things money can't buy

James

“Good morning,”

“Morning sweetheart,” 

James grins, kissing Regulus’ hair as he passes him by on his way to the kitchen cupboard next to the tap, exchanging his empty water bottle for an empty glass to fill up with water, only to down it all in one go. James has just gotten back from his early morning run, and he feels great. 

He refills his glass again and goes to sit next to Regulus at the coffee table, silently admiring as he reads the newspaper, sipping idly at his tea, since he’s now been banned from espresso after his incident, and still dressed in his pinstripe pyjamas. James thinks Mary would call Regulus ‘an old soul’ if she could see him now, and chuckles to himself at the thought, prompting Regulus to look up and narrow his eyes, though a small smile spreads across his lips instinctively too.

“What?” Regulus accuses, his eyebrows drawing together as James continues to stare at him because the sunlight just caught his freckles making him look somewhat ethereal and James has become certifiably captivated by the glorious sight. James allows himself one more moment to appreciate it before he shakes his head, smiling down at the table. 

“Nothing,” He supplies, feeling laughter bubble up in his throat because he’s so happy, more happy than he’s felt in weeks, and he forgot how fucking amazing it is. Regulus eyes him suspiciously for a minute and when James carries on grinning like a madman with no explanation to offer, rolls his eyes and turns back to his newspaper. James looks up again, continuing to study the perfect curves of Regulus’ face and the complexities in the grey irises of his eyes until they make contact with his own and Regulus huffs, setting his newspaper down impatiently in a way that tells James he’s been caught. 

“Okay, really, what is it?” Regulus asks, not smiling this time, and clearly not going to relent until he’s satisfied with James’ answer. James laughs before the sound dies on his lips when Regulus shifts in his seat and suddenly the sunshine is enlightening his black curls into a halo, and a soft smile blossoms on his mouth in its place. 

“You’re so beautiful,” James tells him quietly, realising quickly after that’s not a good enough word and corrects himself, “Ethereal,” Regulus stares at him for a second, waiting to see if that is literally the only reason James is acting so strangely, tilting his head with a smirk that makes James gulp when he seems to accept it is. 

“Someone’s picked up a dictionary,” Regulus teases, shaking his head disbelievingly and reaching for his newspaper, James’ eyes trailing the cool angles of his silver rings as they go, watching the fingers that hold them twitch absent-mindedly against the thin paper and suddenly he can’t contain himself any longer. He grabs Regulus’ hands, forcing him to set down the newspaper and Regulus shoots an amused yet irritated glance in his direction before he catches the glint of desire in James’ eye that is all the warning he gets before James is tugging Regulus into his lap, supporting him with a hand to the small of his back that he feels arch beneath him when he smashes their lips together. It’s a few more minutes of that, Regulus apparently more than happy to go along with James’ outburst until James goes to move them to the bedroom and Regulus pulls back, breathing heavily and looking into James’ eyes desperately, but his hands resting still against James’ neck as a warning to stop. 

“Why?” Regulus says quickly, as if he’d much rather not be speaking at all, and James’ brain, dazed and blank, takes a good few seconds to catch up that makes Regulus’ body writhe impatiently on top of his which does not at all help. He blinks frantically with clarity when he realises what Regulus is asking him, cursing what a waste of time that was. 

“I’m just in a really good mood today, I don’t know why. Happiest I’ve felt in a whi—” Regulus interrupts him by shoving his tongue down his throat quite abruptly, and the rest of James’ sentence remains forgotten on his own, very understandably. Getting the hint, James drags Regulus out of the kitchen and into a much more suitable place, and continues searching his eyes, even when they’re screwed shut in ecstasy, until the neediness has gone from them, replaced with a soft content that he thinks is so pretty he can’t help but need to watch it appear all over again. 

“I need whatever drug you’re on today,” Regulus murmurs lowly against his shoulder once they’re done, and James chuckles in response, staring up at the ceiling and too exhausted to move. 

“You can have it baby,” He replies, putting on a seductive, gravelly voice on purpose that makes Regulus groan loudly and shove him nearly off of the bed entirely whilst he just laughs harder at himself. Regulus rolls over to face away from him, causing James to immediately swap his amusement for a long string of offended protests, attempting with his hand to lightly pull Regulus back over and it’s only when his arm grows tired that he relents and curls into James’ side again while James complains grumpily about all that Regulus just put him through rather unreasonably. 

Eventually, James falls comfortably silent, happy to just to stay exactly where he is for the rest of his life because what else would he ever need other than this? Regulus seems to have the exact same idea, or at least James thought so until he runs a hand through James’ hair to get his attention, unnecessary because he always has it anyway, and whispers “I have to go soon,” with a regretful expression on his pretty face. James frowns, trying to remember if Regulus mentioned going out somewhere today recently but comes up with nothing.

“Where are you going?” James asks, absolutely ready to reject whatever location comes out of Regulus’ mouth next in the hopes to convince him to stay here, with James, like he thought they had mutually planned to do. Regulus sighs and sits up, stretching before looking down at James with an expression on his face that makes James sit up too, because apparently whatever this is, it won’t be good. James tries not to panic as he watches Regulus’ head fall back against the headboard behind him in exhaustion, and then loll over to meet James’ gaze with not a trace of the happiness he was displaying a minute ago to be found in his face. 

“I’m going to meet Sirius,” Regulus tells him in a flat voice, his eyes searching James for a reaction. And he definitely gets one. James’ eyes widen and his lips part in confusion, and he sits up properly to scan Regulus’ demeanour for the smallest implication that he’s lying, and when he doesn’t find one he lets his face fully contort with betrayal.

“What?” James blurts out, eyebrows creased in alarm, watching as Regulus exhales slowly and abandons his headboard to meet James’ level, grabbing his limp hands as he stares into his eyes apologetically. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, I just didn’t want to argue. It was selfish, I’m sorry,” Regulus says honestly, and James is feeling so much at once and has so many questions to ask he can’t do anything but sit and watch stoically, his mouth open but words not willing to come out of it. This doesn’t make sense. Sirius called Regulus a few days ago and they had a long conversation, James knows, but Regulus claimed everything was fine and that Sirius just wanted to assure them that he’s going to try and forgive them both soon, and though feeling slightly uneasy James accepted this and then they didn’t mention it again, except from when James tried to bring it up the day after, but Regulus—oh wow, it does make sense. James is about to ask Regulus why he didn’t tell him until he realises with a blink that he just explained that, and flounders for something else to say just to break his plain silence.

“Where are you meeting him?” He asks, his voice all frantic and wobbly, and Regulus looks confused like this is the least relevant question he could’ve asked, which only really makes James’ blood boil more and so he snatches his hands back irritably from Regulus’ grasp, burning guilt shooting through him when hurt flickers across Regulus’ face. It clears though, and James actually watches the first of Regulus’ defensive walls crawl up as they always seem to do whenever they argue, and immediately he’s frustrated with himself for not staying calm because it will take work to pull them back down again. 

