A Reunion
One minute from midnight, Regulus glared holes into the solid door in front of him. Two minutes after midnight, his hand hovered shakily over the doorknob, unwilling to make that final move to twist it open just yet, but determined to get there someday.
Five minutes into the hour Regulus found it in himself to lean into that thrill, wanting James too badly to think, and pushed into the bathroom. The door into James’ room was wide open. It felt conspicuously empty, which made Regulus’s stomach churn uglily. He almost turned straight to the toilet and puked. Holding himself together, he swallowed bile, as well as his pride, that suddenly felt very, very fragile.
James wasn’t in his room, but his figure leaned against the railing of the balcony through an open French window. The doorway between them felt akin to a portal; a portal into the outdoor late-summer air, into a world separate from Regulus’s own, where he could see the faint outline of a version of himself he didn’t recognize yet. Regulus couldn’t tell if it was leading to the beginning, or the end of something.
“I was starting to worry you weren’t coming.” James didn’t look as Regulus sided up next to him on the balcony. He took a drag of his cigarette, instead, staring longingly across the orchard and into the countryside.
“What are you looking at?”
“Just taking it in.” He turned his head from the garden to Regulus.
James drank all of him in: his hair, his eyes, his cheeks, his exposed collar. He followed it all down, down the buttons of his shirt, stopping for a long time on his hands, which were open and long with the qualities of a pianist.
“I’ll miss it.” James said wistfully, looking back out into the orchard.
“Shut up about that, would you?” Regulus burst out.
James looked back to him with surprise.
“I mean, what is this?” Regulus felt his initial burst of momentum push him further. “Did you invite me for some pitiful poetry contest of ‘poor us, we don’t have time,’? Did you summon me here to prove once and for all what a great, big coward you are?”
“I’ve never been called a coward.” James interrupted.
“Then nobody knows you like I do.” Regulus cut back.
As his voice bit into the air, it didn’t have the effect of a scornful remark. It was a hard truth that had been shoved out of the darkness and sat right in front of them. James felt the deadly closeness of their bodies, and how heavy the feeling was – heavy with significance.
James swallowed. “I’m glad you came. I was afraid you weren’t coming.” He repeated.
“Of course I was coming.” Regulus said quickly.
“Of course. ‘Of course,’ you say. You don’t know how scary you are.”
“People are always saying that.” Regulus shook his head and his eyebrows furrowed in suspicion. “I’m shorter than my own mother. About as sheltered as they come, too. I think you people are frightened too easily. What are you scared of? That I'll play the piano at you?” Regulus rolled his eyes, looking around, then back in time to catch the sideways look he was getting from James.
“Something like that.” A smile broke out on James’ face.
Regulus put both hands on the railing and looked away.
“So, you do smoke.” He said after a moment.
“I try not to. Can’t help it when I have something to smoke for, though.” James took the time while Regulus wasn’t looking to see all of him. James looked, and looked, and looked, filing away as many details of Regulus he could manage.
Regulus looked back, catching him red-handed. “Hm. Give it to me.” He gestured to the cigarette.
James handed it to him, half-smoked. As Regulus breathed it in he took great care to look natural, like smoking was common to him and no-big-deal.
“You’re scary to me, too.” Regulus admitted.
‘It’s scary because it’s you, and I think you can hurt me,’ Emmeline’s voice floated in his head.
“Well, aren't we a pair.” James knocked Regulus’s shoulder with his own playfully. He didn’t pull all the way back afterwards. Their hands were almost touching on the balcony railing.
The pull James felt was chemical, the want was deep in his bones. His brain’s wiring urged him to be closer. A chill ran down the back of his neck as James moved his hand infinitesimally, linking his and Regulus’s pinkies. It ran an electric shock through James’ hand, up and through all of his limbs, then to his heart, which stilled when Regulus met his eyes again.
Regulus looked away and down at their hands. “Do you think—” Regulus started.
“I don’t want to think anymore.” James cut him off, turning his whole body towards him, taking back the cigarette to snuff it out under his foot. Regulus followed suit, squaring to him.
“Good. Me either.” Regulus turned his chin up.
“Would you follow me?” James whispered as his hand slipped back down.
James changed them once, at that spring, with a kiss like a compromise, a kiss that meant everything to Regulus and seemed to mean nothing to James. Here James went, changing it all over again.
“Yes.” Regulus swallowed.
James took Regulus by his hands and led them inside, to the bedroom Regulus had known every corner of before James moved in. It was near unrecognizable when he looked around. It was all the way James liked it.
At the foot of the bed, James turned on a dime so they were face to face. Regulus stopped too slow, and his hands braced against James' chest.
