sparks skittering across his skin like so much static electricity. 

“I suppose I am depending on the subject. I’m rubbish at Runes.” He moved to the other boot, and Regulus was caught between wanting very much to run screaming back to the timeline where it was easy to hate this boy. Where it was normal and simple. The thunk of the top clasp on his second boot dragged Regulus back into this timeline where his heart pounded and his face felt hot and flushed and all he could think about was the way that James’s voice conjured every blighted memory from the dream he’d had the night prior. 

“I love Runes,” Regulus said like an absolute buffoon. James smiled, though he did not look up, and the smallest hint of pink seemed to brighten his tanned cheeks. Thunk . Regulus felt strange just then. Each buckle took him closer to the moment they’d inevitably part ways, and literally a week ago that would have been entirely fine, preferable even, but now the idea of it made Regulus feel…not bloody good. Entirely shite. 

“Yeah, well I’m shite with Astronomy, too,” James went on, and Regulus felt his heart flutter in that disgusting sort of way he thought had to be made up for wretched romantic stories that could never happen in real life. 

“I love Astronomy,” he replied. “It’s my favourite subject.”

“I know,” James said, almost so quietly Regulus hadn’t heard him at first because he couldn’t possibly know. He couldn’t possibly know anything at all about Regulus other than a rather in depth description of what his cock looked like because prior to last week they’d barely even spoken. “I asked Sirius a few days ago.” Ah, of course. Would Sirius’s betrayals never cease? Thunk. And the last buckle was undone. 

“You asked about me?” Regulus asked. “And then you told me you asked about me, that’s so embarrassingly honest of you. Stars, you really are a Gryffindor, aren’t you?” Regulus carried on seemingly unable to stop himself. James laughed again as he shoved his fingers down into the back of Regulus’s boot, tugging a bit at it to attempt to release the seal though it was being rather obstinate. 

“Yes, I did, and yes, I suppose I am,” James answered, and then grunted a soft sound of annoyance that huffed against Regulus’s knee. More sparks. More static. “This one normally this tricky?” 

“Yes, it’s always a bit of a cunt, that one,” Regulus replied, though his voice had gone a bit sticky or perhaps it was simply that his saliva had turned to paste. James went even yet more pink. 

“You’re quite a bit more vulgar than he’d mentioned,” he chuckled. 

“Yes, well, when you’ve grown up your entire life called things like ‘little prince’, ‘little Black’, ‘little Sirius’, you start to embrace all the things that those titles are not,” he explained. He’d never told that to anyone before and here he was spilling his guts like James had run him clean through. The seal released, and James was able to slide the boot off after. He pushed himself up, and though Regulus did not chance turning around, he heard James put his boots up on his equipment shelf. “You don’t have to do that.” 

“I didn’t do it because I had to,” James retorted, sending a fresh heat to Regulus’s already blazing cheeks. He busied himself with the buttons on his robes, but when he had them undone, every attempt to slip from them came with either a frustrated hiss, or a pained grunt. “Stop moving, it obviously hurts like hell,” James lectured. “Can’t believe you’re Sirius’s brother. He gets a hangnail and cries to Moony for months.” James’s hands found his shoulders from behind him and he gingerly slipped the robes from them, then tugged them free of each hand to hang them beside the boots. 

“Mm, I’m certain he’d grown accustomed to that endless sort of affection and care that comes with being the first-born even if he did inevitably throw it all in the bin for you,” Regulus intoned, then felt the heart-stopping, soul-crushing reality that he’d said all that out loud punch him in the face in quite the same way he was certain James might. “I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s alright,” James assured. “I know it must seem that way, but none of it was for me, Regulus, despite what your parents have likely claimed.” It was true. Sirius came to school a year before him, he’d met all these friends, he’d changed, he’d grown distant, uninterested in being brothers or rather more interested in his new brothers. Specifically James. Even before he fell in love with Remus Lupin, he’d fallen in love with being James’s best friend, and Regulus’s parents blamed that on James and the Potters in its entirety. “But I am sorry,” he added. “Regardless.” 

“Whatever,” Regulus remarked, feeling the discomfort that came with having acted foolishly and spoken rashly. A common problem for him. 

“You don’t need to do that,” James said, his voice soft and kind and full of infinite patience, all things Regulus entirely did not know how to handle. “I’m not trying to piss you off, though I seem to be just brilliant at doing so anyway.” Regulus sighed, the ache in his side so mind-numbing he felt absent of all sense. 

“I told you, I’m in pain and I’m also an arsehole,” Regulus retorted, and James laughed that sweet laugh that filled the room with a sort of warm sunlight. Ridiculous. 

“Alright, well, are you able to get back to your dorm or do I need to help you there and pretend I did it entirely against your will?” Regulus’s lips parted a moment in genuine insult. It seems he’d had James Potter entirely wrong. Pressing his lips back together in a sort of annoyed pout Regulus replied,

“That second bit.” 

And to the boy’s credit, that’s exactly what he did.

James did not just help Regulus back to his dorm, the git bloody carried him there. Not for lack of arguing and complaining and whinging, but the bottom line was that walking all the way from the Quidditch pitch to the dungeons was never going to work in Regulus’s favour. James’s hands felt warm on the undersides of Regulus’s thighs on either side of his broad back and it took all the restraint he could muster to keep his hands around James’s shoulders idle. His mess of a head of hair was right in front of Regulus’s face. It smelled of his not too pungent shampoo and annoyingly nice. All fresh lavender and perhaps a bit of summer rain or whatever other romantic tosh had Regulus keenly aware that his crotch was pressed up against James’s low back. It was perhaps fortuitous in its own wretched way that James had decided to say,

“You’re so light,” and then, “no wonder you’re fast.” The first statement had Regulus braced out of habit for the second remark, but both still delivered piercing blows. 

“That’s the second time you’ve said something like that,” Regulus pointed out. “I might have an advantage being slight, but I’m not fast because of it. I’m fast because I’m better than you.” He didn’t mean it to be so blunt, but this is just how he was when he was hurt and uncomfortable. Fortunately, James must be daft because he actually bloody laughed at that. 

“I’m sorry, it was a rude thing for me to say,” he replied, casually waving at the students they passed in the corridor all looking at them as though they were entirely devoid of their senses which, in fairness, was exactly how Regulus felt having agreed to this. "And you are better. I'm no Seeker. Played Chaser for four years, and suddenly McGonagall says 'you're our new Seeker, James'."

"Quite the change," Regulus said, still feeling uneasy not saying anything at all. 

“Yeah,” he replied, seemingly feeling the same way. 

“Down that way, to the right,” Regulus offered, pointing ahead and brushing James’s chin with the back of his hand absently as he did. The feeling was electric. As though his entire being had coalesced in the scant atoms on the very surface of his fingers that touched James’s face. Regulus felt his breath hitch painfully in his chest, his abdominal muscles straining to exhale as his mind told him to inhale in an uncomfortable conflict of mind and body. James chuckled jovially, and it thankfully concealed most of Regulus’s decrescendo to silent insanity.