“The Three Broomsticks for lunch,” Regulus answers easily, and James narrows his eyes. 

“Then why are you telling me you have to leave soon now?” James counters, straining to check the time on that damn cursed alarm clock that he should really throw away because nothing good ever seems to come of it, and seeing that it is only ten in the morning like he thought. Regulus hesitates like he doesn’t know whether he should tell the truth, and though it sounds hypocritical coming from him, he will not stand for anyone lying to his face, and levels Regulus with a steely gaze that says as much. 

“I needed to factor in time for this argument,” Regulus admits sheepishly, glancing downwards at the duvet draped across his lap in shame. James frowns, scandalised. 

“Why do you think this will be an argument?” James asks, even though anger is quite clearly turning his once sweet tone bitter. Regulus stares at him incredulously.

“Because Sirius asked to see me when he still hasn’t even spoken to you yet, and you’re hurt and that makes you jealous!” Regulus insists irritatedly, perhaps louder than he should have, and James’ jaw drops in shock. And just, no. James shakes his head and climbs out of bed, ignoring Regulus’ defeated protests and collects his clothes, putting them on quickly and angrily. Regulus follows his lead, rushing to keep up with James, still tugging on his shirt when James starts walking through the hallway, head straight and shoulders squared defensively. He knows he’s proving Regulus’ point. He doesn’t care. Not even a little bit. 

“James, what the fuck? Come back, where are you going?” Regulus insists from behind him, and James speeds up his walking. He ends up in the kitchen again for some godforsaken reason, reaching a dead end, and whirls around to face Regulus being left with no other choice. When he sees that the first clothes Regulus had reached for happened to be James’ own judging by the way he’s dressed in the joggers James wore yesterday and the t-shirt Sirius got him, it’s really James’ last straw. He’s kept it together reasonably well these past couple weeks in the odd lack of Sirius’ presence in his life, but he feels all of that coming undone now, deep inside of him as if his knitted web of insecurity and self-hatred forms the shape of a jumper, and Regulus just tugged at exactly the right string to make it all unravel into one big heap of fury. 

“I don’t know where I’m going, I just need space away from you!” And maybe he could’ve not said, or shouted, that but maybe Regulus could have not gone behind his back to do the exact thing he knows James has been praying for himself ever since that fucking coffee shop. Regulus freezes, his lips parting for a moment until he remembers himself and allows a coldness to overtake his body, and when he speaks his tone is icy.

“You act like you’re not actively proving my point right now. Clearly you are jealous, and James that’s understandable but can’t you be happy that at least Sirius is speaking to one of us?” Maybe James does care, just a little bit. James huffs and throws his hands up.

“You said it’s understandable, can’t you let me feel hurt? Am I not allowed to be upset about this?” He asks, arching an eyebrow that dares Regulus to disagree with him, making it not much of a question at all. 

“Of course you’re allowed to be upset about it but I’m not going to stand here and let you take it out on me! Look, I’m going to see Sirius whether you like it or not and I know you don’t, and I’m sorry he picked me over you for once and that it’s hard accepting that, but you’ll get over it. Trust me, I know,” Regulus says with a punctuating fold of his arms, and James almost rolls his eyes because—

“Why are you bringing that shit up from our childhood?” James groans, running exasperated hands over his face that make Regulus scoff loudly. “Clearly you’re not over it,” James mutters under his breath, internally wincing as it becomes clear that Regulus heard him from the fire raging behind his eyes, the smoke making them water when James looks up. Shame and regret pools over him because he just made Regulus cry and he wishes it was accidentally. It must show on his face because Regulus swipes at his eyes furiously like if he rubs them hard enough it will make them stop until he just fully gives up and turns around from James, facing the doorway instead. And it’s the sight of Regulus’ trembling shoulders only a few paces back from the exit that really startles James because if Regulus walks through it and leaves, it could be the same as leaving their relationship too. Because Regulus nearly never cries, especially not at something like this, but the past few weeks have been so much that James guesses this is some sort of a delayed reaction to it, and James will never forgive himself for being the one that triggered it. His own eyes shining with newly-formed tears, James takes a tentative step towards Regulus, but stops because all of his walls are up. Every single one of them crafted from growing up in a home where you couldn’t survive if you didn’t have them, and the effort James has put in over the years into showing Regulus that he doesn’t need them anymore; gone, forgotten. Because James has just done one of the things he swore to both himself and Regulus he would never do, and even if it wasn’t entirely his fault, or his words alone that set Regulus off, his back is still turned and his shoulders are still shaking rather than trembling now and James can’t do anything but stand and watch. James’ phone buzzes from somewhere in the room but they both ignore it, their ears too busy roaring with the sounds of their own paranoid racing thoughts to pay attention. But then it buzzes again. Again. Again. Until it’s just a steady stream of vibrations echoing around the kitchen. James brings himself to turn around and face its flashing screen on the counter, his frown deepening for different reasons to the one it was created for. That one being the such pure, raw hurt on Regulus’ face when James glances over his shoulder to see that Regulus is staring at his phone too, tears silently streaming down his cheeks. That’s the thing about not crying enough; when you eventually start, you can’t stop. When they make eye contact, James’ mouth opens to say something that he doesn’t quite know and Regulus takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“Are you going to check it or not?” Regulus chokes out before wincing at the distressed sound of his voice and looking like he desperately wants to turn away again, more tears falling from his eyes as his lips thin in an attempt to not let anymore sobs out, but James can see them trembling with the effort. Distracted by that absolutely devastating sight and the deep ache forming in his own chest, James finds that he no longer knows what Regulus is talking about.

“What?” He whispers, afraid that if his voice raises any higher Regulus will hear the hoarseness in it and think him pathetic for wanting to cry at something that was his fault like he’s the victim. Regulus makes a small noise of frustration and closes his eyes, his eyelashes wet and his eyelids an irritated shade of red, jabbing an unsteady hand in the direction of James’ vibrating phone. Following the gesture, James lets out a quiet “Oh,” and stands there like a lemon just staring for approximately three more seconds before he forces his legs to move and his brain to care about anything that’s not Regulus right now. 

Hundreds of notifications crowd his phone screen when he warily picks it up; a few messages from the coffee shop group chat, a few more from James’ teammates on their group chat and privately to him. Even more from James’ manager, Alastor, and his main coach, Kingsley, plus at least five missed calls from each of them, all time stamped within the past ten minutes, but it’s an influx of Twitter notifications, still rapidly piling up as he watches the screen blankly from where he forgot to turn them off after redownloading the app only recently that makes up the most of the amount. Right as he’s building up the courage to see what the fuck the universe has installed for him now whilst simultaneously working his mind harder than ever to figure out how the hell he’s going to fix this with Regulus, Alastor’s name flashes across his screen as another incoming call, and James is so overwhelmed he accepts without thinking it through and presses the phone to his ear.

