He was at a gay club feeling way out of his depth. After Sirius had suggested that they go out to ‘forget’ and he had agreed —Remus had just laughed and shaken his head but at the end of the day agreed (Sirius’s coercion no doubt)— he was now here.
Lights were flickering a thousand different colours, the music was so loud he was sure his ears would be ringing for hours on after, and the people were… interesting.
He knew he liked man his whole life, he didn’t think it was a wrong thing until he saw three muggle kids beat up a fourth one and called him slurs that he thought ‘better to keep it to myself’ not ‘stop’, but just to keep it quiet. And when he went to school and his Dad told him to “find a nice girl” —he hadn’t told his parents then— he went to do just that.
He knew he liked women, always had, and when no one quirked an eyebrow or beat him up when he did it openly he thought to himself ‘I can do this the right way, then’. And when his Mom told him to go out and have fun “the girl your Dad talked about is no priority your happiness is” —he suspected his parents knew back then already (he was right)— he went to do just that.
He flirted openly with women all the time and stole glances from the man he found attractive. Then he met his friends and discovered a whole new world. A world where he realised that there’s no ‘wrong thing’ and —honestly— no ‘right way’ there’s just feelings, want and love, never mind their gender or yours.
So when Remus told him he was queer in their dorm, door and windows closed, blinds drawn, whispering words he barely managed to get out; James proudly announced he was too and they talked and talked for hours.
When Remus and Sirius announced they were dating cautious and challenging respectively, Peter and him showed their support and happiness for them by finishing their bet—James lost 30 pounds that day, his only regret—and, after congratulating them, announced that Peter was ace and James was pan, and no one thought about the wrong thing or about the right way, they just hugged then pranked the whole school to celebrate.
And now he was at a gay bar, he hadn’t gone to one before because it was illegal when he was underage, and by the time he could have done so, he was happily in love with Lily so he didn’t. But now, after 6 years he was sadly in love with Lily and standing by the bar of the club.
Lovely people had flirted but where he found them attractive he couldn’t find it in him to flirt back—when normally he didn’t have any issues in that department, mind—so they naturally lost interest quickly and went away. He didn’t mind it, sometimes he didn’t want his company either.
He was about to call it a night, resigned himself to his fate, go back to their flat and watch a movie (Lily’s favourite) while scrolling through his phone (on the gallery app, crying to pictures of Lily) until he fell asleep. But ‘fate’ apparently had other plans…
It wasn’t until someone came stumbling towards the bar, another person pushed them while dancing and they were on their way to the floor when James’s reflexes caught up with the scene and caught them.
They were laughing before they opened their eyes and he got an eyeful of them in the seconds they didn’t.
He could without a doubt and without question say that he had never—and would ever—see a more beautiful smile. It was adorable, admirable, it pulled the muscles of their face and crinkled their eyes so he couldn’t make out the make up on them. What he could see was that it was bold—in the back of his mind he thought Sirius would like it.
Coming out of his stupor, James straightened up keeping a firm hold on the stumbler who kept laughing which pulled a smile on his face as well—or maybe it was already there? Remus was right, he did smile an awful lot unknowingly.
Then he noticed their height, they were small, that’s the only way of saying it, compared to James that is. They were doubled in the middle a bit still laughing but when in full height they couldn’t reach higher than to his chest.
Their waist fitted perfectly on James’s hands which he squeezed a little to get their attention and when he went to ask them what had happened what came out of his mouth was:
“You’re small.”
They laughed at this, hands coming up to his chest to stabilise themselves followed quickly by their head and then their eyelids as they looked up at James, and… oh.
Their eyes were a clear colour—he couldn’t tell you which one because the lights kept flickering a rainbow of colours around them, blue? green? pink? Purple?—they were wide and pretty. James smiled at this, they were really, really pretty.
“What?” They said, which drew James’s eyes to their lips, they were pretty as well, the bottom one was fuller and it looked plump enough to bite.
James licked his lips and, still looking at theirs repeated “you’re small.”
“Not really, you’re just really tall.” When James looked up to their eyes again he found himself being checked out. When their eyes came back up it was to a cocky smile.
“Hey.” James said, “want a drink?”
“Yeah, that’s why I came to the bar.” He could’ve sworn he heard a ‘duh’ as well, but the music was too loud to be sure.