“I’ve lived in this castle for seven years, I know where Slytherin Common is,” he said. “Even been there if you can imagine?” Regulus scowled.

“Who on earth would let you into the Slytherin Common?” he asked, almost insulted that, despite his hatred of most other people, name, and the near ubiquitous fear of his brother, no one had asked him into the Gryffindor Common before. 

“Emma Vanity, actually,” he replied and Regulus groaned.

“Emma bloody Vanity. I shouldn’t be surprised, she’s perfect, you’re perfect, it just makes sense,” and again Regulus had said the inside thing out loud. What was it about James Potter that had him open and upturned like a tipped cauldron for star’s sake? 

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he replied. “Though Emma is bent as a rainbow, and sleeping with Mairi McGonagall.” If Regulus felt he’d ever blushed even once in his life, this moment proved how wrong he’d been. The heat under his cheeks could melt diamonds. It could burn the universe to void. His heart thudded. 

“O-oh,” he said, just as they made it to the stone wall that concealed the entrance to the Slytherin Common. “Good for the lot of you, I suppose.” Regulus cleared his throat though the feeling that he’d attempted to swallow an entire Bludger remained. “I-illustrious illusions,” he croaked. The stones on the wall twisted and folded over themselves to reveal a dark corridor that culminated in the dimly lit, ornately furnished Slytherin Common. There were only a few students hanging about. The game had taken place early that Saturday, and no one generally spent their precious weekend afternoons in the Common. Still, Regulus noted the eyes that glanced up from books or chess or quiet conversation to cast him in an opaque veil of judgement. He was not accustomed to drawing stares here, and he found he did not at all enjoy it. James, of course, couldn't care less. He sauntered into the room as though it were his own bloody parlour, and turned down the boys dormitory corridor.

“Which one is you?” James asked.

“Seventeen,” Regulus replied, and only just then realised that, in due order, James would be in his bedroom . He would be in his dorm, and he knew for a fact his roommates would not be. James Potter would be in the place Regulus had the dream about James, and he had an absolutely illogical notion that somehow James would know . As though he’d walk in and say ‘hang on a second, did you dream about choking on my cock like it was the very air itself in here?’. Regulus attempted to allay the oncoming panic, but he’d never once been any good at all with that and it rushed over him, battering him with the sensation that his blood had been carbonated and his organs all squished too tightly together. James put his hand on the doorknob of Regulus dorm, and Regulus felt he might just bloody faint over this like a Victorian duchess with her corset laced too tight. When the door opened to almost mocking mundanity, Regulus sighed, feeling like he’d misplaced every last shred of sense he’d ever had. 

James helped him down beside his bed with as much grace as one can manage an entire grown person. Regulus winced and hissed at each small motion, each twist and turn, until finally he was laying on his bed (which, you should know, still fucking hurt), with James beside him. It was somehow even more difficult to be face to face with those whiskey eyes, smiling lips, and all that ridiculous dark hair. James let out a forlorn sigh, and Regulus found himself nervous about it. He, because there was no god or fairness in this life, very much wanted James to want to stay. 

“I wish you’d just let me take you to the Hospital Wing,” he said. You’re obviously in agony, I don’t get it.” Regulus busied his hands faffing about with his fingernails as though intent to rip the bastards clean off. James wouldn’t get it. He wouldn’t understand at all because Regulus knew how foolish it all was. Not only foolish, how awful it was, how entirely close-minded and wretched and completely due to his parents’ bigotry it was. But Regulus was not Sirius. In so many ways the boys differed, and this was the shining example of that. Regulus simply could not bring himself to call forth his parents’ wrath if it was at all avoidable. He could barely face them as it stood. And this entire conflict must have shown somehow on his face because James’s expression shifted from frustration to something far worse, something that tugged at Regulus’s heart attempting to wrench it from his bloody chest because once again he’d underestimated the boy. Knowing. 

“Is it because Madame Pomfrey is half-blood?” The question hung between them like poison and Regulus felt he’d suffocate trying to breathe through it. “Do you honestly believe tha—”

“No!” he almost yelled, attempting to push himself up then remembering his broken body and wincing as his head fell back to the pillow. “No, fuck ,” he cursed through the pain that ripped through his side and radiated up to his shoulder and down his leg. “No, stars, of course not, absolutely not.” 

“Then, why not just go ?” James asked, because he was best mates with Sirius who just did whatever it was he just wanted to whenever he just felt like it. Regulus met James’s eyes even if it felt that boy’s stare was a heavy taloned claw around his neck. 

“Because I’m all that’s left,” he said, attempting to control the emotion heating his face and pricking his eyes. “Because my parents are angry and hateful and cruel enough as it is, and there’s no one left to share their ire. Because it’s just me, and I can only take so much.” James's eyes pinched with the only thing worse than disgust: pity. Regulus looked away, his eyes finding his hands, feeling more vulnerable than he’d like. 

"So…" James began. "So what if you were Healed by a pureblood?" Regulus frowned, looking back up to those bright eyes that seemed ever unfazed. 

"Do you know any pureblood Healers?" 

"Wait here," James said, standing abruptly, his face beaming with a sort of gleeful pride. 

"Where am I going to go?" Regulus dead-panned. 

"Great," James said, rushing to the door where he halted and turned around. "Well not that you're hurt just…nevermind I'll be right back." And to his credit, he was. James came barrelling back into Regulus's dorm maybe a half an hour later. 

"How the fuck did you get back in here?" Regulus asked, pushing himself up instinctively, wincing, and laying back down with a frustrated huff. 

“I waited outside the entrance until a Slytherin came by,” James explained, striding over to Regulus. It was surreal to see this all play out. James bursting through his door, eyes brightening as he glimpsed Regulus with this look like a bloody golden retriever who’d fetched the bone. “You know the Fat Lady would let anyone in with the password, but the wall seemed almost affronted that I wasn’t a Slytherin. Anyway, take off your clothes.” Regulus’s eyes went wide, and then a moment later James’s cheeks flushed redder than his Gryffindor sweater. “I-I mean—or rather I didn’t mean,” he huffed, anxious and frazzled. “I have potions for you,” he explained, holding up several small bottles. “I just told Pomfrey that I fell off my broom in practice.” Regulus watched him as though he’d grown a second head. 

“W-why?” he asked, even before his brain could tell his mouth to shut up for Merlin’s sake. It was James’s turn to stare at Regulus as though he were dimmer than an unlit candelabra. 

“Because you’re in agony, you can’t even walk, Reg,” he answered. 

“Regulus,” he corrected, absently. “And yes, all that is true, but what does it have to do with you?” And that must have been the wrong thing to ask because now he looked hurt, almost as though the question came as a slap to the face. “You don’t have to do this just because you’re my brother’s best mate.”

“Am I that awful at this?” James replied, rhetorically. Regulus, with great effort, pushed himself upright, feeling this conversation to have evolved beyond that of one he could have, in good conscious, laying down. Holding the potions in one hand, James brought the other to the back of his neck in something akin to disbelief. “I used to think I was somewhat decent at it.” 