“What?” He nearly screams as soon as the call connects, closing his eyes as he braces himself against the counter when he hears receding footsteps because Regulus hates shouting—hates it—and James knows that and just did it anyway because he forgot because he’s a terrible boyfriend and honestly deserves to be broken up with at this point. He listens very, very carefully for any noise throughout the house, relief flooding through him when Regulus locks himself inside of a bathroom instead of outside the front door, until he realises this actually could be worse because Regulus is currently breaking down on a bathroom floor and James can’t get to him, and he didn’t leave because he physically can’t, not because he doesn’t want to. Shit. Alastor’s voice barks in his ear, startling him from where he has not been listening, at all. Double shit.

“Potter! Get it together boy and pay attention! I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing right now, or what you’ve heard, but you need to drop it right fucking now and listen to me!” Moody orders, and James, who is already at his maximum stress capacity, has half a mind to start shouting back, but he doesn’t because he can’t lose Regulus and his job all in the same day, not when he’s already lost Sirius. James remains silent in fear of what career-ending shit may come out of his mouth if he doesn’t, jogging out of the kitchen and in the general direction of where he heard Regulus go because this massive fucking house has more bathrooms than James has needed to memorise before now and as he turns into different corridors he swears he’s never seen, flinging open every door he passes, he finally realises why Regulus got it in the first place; so he could hide away and never be found, even from the people who love him the most. Especially from the people who love him the most. Triple shit. Alastor takes his silence as compliance and carries on speaking, and despite the berating James received for it only a few minutes ago, he can only bring himself to half-pay attention because his panic levels are steadily rising with the number of rooms he enters and Regulus isn’t there. James wouldn’t be surprised if the bathroom he heard Regulus enter has a secret passageway leading out to the garden or something, and that’s why James can’t find him anywhere because he’s truly running out of options. 

“James check that sociable media app Twitter. Shacklebolt says that Tom Riddle has announced some shit about challenging you to something at the Yule Ball – I don’t know, just take a look and then call me back so we can get you on the phone with our publicist team, alright?” Alastor tells him, his voice as gruff as ever, and James nods absently, still power-walking throughout Regulus’ house before realising with an annoyed growl that Moody can’t see even him right now and stands still momentarily, though practically vibrates on the spot like his phone still is in his hand with the need to move instead of seeing what the fuck Tom Riddle has done now.

“Fine, I’m looking now,” He murmurs, bringing the phone away from his ear to open the Twitter app, ignoring Moody’s tinny voice lecturing him on God knows what as he does, not bothering to turn on the speaker button. He opens his exploding inbox, purposefully not staying on it long enough to see what people have been saying about him and clicking straight onto the tweet he’s been tagged in that people keep replying to instead.

Tom Riddle ✓ @thesnakewhisperer

Hey, Potter. I see the Gryffindor Lions’ are doing pretty well at the moment. I’d hate to change that. Time will tell. See you at the Yule Ball. @thelionking

Well. That’s bullshit. James stares incredulously down at his phone, not at the tweet but at the call signal in the corner of his screen because is that seriously all this is about? Alastor really had the nerve to distract James with this, whilst his boyfriend is on the floor somewhere having a panic attack for all James knows. 

“Trust me, it’s bullshit. I’ll deal with it later, goodbye,” He announces, rolling his eyes at Moody’s aggressive insistence that this needs to be dealt with now and what the fuck is wrong with him, Potter? Hanging up hastily, he shoves his phone in his pocket and resumes his frantic jog around the house when suddenly he hears a noise that is not his own feet rhythmically thudding on carpet. A whirring, and when James pauses, head swinging around him wildly and ears positively pricked up, the distant rush of water. Shower. Bathroom. James was right. He listens for one more second, squinting as he tries to make out where it’s coming from and sprinting when he realises. Upstairs. God, he’s so fucking stupid, running around in circles down here, too distracted by Tom Riddle, of all people, to hear Regulus’ footsteps that can be as light as a feather when he wants them to be as he went onto an entire different floor to get away from James. And now James is thundering up the stairs in his efforts to chase him, almost falling back down them again in his haste. Eyes wild, he blindly follows the echo of rain hitting tiles until he skids directly in front of a door that won’t open when he tries, and regrettably it’s this that tells him he’s got the right one. He’s about to start shouting Regulus’ name but luckily stops himself because maybe he forgot once, but he’ll never let himself again, and closes his eyes, heaving breaths and forcing himself to calm down before he proceeds. 

“Regulus? Regulus, baby, please tell me if you’re okay. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Can you please let me in?” He says desperately with the side of his face pressed against the pale wood, working to keep his volume steady and not any louder to ensure he’s been heard over the drum of the shower. Why is the shower on? If Regulus is speaking, James can’t hear him. That’s why. Fuck. 

“Regulus, baby, please, I need to know if you’re okay. I’m sorry. Regulus? Please,” James pauses and strains to listen for a reply, slumping against the door with defeat when he doesn’t get one. Tilting his head back, James screws his eyes shut, unable to withstand the feeling of tears blurring them when they were open, and carries on calling out to Regulus because he may be defeated, but he’ll be damned if he gives up fighting. “Regulus, are you in there? I love you. I’m sorry, this was all so stupid, I want you to go and see Sirius. I know you need it and I was jealous and hurt, you were right. I need to know you’re okay. Abra a porta, querido, por favor,” God, James wishes he knew French. He needs Sirius or Evan or Pandora or someone. Sirius. Hogwarts boarding school. Pranks. The lock trick. Something he used to practice daily when he was young, but hasn’t thought of in years. Why didn’t James think of this earlier? Why did he stop practicing? Scrambling up from the floor, he darts into Regulus’ office, scavenging his desktop for a pen before running back to the bathroom with it gripped safely in his hand, thanking everything holy that he is a professional footballer and can run when he wants to. He jams the pen into the hole for a key on the old-fashioned, gold-plated door handle, twisting to the left exactly six times, counting methodically in his head, and then seven times clockwise to the right, and as he turns the pen around and does the final two pushes, he prays to the ABBA gods high above that this will work, because if it hasn’t he might have indefinitely locked Regulus in there anyway, and that would very much be devastating for the both of them. Presuming Regulus eventually wants to leave, which is a statement that is rather up in the air right now. Grunting, James shoves the door forcefully with his shoulder at the same time as he twiddles the pen once more, gasping as he launches forward, clutching onto the door for dear life when it gives way and swings entirely into the wall inside the room, and James could cry—even more so—because he’s inside the room. Whirling around, he finds, sure enough, Regulus huddled on the bathroom floor, pausing his crying to stare back at James in raw-eyed shock. James inhales sharply and then he’s on the floor falling next to Regulus, his hands firmly in his lap because he’s not sure if Regulus wants to be touched right now, especially by him, and instead studies the fingernails Regulus has picked at enough to bleed and how they can’t rest still for more than two seconds. Quadruple shit. 

