don’t go
Regulus whimpers into the crook of his arm when James’ lips brush down the dip of his spine. James counts each vertebrae with his tongue, hands trailing along Regulus’ sides as he moves down his body.
He stops at the stag antlers inked in black over the expanse of Regulus’ lower back. “These,” he whispers, “will always mark you as mine.”
“Just those?” asks Regulus, coy. He pushes up on his elbows and looks back over his shoulder. “Or—?”
James huffs. He leans back on his haunches, seeming to admire the view, before tapping the back of Regulus’ thigh. “Turn over.”
Regulus does as he’s told. He watches James from beneath lowered lashes, lets his legs melt apart and make room for James in-between. They’re both naked, not ones to waste the limited time they have. He tosses his head back when James pulls him forward by the waist, takes his legs and hikes them up over his shoulders.
The first push of his cock inside Regulus is the delicious sort of burn he always craves, always needs. His fingers curl in soft sheets, grappling for purchase, and a moan tumbles from his lips.
James swallows it eagerly, mouth covering his. His movements are slow, deliberate. Unhurried. His hand comes between them, but he doesn’t reach for Regulus’ length, hard and untouched. Instead, he brushes a thumb across the tattoo between Regulus’ hipbones—JFP.
The first of many Regulus has acquired over the years for James. One after another after another, until Regulus’ skin became riddled with a map of belonging.
“Don’t go,” whispers Regulus into James’ wild hair. “Not this time. Stay. Stay with me.”
James doesn’t answer, but his hips stutter when Regulus bears down on him.
“I have loved you for six hundred years. Across lifetimes.” Regulus’ fingers dig into James’ back. “Across universes, James.”
“Regulus,” James pleads; it’s pained. “You know I can’t. Just as you can’t stay.”
“I would stay for you.” Regulus’ wraps his legs tighter around James’ waist, pulling him impossibly closer. He wants James to consume him, to light him aflame and burn his very bones to ash. “So don’t go. Stay.”
James doesn’t answer again. His movements grow rougher, his teeth sinking into the taut muscle of Regulus’ shoulder. Sometimes he moves to taste Regulus’ moans, but eventually he’s too busy with his own, chasing a high and giving Regulus one in return.
They both fall together with broken sounds and names whispered in desperate tones.
In the end, Regulus doesn’t have the energy to ask again for James to stay. He doesn’t want to fight. He knows neither of them can stay. That it’ll be another lapse of time, another universe, and maybe then, maybe next time, James won’t leave.
They curl into one another, foreheads pressed together, limbs entwined right down to their ankles. There’s no space if they can make it so. Moonlight casts silver rays over their sweat-slicked, flushed bodies.
“I love you,” Regulus tells him, but it sounds like Don’t go.
“I love you,” James returns, but it sounds like I’m sorry.
When Regulus wakes the next morning, his fingers fist in the cold sheets where James slept beside him. All that remains of James is a note scrawled in his hand, left behind on the pillow.
Until next time, love. Get another tattoo, won’t you?