“Fell more like.” He muttered.
“What was that?” The stranger said as they sat on the stool James was at before.
“What’d you like?” He said, motioning for the barwoman to come over. When she did, the pretty one ordered their drink and James took the chance to check them out.
Their spine arched a bit when they moved up to shout their order, they had a crop top on and a low rise skirt so he could see the pale skin of their lower back and he could swear it was soft, he wanted to touch, he wanted to bite, their skin was so pale, unblemished, he wanted to mark it. But he didn’t do any of these things, what he did do was reach out and grab his own drink.
When the barwoman handed them their drink, they sipped from it, and James’s eyes were glued to their adam’s apple, the way it bobbed up and down, had him clenching his hands around his own drink.
He couldn’t stop himself from touching now, so he reached out and grabbed their knee and spun them around on the stool. They didn’t seem to mind. A smile was playing on their lips as their eyes looked up at James through pretty eyelashes. He wanted to fall to his knees and adore them, count every single one of their eyelashes, find out the exact colour of their eyes.
It took him a second to realise they said something.
“What?” He boomed out.
They tilted their pretty head and dark curls followed the motion, then reached out and pulled James down by the collar. The hand that wasn’t holding his drink came up to the bar to keep himself from falling into them, he couldn’t touch again, no matter what happened, his hand was still tingling from when he touched their knee, if he did again he didn’t know if he would stop, and he had to ask first.
Instead of talking again they simply looked at James, shamelessly, the heavy gaze of their pretty eyes made him feel like he was under x-rays but he didn’t move—nor did he want to.
They shrugged seemingly coming up to a decision then reached out to talk into James’s ear. “Wanna get out of ‘ere?” Their voice was a little slurred but nice nonetheless.
“Yes!” He said a little too quickly. There was no other option after their breath graced his skin, and oh he was a goner.
They sat back a little, and looked up at him with amusement.
“I mean—yeah sure.” He amended with a nonchalant shrug—but his face betrayed him.
They smirked and downed their drink, then motioned for James to do the same. His was emptier than theirs so he managed to down it first, leave it in the counter, pay for them both and still get to ogle at the way their adam’s apple moved.
They smacked their lips together now shiny from the drink and stood up, there wasn’t much difference in their height.
“Let’s go then.” They walked away heading for the exit.
James trailed after them like a puppy without a second thought.
There was a chill in the air that rippled through his body when they made it out of the club biting the back of his neck and he pulled his jacket tighter around himself. This reminded him of the small amount of fabric that was covering the body of his companion so he took his phone out of his pocket then took the jacket off and put it on their shoulders. They laughed a bit and seemed unsure at first but then got their arms in correctly.
He thought he heard a ‘warm’ coming out of their pretty mouth, but with the way his ears were ringing there was no knowing for sure.
“Follow me.” They reached out and grabbed his wrist pulling him away.
They didn’t have to walk much, they stopped at a building, three blocks down from the club, James wished simultaneously that it was both further and closer.
Further because he was addicted to the sound of their heels clicking on the pavement and the way their pale legs moved, muscles moving under sheer skin he wanted to sink his hands into.
Closer for he wanted to touch, touch, touch, kiss, bite…
They made it to a lobby and walked to the left immediately. Next thing he knew, he was being pulled down, and bliss came when he felt soft lips on his.
A far away thought told him he was in a lift, but none of that matter for lips were on his, hands on his hair, skin under his hands. They pushed and pulled on each other. A leg came up to wrap around his hip and he held on to it for dear life relishing on the cold skin of their thigh—he wanted to warm it up.
Hands tingling, mind foggy he barely heard the ‘ping’ from the lift when they made it to the floor they seemed to be going to. As they got out into a low lighted hallway he thought for a fleeting moment this could be dangerous.
As they fumbled in their skirt for a key or a card he pulled out his phone and sent out his location to their friend group. He barely caught the ‘Be safe. Have fun!’ followed by an obscene amount of obscene emojis from Peter when he was being pulled into the room.
There was no light on, not that he needed it when he had his eyes closed and was simply following directions. He was sat on a couch and properly snogged.
His hands moved all around their body. He took his jacket off their shoulders and was greeted by the soft skin of their arms.