Regulus is still staring at him, and promptly hides his nails when he catches James looking, breaking eye contact with him to hang his head low in shame, his body lurching forward with racking sobs. James’ lips part and for a moment he’s at a loss for words until he realises he needs to get his shit together and fix this or there won’t be any of Regulus left in his life for him to fix in the first place. 

“Can I touch you?” James mutters, only just loud enough for Regulus to hear over the downpour of the running shower beside them that James refuses to move from his spot and turn off. Regulus shakes his head, rocking back and forward slightly and James swallows the lump in his throat and the bile that rose with it to nod shortly in understanding. “I don't know how to help you,” James admits slowly, mortified that it’s true because he’s never been there for this before. He knows it’s happened over the years that they’ve been together, inevitably, because sometimes Regulus will come and find him in the aftermath when he’s okay to be touched and able to speak to tell him what’s going on, whether that's been driving from his house to James' or walking from his dorm to James' back at school. Turns out it's a lot harder to hide something from the person you love when you're living with them, though. He should have asked, just in case; he knows that now. Regulus carries on shaking his head, his breathing growing more and more short and gasped, and James flashes back to the image of Sirius on the floor of the Solar System going through the…same thing. Sirius would know what to do. “I’m going to call Sirius, okay, Regulus?” He tells him, even though he’s quite sure Regulus can’t hear him right now which is a fucking terrifying thought but he needs to stay calm, drawing his phone out of his pocket. Regulus carries on shaking his head, but James suspects that’s just his default motion now and even if it isn’t, and he’s telling James to not call Sirius, James is going to call him anyway because he’d much rather Regulus break James’ heart rather than his own. He punches in the number he’s had memorised since eleven years old off the top of his head with frantically quivering fingers that makes it difficult to press the right buttons with, holding his phone against his ear and shutting his eyes in prayer before thinking that needs to watch Regulus and reluctantly forces them open again. 

“Hello?” Sirius’ voice rings out, sounding sleepy and broken as if he’s just woken up and tears run down James’ cheeks with relief and also because it’s just genuinely too early for all of this, a phrase he hasn’t started using until these past couple weeks.

“Sirius! Sirius, listen to me—” James starts, his voice all shaky until Sirius does exactly the opposite of what he told him to and interrupts him. 

“James? James, what’s going on? Is it—”

“Regulus, yes it’s Regulus. He’s having the same panic attack as you did and I don't know what to do, Sirius, please tell me—” He rambles hysterically.

“Put me on speaker, James,” Sirius demands calmly, and James nods jerkily as he does what he’s been told, setting the phone on the ground between him and Regulus and trying to breathe so he can focus. Sirius starts speaking in French, the things that he’s saying sounding relatively similar to what Regulus was when the roles were reversed the other week. James leans back exhaustively and watches carefully as Regulus’ head stops shaking, and then his fingers, and then his shoulders, and then eventually his breathing, and Sirius doesn’t stop speaking in a reassuring, steady flow until James leaves to go get Regulus a glass of water and when he returns, Regulus’ eyes are open and though still wet, trailing after James as he enters the room again. James hands him the water silently which he takes gratefully and sips before turning to James’ phone still resting on the ground, picking it up in his free hand. 

“Do you think we can meet at one instead?” Regulus asks quietly and hoarsely, taking his time to form the words, and bringing the phone closer to his mouth so Sirius can hear him. 

“Sure, if you don’t want to anymore I’ll underst—” Regulus hangs up on Sirius, cutting him off rather abruptly and if it was literally any other circumstance James would laugh, but after that James is quite unsure whether he’ll find it in himself to laugh again for a long while. Regulus drops the phone down on the tiles again, sighing and running a hand in his hair before looking up to James with an unreadable expression. James reaches over to turn the shower off, internally groaning when he thinks of the water bill that it will have caused even though both himself and Regulus can happily afford it – it’s the principle of the thing. Shaking water droplets off of his hand, he settles back down beside Regulus, his own eyes no longer leaking because he made sure to sort himself out a bit before he came back inside, having a feeling that Regulus would be returning back to normal and that the first thing he sees can’t be James crying in distress. James flicks his eyes downwards and Regulus’ bloody fingernails happen to be resting in his line of sight, and he grimaces.

“Do you want a plaster?” James asks, nodding to Regulus’ hands when he shoots him a confused frown, causing Regulus to look down at them, his eyes widening in surprise, and back up to James, wincing at the fact that he’s not only seen them but is pointing them out. Regulus considers his proposition, unfortunately his nails are a lot sharper than they look, before shaking his head. This makes James’ hold his breath because it’s too fucking similiar to the way he looked not even ten minutes ago, until Regulus speaks and he can release it again. 

“No, I think I’d look like an idiot with a plaster on every finger,” Regulus murmurs, smiling self-deprecatingly though it doesn’t reach his eyes, and James nods shortly and looks down at his fingers tangling in his lap. 

“I’m so sorry,” He whispers after a minute, blinking rapidly as pressure begins to build behind his eyes again. He doesn’t want to cry. Regulus’ warm hand encloses over his and he wants to do it even more. He doesn’t, because this isn’t about him. This is about Regulus. When he’s positive that his eyes won’t betray him, he shifts them over to the man to talk to him properly. It doesn’t help that Regulus’ dark eyebrows are drawn in something like concern or confusion and his grey eyes are all gloomy and big as they watch James back, waiting for him to speak like his mouth is hanging open for him to do. 

“What I said was mean and uncalled for, and you were right, I was jealous and hurt and I was taking it out on you.” James begins, “And when you were crying,” Regulus looks away, “I just froze. I don’t know why but I promise I’ll figure it out and work on it. Then my phone started blowing up because Tom Riddle decided to publicly threaten me over Twitter—” Regulus jolts and looks back to James, eyes bulging, “for God knows what reason, honestly, and my manager was spam calling me and I–I shouted because I forgot and I was angry at myself for upsetting you and then not doing anything about it. And then you walked out and I didn’t know whether I was allowed to follow you but I did anyway but I couldn’t fucking find you and Moody was up my ass about publicist teams or something so I hung up on him. Then I followed the noise of the shower, which please don’t do that ever again because I couldn’t hear you and you couldn’t hear me and that was absolutely fucking terrifying and your water bill will be through the roof so just don’t, and—and the door was locked! So I remembered this trick from Hogwarts about forcing open doors with a pen, so I did do that, and I’m sorry if it was an invasion of privacy but I didn’t know what was going on and I needed to know. Justified, really. Anyway, you were on the floor and I froze again because you were having a panic attack and I didn’t know what to do or how to make it better and it was so fucking scary. I called Sirius, I’m sorry if you didn’t want that but he kind of saved you so really I’m not sorry at all, and Sirius spoke to you in French like you did to him the other day, and it worked. Now we’re here, and I was absolutely useless in a time when I think you needed me the most. I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what that was like for you. It was so scary to watch, I—” James’ voice breaks into a whisper as he shakes his head, eyes glistening. He clears throat, swipes at them quickly and tries to finish what he’s attempting to say, “If you could maybe tell me now or later on what I should do in those situations because sometimes I really don’t know, that would be great. I’ll do some research—fuck, why didn’t I do research before? Sorry, look, I know that I’ve been a really terrible boyfriend, and person, recently and you deserve so much better than that so,” James takes a deep, shuddering breath, meeting Regulus’ eye, “if you want to break up with me I’ll understand.” And fuck, that hurt to say out loud. James turns away, the ache in his chest growing unbearable because even if he’d understand that doesn’t mean the idea of Regulus leaving him doesn’t simultaneously feel like all the oxygen leaving his body. Regulus stays silent, and James can’t seem to brace himself enough to look at his face and see what he’s thinking in case it’s the thing he’s dreading the most, and so it’s safe to say he’s caught by surprise when two hands reach out and frame the side of his face, cold rings burning into his skin and sending a shiver down his spine that he knows all too well. He lifts his head and blinks to find Regulus’ inches away from his own, crouching down in front of him, having moved without making a sound in that way he does that James believes he could honestly win Britain’s Got Talent with, but he doesn’t let himself assume or celebrate anything just yet, not when this could be Regulus’ meaningful idea of a breakup, for all he knows. Well, he does know, but that was years ago so he suspects that Regulus’ perspective has perhaps shifted a bit since then. He hopes so, anyway. 