“At…what?” Regulus inquired, wincing a bit through the pain each breath brought as his lungs inflated and pressed against his mangled ribs. 

“Flirting with you,” James answered in a tone that implied Regulus should have known that this entire time. He scowled, instinctively, then frowned in pensive silence thinking back over the series of events that led up to this. The small comments from Sirius, Remus, Emma. All of the things that had coalesced and tangled to lead the two boys here. To Regulus’s…bedroom. Where James had…carried him. Ursa bloody Major, I’m a complete idiot . Regulus’s lips parted in a moment of abject disbelief. He wasn’t stupid, he’d just…didn’t…get it.

“— Oh ,” he breathed. “Alright, then.” 

“Alright, then?” James repeated. 

“Yeah, okay,” Regulus expounded, though not by much. James looked absolutely panicked just then as he attempted to navigate the cryptic language that was Regulus Black. Regulus hissed as he reached for his wand in his pocket, and with a whispered incantation, he Vanished his shirt, letting his head fall back against the pillow. 

“God, that looks awful,” James exclaimed, taking a tentative step forward. 

“I promise it hurts worse than it looks,” Regulus dead-panned. 

“Sorry, yeah, hang on,” James replied, sitting on the small bed beside Regulus and placing the small phials of Healing potions on the little wooden bedside table next to him. “Can you turn on your other side at all?” Regulus shifted, wincing a bit, yet doing the best he could to turn onto his uninjured side such that James had a better angle to address his massive bruise. “Did you land on this side after you fell? It looks like the Bludger got your ribs but there’s another nasty bastard down by your hip.” 

“Must of, then,” Regulus stated, waving his wand once more such that his grass-stained trousers Vanished as well. In for a Knut, in for a Galleon as they say . He felt James stiffen behind him, but the boy had already seen him entirely naked, so it should come as slightly less of a shock to see him just in his pants. “Do what you have to, Nurse James.” Regulus looked back up over his shoulder to see James’s face had gone absolutely red, forehead to chin, and ear to ear, at that. He was busying himself by awkwardly unstoppering the phials, the glass clinking in his shaking hands. “Merlin, are you alright?” 

“Fine, yeah,” James answered, though his voice was near an octave too high to be any flavour of believable. He cleared his throat, and it sounded as though he’d inhaled Floo powder. Regulus huffed a thin laugh even though it hurt to do so. It was cute seeing the somewhat-but-not-really old boy so frazzled. It felt almost fair given how undone he’d left Regulus after their encounter in the showers. 

“I’m the one nearly naked, what right do you have to be embarrassed?” Regulus postulated, a sarcastic smirk tugging at his lips. “Plus you said you were flirting with me. Is this not what you’d hoped for?” James bit his bottom lip, and Regulus felt his heart do that absolutely wretched fluttery thing at how unbelievably adorable that was. 

“Sorry, ah, y-you’re just—” he stammered, pouring too much potion into one of his palms and spilling it onto Regulus’s bedside table and floor. “Shit,” he groaned as the excess liquid dripped over his hand. It smelled strongly of something effervescent like peppermint, only far more medicinal, and so pungent it stung Regulus’s eyes. He stifled a laugh, realising it would be wretched timing to chuckle at James’s evident misfortune.

“Are you alright?” Regulus asked, as James sorted the bottles, finally, and rubbed his palms together. His hands stayed clasped like that for a moment as he took a long, steadying inhale, and breathed it out with such intensity that Regulus’s eyes squinted a bit at the breeze against his face. His breath was warm, and it reminded Regulus so much of his dream.

“It’s just-,” he sighed, aggressively, “You’re very attractive, and I’ve spent a very long time picturing actually getting to talk to you and many more conversations trying to gently float the idea of it past Sirius, and I genuinely don’t want to muck it up,” James admitted, all in one impressive breath. There was that honesty again. Regulus pressed a pleased smirk against his pillow. A breath later, the icy chill of the Potions coupled with the nervous heat of James’s shaky hands on Regulus’s side sent a wracking shiver through his body. “Sorry, it’s probably cold.”

“Feels good, actually,” Regulus breathed, feeling he could do so without pain for the first time in hours. “Really good.” James’s hands were so featherlight and tender on him, the relief after so long in pain brought a wave of pliance and laxity to Regulus’s muscles that felt so entirely good that he hadn’t been able to intervene in time before a small and obvious moan of pleasure slipped through his lips. James froze. Regulus did, too. Caught in this transitional moment. This what if that hung thickly in the air competing with the noxious scent of the Potion. Regulus cleared his throat, and only a scant few seconds later, he felt James’s hands continue their gentle caress. 

It was the same, but entirely different. It was quiet, but not silent. Tender, but not delicate. There was a sort of energy in the space between them like the sustained hum of a plucked lyre with strings ablaze. A heat. Every few moments, James would turn, rub more of the Potion into his palms, then replace his hands on Regulus, each time gaining the confidence to slide further under the waistband of his pants to get the bruise over his hip. It was soft and kind and polite, but it was not platonic. Not anymore. Regulus felt his own breath warm the pillow beneath his face just as the feeling of James’s hands on him sent a radiating fire that pooled between his thighs.

“You brought this up to Sirius?” Regulus asked, too curious to let it slide. 

“Yes,” the word was so quiet it was little more than a pained squeak. 

“And he reacted-?”

“Poorly. Very, very poorly,” James sounded almost distraught, and Regulus had to bite back the small chuckle tickling his throat. “Does this feel alright?” James asked, his voice an airy whisper, and Regulus could not believe how wrong his mental image of the boy had been. He was so much…softer than Regulus had thought. 

“Hardly hurts at all now,” he replied, lamenting the moment James drew his hands away. “You could-”

“Fuck off?” James huffed, and Regulus turned to see the playful yet coy grin ticking up one corner of his pink lips. 

“Or,” Regulus edged. “Stay?”

“Stay?”

“Stay.” 

To his credit, he did.

Regulus pushed himself upright, and surprisingly felt no pain at all, just the cooling sort of tingling sensation of the Potion as it faded the bruise to milky pale skin. It worked remarkably, quickly and painlessly, and Regulus begrudged his parents bigoted insanity for causing so much undo torment before feeling the sharp chagrin of his own cowardice in complying prick at his heart. Weak . He thought. Fucking pathetic. James watched, a look of concern tethering his brows together a bit as Regulus bit at the inside of his cheek. 

“I’m alright,” he only half-lied, because physically, he felt brilliant. James eyed him with that pitying expression that made Regulus want to melt like sealing wax and drip away.

“I hate that they put you in this position,” he admitted. “I hate that there are people who think the way they do.” Regulus agreed to the extent the narrow window of personal thought being the sole remaining non-disgraced son of the Black family allowed him. But it was hard to be overly concerned about the colour of the sky when one’s face was being driven down into the dirt. Regulus brought a hand up, adjusting James’s wire-rimmed glasses. It was not the verbal assurance he was certain Sirius would provide. Something akin to fuck the Blacks or something equally poetic, but it was what he could offer. James’s eyes shifted to meet his own, his expression softening as his thoughts appeared to shift from the Blacks he despised, to the ones he did not. 