He was a wildfire under Regulus’s palms. Regulus felt a blush creep up his cheeks, every corner of him aware of what he wanted: James, James, James, and then more James. His hands on another man was unfamiliar, yet completely contrarily, touching James felt as natural as if he were to do so to his own chest.
“Hi.” James smiled, big and broad.
Regulus let himself smile back, small and secret.
It hit James in the face, his smile. That damned smile. There was nothing like it, nobody who could replicate it. It took all of his might for James not to move his hand over his heart, the way it skipped.
“Can I…?” James said in a low tone.
Regulus nodded decisively when his words failed to come to him.
James was there in an instant, his face finding Regulus’s as he pressed body, mind, and soul into the kiss; a kiss like a confession. It was everything they hadn’t been able to say in the days of silence. James was on him and all around, consuming every inch of air Regulus might have needed to breathe if not for the sense of immortality weaved between everything else James was giving him.
Slinks of Regulus’s built up armor clattered to pieces at their feet. Regulus felt around, his body looser and more free, and grabbed at James‘s hair—his beautiful, soft, lush hair—and he tugged just enough to coax a sound out of James’ mouth.
James pulled back. He’d needed a glimpse of Regulus, in this state.
Regulus’s lips were blood red from being kissed, and his face had a charming flush to it that made James struggle to not shove him onto the bed and strip them both right there. James knew in absolute certainty, then, that nobody was prettier than Regulus Black. Nobody in the whole world. What Regulus saw was an awestruck gleam flit across James’ eyes.
Regulus had enough of being looked at like a statue. He threw himself at James, who caught him with strong arms wrapping around his back, an embrace that pressed all his raw edges together.
Regulus hung off of James with arms around his shoulders. James held him like he might sooner die than let go. Regulus tipped his head back to breathe fresh air, and James pressed his face into his neck.
There was nothing more intimate in the world than the feeling. He memorized it: James, half-delirious with unleashed desire, and his nose breathing him in. Just him. James’ eyes were closed, and even if they’d been open, all he would’ve seen was the freckles disappearing down under Regulus’s shirt. James was falling head first into everything Regulus.
Then, there were two hands on Regulus’s face. James looked up at him. One hand was keeping Regulus looking right back at him while the other caressed each jut and divot on his face.
He looked like he was about to speak, so Regulus pushed any coherent ideas James might have back down as he kissed him again. It was a vicious kiss that broke only when James' knees buckled and sat him on the bed. Regulus climbed on his lap so fast that there was hardly a moment where their touch had left one another.
James explored every inch of Regulus’s sides and back, scraping down, then pushing up again. Regulus’s shirt rode up from the friction, and James pulled back to watch the strip of skin exposed in the secret moonlight. He followed the arch of Regulus’s back. James felt some string in him—one that had been pulled far too tight for far too long—snap. He laid back, pulling them down together, and flipped in one swift motion that pinned Regulus under him.
“You want this? Me?” James whispered into the dark.
“Yes,” Regulus ran fingers through James’ soft, brown curls.
“Say it, I want to hear it.”
The night held its breath.
“I want you, James,”
I think I’ve always wanted you, I just hadn’t met you yet.
James couldn’t keep the proud grin off of his face, so Regulus wiped it off with another kiss.
James didn’t have to tell Regulus that he wanted him, because as he was under his touch, Regulus heard it clear as church bells. It was in the soft sighs that dripped out of James, the sweetest notes that a piano could never capture correctly. The words, ‘I want you,’ were braided into the gentle death-grip of his hands, the desperate closeness he kept between their bodies.
“Wait, wait—” James pulled back. “You’re good, right? Not… sick?” His brain was gone, but not that gone. Not gone enough to risk ending up like some of his friends from university. The ones that were there one day, gone the next. Withered.
“Yes, I promise.” Regulus wasn’t that gone, either. There was a serious look that passed over his eyes that James could trust.
“Me, too. I’m careful.”
Regulus thoroughly ignored the implications that James had other people like this before, charmed and under him. He shoved away the creeping fear that they’d all been this head-over-heels for his easy attitude and perfectly imperfect good looks. He couldn’t face that fear, not as he was the most vulnerable James had ever had him.
The eyes that met Regulus’s helped kill the fear. James looked down at Regulus with wild nerves and static electricity wafting from him. It was equal to if he’d been denied Regulus for years, for his whole life, and now that he was here just a touch away, James looked about to burst from the effort to not pounce.
He was a different human to the one who’d kept Regulus close, but always with an invisible wall built between them. One that he built and maintained, but seemed to detest as much as Regulus did.