“James,” Regulus says, his voice more steady than it has been in nearly an hour, and James snaps to attention, inhaling quietly. “Did I not tell you literally last week that I would never leave you ever, for anything?” James stares.

“No, I think I told you that,” James corrects, and Regulus’ eyebrows crease in thought and then he’s ducking his head and chuckling softly, quite remarkably after all that he just went through, and it’s music to James’ ears.

“Alright, well I mean it now, and I meant it last week too, even if I forgot to tell you. See, I forget things too. I don’t expect you to get it right all the time, James, you know that like you know that I don’t get it right sometimes either; neither of us are perfect, no matter how much we enjoy telling each other we are. I don’t expect you to know what to do in these situations because they shouldn’t be happening in the first place. I’m not really sure why it did, but it’s not entirely because of what you said so please don’t stress about that, though it did hurt a bit at the time to hear. It feels pathetic that something as simple as that made me spiral so viscerally and I don’t think it being long overdue really applies here, but I’m sorry for the distress I caused you anyway. I don’t remember turning on the shower, or locking the door, or going to the bathroom furthest away from you but it sounds about right because it’s exactly what I’d do to hide from my parents back in France. My panic attacks don’t happen very often at all anymore, in fact I only started thinking about them again recently because of Sirius at the Solar System, but if they did I would’ve told you by now what to do in the case of one, as a precautionary. I’m sorry I didn’t before and that it made you feel useless earlier, but yes, I will tell you now because I’m not planning to leave you James, now or ever,” James’ face must still look sceptical because Regulus huffs frustratedly and shakes it a little in his hands, “I’m literally planning to propose to you James, does that sound like leaving?” James’ eyes widen and he gasps because even though he’s been going around calling Regulus his practical fiancé in his head, it still feels electrifying to hear that sentence out loud. Regulus raises an eyebrow, smirking slightly at James’ reaction as if to say ‘I told you so’, and James leans forward to press a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth before they continue on with their all-important conversation. Regulus stares at James starry-eyed for a second as if he’s contemplating just forgetting about everything else to kiss him again, but shakes himself because they’ll have plenty of time for that later on, when he’s not still recovering from a serious panic attack. He sips his water some more, flutters his eyes shut and breathes for a second and just as James starts to grow concerned, they fly open with a new, determined glint alighting his gaze.

“Okay so, this is slightly difficult for me to talk about because the idea of me being vulnerable and needing to rely on someone else is…” Regulus trails off, shaking his head, tight-lipped, as if in explanation, “But I’ll try my best. Right, OK, listen. If I’m just crying, not shaking or anything, you can probably touch me unless I say otherwise, and I will if that’s the case, in fact please do touch me—” Regulus starts in a business-like tone, and James promptly places his hand on Regulus’ arm, grinning when he pauses to look down and back up again to shoot him a withering glare before continuing, “But if I am beginning to shake, or hyperventilate, or zone out intensely, or look faint, or just act really fucking strangely then please don’t touch me,” James instinctively removes his hand from Regulus, who rolls his eyes and grabs it to put it back right where it was, making his stomach flutter warmly, “Instead make sure you get me to sit down in a quiet place, sometimes I might need to do what I did just then with the locked door and the shower. It helps. Makes me feel safer. But you need to come in too, and stay calm as well because otherwise this won’t work. You need to talk to me, like Sirius was, it sort of brings me back to the present, I don’t really know how to explain it, but it works. English is harder for me to understand because obviously I’m panicking a lot so I’ll teach you some simple French phrases in a minute, okay?” James nods. He often forgets that English isn’t Regulus’ first language, and he suspects being an English author helps it come more naturally to him but he vows to himself to make more of an effort to learn some French just like how Regulus learnt Portuguese for him when James barely ever used it. It’s not even his first language, and yet he still insisted on learning it anyway which makes James wonder why he hasn’t yet done the same for him in return, considering it’s genuinely one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for him, even after all these years. “I’ll also teach you the breathing exercises Sirius was doing with me in French, again it’ll be simple to learn. What else? Oh, I don’t think you’d do this anyway but if I ask you to leave, please don’t, it will be my anxiety talking and I shouldn’t be left alone when I’m like that,” James is about to apologise for leaving him alone for so long earlier, eyes downcast even though it certainly wasn’t by choice when Regulus suddenly groans and lets his head fall back against the wall behind him with a heavy thud, distracting him, “I’m going to have to talk to my therapist about this, aren’t I?” Regulus sighs, shutting his eyes like he can somehow will the thought to go away, and James blinks, sitting up. 

“But you tell me you don’t mind therapy, you say that it’s good and healthy and you really bloody enjoy it!” James exclaims, outraged, and Regulus peeks an eye open, “You were lying, you fucking traitor! Why?” He demands because the only reason he even goes to these therapy sessions is because Regulus is always going on about how great they are for himself, making James want to work until he can feel like that too—oh. Regulus watches his face drop in realisation, somewhat amused, even as James pulls out his signature ‘oh, no you didn’t!’ and starts ranting about how much he hates going to therapy and being tricked, until he finds he’s not all that angry, quite honestly, because Regulus has been keeping up a false pretense for the past couple years purely for James’ unknowing and unrewarding benefit, so they end up laughing together instead for a blissful moment. Once they calm until a lull of silence, Regulus suggests he teaches James some of his French phrases and breathing exercises, to which James earnestly agrees and even whips out the notes app on his phone to copy the words and their pronunciations down, prompting Regulus to roll his eyes at him every single time he goes to type but James can easily see the blatant affection hiding behind the gesture so he doesn’t mind all that much, absently intertwining their fingers with his free hand. 