“There are many out there who think terrible things, James,” Regulus remarked, feeling the slight tightening of James’s kind eyes echoed in the wrenching of his own heart. “You either go on living regardless, or you die screaming into the abyss.” James nodded, solemnly, looking down, then darting his eyes back up with a thin smile that brightened the edges of his gaze like the rising sun beyond the hills. 

“What if I choose to live screaming into the abyss?” Regulus felt that wretched heart flutter once more, that brimming warmth as though his body were ill-adjusted to the feeling of the true and honest affection he felt for this boy. Regulus found himself smiling despite himself, unable to resist looking into James’s brown eyes intent on seeing only the good, only the light even when Regulus felt shrouded in inky dim. 

“You are a rare pearl, James Potter,” Regulus replied, brushing an errant lock of hair (though in truth, all of James’s hair was rather errant) from the boy’s face. “I see why Sirius ran to you.” James’s smile persisted only a moment before his expression crumpled and his hands slid under his glasses to rub his eyes. “Are you alright?” Regulus asked, and James’s initial response was only a sort of pained groan as though he’d had a truly wretched epiphany. “What?” Regulus felt his heart hanging on the air that thickened between them like a miasma of perhaps and maybe that heated his blood and sent his pulse racing. He wanted this, so badly did he want this. It was a horrid feeling to want something that could stand up and walk right the hell out of his room at any bloody moment. Wretched. 

“I feel like I’m lying to Sirius,” he answered. “Like I should be running to him right now, and confessing-”

“Confessing what?” Regulus interjected. What was it about this poor boy’s mortal loyalty to his friend that had Regulus tensing every muscle in his body to restrain himself from kissing him even in the middle of this obvious moral conflict? Stars, it was so sweet. So sickeningly sweet. “What have we done that you feel you need to confess to Sirius?” He asked, poorly stifling a laugh as James groaned into his palms yet again. 

“It’s not about what we’ve done ,” he explained, pulling his hands away from his face to reveal his cheeks so reddened Regulus would have believed the boy had been slapped. “It’s about what I want to do.” James’s expression was one of pure pleading, all pouty pink lips and steepled brows, a look that belied how gossamer his restraint had grown, and how this was not the first time it had been tested. 

“Do you always confess what it is you want to do to my brother?” Regulus asked, a bit annoyed at the apparent power Sirius held over James. How bloody selfish that his brother should wantonly pursue his own desires, damn the cost, but stand firmly in the way of his best friend pursuing his own. 

“Pretty much, yeah,” James replied, even as he leaned into Regulus’s fingers absently tracing swirling soothing patterns that outlined the shell of his ear or the line of his jaw. “He’d be so pissed if I-”

“What?” Regulus cut in again, playfully urging James to say what sat just behind his teeth, lingered just on his tongue. To give a name to the sparking sensation that ignited the space between them. “What would have him so irate?” One of James’s hands reached up to squeeze Regulus’s fingers on his cheek. His hands were far larger than Regulus’s own, and the thought of them on him, in him, had his heart stuttering a telling beat. 

“You know,” he said, suddenly so shy. Regulus could feel the heat beneath his cheeks. 

“Do I?” This was not at all how Regulus pictured this going. He had thought James to be such a player, such a ladies man, so cool and suave, but that was so far from the truth. He was nervous, and shy, and self-conscious in a way that coalesced in this growing absolutely deviant desire to just ravage him. To just have his way and watch James’s concerns melt like wax beneath the flame. To have James crying out his name and forgetting, even just for a few seconds, that Sirius even existed. The conflict in James’s kind soul seemed to plait into a small whimper that slithered up his throat, puffing free of his lips in one desperate note. They were so close now, so near, and Regulus wanted so intensely to taste those pouting lips. 

“Regulus-” 

“James,” Regulus heard James’s desire echoed in his own voice now. It leaked out of every small crack, every crevice, and he felt it would just split him open if he did not sate it soon. He was an impatient thing, more than once described as cold or uncaring, but it seemed so different now. James thawed in him something Regulus had long thought permafrost, and he genuinely wanted to soothe the boy’s worries. Now that he had spoken to James, learned the boy and painted over the image that existed in Regulus’s mind with the much lovelier truth, he found he did not want to fuck this up. He sighed, feeling the slight pressure of James’s large hand around his fingers send a small trill of please through him. 

 “James, Sirius is horridly jealous, he’s rash, and selfish and almost always angry about something stupid. No matter what you do or say, he will never ever ever be happy about you shagging his brother.” James swallowed thickly, using his free hand to tug at the collar of his sweater. “But it simply is not his decision to make.” He let that statement rest a moment, almost hearing how it rolled around in James’s mind like a crystal ball on an uneven surface. “Let him sulk, might do him some good not to get his way for once.” They sat like that for a good long while as James considered everything Regulus had said, seeming to pour over his advice as though it were study notes for his NEWTs until finally, he met Regulus’s eyes, and nodded thinly, a small grin attempting to tug up one corner of his pouting lips.

“Yeah,” he said, and then, “yeah, alright.” Regulus scoffed, lightly, chuckling at James’s tepid affirmation. 

“Alright?” Regulus asked. “Can’t say that’s the least enthusiastic response I’ve received, but it certainly is up there,” he smirked. James’s eyes widened in horror at that. He brought his hand, which for all intents and purposes might as well have been on literal fire, to Regulus’s bare thigh, forcing Regulus to muster all the control in his entire body to halt the soft moan that rushed up to his tongue and battered against the backs of his teeth to be set free. 

“ God , no, I didn’t-I just-” James sputtered, his words entirely failing him as Regulus placed his hand upon James’s, still gripping his thigh. “You’re just…so…attractive.” It was the second time he’d said as such but Regulus was a vain little thing and would not at all mind if James were to repeat it over and over and over, in truth. 

“Am I?” Regulus teased. “What are you going to do for it?” Their lips were so close as he spoke, that their breath mingled in a hot puff as though their unspoken wants danced in the hair’s width distance between them. As much as he ached for James’s lips on his own, Regulus took care not to be the one to initiate. He wanted it to be James’s decision. 

“Is it alright if I—” James began, licking his lips, and Regulus thought he might just burn alive if this boy didn’t just bloody kiss him, for Merlin’s sake. 

“ Yes ,” Regulus urged, and then James’s lips were pressed against his own. Not hungrily, or desperately, but sweetly. Kindly. It was so much softer than Regulus was used to. So chaste it seemed somehow lascivious all the things Regulus wanted to do with the boy. Something he hadn’t at all thought to consider before dawned on Regulus just then. 

“James,” he spoke between almost cordial pecks. “Are you a virgin?” James drew back, a look of alarm on his face. 

“What? No, I dated Lily for like four years,” he explained, evidently insulted. 

“ Only Lily?” Regulus asked. 

“Well…yes,” he answered. 

“Ah, so you’re a gay virgin,” Regulus concluded, which only made James’s mouth gape open as though he’d been slapped. 

