Chapter xii
James (Last Name Pending)
Hey so I dont wsntr to make u strdssed or wjytever buy likr ig ur fruenfs werr srs ab yhe wuartet id b diwn
Regulus couldn’t at all understand what he was reading. “Evan? You speak like a billion languages, right?”
Evan didn’t seem even remotely bashful at the statement. “A billion and seventeen, actually.”
Regulus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He was asking for something, he had to be polite. “Well, do you speak idiot?”
Evan glanced at Barty with a smirk before answering Regulus. “Conversationally. I use it in everyday life.”
“True, how could I forget? I need a translation.”
Barty seemed nonplussed, but too lazy to defend his honor. He flipped Evan and Regulus off but made no other move when Evan got up to sit by Regulus, jostling Barty’s head.
Evan looked at Regulus’s phone blankly for a moment before his face split into a grin. “James loves us. He couldn’t get the quartet idea out of his head, he just has to hang with us. Me especially, I’m sure.”
Regulus regretted asking for Evan’s help.
He was a bastard.
And a liar.
“Yeah, okay, piss off. He’s got to be at least intelligent enough to want to avoid you.”
“Oh, you think he’s intelligent?” Evan grinned, and Regulus ran over a list of curses in his mind. “Keep it in your pants, Black.”
Barty, though he didn’t seem to want to move, held his hand up lazily. “Why don’t you keep me in your pants, Rosier?”
Ah, yes, Barty was a true friend.
He was also completely enamored by Evan, though, and Regulus didn't particularly want to be around such blatant yearning. It was nauseating.
“Well, you two have fun with that. I’m off to study group” - with James - “and Marlene will put what I’ve taught her about hiding a body to use if I’m late. And I’m way too pretty to be hidden.”
As if sensing that he was being thought of, James texted Regulus again.
R u clise 2 mars?
Regulus resisted the urge to inform James that they were roughly equally “clise” to Mars. Because they were in pretty much the same place on the same planet, about 140 million miles from the other planet. Give or take 4,000.
Just leaving. I’ll be there in like five minutes.
There was no response. Until there was a honk and Regulus was face-to-face with James’s rather disgusting truck.
Which already had four people in it.
A window was rolled down. “Oi, Reg! Jame insists, made me get in the fucking back, apparently you’d only be comfortable in the passenger seat-” the voice was Sirius’s. And it added something quieter about a “spoiled brat prince stupid-face.”
Regulus was unamused with the surprise. “James, why would I get back in your over-capacity… vehicle? It’s old enough that it’ll probably break down with so much weight.”
Sirius’s voice - unprompted - bellowed from the back seat. “Did you just insult the truck? You did not, the truck is a national treasure.”
“And besides,” a voice Regulus recognized as that of the fourth member of the friend group - Timmy or something like that - added in, “you look like you’re like 50 kilos you won’t change a th-”
His voice was suddenly muffled as if something was shoved over his mouth.
“He didn’t mean that,” Sirius’s voice yelped out, sounding panicked. “Just get in the car, yeah?”
Regulus didn’t want to.
He didn’t want to be near Timmy.
But James opened the passenger door, and it looked safe enough.
And Marlene seriously would kill him if he was late.
So he got in the car.
“Hi Regulus,” came Remus’s voice from the back. At least someone sensible was in the truck. “I did tell them not to just show up beside you on the road in a big truck. They-”
“-knew better,” Sirius interrupted. “Come on, admit it. You loved having your brother and his pretty friends spontaneously pick you up from the street.”
“I did not,” Regulus negated flatly. “If James and Remus weren’t here, I would blow up this vehicle and everyone inside of it without a second thought.”
“You’re inside of it,” Timmy pointed out.
Regulus turned his head just so Timmy could see his unbothered smile when he responded. “That’s the best part.”
Remus and Sirius rolled their eyes, but Timmy looked suitably terrified.
James’s reaction, however, was the most dramatic. He slammed on the brakes, his eyes wide. “Reggie, I swear to god- you make one more joke like that and I am turning this goddamn truck around right now and telling Pandora on you.”
The three in the backseat were completely silent, seeming stunned.
Regulus wasn’t. He just smiled. “Please, do. Panda makes as many of those jokes as I do,” he answered. Which was a total lie. Pandora would make him say five positive things about himself or some similar type of torture.
James seemed annoyed at being foiled but started driving forward again. “Fine. But I’m telling Mar it’s your fault we’re late.”
