Chapter Text
James pulls the door to his flat shut and takes the three steps to the opposite side of the staircase with purpose. Once he’s standing in front of it, staring at the little golden plaque above the doorbell reading R. A. Black, his certainty wavers. It’s been two days. Two days too long he’s let pass on. Two days, and now he is here and this is not the introduction he had planned it out to be.
Sighing, James lifts his hand and knocks.
Always knock first, twice, and if you still don’t get an answer then you can ring the doorbell. It’s less startling that way, more familiar, and you give the people inside a chance to react. If they still don’t answer the door at that point, leave and try again some other time. An easy rule to follow that his mother taught him when he was a small boy, and one that hasn’t failed him yet.
The first knock goes unanswered, but that’s okay. It’s to be expected, usually the first knock can be brushed off as a random noise from the hallway, not meant for the resident of the flat, not important enough to inquire.
James gives it a couple seconds before he knocks again. Pauses. Listens to silence.
He is about to move his hand from the door to the sign next to it to press the little brass button underneath it when he hears footsteps from within the flat. Quickly he takes a step back and waits.
When the door opens, James’ brain quite honestly lags. His mouth is halfway into forming a greeting, now hanging dumbly open as he stares at his neighbour. His neighbour, who is not a friendly old lady who’d pinch his cheeks and call him sweetheart, or a stuck-up businessperson with more money than mind, as he might have expected. His neighbour is a young man, a very, very beautiful young man, about the same age as James, as far as he can judge, with a sharp jawline and light freckles speckled across the bridge of his nose, pale skin contrasted by the dark curls falling softly into his rain-grey eyes.
“Hello?” James’ pretty neighbour asks warily, blinking up at James.
James shakes himself out of his stupor. “Hi,” he croaks, clears his throat and tries again. “Hi. Uh, James Potter. I am, that is. I mean–” he clears his throat again, takes a moment to regain some semblance of composure, starts anew. “I’m James Potter, I moved into the flat opposite yours two days ago,” he blindly waves his hands to his own door behind him, “Err, I meant to introduce myself a while back, you know, it’s kind of rude not to, but I didn’t want to just knock and be like ‘Hi, I’m James’–” he throws his arms out, presenting himself dramatically, “–because that seemed a bit distance-y? So I thought, let’s bake a cake! Everyone loves cake! I could probably buy my neighbour’s love with a I-just-moved-in-cake – not that I’m trying to buy your love, sorry, I’m sure you know what I mean–” His neighbour is staring at him, his eyebrows drawn together, and James realises he is rambling. “Anyway! What I’m trying to say is that I started baking only to realise I don’t have any sugar, so I was wondering if you could maybe lend me a cup of sugar...”
“You want to borrow my sugar so you can gift me a cake?”
“Uhm...” James says, “Yeah?”
The pretty neighbour looks at him for several seconds, giving James a slow look over that makes him squirm, until he finally sighs. “Give me a second,” he says and closes the door.
James blinks at the closed door. Well. That went... great. Not exactly the first impression he had wanted to leave with his neighbour, especially not the first impression he wanted to leave with a neighbour that extremely beautiful. He doesn’t get the chance to curse himself over it though, as a moment later the door opens again.
“Here you go,” his pretty neighbour says, holding a packet of sugar out towards James. “No need to give it back. See it as a house-warming gift.”
James takes the sugar and smiles brightly. “Thank you so much. I’ll soon return with a cake.”
“That was quick,” James’ neighbour says with raised eyebrows a couple minutes later when he opens the door again upon James’ renewed knock. “That must be some kind of cake baking speed record.”
“Okay, so” James says and awkwardly rubs the back of his neck with his cake-empty hands. “Yeah, uhm, so when I opened my fridge the box of eggs fell out and the eggs broke...”
“All of them?”
“Uh huh...”
“That is impressive,” the pretty neighbour deadpans.
“Well.” James clears his throat sheepishly. “I’d postpone the baking for another day but I did already mix all the other stuff together and I don’t want to waste perfectly fine ingredients.”
“You mean, you don’t want to waste perfectly fine ingredients on top of the perfectly fine eggs you already wasted.”
James lets out a surprised laugh upon the blatant judgement of his baking skills he is being met with. “You get it... But yes, what I’m asking here is, do you maybe also have three eggs I could borrow?”
“Any other ingredients you’re missing? Milk? Chocolate? Maybe some flour?”
He’s being made fun of, he realises, but somehow it makes his neighbour only more attractive. “No,” James grins, “Just the eggs.”
The pretty neighbour rolls his eyes but says “Sure,” and after a moment retreats back from the inside of his flat with the requested eggs.
It takes marginally longer for James to knock again. It takes a lot shorter for his neighbour’s door to open this time.