“W-No! That’s not a thing!” he argued, petulantly, and it was evident that he was mortally embarrassed, but entirely unable to lie. Again, bloody adorable, it was almost nauseating how cute Regulus found him.  

“Oh, I believe it is, and I believe you are one,” Regulus teased. “It’s alright,” he assured. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” 

“Oh, I want to,” he said, placing another kiss safe enough for the Christmas dinner table to his lips. Regulus pushed against him as he tried to draw back slightly, catching James’s lips with his own and turning slightly, running his tongue along James’s lower lip. He even tasted sweet, and Regulus could barely stand how good it felt to finally have even this modest touch. 

As James parted his lips in a breathy gasp that sent goosebumps skittering over the surface of Regulus’s skin, Regulus deepened their kiss, laving his tongue over James’s, and drawing forth all manner of delightful simper and keen from the boy. The noises Real Life James made were even better than the ones Dream James had, especially as Regulus brought his hand up to comb through James’s thick hair. Just as his fingers tangled among those messy black tresses, the most wonderfully heart-stopping breathy moan braided into their kiss, making Regulus’s cock throb and wet a small damp spot on his pants. 

“What changed?” Regulus found himself asking between breathless kisses. “Why am I suddenly attractive to you?”

“Nothing changed,” James answered, attempting to pull away to speak. Regulus, however, would not let him. He’d felt pent up and frustrated all bloody day and he was not going to stop kissing this boy after he’d just gotten started. They chuckled breathily, more air than laugh, against each other and James seemed to accept that he’d have to have this conversation locked against Regulus’s mouth. There were worse ways to chat, Regulus imagined. “I’ve felt this way for a while, but then finding you in the showers-”

“Ah, so it’s superficial, then?” Regulus teased, and James actually whined at that. 

“No!” James insisted, managing to draw back enough to break their kiss. His lips were puffy and pinked and his chest rose and fell in heavy pants that made Regulus want to see what other lewd sounds he could rip from the boy. “No, it’s not like that!”

“Then what is it like?” Regulus asked, leaning forward to run small kisses over James’s cheek and down to his chin, as he spoke. James shuddered softly, his breath hitching with each featherlight brush of Regulus’s lips on him. “You’ve been to my house dozens of times. Been close by in the guest room while Sirius and Remus fucked like the animals they are in his bedroom. Certainly, you had opportunity.” 

“Don’t think I wasn’t quite aware,” James admitted. “But I was still with Lily when I visited last year,” he explained, shivering as Regulus continued to brush his lips down James’s neck. 

“Do you want to top me?” Regulus asked, changing the topic of the conversation as it pleased him, indulging in the way teasing James made the noticeable bulge between his thighs pulse. James shifted, surprised by the question because he was a gay virgin and that is precisely how a gay virgin would react. 

“I…don’t…know?” James stammered. Regulus pulled away. 

“Cannot believe you’re making me discuss hetero sex right now, but when you and Lily had it, did she fuck you or did you fuck her?” he asked. James looked mortified . 

“Um,” he choked the syllable out. “I suppose that second one.” 

“Did you want Lily to fuck you?” Regulus asked, subsequently. 

“Um,” James stammered again, then swallowed so thickly his Adam’s Apple bobbed dramatically in his throat. “No.” 

“Great, thank the stars, because I am so many things, James Potter, but ‘a top’ has never once been among them.” There was something almost naughty regarding the prospect of teaching James how to fuck him. “Do you want to take off your clothes or are you trying to hide your shame from Merlin?” James laughed at that, which was good because Regulus really did want him to feel comfortable. He didn’t want this to be the only time he got to be with James which was an almost shocking epiphany since Regulus had never once given a tosh about the next time before. It had always been fuck for fun then if it was good maybe do it again, and if it wasn’t then ta ta, love. This was…entirely new. How trite, really, he’d always thought himself beyond such cliches.

“You’re quite funny, you know that?” James said as he tugged the hem of his sweater up over his head revealing all of the golden skin beneath. Regulus could not steady his hands, and he reached forward to touch James’s sculpted chest and the sparse dark hairs that dotted it. He was so warm and tall and cut like a fucking diamond just like Dream James. The notion got Regulus considering if James was hung like Dream James, too. It was Regulus’s turn to swallow as though his saliva were cold molasses.  

“Yes, I’m hilarious,” Regulus mused, thumbing one of James’s firm pink nipples and smirking as he jerked a bit. “It comes with years of repressed childhood trauma.” James huffed a thin laugh.

“Yeah, that’s fair, honestly,” he said, splitting the flies of his jeans. Regulus saw his fat bulge barely contained by his white pants. Bloody Virgo . James let out a small sigh of relief once his cock was free of the tight constraint of his jeans. He brought his thumbs to his waistband, but Regulus put his hands on his shoulders, halting his motion. 

“Wait,” he said, and James looked somewhat panicked. “Sorry, I just-” stars, he was so much more nervous than usual, he felt his heart would beat itself to paste. “Can I go down on you?” James seemed very conflicted, and Regulus wondered for a moment how awful Lily was at blowjobs for him to be so hesitant.

“But,” he started. “I thought you wanted…” and when he trailed off again, Regulus understood his concern. He leaned in close to James, running his lips over the shell of the boy's ear and feeling the way he squirmed and shivered against him as he did.

“We can do both,” Regulus whispered. “I’ll get you hard over and over and over if that’s what you want.” James huffed a quick breath, and Regulus slid his hand over the boy’s tight abdomen to the twitching bulge between his flies. Stars, he was big. He was big and thick and dripping and Regulus could not fucking stand it he wanted James in his mouth more than anything else just then. James let out a strained moan that twisted to a simper as Regulus worked his hand over him, kneading his bulge with the ball of his palm. 

“Fuck,” James breathed. It was the first time Regulus had heard the boy curse. He was a terrible influence, evidently. “Y-yes,” he stammered. Regulus drew back, kissing James on his kiss-chapped lips once more before sliding from the bed to kneel on the floor in front of him. There was a delightful damp spot soaked through James’s pants where the swollen head of his thick prick had dribbled a bit of pearly excitement. Regulus pushed James’s knees apart, so he could situate himself between them, looking up at the boy to gauge his expression. He certainly looked nervous.

“You may want to lean back a bit,” Regulus said, sitting up on his knees and placing his palms on James’s bare stomach. “It’ll probably feel better.” James made a face. A sort of worried face, and Regulus couldn’t help bringing his hand to the boy’s cheek, assuringly. “What’s wrong?” Chewing the inside of his cheek, nervously, James’s brow furrowed in a sort of pained cringe. 

“I, uh,” he hesitated. “Lily said I’m a bit, um.” James struggled to get the words out, and Regulus ran his thumb in small reassuring circles over his cheek, brushing the corner of his mouth. “Big.” Ah . Regulus realised just then that it likely wasn’t so much what Lily had done to make him seem so self-conscious, but what she hadn’t wanted to . Regulus could not, in truth, imagine what it must be like to dislike going down on a fat beautiful cock, but he knew it was common enough. Not everyone could spill over just by nearly asphyxiating on a huge prick like he could, more’s the pity. C’est la vie . He thought. Their loss . He smiled.

