The Unbreakable Vow

James has been pretty short of money for a while for quite a large number of reasons too:

One, His best mate Sirius Black (who'd lived with him since he was 13) had decided he needed his own space to pursue his creative genius (he's an artist) and had left James to live alone in their crummy apartment block.

Two, his career had taken a dive; he hadn't been able to get any contracts with anyone who'd do anything good for him and his career so he'd been left with shit jobs and gigs in bars and pubs where nobody gave a shit cause everyone was too pissed to see straight, let alone listen.

Three,  the slight problem with rent that kind of directly relates to our first point, Sirius Black had basically fucked him over and he hadn't really been paying any of the bills because it was water or eating each month. But James Potter is nothing if not a people pleaser and wouldn't ask Sirius for money or to move back in and help with rent, so he turned to loans and other types of business with shady people and now he's in massive amounts of debt and trying to avoid entering his apartment which by now has at least one person stationed outside most of the time.

Four, the problem of him himself, he looks like someone who sleeps outside around 2 times a week, which he'd only begun doing because he'd been trying to out wait the people waiting outside his apartment block and fell asleep. And the guy-who-hasn't-slept-in-a-bed-for-awhile look didn't really help with gigs or contracts, and that relates to point two.

So really James only has one real problem, he won't ask for help from any of the dozens of people who'd probably willingly throw themselves onto a road, if it'd help. 

Except that's not really the problem either. It was that he, James Fleamont Potter, was an idiot.

....

So when James woke up on that Tuesday morning against the wall of the alleyway behind his apartment and decided he wanted to visit Effie and Monty Potter and he conveniently forgot that he didn't have his wallet. 

James Potter had always been the morning person he is today, even when he was really young (around two) he'd wake up and the crack of dawn and jump on his mother and fathers bed until they'd wake up and either make breakfast for him or send him back to sleep for him to come running back within half an hour and the cycle repeating. As he became older he got the common decency to wait til at least 5 am to come barreling into their room. But sometimes he'd fall asleep before he could and his parents would find him slouched against their bedroom door.

On that morning he was reminded of the feeling of the door against his back and the way his mother always gently slipped out to shake him awake on those mornings.

That Tuesday he awoke sentimental, as well as cold and sore from sleeping against a wall mid-November. But overall sentimental.

So he hopped up and decided to visit his dear parents.

On days when James had the overwhelming sense of sentimental-y-ness he'd usually visit Sirius but he'd heard through the grapevine (as Sirius would never, ever tell him because he'd inevitably start shying away and not coming over as much, which he had been doing) had got a boyfriend of sorts that had been taking up much of his attention. He had almost become weirdly grateful of this mysterious new boyfriend his mate had acquired as at least it took the attention of Sirius off his financial situation.

He'd been walking around taking in the scenery of the fairly grey morning enjoying a little bit of people watching he usually participated in on his walks to wherever he decided he was going on that particular day. He'd stopped for a couple minutes looking at a peaceful elderly couple sitting on a bench across the road enjoying the love they held in their eyes for each other before he realised it was way past two o’clock and he should have probably found something to eat by now.

And he should probably give up on his plans to visit his parents seeing as he didn't really feel like walking to Sheffield having maybe forgotten he didn't actually posses a car and on his several hour walk hadn't seen a single bus stop on his journey, well he hadn't really been looking but his point still stood. James sighed looking at the clouds above him. This had been a day wasted where he could have been holed up in his apartment scouring the internet for gigs and companies that might even be willing to sign him. Just as James starts walking away trying to find some way to see which random street he'd ended up on his eye catches something. 

It's a large, fairly barren (by some standards) bill-board. But that's not what catches his eyes about it, it's the large white letters 'TALENT AGENT' and the phone number under the large logo in the centre, there's no other information, only the logo taking up nearly all the space. This logo of course was  fairly interesting being a one of those crest shapes, with the two letters 'B.E', as well as 3 ravens and one of those banner things with the word ' toujours pur' which he assumes is Latin or some other fancy language to be honest it looked like some kind of olde-timey Family Crests (which it probably could be at this point).

