Lost and found
Now, James has never classified himself as a stalker, or creepy or even anything aside from a gentleman.
But when a man walks into a store, in sweatpants that hang very low on his hips, a black tank top that show slightly toned biceps and doc Martin's, it's not his fault that he stares a little.
There's also about a 3 centimeters of skin between the waist band of his pants and where his tank top ends. Now that makes James want to see the rest.
James haults in his step, causing Harry, who is sat on his shoulders, to giggle.
He's immediately disappointed in himself. He's never even met the guy! He shakes his head a little and continues walking.
They end up in the dairy isle, where Harry immediately wiggles to signal he wants to get down. James lifts him off, and the second his feet hit the floor he goes running. At first he assumes Harry wants access to the chocolate milk, but he is mortified when the boy goes running for the man with the pretty hair.
James scurries after him, but he ends up next to the man, who is yet to look up at him.
The man bends down and Harry falls into his arms. James is ready to punch the guy in front of the poor, unsuspecting yogurt containers, when Harry exclaims
"Dada star!"
James is now even more mortified. The name rings a bell, but he, incorrectly it seems, assumed it was a character Harry made up while playing a game.
"Hi Harry" the gorgeous man greets the boy, before scooping him up and staring at James with a blank look on his face.
"We're letting kids run off to strangers now? Wonderful parenting, really." the man gives James a look that can only be described as something between disappointment and disgust.
"I'm assuming you're Harry's father. I'm Regulus" The man- Regulus doesnt specify who exactly he is.
"Dada star!" Harry seems excited, and happy to correct Regulus' introduction. He has his arms wrapped around Regulus' neck, and his head settled on his collarbone. James can see Harry's fingers trailing little unknown shapes on the back of the man's neck.
Multiple emotions go through him. Confusion, who is this guy? Frustration, why is his son calling another man 'dada'?. Adoration, James will admit they look very cute holding on to each other. And then back to confusion.
"Uh yeah, hi, I'm James. Who exactly are you?" he has to focus to keep his eyes from roaming the man in front him.
"Regulus. Im-" the gorgeous man is cut off by none other than Harry. "Dada Star." he says, less happy this time. He's clearly frustrated that Regulus keeps introducing himself as anything other than 'Dada star'. Regulus gives a sigh and James can't help but smile.
"Yes Harry" Regulus decides to just agree with the toddler situated in his arms. "I'm a friend of Lily's" he finally clarifies. James frowns a little. He's never heard anything about this man. Lily's never mentioned him. Although, they don't talk all that often. They're still friends, and they co-parent Harry, but they don't really go around talking about new friends and they're daily activities.
James knows of Pandora, of course, but he doesn't know of anyone else. He knows harry has met some of the people Lily hang out with, since he's been to one or 2 of they're game nights, but he doesn't know them by name.
He figures he's meeting a few of them tonight. He can't help but hope this stunner of a man is there tonight.
"Oh well, that's nice. I see Harry is comfortable around you then." James can't help but smile. "Are you-" James is cut off by his phone ringing. It reads "Lily" and he figures it's best to answer.
He turns away slightly, but keeps Harry and Regulus in view. You can never be too careful.
"Hey Lily, what's up?"
"Hey, are you at the shops? If you are can you please get the kids some juice and something snacky for later? Pandora forgot to ask." he assumes Pandora also sent someone to the store.
He sees Harry getting moved to Regulus' other arm, as they stroll further down the isle. He seems to be asking Harry what they should get. He smiles seeing Regulus put everything the boy points to, in his trolley and nodding along as if buying 4 blocks of cheese is a wonderful idea. Harry doesn't even like cheese?
"Yeah, I'll get something, how much?" he guesses there will only be Harry and Pandora's daughter, Luna, but he likes to be prepared. It's common for kids to not end up eating the actual food, and only snack relentlessly.
"There'll just be 2 kids I believe, but Mary might bring Cat, so maybe be ready for 3?" James nods, then realizes lily can't see him. "Okay yeah" Both he and Lily know he'll probably get enough food for at least 6 kids. He looks up again, seeing Regulus looking at him, before pointing to the next isle over. James nods, grabbing some chocolate milk, yogurt and ice cream in his trolley before following behind them.