“I promise that’s not an issue for me,” he assured, and then added, “and please, once I’m bollocks deep on your cock, do you think you could limit how much you mention you and your ex’s sex life?” James pursed his lips to a tight line and nodded quickly. Regulus pressed a hand against James’s chest until he leaned back on his palms a bit, giving Regulus more room to tug down the waistband of his pants and trousers to expose that lovely girth. Stars , he was big . Regulus hooked his fingers behind James’s knees to urge him to the edge of the bed then sat back on his heels in front of him. James’s hard length draped against his tanned abdomen in what had to be the hottest display Regulus had truthfully ever seen, and leaning forward, he took James by the base and directed his cock towards his lips. “Warn me before you come, if you can, I’d like to avoid drowning,” he requested, taking James’s thick pinked head between his lips. 

“ Ah ,” James yelped. “Can’t imagine that will take too long,” he admitted, sheepishly, squirming as Regulus swirled his tongue over his tip and along his dripping slit. Each small motion had James’s hips shifting, his breath huffing in shallow frenetic puffs. Precious, really. Almost alarmingly so. 

“That’s alright,” Regulus’s lips brushed the underside of the head as he spoke, and James shivered above him. “I just want it to feel good,” he explained, and it was the star’s honest truth. “You can pull my hair if you want,” he added, feeling the way James’s thighs tensed on either side of his face. Regulus guided James’s tip back between his lips, the familiar strain in his jaw was only half as good as the taste of that boy’s delicious cock. Regulus hummed a sweet sound around him, and hoped that his obvious pleasure would aid in allowing James to relax and enjoy this. It seemed to, and after a few more slow strokes of Regulus’s tongue along James’s thick length, he heard not only the lovely sounds of James’s pleasure, little breathy moans, but he felt the way James absently rocked his hips forward seeking the rhythm that would bring him to his climax. Each time, Regulus let James’s cock slide farther back, one hand wrapped around James’s base and the other brushing his hip bone lightly, until he could feel the pressure of James’s cock against the sultry warm wet of his soft palate. There was a thatch of dark hair just above James’s cock and Regulus felt the curly hairs there tickle his nose with each gasping breath James inhaled. 

“That feels so good, Regulus,” James breathed softly, and hearing his name in that tone while choking on his fat cock had Regulus’s own prick hard, bollocks aching in his pants. He choked a moan around James’s length, buried at the back of his throat, and the vibration of it seemed to ripple through James’s body until it burst from his lips as a vociferous cry. The feeling of James’s hand tethering in Regulus’s wavy black hair had his heart swelling somewhat with how much more at ease James seemed. The muscles in Regulus’s throat worked around James’s thick length in a rhythm that matched the gentle pressure he felt against the back of his head. Stars, he was so good, so soft and sweet even now, Regulus found how much he wanted to please this boy alarming in its intensity. 

“Regulus,” James huffed in a low rumble. “I’m close.” Aries almighty . Regulus thought. He’d heard that exact statement so many times, but coming from James in his almost inappropriately polite tone with his huge beautiful cock lodged between Regulus’s bloody tonsils, it was just so hot. So much better. “ Ah , Regulus —” James shuddered, and the salty warm wet of his release pooled at the back of Regulus’s throat as he used the base of his tongue to block his airway, swallowing him effortlessly. James pumped out several more thick spurts of come that slid in a gratifying way down Regulus’s throat until he was sucked empty, his breath calming. 

James moved to pull himself free, but Regulus brought his hands to James’s slender hips, stilling him. Regulus loved this part. When his partner’s oversensitive cock would twitch and soften as his body sent his heated blood coursing back to his brain, likely fogged by pleasure and relief in equal measure. James let out one long sigh as his body relaxed beneath Regulus, knees lolling open on either side of him. He breathed in James, the heady musk of his body and salty heat of his softening cock taking care to keep his mouth open and lax. Not everyone fancied this rather intimate process, but James seemed the type to enjoy tender intimacies just as much as the rough heat of fucking. If not more, the sweet thing. 

“That feels really good,” James whispered, shyly, as though they were doing something illegal. Not illegal, darling, just kinky . Regulus thought. After a few more moments, he eased off of James’s flaccid prick, wiping his mouth free of the saliva that dribbled over his chin and looking up at James who smiled, affectionately. So much so that Regulus felt himself momentarily overcome with a sense of mine . A fear of losing this lurched his pulse out of tempo briefly until he was able to lash his sanity back in line. The hand in Regulus’s hair shifted to cup his cheek, and James ran his thumb over Regulus’s swollen, likely very pink, lips. “You’re so bloody hot,” he confessed. Regulus turned his face to kiss James’s palm, before pushing himself up and crawling back onto his bed beside the boy. 

“Good that you think so,” Regulus remarked, sarcastically, as James removed the rest of his clothes. Regulus lounged on an elbow, watching the whole lovely process until the boy was blessedly nude, flushed across his tanned chest, and his hefty balls pillowed his soft cock in a perilously beautiful display. “Fuck, you’re stunning,” he said, surprising even himself. Regulus was not an…overly affectionate lover by any means. Not normally, at least. James’s dark brows raised above the frames of his glasses in, what appeared, shock. 

“Really?” he asked, and Regulus scowled in utter disbelief. 

“What do you mean ‘really?’ of course, really,” he replied. “Don’t be a cliche, you must know you’re attractive. Girls are constantly hanging off of you like bats in a cave.” James sat down, leaning back on his palms, considering that. 

“Think most girls like me because I’m half as likely to hit on them as straight blokes,” James speculated. 

“That’s…” Regulus frowned. “That’s not how that works.”

“ I know that,” James laughed. “I’m bi, not stupid.” Regulus smiled at that, feeling somewhat humbled that James felt comfortable talking to him like this. He really was a sweet thing. Regulus sighed, wanly, and James laid down beside Regulus, propping himself up on his elbow as well so he could meet Regulus’s gaze. 

“You say that but yet you aren’t aware that you are, like, truly unreasonably hot?” Regulus mused. James smiled, softly. “Downright shame, that.” 

“Easier to believe when you say it,” he retorted, and Regulus felt that stomach-fluttering sensation like James’s tender words were Snidgets in his belly. He drew one finger along James’s hairline to brush his fringe from his face, and felt James rest a rather large hand on his hip as he did. He caressed Regulus delicately for a quiet moment where the two boys simply existed ten centimetres apart until finally his hand slid to Regulus’s low back tugging him into his chest. 

They kissed softly, but not chastely this time, and it was evident that each passing second had James’s confidence growing. The kiss tasted of sex, and Regulus was already so fucking hard that he whimpered slightly as James’s thigh brushed his captive erection. James continued to kiss Regulus as he worked his bulky thigh between Regulus’s thin legs. The friction felt so good mingled with the heady wet kiss heated by his overwhelming arousal, and Regulus found himself arching his back to drive himself against James’s leg, whining into their kiss for more. James drew away, just then, and Regulus had to stifle a needy cry at the loss of his touch. 