He grabbed their thighs and was met with the cold skin of their legs, muscles moving under his hands from their grinding on his lap, he did grip it the way he wanted to now, met with a sigh from their lips which he tasted, only to realise he was now addicted and wanted more, more, more.
Things escalated quickly after that. . .
He woke up in a dark room, sunshine was lighting up the corners of curtains covering high windows. The bed he was at was perfect, he felt very well rested, or maybe it had to do with the man laying on top of him.
During their night, he had asked for a name but was told that it didn’t matter and to shut up with kisses down his neck.
He had blurted out something along the lines of “a man likes to know the name of the person that’s snogging them, you know?” and he had said something along the lines of “yeah, as a man, I know that. But I really don’t care right now, what I care about is…” (not gonna be written in here, because then the PG wil have to be upgraded).
Then the snogging turned into sweet sweet shagging and he knew no more, he even forgot his own name.
Now he looked around the room, hands on the nameless man’s back tracing patterns around it. A dangerous throbbing on his head from a building headache and ringing in his ears still. He had no idea what time it was, but then again he didn’t have a clue of where he was either so it didn’t really matter.
He dozed off again looking at a picture on the nightstand to his left.
It was a picture of two small children with matching dark curly hair haloing their heads, the tallest’s—probably the eldest as well—was longer, curling under their soft jaw.
They also had matching outfits that made the picture look like it was from the Victorian era or sometime equally as old, tall collars and fluffy lace on the rim of their sleeves.
Both of their eyes were a pale tone of grey James could feel familiarity with, he convinced himself it was only because he had stared at them a mere hours ago so intently that he felt like he had been doing that his whole life.
The little boys seemed to be in front of an armchair in a Victorian house—or sometime as equally as… yeah you get it—with a bookshelf on the background behind the chair behind the boys.
The younger one had wide eyes that upon closer look and longer consideration seemed to be teary, a tug on his small mouth making him look adorably like he needed a hug.
The older one had a similar look in his eyes, teary as well but there was something else, upon longer inspection, he thought it was defiance. He looked fiercely at the person behind the lens. A tug on his small mouth up making it look like a small smirk, like he had done or was about to make mischief for something…
James’s mind trailed off, the thought of it being a little weird that he had been studying this picture so meticulously in his sleep—for he had fallen asleep but his mind had apparently taken a mind-shot of the picture next to him—subdued by the realisation.
He had seen those eyes before, he had seen that defiance in them before, he had seen that smirk before, he had seen that older boy before. His hair was longer, his eyes were the same colour, his jaw was sharp now and his lips did seem to be in a perpetual playful smirk on his face. Oh Gods, it was—
He woke up again to loud banging on a door, he was still hazy, and it felt like something—a though, an idea, an ‘eureka’ moment—flew out of his grasp; it was ripped away more like by being awoken by the loud sharp banging coming from the door and the sudden coldness that seeped to his chest as the head that had been laying there moved away.
He caught sight of his pale back as the man pulled a hoodie over his head and went to open the door, when it did the blinding sunlight coming from the other room was enough to make James groan and dip his head under the duvet…
Then the shouting came.
His ears were only now coming to sense of what was being shouted when he realised that it was his name.
“James! James! I know you’re in there! Get the fuck out! And you better be dressed, you brotherfucker!”
James went to grab his glasses from the nightstand when he saw the picture again, and his eureka moment finally struck.
“Fuck— Sirius.” He got up from the bed as quickly as he could, grabbing his pants and putting them on, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to have left any other piece of clothing in the room, the rest had been ripped away from his body in a haze of kisses, groanings and moans, so he only had his pants, and his glasses.
The door to the room he was in opened. He dipped in the bed again, kneeling on it and covering up with the duvet like the ladies from the old movies, up to his chin.
In came one furious looking Sirius Black—his best friend, his brother, his soulmate, his comfort, his lungs—eyes wide and mouth curled in a snarl, an expression on his face that James didn’t want to make out.
And behind him in came the man he had shagged all night, the man with the pretty lips on his pretty face—that right now were being chewed on an anxious gesture—the man that made the most glorious noises James had ever heard, the cacophony of them made his ears ring louder that the music from the club ever could.
He looked down at the nightstand again, at the picture of the two small boys, a distorted mirror of the two men standing in front of him.
“Oh.” James blurted out.