“Juste toi et moi,” Regulus demonstrates for him a little while into the endeavour.

“Just toi et moi,” James repeats, slightly clunkily and apparently incorrectly judging by the face Regulus makes.

“Juste, James, not just,” 

“Joost,”

“Juste,”

“Shoost,”

“Juste. With a ‘je’ sound,”

“Je-oost toi et moi,”

“No. Blur the sounds together, like—you know what I can’t be bothered with this anymore, I think you’ve learnt enough,” Regulus heaves a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he’s beginning to get a headache and James nods in agreement, handing him his glass dutifully. As Regulus gulps his water down, watching him over his shoulder, James types out the last phrase they practiced together in his notes app, squinting as he attempts to get the spelling right with absolutely no reference. Regulus scoffs and James turns to him, offended, just in time to catch him rolling his eyes, quite predictably.

“It’s T-O-I, not T-W-A. Do you really have to write all of this out?” Regulus corrects arrogantly, and James chews his lips in concentration as he rewrites the word.

“Yes.” He murmurs absently in response, and Regulus huffs impatiently. James lets the pettiness slide though, knowing this is Regulus’ form of coping with the current conversation topic. James thought Regulus nearly never cries, but it might just be that he always ensured James wouldn’t be around to see it until now. And that, that splinters his heart a little bit. James isn’t sure how many more cracks it can take in such a short space of time until it shatters, praying that the glue holding it together, Regulus, his parents, his new friends from Godric’s Hollow, and even after everything, Sirius, will be enough to hold him together as he takes the time to heal from all of this because he doesn’t know what will happen if it isn’t. With the app open in front of him, James reluctantly makes a note to bring that up in therapy soon, knowing it will, in a slightly discerning way, excite his therapist to dissect it and his feelings together. Like Regulus said; ugh. 

“I need to go and get ready to meet Sirius,” Regulus tells him when he sets his phone down with a clatter, exasperatedly rubbing his face. James looks at him. 

“I know you said you are, but I just need to make sure, are you sure you don’t want to reschedule like Sirius offered?” James checks, wincing as Regulus’ eyes harden at being treated delicately, and he sits up a little straighter as if to prove his point. 

“Yes, I’m sure,” Regulus snaps, climbing up from the bathroom floor and growing even more pissed off when he seems to realise that he has to do it slowly and unsteadily so as to not fall back down again. James darts out to catch him, ignoring Regulus’ grumbles of protest that quickly dissipate when he finds that having James to cling onto is actually helping, and they make their way into their bedroom gradually, one step at a time. Once sure he can stand on his own, and James is sure he’s not just saying that, Regulus rummages through their chest of drawers filled with clothes that have become such a blend of each other’s that they can’t remember who owned what shirt or bought which socks in the first place most of the time. James reclines on his side of the bed as he watches Regulus tug on a black pair of loosely fitting jeans because he still insists that he’ll never exit the house wearing joggers, for some godforsaken reason, and when his fingers knock against the fabric to clumsily do up his button he lets out a quiet hiss of pain that makes James frown. He gets up, searching through his nightstand drawer that could double as a first aid kit which as a professional sports player he occasionally relies upon for some plasters that even though Regulus refused, clearly needs. Emerging victorious with a handful clasped in his fist, he crosses the room to Regulus who is fiddling with such tiny, obviously silver hoop earrings that they look like they’re squeezing the life out of the bottom of Regulus’ earlobes for a moment until the redness clears, and holds out his plaster-filled hand for him to see.

“Take them, please,” James prompts when Regulus shoots him a strange look. “For your nails,” Regulus arches an eyebrow, examining his blood-encrusted nail beds with a small grimace, flicking his eyes back up to James and his plasters.

“It will look like I’m wearing fake nails if I have one on every finger,” Regulus says apprehensively, and when James grins and waggles his eyebrows, he adds bluntly, “I’m not that type of gay, unfortunately,” James chuckles and Regulus cracks a smile before they both turn to stare at the plasters resting in between them some more.

“We could trim them down with scissors quickly, so they wouldn’t go over the tips of your fingers?” James suggests thoughtfully, and Regulus considers this, glancing back to the alarm clock behind them doubtfully and then to his fingers which James suspects are probably stinging rather irritably. 

“Yes please, if we’re quick,” Regulus gives in, and so they sit there on the bedroom floor trimming ten plasters until they fit Regulus’ nails in a way that doesn’t bother him in both their comfortability and appearance, James cackling when he begins to flaunt them in a way which he would if they really were fake nails, abstract posing and everything. 

Three miffed reassurances that he will be fine to go out after his panic attack and one angrily passionate kiss just to shut James up later, Regulus grabs his car keys and as he picks up his phone, he abruptly turns to James like he’s remembered something important. 

“What was it you said about Tom Riddle threatening you earlier? The thing that nearly exploded your phone and Moody was calling about?” Regulus asks with a dangerous quality to his expression, setting his car keys back down on the wooden stand in the foyer again, James really wasn’t exaggerating when he called Regulus’ house a mansion, in which they’re supposed to be kept on. James groans dramatically at the reminder, already pulling out his phone from his back pocket to show Regulus the tweet before he can check for himself on his own device. 

“Look, it’s bullshit, I don’t know why everyone was making such a big deal out of it, honestly,” James complains as he holds out the phone, open to Riddle’s tweet for Regulus to read, internally groaning when Regulus’ expression flips into something borderline murderous, knowing that Regulus is going to make a big deal out of it too, and berating himself for not predicting that. 

“And that’s just unprompted?” Regulus checks, raising his eyebrows and pointing to the screen. James nods.

“Completely.” Regulus shakes his head.

“I hate that fucking man, I don’t know what the fuck he’s trying to do but it’s weird as hell. The Yule Ball, why did he mention that? I swear if he touches a single hair on your head I’ll fuc—” Regulus starts to mutter furiously to himself, and because James knows whatever he’s about to say next is not an empty threat, he decides to interrupt Regulus’ assassination plan so in a year or so from now he can truthfully say in a court of law that he had no idea of Regulus’ plan to kill Tom Riddle – though it’ll never come to that because Riddle is bullshitting, James doesn’t know how many times he has to reiterate that before people start believing him. 

“It doesn’t mean anything, Regulus. I know Riddle and this is just some publicity stunt our media teams probably organised behind our backs and I haven’t been told yet. Alastor literally told me to call Gryffindor F.C’s publicist earlier, likely for that reason. It’s all fine,” James insists, gesturing his hand out frustratedly, earnest for Regulus to believe him and just drop the subject. Regulus levels him with a stony, unmoving gaze.

“I don’t believe you,” Regulus responds simply. Well, then. That worked. James huffs, going to stand next to Regulus so he can easily watch what he’s about to do.