He can see them picking out more useless items, as Regulus now has 3 liters of iced tea concentrate in his trolley. He can't help but wonder if he's actually going to buy it all.
James gets some juice and a pack of cheese puffs. He continues grabbing multiple snack items both kids and adults would enjoy as Lily rambles on about how difficult Harry has been eating. He can't disagree. It's harder than ever to get him to eat actual food that isn't 2 tablespoons of plain spaghetti or half a yogurt pouch.
"Anyway, thank you, we'll see you guys at 4?" she finally stops rambling and with a quick confirmation he hangs up the phone.
He looks down at his trolley, and sees he has more items than he thought. He spots Regulus, as they've now gone through half the store, and he seems to have more items than James. He walks over, slower than necessary, simply to look at him a bit a longer.
"Okay Haz, time to go. Say bye bye to Reg- Dada Star" Harry pouts, as Regulus passes him over to James. He gives James a half-assed apologetic look, before mumbling something about sorry for the nickname. James shakes his head, but he will admit it bothers him slightly. But Harry can call whoever he likes, whatever he likes, as long as the other person is comfortable so he doesn't say anything.
James bids Regulus goodbye, and isn't met with an answer as the man walks away and continues his shopping.
...
Regulus gets back home, leaving Pandora to bake her bread. He decides not to mention that he met James. He can't help but wonder if he should be present tonight. Maybe he should skip it? Pandora won't mind.
His mind falls into deeper places, it starts with James, but it quickly wanders to his mother and her phone call. He's seeing her tomorrow. Then it changes to his brother. He feels his emotions going from slight discomfort and dread to pure, unfiltered anger.
Regulus knocks on the door across from his. His hands are trembling and the darkness from behind feels like it's getting too close. Like it's going to grab him and pull him in, and no one will ever be able to find him. The door swings open, and Sirius immediately pulls him into his room. "Can I sleep with you tonight?" Sirius agrees without hesitatation and the boys scramble into Sirius' bed. They're facing each other, and Regulus can feel his brothers breath on his forehead. They're laying closer than necessary, considering the large bed could easily fit 3 to 4 adults, and they're only children. That night, the darkness was very far away, and the nightmares of their mother's ways, we're also kept at bay
Regulus is knocked out of his thoughts by little feet padding into his room. He recognizes it immediately as his little moon, as she makes her way over to him. She clambers into his lap. "Mama says down kitchen time"
He assumes she means it's time they go down to the kitchen and he wonders how long he spent in his own head.
He still needs to shower and get ready, so he places Luna in the middle of his bed, hands her his phone, and walks to his closet. Hes tempted to dive into it, and pretend he doesn't exist but pulls out clothes instead and walks into his bathroom. He closes the door halfway, so he can see her if he looks in the mirror. If she were to look in the mirror, she'd only see his top half, which is fine.
He gets in the shower, and has to stop himself from falling into his thoughts again. He gets dressed and when he gets out, he's surprised to see Luna still sat on his bed. She has a dummy in her mouth, which she probably found somewhere in his bed.
"Let's go, love" he nudges her, and her arms fly up. He picks her up and heads downstairs. He can hear music getting louder. It's not Kate bush or something from the Lorax, so he knows it's not Pandora on the speakers. It's something Spanish with a good beat. He shrugs it off and as he walks down his last step, into his living room, in his house, on his block, he sees none other than his brother. Sirius Black is stood in front of him, looking all too comfortable, in you know, HIS house.
To Regulus, the room falls silent. Hes zeroed in on his brother, and with one swift movement he's in the kitchen, he gives Luna to Pandora, and he grabs his keys.
He's out the door leaving with only a "Reg?" to remind the room he exists.
He gets in his car, and the anger starts to survace.
He starts the car and the anger starts to simmer.
He speeds down the road, going God knows where, while the anger in his veins start to bubble.
He drives without focusing on the road, and he snaps back to reality when the car stops. He looks to see a supposed gay club thats open 24/7. It's a dingy place, with bad lighting, bad drinks, and very bad people but he can't bring himself to care.
He steps out of the car, a far nicer car than any others parked around him, and walks into the medium sized building. He knows it all too well. None of his friends know about it, if they did, they wouldn't let anyone near it. The place is filled with underage drinkers, people smoking unknown substances, people dancing, if you could even call it that, and the club in question does not have a problem with any form of PDA. He couldn't bring himself to care about any of that either.