It was an incredibly pretentious way to advertise if you asked James but he guessed some part of it was genuinely interesting to him because by the time he'd found the way back to his apartment it was still playing through his mind. The numbers flashing in front of his face tantalisingly. And that's why he ended up on his laptop (which he’d like to mention was from the early 2000's and wouldn't work without being plugged in) awkwardly leaning off his bed so it would actually reach the plug and searching up the mysterious B.E company.

B.E was an abbreviation for Black Enterprises which he was sure he'd heard of at least once somewhere but that probably wouldn't be surprising considering it was an actual Talent Company with millions upon millions of pounds and was very big for making many, many successful and famous artists. He brushed away the thought, he'd probably remember later where he had. So he kept on searching, finding whatever info he could, there really wasn't a lot. There were dozens of articles about the talents they'd helped over the years but they were more about the people than the actual company, there were a couple pieces about the previous CEO but there wasn't anything more. 

After a while of researching and getting absolutely nowhere he gave up and decided to go to sleep, except there were still the white letters flashing in front of his eyes mocking him, daring him to call. I mean what did he really have to lose, his shit hole of an apartment? And this might actually help with his problems like it might solve something for him.

James decided to call. It was a fairly short conversation, he'd gotten to a secretary of sorts who'd set him up for a meeting the next morning after telling them his name they'd given him an address a time and had hung up. James sat for a while wondering what the hell he was meant to do. He'd not even been told if he'd have to bring anything, he ended up sitting there a while before ultimately abandoning his worrying and hoping to get enough rest for one night that he'd be able to maybe function the next day. 

Maybe the universe had heard his prayer. 

And then decided to say fuck you, James didn't sleep a second. Being the early riser he is, he had got up at 6:30 for his 12:00 appointment, he walked into his kitchen hoping for something even moderately nutritional, he found pizza from 4 days ago but that'd be okay for a breakfast.

Consequently, James ended up asleep on his rickety kitchen table, face almost dangerously close to being in a plate of pizza.

This is also how he ended up almost being late for an appointment which he woke up 5 and half hours early for and in the end he needed to call an uber so he wouldn't end up dreadfully late. In the uber he looked down at his account and the pitiful amount he now had after paying for an uber he could have probably completely avoided if he hadn't spent the entire night worrying about something that he shouldn't have been so panicked about.

Still by the time he ended up outside the address for the building he'd been sent to, his nerves hadn't cooled and they probably couldn't now not with the skyscraper in front of him. But James Potter being the great actor, stepped forward into its shadow and strode through the double doors trying very hard to ignore the sweat dripping down the back of his neck and that crawling feeling in his stomach that almost made him sick. He walked up to the front desk and waited anxiously checking his watch every 5 or 6 seconds as the clock creeped closer to 12, when he made it to the front of the queue he anxiously muttered.

"Umm.....Hi I'm James Potter I have an appointment at twe-"

Before he was interrupted by a voice echoing across the hall. 

"James Potter. Twelve o'clock." he sheepishly raised his hand "Your nearly late Mr Potter" the person made a gesture for him to follow before walking back in the direction they'd come from. He had to scurry to catch up but when he did he didn't have time to speak before the secretary (he assumed) began speaking again.

"The boss won't be happy with you if you arrive late so please walk quicker I'd get the blame for your lateness"

"Did you say the boss?"

Of all the copious research he'd performed last night he hadn't found a single thing about the current CEO of the company, only a few ancient articles about the previous one and his sudden retirement. 

"Did Evan not inform you?"

"No s-"

"We're here." 

It hadn't been too long of a walk to be honest, or had James not been paying attention to his surroundings he'd been panicking too much to even see the large, black hardwood doors, they were fairly ostentatious silver accents and two large ornate letters 'B.E'. And before he could even object they'd knocked on the doors, and pulled them open.