“Really, it’s not serious. Watch this,” He orders, and presses the button to reply to the tweet, vaguely aware that as soon as he turns up to training later he’s going to get shouted at by at least five different important people, but one thing about James is that he’ll do just about anything to prove a point, especially to Regulus. His thumbs dart out to type quickly and before Regulus, and himself, can register what he’s doing he presses the send button and watches the notifications pour in.

James Potter ✓ @thelionking

Replying to @thesnakewhisperer

ok see you bitch

Regulus looks up at him in horror, mouth hanging open.

“James, why did you do that?” Regulus breathes, and James stares blankly at his screen and the amount of shares on his tweet going up by the second, each digit the possibility of being able to take this back slipping further and further away from him. James slowly tilts his head up to meet Regulus’ eyes, his own ones bulging with panic and immediate regret.

“I-I don’t know,” He whispers, somewhat stuck in a state of shock. Regulus blows out a deep, stressed exhale, looking to the ceiling as if wishing for someone up there to smite him before he grips James’ arms in an attempt to bring him back to reality.

“You have training soon, yes?” Regulus presses, his eyes wide and stern. James nods quickly. “Go early and say that you fucked up and that you didn’t mean to send it. Yeah, they’ll be angry but I’m sure your media team will find a way to turn this around, okay? You’re not going to lose your job over something as stupid as this,” Regulus reassures him, shaking him lightly in an attempt to wake him up from the petrified daze he’s fallen under. James nods again, more firmly this time, taking a deep breath. Regulus checks his watch and looks back to James with an impressively apologetic wince. James shakes his head dismissively.

“Go meet Sirius, I’ll be fine,” James tells him honestly, handing his car keys back to him with a soft, slightly strained smile. Regulus studies his face for a second before nodding decisively, taking the keys and his front door ones.

“You’re going to training early?” Regulus verifies as he shrugs his coat on, shooting him a look that strongly advises James to agree. And he does. 

“Yes,” James sighs, running a hand through his hair, dread already seeping into his bones at the thought of facing Moody now. “I’ll be back at seven or eight, if all goes well. I’ll text you if that changes,” Regulus smiles assuredly and leans in to kiss him warmly, his thumb tracing James’ cheek.

“Good luck. Don’t lose your job. I love you,” Regulus warns him, a well-intended mildly threatening expression crossing his face before it clears for him to say those three little words that have the power to enlight James’ whole soul from the inside out, to the point where he glows a beaming smile after they’re said.

“Thank you. Have fun with Sirius, I’m sorry about earlier,” James gushes, and both of their faces fall a bit at the freshly sore memories, James grimacing in apology for lowering the mood so significantly and then he gives Regulus an assessing once-over, “You’re going to be okay? Last time I’m asking today,” He adds after a minute. Regulus sighs frustratedly, but makes up for it with a small smile.

“Yes, I’ll be okay. I’ll call you if I’m not,” Regulus repeats for about the tenth time in the past few hours, though this last part is new and James appreciates it greatly, feeling his shoulders relax a bit.

“Okay. I love you,” James steals one more kiss from Regulus before he’s walking out of the door and locking it behind him, leaving James standing alone on the other side, but this time it doesn’t feel frightening or like having the air sucked out of him. It feels a little like jealousy, because Regulus is still going to see Sirius, a person who James can’t, after all. It feels a little like worry because Regulus was shaking and unresponsive on a bathroom floor only a few hours ago, and he’s already exiting the house and driving without James being there to make sure he’s okay. It feels a little like longing, because James suspects his body will forever yearn for Regulus until the precise moment where he can have him, all of him, before it fades into the folds of time and the feeling returns again, almost inevitably. Most of all, it feels sweet; bittersweet like the taste of Regulus’ sharp insults upon his tongue and the scent of his signature vanilla cologne clouding his senses in a perfect balance and mixed into something borderline intoxicating because James has become voluntarily addicted to it and has no plans of quitting. Why would he? James leans back against the wall behind him, grinning to himself like an idiot. He won’t quit this, not ever.

Talking of quitting, if James is forced to by his manager he’ll be absolutely devastated, which is why he needs to get a bloody move on so he can state his case before it can be used against him in the almost guaranteed fight for his job stability. James reluctantly pauses his swooning about the man who’s been solely his for seven years, his boyfriend for six and his practical fiancé for two weeks, and grabs his red duffel bag with the sorrowful air of someone marching off to war.

James retrieves his empty water bottle and fills it up at the kitchen sink, and this time he doesn’t feel so great. What James has learnt over the chaotic string of events that have taken up his past few weeks is that your entire world can drop out from underneath you in a matter of hours, and it’s always the shock that stings you the most. He would know, and so would Sirius. He moves through his usual routine of gathering the correct shin pads and protein bars, cursing up a storm when he can’t find the matching second half of the football boots he wanted to wear today and settling grumpily for different, admittedly nicer ones, almost like a machine. The crisp, newly October air bites at him when he steps outside, making him frown in the face of the unforgiving wind whipping at his clothes because James refuses to wear a coat yet, still desperately clinging onto the remnants of summer. Shivering as he clambers into his car, James is thinking about how much he wishes he could go back to before any of this happened, when it was summer, when his life was so much simpler though more confining, when in a shitty coincidence his engine roars to life and it’s Sirius’ new song blasting out of his speakers on the radio. James knows it’s about Remus, and he has so many things he’d like to say to the both of them because of it, light teasing and annoying gushing over how perfect they are together included, and he tries his best to ignore how much it hurts to have to keep his thoughts inside for once. It’s a good song, very romantic and very soft and very different to Sirius’ usual rock n’ roll style, but the considerable lack of slamming drums and whining electric guitar solos actually compliments his voice a lot more than James would’ve thought it would, if you had asked him a few weeks ago. James is proud of Sirius, despite feeling reasonably bitter towards his appalling lack of knowledge about the song before it was released, as he’s never been able to sing of love before, and though he never said it, James could tell it bothered him relentlessly as every other singer out there could and therefore had an advantage against him in the competitive music industry . But then he’d make a big joke about how at least he and James are single together, and James would go very, very silent for the rest of the day out of guilt. Maybe though his life is rather more complicated now than back then, it’s definitely easier in the aspect of not having to pretend to be free on the weekends when he knows full well he’s going to cancel any other plans just to be with Regulus, no matter how selfish that makes him. Plus, as shameful as it sounds, James is largely enjoying practically living together with Regulus and getting to wake up to the warmth of his body and his expression when he sees James lying beside him every single morning, which is something they couldn’t get away with when Sirius would call, and more importantly Facetime, James at odd hours of the night and consistently use his key to come and go from James’ house as he pleases; two things he hasn’t done in an ongoing record amount of time for him. Speaking of, perhaps he should stop giving his house keys out to people, because he knows both of his parents own one too and he’s got an uneasy feeling that at least two of his teammates have them, or used to, as well as he vaguely remembers getting them made at around four in the morning on a night out, drunk out of his mind after winning an away game far into the league a few years ago. He should probably start asking around about that, because if he awakes to Kieran fucking Sparks standing over him and trying to pick him up out of his bed one random Tuesday morning, he might simply combust.