“Take these off,” James whispered, one finger in the waistband of Regulus’s pants. He had them off so fast it might have appeared he’d Vanished them. Regulus was much smaller than James, but that did not stop James from shoving him over onto his back so he could run his fingers over Regulus with a look of wonder on his face. He pinched the head of Regulus’s absolutely desperate pink cock, sending a jolt of stimulation through him that had Regulus writhing under James. “It’s so pretty,” he declared. “And shaved.” 

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Regulus huffed as James continued his tactile exploration by cupping Regulus’s swollen bollocks. His heels pressed into his bed as James groped him in, what appeared, awe of his ability to draw this sort of pleasure out of him. “You will make me come like that, just letting you know,” he added. James looked up, brows raised.

“Is that alright?” he asked.

“I would say it’s almost entirely the point,” Regulus replied, stifling a laugh, and bringing his fingers to James’s flushed cheek. “Just figured I’d warn you. Though if you still want to fuck me, there’s some work you’ve got to do.” Regulus absently traced James’s brows, his cheek, the length of his nose as he spoke. He’d never needed to hold someone’s hand through this process before, and if someone had asked him if he’d enjoy doing so he’d have probably replied ‘absolutely not’. Somehow, however, with James, it all felt exciting. “You can do it now, or later, or we can stop, whatever you want.” James’s brows pinched together in the middle.

“Show me,” he said, and Regulus’s heart thudded heavily in his chest at the notion. 

“How about an interactive lesson, then?” Regulus suggested, and James nodded, eagerly. Regulus reached a hand under his pillow, feeling around until he found what he was hunting for, pulling free a small glass phial. “You’ll need this,” he said, handing it to James. 

“You keep Daisyroot under your pillow?” He asked, sounding impressed. 

“Have you ever had anything in your arse, James?” Regulus asked, shifting his pillow from beneath his head to under his hips as they talked. 

“No,” James admitted. 

“Alright, well, maybe one day you will, and you’ll realise that there simply is no such thing as too much lube hidden in too many places,” Regulus advised. 

“Seems fair,” James replied, watching Regulus situate himself with rapt fascination as though he would be quizzed on it later. 

“Give me your hand,” Regulus said. “And that,” he added, pointing to the phial. James did as he was told and Regulus slicked the boy’s fingers in the slippery substance, capping the phial and leaving it beside him. “I’m only lifting my previous request for this one moment, so please do not abuse this brief window of opportunity, alright?” Regulus explained, and James frowned in confusion. “Did you ever finger Lily?” 

“ Oh ,” James said, now understanding. “Um, yes, quite a bit.” 

“Brilliant, well this is nothing like that,” he warned, and James blushed bright pink. “Just go slow, and be patient. I’m small,” Regulus stated. James nodded, but it was obvious that the warning brought with it a fresh wave of anxiety for the boy. Regulus closed James’s hand to a fist then parted his index finger from the others, directing the boy’s hand between his legs. The feeling of James’s slicked fingers slotting between his arsecheeks had Regulus’s breath catching in anticipation. James pressed his index finger against Regulus’s tight entrance, feeling the resistance. To James’s credit, and despite his nerves, he seemed so entirely willing to do whatever it was Regulus asked. Few and far between were the men that gave a tosh, and more times than not Regulus readied himself without any aid. Reaching between his thighs, Regulus took hold of James’s hand, and added the necessary pressure that would allow James to breach him, shuddering at the familiar invasion.

“Does it hurt?” James asked. 

“It can, but no, this doesn’t hurt,” Regulus explained. “Very much the opposite, actually.” 

“Good,” James whispered, softly, and sending a trill of warmth through Regulus at the notion that. Sweet thing. Regulus arched against James’s knuckles, pressing his finger as deep as it would go, then working his hand in and out of himself. It wasn’t entirely unlike masturbating, truth be plain, but it was made all the more enjoyable by the tender caresses James drew over his side and abdomen.  

“That’s good, James,” he encouraged, after a fashion. “I can take more if you like.” James looked surprised.

“It’s so tight,” he said in a tone of disbelief that had Regulus huffing a pleasured laugh.

“And yet I promise it’ll be fine,” he assured. He manoeuvred James’s middle finger against him and pressed his hand past the tight ring of muscles. He shivered once more, and then again, moaning softly as James scissored his two fingers inside of him, exploring his body with his hands. 

“Soft,” James sighed. “Does it still feel good?”

“Yes,” Regulus said, gasping slightly as he moved James’s hand in small thrusting undulations in and out himself again. “Very much so.” 

“Can you come like this?” Regulus found himself struggling to manage James’s hand and also his extensive line of questioning. He breathed a soft hitching chuckle.

“Yes, but it’s a bit fiddly,” he answered, truthfully. “But if you want to touch me again, you can,” he offered, then added, “or if you want to watch, you could do that, instead.” James’s eyes brightened as he said the word ‘watch’, and Regulus found he was not surprised. He’d seen the way James studied him almost clinically as though memorising every small motion and moan, noting it for later. “Alright, then,” Regulus agreed, bringing his free hand to his neglected cock. It throbbed with his pulse he was so aroused, and he knew that, with his own hand doing the work and James’s buried inside of him, he would not last very long.

Almost immediately, he arched into his fist, head lolling back against his bed at the building pleasure tightening between his thighs. Regulus’s eyes rolled shut as the cresting swells of gratification attempted to swallow him whole. He matched the rhythm of his hand to the slow in and out motion of James’s fingers, feeling with each thrust that he was nearer and nearer to his end, expedited somewhat by James’s curious eyes watching him. Like all spoiled rich prats, Regulus quite liked being the centre of attention in bed. The easy pressure of James’s knuckles against his cautiously loosened opening had Regulus pressing his heels into the bed, and whining softly as the burning need for relief boiled his blood to vapour in his veins.

“James, - ah - I’m close,” he rasped. Small pricks of thrill needled him as several drops of white excitement dripped from the flushed tip of his cock, sliding to his stomach. At the edge of it all, Regulus urged James’s hand to thrust into him in earnest, quickening the pace to match his own until he let out a sharp cry of release, spilling out over his chest and stomach, and pumping himself empty as his body quaked and tightened around James’s fingers. The pressure that had built all bloody day released in a white hot earthquake that tore through Regulus, sending him moaning and gasping. Even as it eased, little aftershocks pulsed through him like electric shocks, and after he’d steadied, his cock was still impressively hard, though the ache in his balls had diminished greatly. 

“God, you’re so hot. I honestly can’t think straight.” James slid his fingers from Regulus’s somewhat stretched arse, causing him to jolt a bit. He was drenched, a trail of sticky, milky white ran from his sternum to where it pooled at his navel. “You came so much,” James said, as though Regulus had been thinking out loud. 

“Indeed,” Regulus agreed, breathlessly bringing his arm to drape over his eyes, overcome with relief after how long he’d spent pent up. The dream felt lifetimes ago, and he’d spent the entire day frustrated and on edge until now. “That’s your fault, actually,” he huffed. “I had a rather explicit dream about you this morning.” 