They quickly pushed him inside whispering a parting "Good luck." before closing the door and leaving him alone in the office of the CEO of B.E

The Office he'd been pushed into was less like an office and much more of a hall of sorts or a library, there were several bookcases and it must have covered the entirety of the top floor because it was large.

James was almost too busy to notice the large oak desk sitting at the other end. The large oak desk with a man sitting at it. An attractive man. A Very Attractive Man.

He found he'd walked over to the desk astonishingly quicker than usual. 

"You must be Mr. Potter, please take a seat" the man said, his voice reverberating through James' skull loudly, he ended up quite quickly sitting in a chair.

The man across the desk hadn't even looked up at him yet he was still twisting a pen through his fingers and reading some of the papers on the desk. James really wanted the man to look at him, he didn't know his name or really anything but he wanted this man to look at him, it was some part deep inside of him that was craving for this man to look at him. 

Sometimes James shouldn't follow everything his gut says.

The man had lazily put his papers to the side and was judging James entire body with his eyes, slowly staring at every part of him making everything tingle and burn.

"So Mr. Potter, why are you here?" 

It was a fairly simple question, one he should be prepared for after multiple interviews of very similar kinds but something about those grey eyes had broken him and he didn't think he could speak. 

"James, stop tapping. No need to get nervous, only an interview." 

He hadn't realised but his foot had been tapping on the floor, it was a nervous tick that he'd acquired from his Dad who often in situations would stop and tap his foot insistently until someone stopped him, James smiled softly at that.

"I-I haven't been able to get a gig for a while so the money stopped and people wouldn't sign me."

"Yes, I read your file. I know about your recent struggles for money, the debt, the loans, the men you got... involved with. That wasn't my question, why are you here? "

The man's voice sent tingles down his spine.

"Uhh well I was out and I ran across your ad in town."

"So you called a random number on a board and hoped for the best?"

James hadn't really thought about it like that to be honest.

"Yeah, I kinda did, didn't I?"

He grinned at James leaning across the table in a way that made James feel like meat, ready to be devoured.

"James, I can help you. I can pay off all your debt with the press of a button but I want to know one thing, What do you want right now?"

James gulped, that wasn't really what he'd been expecting had he? He didn't have an answer to his question, what should he say? What should he do? AND why was he looking at him like meat, like something he wanted to eat? And why was his head buzzing and spine tingling at the thought of the man across the desk doing whatever he wanted with him?

So James said...

"What I want is to know what that look you're giving me right now means."

He chuckled slightly and leaned across the table so he was a couple inches across from his face.

"I want a contract, a promise, a vow. An unbreakable vow.”

“A vow for what?”

He laughed again, this laugh was deeper than the other ones it wasn’t a chuckle it was a laugh the man found something laughable in James 4 word sentence.

“An Unbreakable vow for you.”

James paused. He had heard that right? For him? There was a lot of inner turmoil and panic in James in those moments, some of which must have shown on his face because the man then said.

”You can reject or decline but I think there’s something in you that really wants to know what I’d do James, what I’d do to you.”

”You switched.”

The man looked extremely confused. James had to take a few shaky breaths before elaborating.

“You switched over from Mr. Potter to James.”

He let out another belting laugh at his statement, and some sense of pride washed over James. Something about the man’s laughs were rewarding for James and it didn’t really make sense to him.

”Did you know you’re extremely funny, James ?”

That gleaming sense returned as well as the spine tingles from the sultry way he now was saying his name.

” I offer you something and you deflect it with a statement so you can deny for a little longer. Well I don’t have too much patience, James.”

He swore he was melting. He was nothing more than a stuttering mess of a puddle on his office floor.

”Umm-I-I except.”

”Little bit louder.” 

“I Except!”

James basically shouted.

A few more chuckles and laughs from the man left him feeling utterly helpless and exposed to the man he could do anything.