“Before you say anything,” James rushes, “I know this is extremely embarrassing and you are absolutely allowed to laugh at me. I do have all the ingredients, it’s all mixed and everything. And I swear, I looked everywhere, I even checked the boxes for the bathroom I haven’t unpacked yet, but somehow during my move my springform pan must have gotten lost because I cannot for the life of me find it.”
“You are extremely fascinating, James,” his neighbour says.
James blushes, and if it is from the pretty neighbour calling him fascinating (which most probably is an insult, given the circumstances), or because of the way his name sounds falling from his tongue, James cannot tell.
“Thank you,” James says happily, “I’m trying my best.”
A snort escapes the pretty neighbour, which he quickly plays over by saying, “So are you asking if you can borrow a springform pan for the cake you are baking for me, of which half the ingredients I provided?”
“That is exactly what I am asking, I’m so glad that after this short a time of knowing each other we already have this perfect, instinctive understanding of one another,” James teases and for good measure wiggles his eyebrows.
“You’re ridiculous,” his neighbour says. “I do happen to have a springform pan though, give me a minute, I will find it for you.”
James waits patiently, and when his neighbour reappears with the black tin he smiles his widest smile.
“The next time you knock I expect to see a cake. At this stage it must be impossible even for you to find some other thing you need to borrow.”
It is indeed impossible, unfortunately. James does not like it, he rather enjoyed getting to knock on his pretty neighbour’s door. But just because he doesn’t need anything else doesn’t mean he can’t fabricate another situation of needing help.
One knock later, his neighbour looks him up and down again.
“Well, you did bring a cake,” he says. “It looks rather unbaked, though.”
“I may need to borrow an oven,” James says with a lopsided grin. “I seem to be incapable of turning mine on.”
The look of incredulity on his neighbour’s face is just as beautiful as the rest of him. “You have to be joking. This has to be a lie.”
“I’m not lying,” James lies.
His oven works perfectly fine, but his neighbour has been so incredibly helpful so far, why shouldn’t James see how much further he can take it? He hasn’t missed the way his eyes skimmed over James’ frame, taking a little longer to inspect his arms and hands. If James has a chance here, he wants to take it.
“Look, if you don’t want to help me out with this, I get it, you’ve already done a lot anyway. I will knock at my upstairs neighbour’s and ask them. But we’ve done this together so far, so do you maybe want to do the last step with me as well?”
His neighbour gives him a long measuring look until finally he stretches out his hand. “Alright, give me the pan then,” he says with a smirk. “It’s supposed to be a cake for me, right? I’ll just finish baking it and will accept you finding a recipe and mixing together ingredients as your friendly new neighbour gift. Very convenient, too, since it’s my springform pan anyway and this way you won’t have to give it back to me later on.”
James can’t help the shadow of disappointment crossing his face. He had hoped he would get invited into his neighbour’s flat, maybe sit together for an hour or so while they wait for the cake to finish baking, talking about this and that, properly getting to know each other. But his arguments make sense and there is no reasonable counterargument James can give that would reason why he should come into the flat of the person he’s met not even an hour ago for the first time. So defeatedly he hands over the pan with the jiggly batter and says with a smile that is more forced than all the previous ones, “Perfect! It just needs to be baked for twenty-five minutes at a hundred and eighty degrees and then it’s done. I do really hope you like it.”
“I’m sure I will,” his neighbour says and takes the pan from him. James might be projecting, but he does feel like their hands brush unnecessarily much in the process.
“And if you ever need to borrow some sugar or something in return, well, you know where I live...” James adds. “My door is always open.”
“That’s rather unsafe. You should probably lock it at least at night, someone might try to break in,” the pretty neighbour points out.
“Truly would be a tragedy,” James hums. “Well then. I’ll see you around?”
“Sure,” the pretty neighbour says easily. It’s not quite the ending to the conversation James had hoped for himself, but it is better than nothing.
James has barely entered his own flat and sat down on the sofa in his kitchen when he’s already jumping up again, practically running back to where he just came from. He knocks, the wood of the door by now feeling familiar beneath his knuckles.
His pretty neighbour doesn’t even look surprised when he opens the door and finds James standing there for the fifth time that day. “Anything else you need to borrow?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.
“Yes,” James pants a little out of breath. “Your name.”
“You want to borrow my name?” The pretty neighbour crosses his arms and leans against his door frame. His tongue flicks out momentarily, wetting his lips as he gives James a slow look over that sends a shiver down his spine. “How are you planning on giving it back to me?”
James sucks his lower lip between his teeth and considers the question only for a second. “Screaming, later, if you want me to.”
It takes him off guard, the unabashed directness, a light blush creeping up his neck, tinting his cheeks a beautiful pink. James thinks he might have gone a step too far too quickly, maybe having misread the signs his neighbour gave him during their interaction, but then, before he can think of a way to write his statement off as a joke, the pretty neighbour opens his mouth again.
“Regulus,” he says. “My name is Regulus.”