James Potter wouldn't mind being in love with a boy.
He's quite sure he'd like it, actually, with how sweet some of them can be, how strong others are. Sirius is strong enough to lift James almost completely over his own head, and James is proud to admit that it makes him swoon.
Being in love with a boy isn't anything to be ashamed of, his mother was kind enough to constantly remind him as a child.
"Love is love, James." Euphemia Potter would say while braiding her son's hair into neat rows. "And all love is beautiful, even when it hurts."
He hadn't ever struggled with the idea of two men, or two women.
What he could never understand, is how love could hurt.
Love is supposed to be all-encompassing, all-consuming. Love is soft kisses over library books and chunky rings getting caught in curly hair. Love is the sound of laughter and dancing even when there's no beat to count to. Love is soft wishes and chocolate strawberry tainted kisses, the feeling of freedom when flying a broom, the smell of summer rain as it hits the wooden porch.
James takes a moment to memorize the feeling of the dew dropped grass squeezed between his fingers, allows the dam cold to seep through his clothes despite the August sun beating down on him.
"You're lying." He says simply, staring steel grey orbs down as if he could cut through cold metal with his gaze alone.
"I'm not." Regulus shoots back, standing tall with his chin turned up like if he doesn't look James in the eye then he doesn't have to take responsibility for the knot growing in his chest.
He's never felt this way before, so devastated and yet still all-consumed. Tears fill his eyes faster than he can stop them, but he doesn't dare to blink or look away for fear of shattering the last moment he'll ever be allowed to love Regulus Black without hating him a little bit too.
"What the actual fuck do you expect me to do about that, Regulus?" Sirius growls, James doesn't have to look behind him to know there's a black wand clutched tightly between pale fingers with chipped polish.
"I don't." Regulus shuffles his feet and finally, finally, looks at James.
Deep silver swirls with regret, begging to be forgiven as thin eyebrows draw together firmly and his pink bottom lip quivers slightly as a deep breath pushes it's way past them.
James remembers a time when it was his love that pushed air past those lips, and his love that filled those eyes with mirth and forced the air right back out of Regulus's lungs accompanied with the sound of laughter loud enough to rival his own. He remembers sonnets written about himself, and little poems snuck to him carefully, Regulus's lithe fingers trailing up his arm and back down the grasp his hand tightly while reading.
He doesn't understand how the same love that was once so beautiful could possibly be this violent.
Remus says that in muggle school they learn about these things called atoms, and that if you try to split one apart, it explodes and has the potential to take out whole cities with it. James digs his knuckles into his chest and tries to gasp in a breath, absently wondering if the same thing can happen to souls.
"Then what the fuck are doing, Black?" Sirius drawls boredly, though everyone can tell it's fake.
Everyone but Regulus, who flinches slightly and looks away.
"I wanted to ask that if we meet again in the war, you don't hesitate." Regulus says it with an edge, his throat obviously tight with something. "Because I won't."
James's eyes snap up to Regulus, who's face is a mask of stone, there's no doubt in James's mind that Regulus is telling the truth.
"Obviously."
Regulus nods and stares at Sirius for a moment longer before smiling sadly. "I love you, Sirius."
"Fuck you." Sirius shoots back, filled with enough venom to kill a rattlesnake.
James's heart breaks so violently when Regulus closes his eyes and a tear slips down his porcelain face that he audibly gasps for air, the breath knocked out of him so violently that he scrambles to his feet in an attempt to rectify the situation.
"Stop- stop it- that's-" James shakes his head quickly, feeling his breaths quicken and his heart rate rocket higher than the moon. His whole world feels off kilter, as if someone has just stolen all the stars from the sky and then told him to find his favorite.
"Jamie-" Regulus starts, reaching his left hand out gently, and when James sees the swirling mass of ink on his otherwise unblemished forearm the world goes still.
"I've joined them." Regulus had said.
"You're lying." James had replied.
James has spent his life chasing after a love that would never ache or burn, for a love filled with sweet nothings and sugar-coated mistakes.
Being in love with Regulus is like watching a forest burn and welcoming the ash into your lungs without a second thought. To be loved by Regulus Black is to be hurt.
"I'd hesitate." James whispers.
James Potter wouldn't mind being in love with a boy, if it didn't mean being in love with Regulus Black.
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Regulus Black wouldn't mind being in love with James Potter.
James is quite sweet, almost tooth achingly so, with his sunny smiles and eyes that shine brighter than diamonds. Regulus was enraptured by James's presence the first day they met, twelve years old and nervous to hang out with his big brothers' friends, and then James was there with a bright grin and a snake on a stick.
He'd never once doubted that he loved James Potter, but he'd known that he couldn't truly love him unless he was a girl.
"Love is cruel." Walburga warned him once while adjusting his tie and brushing off his fancy clothes with emotionless eyes. "Love is cruel, and only able to bloom between men and women. Do not ever fall in love with a man, Regulus, or I will have to rip him from you."
She'd warned him that love was cruel, and that she was crueler, but he hadn't listened.
He'd made a fool of himself really, dragging Sirius's broken body from Grimmauld Place all the way to the Potter Manor on foot. He'd made even more of a fool of himself when he collapsed into James arms with a sob as soon as he saw the older boy.
He should have known that his mother would find out, that she'd force him to be the perfect son Sirius couldn't ever be, and that she'd hold James's safety in the balance.
"You shouldn't have done that." Walburga's voice trills from the edge of the water where Regulus is slowly stumbling his way over. "I thought you were smarter than that."
"Sorry to disappoint you, mother." Regulus mumbles, swaying slightly before righting himself and stopping next to her. "But I couldn't let Voldemort go through with it."
"I'm not talking about the horcrux, child." Walburga snaps, her thin brows etched into her skin the same way his were draw together and her lips tip down into a frown. "I'm talking about the boy."
Regulus stays quiet for a moment, he knows she isn't really here with him, that for some reason when the potion was tasked with providing a hallucination it chose her. Maybe because it knew that Regulus has always loved his mother no matter how deeply she scars him. All that Regulus has ever wished for was that his mother loved him the same way he did her.
"I tried to warn you." Walburga says gently, her sour face smoothing into something softer as she looks at him. "I told you that men were foul creatures, set to rip souls like ours apart."
"He was all I wanted, Mother." Regulus rasps, unable to look away from her shimmering grey eyes. "Why couldn't he have been born a girl?"
He chokes on a sob with the ending of his last sentence, and squeezes his eyes shut tightly as his body wracks silently with more.
"Oh, my baby." Walburga coos. "My baby, my baby, please don't cry. Mommy's here. Mommy loves you."
It can't be helped; the way Regulus crumples to the ground with the weight of those words, and it's truly an accident that his hand slips into the water when he leans forward to clutch his chest with his other hand.
As pale hands grab at his arms and legs, ripping his flesh from his bones and screams from his lungs all he can think of is James Potters eyes, warm honey mixed with darkly brewed tea and small specks of sunshine weaving it's way through the edges.
Regulus has more paintings of James's eyes than any other thing.
Regulus Black would love James Potter to the ends of the earth, if it didn't mean being in love with a boy.