“ James come here.”

He found his feet moving before his brain could even begin to process his words. And now after the short 2-3 feet walk he was directly in front of the man exposed. Now James really couldn’t misjudge his stares for sizing him up he had really been eye-fucking him for 25 minutes.

” James have you ever fucked a man?”

It was a fairly up front question but James hadn’t ever done it with a man.

”N-no”

”So when I bend you over this table in a second it’ll be your first?”

James could feel the blood rush to his cheeks without even looking, why was he so obscene?

”Y-yyes”

He was now breathing fairly hard, I mean there was an extremely attractive man sitting in the chair in front of him telling him he was going to do all types of things to him.

It was almost too much. And then Regulus stood up and stepped forward backing James into the desk behind leaving James trapped between the wood and the man himself.

He leaned in close, a centimetre or two from his left ear and whispered.

”You’re hard James. Do you want me to fix it for you?”

This could go dreadfully wrong for him, a man he didn't know, one who'd solve all his problems.

He obviously nodded. James is nothing if not an idiot.

Regulus was right in front of his chair when he leaned down to be a couple inches away from James lips.

”James I’m going to kiss you now and when I start I’m not stopping.” 

He felt his breath catch for probably the millionth time since entering the room

And then he had lips on his. Lips that were soft and sweet. Lips that had fried every nerve in James' person, and they weren’t stopping for a while. I mean he didn’t think so, especially since he’d climbed onto his lap and was very passionately biting his neck.

He didn’t know what to do. This was such a new experience for him to be honest. Well kinda he’s had a girl do this before but not as well as this man right now. I mean they hadn’t made his nerves collectively decide to burn themselves like this man was.

The man was unbuttoning shirt and pulling it off his head by the time he realised he was rock hard and by what he could see so was the man. The man was also bringing his mouth lower and lower down his body leaving a trail of hickeys and bites in his wake. And now that there wasn’t the restriction of his shirt he was getting lower and lower down. Then his mouth was at the edge of his jeans.

He looked up for a second as if for confirmation, to see if James was absolutely hating it but It was more reasonable to call him a puddle at this point so he continued.

Undoing the jeans and bringing them down his thighs, which he happened to almost immediately bite. So this left him just staring at the man on his knees in front of him-which had somehow happened in the last few minutes even though James was fairly sure he hadn’t looked away from him at all.

He was slowly inching forward when he looked back up and caught James' gaze again, this time it was clear in his gaze he wanted some verbal confirmation not whatever James had been doing earlier as he melted.

” Are you sure I can carry on ?”

James nodded vehemently enough that he was sure he would develop some neck issues if he was to continue.

“Verbally.”

He still wasn’t too sure he wouldn’t stutter but there was a pretty man between his legs right now and he wasn’t too bothered about worrying.

”P-please carry-y on.”

He was a mess, as he expected.

There was a little chuckle from the man which he may have addressed if at that moment the man hadn’t decided James had suffered enough and pulled down his boxers.

The cold air made him shiver until the air was quickly replaced by the man’s warm mouth.

From there things quickly… 

escalated.

And let’s just say James ended up bent over a desk…

several times.

It ended with James being a full on mess with barely enough cognitive functioning to get his jeans on properly.

So it was a very good experience for James. And after finishing their conversation and discussing his return the next day for paperwork as well as the new unbreakable vow he was now participating in. 

James stood up and walked away his questions from earlier still bouncing around his skull.

And so just before he got out the door he swung around and asked the question that had been burning in his skull.

"Sorry, but I didn’t catch your name? Sorry if this sounds rude but I couldn't find a singular thing about the CEO of the company, so what’s your name?"

“Regulus. Regulus Black.”

James nodded and turned back around and pulled the hard oak doors open and left, trying with every fibre in his body not to turn back and stare at Regulus Black.

Regulus. Regulus. Regulus. Regulus . Where had he heard it before?