James pushed his own shirt off, forgotten as soon as it left his hands. He reached down to Regulus’s buttons to work them off, scrambling, distraught at how clothed they still were.
Regulus stopped James with a hand on his wrist. “Take it slow, like we have time.”
James huffed, shaking his head with a tortured smile.
“I’ll go mad,” James said. His dimple creased as an incredibly fond grin spread across his lips. Genuine, because it was easy enough to find a reason to smile with Regulus under him, but really, it was a cover-up for the pang of something familiar in his chest.
Regulus laid under James spread out and undone; he looked like a trap. His shirt was thrown open and red marks licked up his sides already where James clutched him too hard. Regulus’s eyes were expectant, flicking hungrily between James’ face and his criminally carved stomach.
James couldn’t catch his breath from the craving of Regulus.
He peppered kisses all the way up to the top of Regulus’s head, where he breathed deeply, the smell of Regulus like a rush of nicotine. James helped slide Regulus’s arms out of his stupid-hot white linen shirt. He could’ve ripped it apart for looking so good on him. It wasn’t fair. James never stood a chance. If Regulus was a trap, he’d fall for it, again and again, until he bled out, or until Regulus stopped setting it.
They both moved to their own trousers, and once James was out of his, he turned his attention to Regulus who lifted his hips.
“Off, and off, and off, and off,” James mumbled as he undressed Regulus. Regulus couldn’t fight his laugh, entirely amused.
Behind them was an amassing pile of clothes, two sets of everything.
The swing of legs and exhilarating touches between them were enough to have Regulus trying to push away his rapidly amounting pleasure. He wanted this to last. He needed this to last, for all he’d gone through to get it. For all he’d pay for it, later, once James was swept away by the autumn breeze.
They crushed down together, James grinding on Regulus every time he came down into another kiss, then another, and another, all short and with honeyed warmth inside them. The rhythm was uneven and wild, like it could almost be morse code hitting into the backs of each of their minds. Regulus wondered what it might be saying to them. To him, it felt like ‘Stay,’ repeating over and over. Crying out, soul to soul.
James pulled away and Regulus saw the backdrop of his room behind him. Their room, kind of. It was as much James’ room as it was Regulus’s, at least. He had the fleeting question of whether once James left, if he’d lay in this bed, his bed, thinking of them like this with a smile, shame, or indifference. He felt a decade away from indifference. Maybe more.
Regulus couldn’t comprehend how it was wrong, what was so despicable about them together. Two men: James and Regulus. James and Regulus, when they kissed, hardly felt like two men at all. It melted away and they were just two beings; maybe only one. Maybe some larger force had cut them in half, and they’d been wandering around with no head until that first day of summer. Maybe this was a reunion.
James didn’t let him wander off in his mind long, because his hand slowly snaked its way up Regulus’s thigh and stopped right beside his crotch, exactly the place Regulus needed him to be. James was looking at him through his dark eyelashes.
“You’ll kill me if you stop.” Regulus gasped when James’s hand moved over him, palming him in a way that drove Regulus mad.
“I never want to,” James panted.
The thin layer of Regulus’s pants was failing to keep them separate. James crept fingers under Regulus’s waistband all the while never taking his eyes off of Regulus’s face, the blush tattooed onto him at this point, and it made his freckles seem less stark against his marble skin.
Behind all of his harsh edges and angular features, Regulus had a full heart. He could feel it. Full of what, James reeled to find out. He wanted to know what each thump of Regulus’s heart beat for, wanted to decode the language that his body sang. He wished for a thousand painters to interpret Regulus, see all the different beings he could ever be, then send them each away for being utterly inadequate in everything they’d missed, then hire a thousand more.
James tossed Regulus’s pants, another addition to the clothes pile.
A gasp was stolen from Regulus’s breath when James finally touched his totally naked body, taking Regulus in his hands and making calculated movements with a purpose to unravel him. It was working. It was working so well, Regulus had to clamp a hand over his own mouth to stifle the noises he couldn’t keep in. He went agonizingly slow, at first, taking more care than anybody ever had with Regulus before.
It made Regulus chase the pressure, aching for more. James pushed Regulus’s hips down with a startling strength, pinning him to the bed, helpless to follow James’ hand as it made its tantalizing movements. The blood rushed out of Regulus’s head until he could think of nothing but James, a reckless abandon shown to all the reasons that he might be making a mistake.
James was just as gone for Regulus, too. He let Regulus claw into his shoulders and pull his hair, unable to think of anything but how much he didn’t want it to stop. When Regulus let out a particularly maddening sound, then urged James’ hips upwards. James made no complaints as Regulus pushed James’ pants off.