He walks to the bar, ready for anything, only his wallet and phone in hand. He orders 4 Tequila shots right away, not even considering to take it slow.
He slams all of them back one after the other, and can feel his insides start to tingle.
A second later, there's a guy behind him, asking him to dance.
"Buy me a drink and I'll consider" he winks at the man, having somewhat of an idea to where this confidence came from.
The man doesn't hesitate to get him a drink, a cheap Tequila sunrise, and he swallows it in one go. He swings around, putting his hand on the man's chest and lightly pushes him back. He follows, not removing his hand from the man's chest.
He swings his hips and pulls his other hand through his hair, and as expected, it fuels the man's desire.
He positions himself over the guys thigh, so they're each standing with a leg between the others legs.
He guides the man's hand, which is on his upper back, down to his waist and starts to simply feel the music. He ignores every ballet practice, every waltz practice, and everything else he learned throughout his childhood that told him to keep good form, and move with precision. He grinds and moves his hands up and down, giving away a lot, but to a desperate man, not enough.
As the song comes to a end, he finds himself back at the bar, already 3 more shots deep.
Some other guy offered to buy him the most expensive thing on the menu, an 4 quid whiskey on ice. Under normal circumstances, he would definitely not drink 4 quid whiskey but these are not normal circumstances. He downs 2 before going back to the dance floor.
Things start to get fuzzy, and he doesn't know how many people he's danced with. He feels like throwing up, so he heads to the bar, orders more shots and gets right back to dancing.
Now something like 14 shots deep, along with the rest of the alcohol, he feels like passing out.
His dancing is getting lazy and his walking is far beyond clumsy.
He finds his original dance partner, who has been looking at him all night, and asks if they can have one more dance.
25 minutes later, they're grinding and making out violently on a table, there are people cheering them on, and Regulus feels loose and free.
And as he's dancing, having the time of his life, that joy is ripped away when he's yanked off the table and shoved behind someone he faintly recognizes as Barty.
"We're leaving." his tone holds no place to argue yet Regulus finds himself arguing.
"No we're not, I'm dancing" his words come out slurred, and he wants nothing more than to just give into the darkness of closing his eyes.
He doesn't hear if Barty replies as he's hauled off his feet and out of his favorite place.
The people there are so nice, why is Barty taking him away? Barty's being a bitch.
Regulus gives into another urge of his. He bites Barty. He can taste the metallic taste of blood in his mouth and he hears a yelp. He does not let go.
"FUCK REG STOP BITING ME. LET GO. FUCK THAT HURTS, STOP." Regulus does not let go. He bites harder. "STOP YOU FUCKING DEMON"
Regulus let's go. Only for tears to form in his eyes, and less than a second later, he's bawling his eyes out.
...
Barty stops in his tracks. He made Regulus cry. Nobody makes Regulus cry. Suddenly the wound on his forearm isn't that big of a deal, and he has to fight the urge to offer it back to Regulus just to make him stop crying.
He keeps his focus, getting Regulus in his car, locking him inside, then going to pay his tab.
He calls Pandora on his way back inside.
"Hey, I found him."
"Is he okay?" Pandora's concerned voice comes through, sounding nothing bare of relieved.
"No he's pissed out of his mind, and crying." his voice cracks. Pandora sounds a lot more worried. More worried than she sounded in the 5 hours he was missing. He doesn't mention he's the reason that Regulus is crying. "have no idea how much he drank, I'll ask the bartender, paying his tab now."
He knows Pandora is nodding to herself through the phone. "I'll call you backwhen I figure this shit out" and with no goodbye, the line goes dead.
Barty walks up to the bartender, asking him to pay a tab under Leo. Regulus always puts his tabs and reservations under Leo.
He asks for a receipt, hoping to get a rough estimate on the amount.
His eyes widen when the slip of paper makes contact with his hand. 17 shots? How is he alive.
Deciding to go the obvious route, Barty rushes back to his car, ready to take him to a hospital. He finds that Regulus is passed out in the passanger seat, covered in bile. It takes him less than a second to see Regulus isn't breathing and he speeds off to the nearest hospital.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.