“‘Oh’?” Sirius’s booming voice came out incredulous. “‘Oh’?! You fucked my brother and all you say is ‘oh’?!”
“Well actually, it was him that—”
“Shut up! I don’t want to hear it! My brother, James? Seriously?!”
“I’m sorry?” But no he wasn’t. Okay, sure he understood the issue, but he didn’t know who the man was when he fucked him, so he went to explain this to Sirius… or he would have if he could get a word in.
“You better be! That’s my little brother, James. He’s just a baby!”
“The fuck—? I’m only a year younger than you, I’m not a baby, Sirius. You have to stop viewing me as such—”
“You shut up!” He turned to point at his brother. “And you—” he turned his angry eyes back to James “What the fuck were you thinking shagging my brother? Why would you do that, James? Regulus is my brother, his off limits, always has been. What’s wrong with you?!”
“Regulus.” James blurted out, a smile curling on his lips to the sound of the name. It was perfect for him, he looked like a Regulus—whatever that was, this was it, he was it.
Regulus was looking at him eyes wide, an almost imperceptible shake of his head that was only there for the movement of his curls that should not have been looking as pretty as they did after just waking up after the night they had.
Sirius turned to him slowly, anger coming out of him in waves engulfing the room.
Regulus’s wide eyes turned to him, and for a second he looked just like the boy in the picture, James felt the desire to hug him come back to him from the depths of his foggy sleep-state mind.
“You didn’t even tell him your name?”
“No.” Regulus responded, he kept his eyes on Sirius, head held high, but his voice was small.
“Did you know it was James?”
“No.”
“Really?” Sirius’s voice was more like a growl, he didn’t believe him. “Because I’ve shown you pictures of him, I— fuck— I was about to intoduce you to eachother.”
No need for that now, James thought.
“I showed them to you not a fucking week ago, Reg!”
“In my defence, I was drunk. So no, I didn’t recognize—”
“You’re going off to shag with strange man and not even ask for a fucking name?!”
“What’s it to you?!” Regulus shouted now, and then they were bickering.
James was seriously considering going to the other room to collect his clothes so they could have a decent conversation.
At this rate he could probably slip off while they shout at each other, hands flailing about, they both talked with their hands, who knew? James. James knew, Sirius had told him at some point, but—as previously established—he hadn’t seen it in person.
James got up to do just that, slip off the room to get his clothes, but he forgot this was not a cartoon.
The movement was caught by Regulus in a second who looked him up and down in record time and anyone else wouldn’t have noticed, but Sirius was not anyone else.
He turned around, hair whipping around and he did the same. Looked James up and down, eyes squinting, jaw falling down. Slowly he turned to Regulus again—Gods was he dramatic, James loved him so—Regulus’s lips thinned, looking sheepish.
“You—” he growled “—gave him—” he snarled “—hickeys?!” he shouted.
They went back to their screaming match and James took the opportunity to look down at himself, and… yeah his chest was covered in hickeys alright.
He liked them, he wouldn’t tell Sirius as much, but he liked them. He loved them once he remembered Regulus’s mouth making them.
The correct term would probably be ‘lovebite’ hence to the way they were made. He remembered Regulus’s lips on him, the feeling of his teeth grazing skin, biting, then his tongue lapping on them like he wanted to heal them or taste them.
He remembered asking for them, begging—he then also remembered doing the same on Regulus and felt his blood draw away from his heart, when he felt where it was heading (down, down, down) he got out of the room, he couldn’t slip out unnoticed but he got out.
The sound of shouting followed him as well as the men who were causing it. He went around the sitting room collecting his clothes and putting them on. When he couldn’t find his shirt he caught eyes with Regulus who was, yet again, checking him out, eyes lingering where he hadn’t buttoned up his trousers. Then he pointed towards a bookshelf where it had been caught, all the while screaming at Sirius who shouted back.
Once James was dressed he went into his self-assigned job: Sirius control.
He went in fully stepping between the brothers. Regulus couldn’t be seen from behind James so Sirius was trying to get around him to continue on fighting his brother.
“Sirius—” James tried but he wouldn’t listen. “Sirius.” He tried again, then rolling his eyes and catching him by the shoulders he screamed “Sirius!”
This finally caught the man’s attention. He wasn’t deterred by the screaming, never had, on the contrary, he matched it.