Every part of them was touching, there was no room between them, nothing hidden under their nakedness that the other couldn’t feel with exploring hands.
James pushed him open with gentle fingers. They weren’t nearly enough.
“James,” Regulus said, but it wasn’t a name as it was a begging plea.
He gave Regulus more. He was greedy for it. As much as James had given him he wanted more, still.
James' hand pulled back. Regulus made a disapproving noise that James smiled at before kissing his chest, then up again, and James’ lips were on his with a slowed waltz of a kiss. James kissed Regulus like they had time, just as was asked of him. He was a champion actor.
James' brain was tripping over itself. It was all scrambled, all bodily resources allocated to Regulus and every sound and movement he made, conscious and unconscious. He pulled back suddenly, asking after Regulus’s health again.
“I’m good, you already asked me. I’m good.”
“And I told you I’m good, too?” James panicked out, coming down hard and kissing Regulus again.
Regulus reciprocated with more force, twirling his tongue in intoxicating ways that gave James a heady feeling that led straight down.
“Yes.” Regulus smiled.
Oh, hell.
There it was again, that smile.
Regulus wasn’t the type to smile without being smiled at. Even then, it was a coin flip if he’d indulge you. There was his smile, and then his smile. When he really truly smiled, and not one of those polite, half-hearted, charitable ones—heaven must help the angels that had to compete with the blinding purity of it. It was the most priceless gem. On the darkest of nights, James thought to himself, that smile might be the only thing bright enough to light his way home.
It didn’t matter where they were. That smile. It didn’t matter where James beheld it: if they were making love or fucking gracelessly. It didn’t matter if they were in a crowd of people, sitting at a table set for four, in an orchard in the south of France, in London, in New York—in heaven, or in hell—none of it mattered half as much as that smile.
It could have been love, the way James lit up from within upon the glory of one smile.
“What is it?” Regulus’s voice punched the air out of him.
A short intake of breath, then, “Your smile,” James said simply. He bent his arm and kissed Regulus’s cheek.
Regulus’s face flushed more at that small moment, at that cheek kiss, than he did at any other lewd action James had done to him thus far. They had never greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek, though James did so to practically everybody else. Regulus did too. He’d never even thought about it.
Regulus felt something—hope. There was hope in James’ spontaneous, better-late-than-never hello. Regulus felt larger than life from it. He felt he could be something more than he’d ever dreamed he could be. Mountains seemed climbable, the continents seemed explorable, his heart seemed loveable. He dared to hope for a future brighter than he’d ever made one out to be. Something in James’ stare encouraged the feeling. It was just another indescribable gift James gave him that night.
Their skin was hot and sticky with sweat and their arousal. Even more eager than their minds or hearts, were their bodies.
Regulus’s hands snaked around his back, trying to pull him closer.
“James,” Regulus said between soft and wicked moans.
It made James weak in the knees, his name on Regulus’s breath, secret in the night, like a prayer.
“James, now,” Regulus demanded.
He pulled Regulus down the bed by his hips like he weighed nothing. James put a pillow under him, not missing any chance he got to drag his palms over the expanses of skin he’d never even let himself dream about having, even for one night.
James was careful and sweet as he eased himself into Regulus. Even when Regulus insisted he didn’t have to be gentle, he wanted to be. He’d never been soft like this with anybody else, but nobody else was Regulus, who felt simply more than anything or anyone James had known before. Maybe it was his heart teeming with unnamed colors. Maybe, it was the way Regulus cut right to James’ heart, and seemed able to name all of his colors without issue.
“James,” Regulus breathed again and again, voiceless and overcome with the dancing of all his nerves, lit up with everything exchanging between them.
James leaned down, as far into Regulus as he could be, and whispered in his ear, “Call me by your name, and I’ll call you by mine.”
Regulus sucked in a breath, at James’ mercy. He maintained eye contact.
James pushed into Regulus again, making him gasp out.
“Regulus,” His own name tumbled from his lips.
It took him to a place high in the sky, where distinctions like France and England didn’t matter, where Regulus felt more than just a body wandering the earth. It was another realm, where there was no distinction between where Regulus ended and James began.
“Regulus, Regulus, Regulus, Regulus,” He let a hand slide from James’ hair, to around the lobe of his ear, and down his neck.
Regulus was pushing him over the precipice, each time the name fell off his lips. James let himself be moved.
James' movements were unbridled and desperate, following Regulus to that place bodies melted away in.
“James, James, James, James,” James said, a lilt of breathlessness in his voice as he called out a name that used to be just his.
And in that bedroom, a little after midnight, two became one.