“That why you flew like your broom was on fire?” James asked. 

“Perceptive,” Regulus laughed, airily. 

“What was your dream like?” James inquired, tracing absent sticky patterns over Regulus’s stomach in a sort of depraved display of finger-painting that Regulus did not at all mind. His body tingled as though each of his nerves were sparking with electricity just beneath the surface of his skin.  

“I blew you in the Quidditch showers,” Regulus answered, moving his arm enough to look up at James and glimpse the look of obvious we could that crested his features. Turning onto his side, Regulus was both surprised and somewhat proud to find the truly divine sight of James’s flushed and hard erection. He smirked playfully up at the boy who blushed pink as though slightly embarrassed that he evidently had the stamina of Atalanta. 

“Told you I’d get you hard again,” Regulus remarked. 

“Merlin, I almost came just watching you,” he confessed, and Regulus was starting to enjoy how open and honest James was. “And feeling you,” he added, a hint of want peppering his tone with a cautious anticipation that had Regulus’s thighs tightening. He searched the sheets for his wand, casting a quick cleaning Charm on both himself and James’s hand, before retrieving the phial, and handing it to James once more. 

“You still want to?” Regulus asked.

“Fuck, yes, absolutely,” James replied, reaching to take the phial, but Regulus thought better of it and drew it back out of his reach. 

“Actually, lay down,” Regulus instructed. “On your back.” He moved out of the way so James could do as he said, the look of trusting confusion on his face had Regulus hopeful that James would enjoy this plan. Regulus knelt between James’s long hairy legs. Everything about this boy was so boy that it had Regulus’s insatiably gay mind absolutely frothing. He poured some of the flowery-smelling contents of the phial into his cupped palm and worked it over every last surface of James’s thick cock. They’d done a decent job of prepping him, but this cock was a fair bit thicker than two fingers. James simpered lightly as Regulus coated his length in the slippery Daisyroot oil. It’s subtle floral aroma mingled amongst the heady sex and come and sweat that hung heavily in the room and fogged Regulus’s mind to bliss. 

He crawled forward, one hand on either side of James’s torso, and pressed a kiss to the boy’s lips, hoping to quell his anxiety some. James’s hands cupped Regulus’s hips as their lips met lightly, and he twitched just so each time their cocks brushed one another like a static zap. He trailed soft pecks down over James’s collarbone shifting back a bit, and bringing one hand behind him to guide James’s thick head to his entrance. It took a bit of a deft hand, but eventually Regulus was able to sit back, easing James into him slowly and gently. Pressing his hands against James tight stomach, Regulus gasped softly at the amazing stretch, the pressure that burned so good as he took more of James with each delicate rock of his hips. 

“Fuck, that’s not fair,” James whispered, bringing the backs of his hands to his face as though shielding himself from a bright light. “That feels so good. I can’t believe I spent so long not feeling it.” Regulus breathed an airy laugh, delighting in the dull searing pressure of taking all of James. Stars, he felt good. He filled every bit of Regulus, sliding along his ridges and curves creating a friction that had his breath catching in shallow little huffs.  

“You’re eighteen, James,” he managed between breaths. “There is plenty of time for you to make up for all the gay sex you have not been having.” James moaned a long low note as Regulus sat back against James’s hips, his cock cocooned within Regulus’s tight arse. Each small arch of his back or shift of his hips had James crying out, his hands twisting in the sheets. It was not the quiet, blooming heat of going down on him at all now, it was the indelicate unravelling of James’s poise and decorum. It was unspooling the boy to threads, splitting him open at his seams. Regulus watched in indulgent thrill as James grit his teeth, biting back sweet cries of pure bliss that burst from his lips regardless of his will or wishes. The sultry heat of Regulus’s balls pressed between them and the stimulating friction of each thrust of his hips, sent small sounds of more and now dripping from Regulus’s chapped lips. 

“God, Regulus ,” James cried, undone. Split open and spilled empty beneath him. Regulus’s mind whirred to static, the just-too-good feeling crescendoing between his thighs was so loud it drowned out his thoughts entirely. “I’m going to - ah -” he gasped, his hips bucking up into Regulus as the hot wet of his second orgasm dripped from his cock. The rough thrusting sent wave after pummeling wave of yes that wracked Regulus’s body and had his breath stalled somewhere in his throat, unable to make it to his lungs. His cock pumped out a thin stream of come, pressed between their bodies, as he keened above James, his throat ragged. Regulus continued to roll his hips into James, riding the boy through their shared orgasm as they both cried and moaned, their pleasure twisting and coiling to a tight plait. 

As they stilled, breath heaving between them in a muggy haze, Regulus leaned forward to lay down on James’s chest, feeling the squelching of his sticky release as it smeared between them. James wrapped his arms around Regulus and pressed small sweet kisses to the top of his head as they laid there in post-climax bliss. With each steadying breath, Regulus felt the satisfied twitch of James’s softening cock warm within him, and the rise and fall of James’s chest under his cheek. 

“Thank you,” he said, realising he’d not openly stated it earlier. “I don’t have many friends, and I don’t think any of them would have smuggled me Potions especially if they knew the reason for such.” James’s embrace tightened.

“No problem,” he replied, and though he did not say anything more, Regulus got the sense there were words just behind his lips clamouring to escape. Regulus curled tighter against the boy’s broad chest, feeling such a strong lock-and-key sort of perfection in this moment it was almost bloody sickening. Daft, really.  

“James,” Regulus stated. “I am sorry for the inconvenience, but I hope you had no imminent plans to see anyone else.” 

“I…what?” James replied, and Regulus frowned inwardly.

“I’m not usually like this,” Regulus explained, answering a question James had not asked. “I’ve never been one for next times or dating, really, but-”

“You want to date me?” James interjected, and the tone of sweet hope curled his words such that Regulus could picture the soft smile from which they’d been spoken. 

“Is that so wrong?” Regulus replied, a bite of insult sharpening his words. 

“No, no, not at all,” James laughed. “I’m glad you feel that way actually because I absolutely cannot stand the idea of pretending this didn’t happen.”

“Even though it will be wretched to tell Sirius? Just awful? And he’ll probably yell endlessly?” Regulus had asked the first question in earnest, but the rest came as a matter of course simply because toying with James was too fun to resist. James pressed an exaggerated kiss to Regulus’s head.

“Yes, even though Sirius will likely disembowel me,” he replied. 

“If he does, I’ll carry your eviscerated remains to Pomfrey to put you back together,” Regulus promised. 

“Oh, that’s so kind of you,” James chuckled. 

“In fairness, Sirius likes you loads more than he does me, it’s possible I’ll be the one he murders,” Regulus speculated. 

“That’s not true, he’s just-”

“An arsehole?” 

“Well, alright, but to his credit, he’s an arsehole who does, in fact, love you.”

“Disgusting,” Regulus deadpanned, but he could not help the small smile that ticked up the corners of his lips hearing that.