They went on, Sirius screaming at James and James trying to explain while shouting back. They stopped when a door slammed shut, both of them turning towards the bedroom door.
“Come back here, you little shit!” Sirius shouted after his little brother, then went back to shout at James when he got close enough—took one step forward.
After a while—a couple of minutes, an hour? He didn’t know his mind was still hazy—they stopped screaming, and managed to talk.
Sirius was still snarling at him, and, instead of shouting now, turned to mutter things under his breath which he knew actually got James angry. Neither one of them cared about the loud words, it was always the ones muttered that made them crack.
They were about to get to their cracking point, James was already clenching his jaw feeling an angry heat coming up his collar when it was replaced by a different type of heat coming up his collar as the door to the bedroom opened and Regulus came out.
In the time James and Sirius were arguing he had gone to his room and took a shower, evident by the water dripping from the curls at his jaw, droplets falling to his sweater, making the green of it darker.
James came back to reality from a sharp slap on the side of his head. And came once again face to face with Sirius.
“Don’t look at him like that! Show some respect.”
“I-I respect him.”
“Oh yeah,” Regulus added, “he respectfully shagged me all night, let’s not forget.”
Sirius screamed and went up to him to shout some more.
In between screams Regulus asked “Tea?” to the room.
James nodded and he and Sirius followed him to the kitchen.
This place was massive James was coming to tell. He hadn’t realised just how big it was the night prior being distracted by… other stuff. Said distraction was reaching up to grab the tea off a shelf, then teasingly looked over to James and pointed up. James perked up immediately to go reach it for him.
Regulus obviously could reach it, this was his place after all, he had put it up there on his own most likely, but James went to get it as Sirius was distracted by a knock on the door.
“Must be Remus…”
“Remus?” Regulus asked, eyes on James.
“Yeah, he was waiting outside, must’ve gotten bored. I’ll get it.”
“Yeah you do that.” Regulus replied distractedly.
Said distraction barely put four boxes of different types of tea on the counter, when he was being tackled down, or claimed upon more like.
Regulus, small as he was, practically jumped up and pulled on James’s unruly hair, messing it up even more, legs wrapping around his waist—James’s hands went instinctively to his thighs holding him up from underneath—lips on his.
He kissed Regulus, exploring his mouth as if they had never done it before, relishing on the feeling that he had indeed done it before.
He placed Regulus onto the counter next to the tea boxes, then pulled him in by his hips, hands grabbing and caressing and pulling and when they collided in the middle he saw stars.
Regulus gasped on his mouth and started grinding on him, James copied him exhaling a groan of his own—when the kettle whistled.
They pulled back and James took a quick step back until he bumped on the other counter (it was a linear kitchen, but not for that a small one). Regulus huffed a laugh and looked at him for a second, his hair was shuffled a little, but since it was damp it was unnoticeable—unlike James’s, then again since his hair was messy all the time maybe it was unnoticeable as well? Yeah, not such luck…
Regulus’s rosy lips curled up on a smirk and he was shuffling to hop down from the counter when Sirius came back in with a Remus with the same lips as Regulus on his trail: Snogged lips.
Sirius looked Regulus up and down and started screaming at James again. “My baby brother… again? James… no shame… I should hate you for this, you know?… you idiot… I can’t believe… how could you do this?” But luckily for them all Remus was in the room now.
He made a point of this with his hands coming around Sirius’s waist head coming to rest on his shoulder, at this Sirius was subdued but not stopped, he stopped shouting but not arguing. Regulus was looking at them intently.
Remus turned to James looking him up and down, shook his head with an amused smile then followed the motion to bring his lips to Sirius’s ear and whisper something. Sirius stopped all together, even if he didn’t look very pleased about it.
His eyes narrowed when Regulus finally hopped down from the counter, looking pointedly at him. Remus swayed them a bit and Sirius’s hands went to the arms around his waist and took a deep breath.
Remus smiled. “Nice to finally meet you, Regulus.” He said from his place on Sirius’s neck.
James was pouring the boiling water down on four cups he had gotten from a pantry then passed one to each of the men around him.
“Can we talk now?” James asked the room, but his eyes were on Regulus’s, he could really see the grey now, they had a little hint of green in them.
Regulus nodded.