Regulus could accept many threats without batting an eye, but this was not one of them. “What? No, it’s your fault. You’re the one driving around three bastards who aren't even part of the study group. Dropping them off wherever is what’s going to make us late.”
There was a laugh from the backseat, and Regulus felt himself deflate after a second when he understood. The three bastards - well, the two bastards and Remus - were invading the sanctuary of his study group. “No. No way, I quit.”
“Love you too, Reggie-poo,” Sirius’s voice came from the back, sounding rather unapologetic.
“Call me that again and you will be ‘poo’-ing your own guts after I tear them out and force them down your throat,” Regulus threatened blasély.
James cleared his throat, seemingly torn between amusement and worry. “Let’s not do that, yeah?”
“I mean…” Remus’s voice came from the back and was followed by an offended gasp from Sirius.
“No murder or torture,” Timmy commanded. “I can’t believe I just had to say that. Y’all need family therapy or something.”
The little brat was butting in where he didn’t belong again, and Regulus was briefly surprised that someone like Remus or James would be friends with such a little jerk. He would, of course, have to have some positive qualities, but they couldn’t possibly be enough.
“Well!” Sirius cut in, seeming to sense the waves of irritation radiating off of Regulus. “Glad that’s settled. How are your friends, then? Barty as charming as he always seems to be?”
Regulus couldn't stop himself from laughing a little bit. “Of course you would like Barty. You do realize he’s…” Regulus tried to find the right word, but there was no way to fully describe Barty. Insane, freakishly intelligent, a jerk, a horny piece of shit, a weirdly amazing friend - he was all of these, but they weren’t enough to encompass his essence. “He’s Barty,” Regulus finished lamely.
“Well noticed, Holmes,” Remus snorted. Bastard.
“They seemed well yesterday,” James offered. “Barty and Pandora were very… complimentary.”
Regulus made a mental note to find new friends. “Well, you were good. So Panda was just stating the facts.”
James fell silent at this, staring straight at the road, seeming determined never to make eye contact with any human again.
“Well,” Remus said a few minutes later, breaking the tense silence. Usually, Sirius would’ve broken it long before, but he seemed preoccupied with staring daggers between Regulus and James. He was probably worried that his little brother was going to steal his best friend or something. “We’re at Marlene’s, then. Shall we go in?”
“Let’s,” stupid Timmy agreed, seeming eager to get out of the car as soon as possible. Regulus wished he would, too.
The car was emptied and the five shuffled up to Marlene’s apartment, an uncomfortable silence festering between them.
“Finally.” Mary pulled the boys into the apartment. “Dorcas is the only reason Marlene isn’t going to kill you all for being late - except for you, Regulus, she likes you too much. She’d kill the rest of you, though.”
Sirius, predictably, seemed offended by this. “What?” he yelped, his voice much louder than Regulus thought strictly necessary. “Marls, we are intramural ultimate frisbee teammates! That’s one of the strongest - nay, the strongest - bonds two people can have, and you pick my baby brother over me?”
“He’s smarter,” Marlene’s voice came as a shout from the main room, “and way prettier.”
Great. She didn't even know he was trans and already thought he was effeminate.
Dorcas’s voice said something to Marlene, too quiet for the boys to understand, as they walked into the main room and the boys - Regulus excluded - and Mary plopped themselves onto the couches without a second thought.
Regulus realized, after a second, that there were only two spots left - between Marlene and Timmy or James and Dorcas. He chose the latter without a second thought.
“Sorry about her,” Dorcas whispered to Regulus once he sat down. “She’s just… excitable.”
“I know, it’s fine,” Regulus whispered back.
The group was actually rather fun, mostly filled by Lily and Dorcas debating who could better get away with murder. They both made valid points and James occasionally leaned against Regulus to give him relevant background information on the girls, such as that Lily had no fingerprints - baking disaster - or that the guy who called Dorcas a slur when she was thirteen had ended up in the hospital.
The study group - if it could even be called that, as very little studying seemed to get done - ended soon enough, and James got up, jostling Regulus’s side. “The boys are staying here for a bit for a game,” he told Regulus, holding his hand out to him as if to help him up. After a second, Regulus accepted the hand and stood, dropping the other man’s hand the second he was upright. “You’re welcome to stay, or I can take you home.”
“You don’t have to,” Regulus put in. “You probably want to stay and play, I can walk.”
James sighed and looked at Regulus with an indistinguishable look, something like a smile, but slightly sad. “Let me take you home, Reg.”
And so Regulus did.