James walks the length of the almost barren carpark, attempting to order his extravagant story in his head of how his finger somehow slipped and managed to call Tom Riddle a bitch on his professional Twitter account for all to see. Despite his jittering nerves, James puts on a strained yet convincing smile for everyone he recognises and passes on his way inside the building, even stopping for a quick conversation with Emmeline Vance, the Gryffindor Lionesses’ team captain, on his way to Moody’s office, hurriedly excusing himself when she brings up the tweet with an amused glint in her dark eyes and a knowing smirk as she watches him power-walk around the corner clearly in the direction of where all of management hangs out. James pushes open the double-doors introducing the grand variety of offices in front of him, duffel bag bouncing against his hip as he determinedly makes his way to Moody’s, the biggest and most unmistakably luxurious one hiding right at the very back. James hears a large hubbub of muffled voices as he nears closer towards the wooden door with Moody’s name inscribed in gold on, and falls short as he raises his fist to knock. He squints as he tries to make out who’s inside through the varying pitches and tones of voices, but everyone seems to be talking over one another, making it impossible to discern even Moody’s demanding barks that James thinks will forever haunt his dreams long after he’s retired. He sets his shoulders and attempts to convince himself that whatever’s going on in there isn’t about him, though the opposite is most likely true, and decides that his knock wouldn’t be heard over all the shouting, simply twisting the door handle, also gold, himself instead. He winces at the deafening creak it makes that silences the sea of aggressively moving mouths crowded around the room in a hushed ripple effect. Eyes wide as a dozen sets of other ones turn to stare at him unapologetically, James finds he does recognise quite a few of them as the strange people that rush up and down the building’s winding corridors with trademark business-casual attire and important clipboards and laptops permanently glued in hand; the Gryffindor media and publicity team. There is someone standing at the very center of all of their unreadable expressions though with a familiar face contorted with something James can actually very easily identify as rage.

“Potter, get your stupid, cocky arse in here right now or you’re fired.” Moody growls loudly when his dodgy, rather menacing glass eye catches sight of him. Whatever-comes-after-quadruple shit.

                                                                      * * *

Sirius

Sirius feels absolutely amazing. He’s just downed his first pint of alcohol in weeks because he’s barely left his house and wasn’t about to go drinking on his own, and decided, rather responsibly, against ordering any bottles to his house with how slippery a slope his mental health has been recently, but Regulus will arrive at the pub they agreed to meet at for lunch soon and can supervise him, therefore Sirius is allowing himself. His goal for the day is to drink just enough to drown out his sorrows, but not enough to tumble into a bottomless pit of despair afterwards; a rather productive Tuesday afternoon if he doesn’t say so himself. Sirius looks up from the sticky table in front of him when a familiar head of hair that could be mistaken for his own enters his peripheral vision, a grin spreading across his face as his brother makes his way to Sirius’ table with wary glances around at all the other day-drinkers that are considerably further gone than Sirius, though they had a head start, and Sirius is determined to catch up. Regulus sits down across from him wordlessly, and Sirius uses that time to assess his appearance after James’ frantic phone call earlier that feels a little like a fever dream now because the news that Regulus was having a panic attack was his alarm this morning, rather than Gordon Ramsay’s aggressive death threats. The ten, strategically placed plasters lining Regulus’ fingers and the raw quality to his tired eyes prove that it was real to Sirius though, and with his own narrowed ones he studies how Regulus’ lips look abnormally crimson and bitten in addition to all of that with a jolt of shock and then disgust. Someone’s had an eventful morning. Regulus tugs off his black puffer jacket that is considerably more casual than the fancy coat Sirius saw on TV the other day, and Sirius’ suspicions are, unfortunately, confirmed.

“I got James that t-shirt,” Sirius points out reluctantly, making a face and wrinkling his nose involuntarily. Regulus blinks and looks down, frowning.

“Well he could have told me that before I went to see you in it,” Regulus mutters irritatedly under his breath, looking very uncomfortable all of a sudden. Sirius’ eyebrows twitch with amusement. 

“So you’re sharing clothes now?” He drawls casually, leaning back in his chair. Regulus’ eyes flicker through about ten different emotions, and then he clears his throat. 

“We’ve always shared our clothes,” Regulus replies haughtily. 

“Always?” Sirius raises his eyebrows. Regulus eyes him for a second doubtfully as if he doesn’t know the right answer to this or why Sirius is even asking in the first place, and tilts his head. 

“Well, no, but in the past few years we have,” Regulus responds uneasily, and Sirius flashes back to when Regulus turned up at his annual halloween party last year in a button-down shirt that looked awfully similar to the one he watched James buy the week before, and how Sirius made fun of them both to strange exchanged looks that he didn’t understand at the time. Sirius flicks his eyes up and down Regulus interrogatively.

“How long have you been living together?” Sirius asks as if he’s merely speaking about the weather, swirling his drink around in its glass and Regulus rears back in his seat, blinking fiercely.

“We’re not living together,” Regulus responds defensively, perhaps a little too quickly and he folds his arms across his chest. Sirius hums thoughtfully.

“Yeah? Where is James now?” He points out, arching a suggestive eyebrow. Regulus stares at him like he’s trying to convey how ridiculous Sirius is being right now, but unluckily for him, Sirius can see the panic flashing in his eyes as he flounders for an excuse.

“At work,” Regulus replies vaguely, shifting his eyes away from Sirius. Sirius isn’t relenting yet, though, and takes a sip of his beer before he leans in closer to Regulus.

“And where was he before that?” Regulus pauses for a long moment, staring at the scratched table in front of him guiltily. Sirius swings on his chair, stretching lazily and smirking because he knows he’s already won.

“My house,” Regulus mutters reluctantly, only meeting Sirius’ gaze again once the words have escaped his mouth, and he looks silently furious. Sirius slams his chair legs back on the ground and rests his chin in his hands braced against the table conspiratorially. 

“Be honest, have you spent a night away from James since we got back from the Solar System?” Sirius presses, and Regulus opens his mouth to argue back before he blinks and his annoyance is succumbed by a realisation crossing his face, and he promptly closes it, looking away from Sirius pettily with his jaw clenched. Sirius narrows his eyes amusedly, answering for him, “No, you haven’t. So you are living together,” Regulus’ head snaps back to attention.

“No, we’re not. We have two different houses,” He insists, gesturing his hand out, apparently done with acting indifferent on the subject. 

“That you both have keys to,” Sirius finishes without missing a beat, and it was really a very lucky guess because Regulus’ face completely flips into shock and then slightly misdirected outrage.

“So? We’re not living together until we say we’re living together, and we haven’t had that conversation yet,” Regulus tells him out of frustration, looking confused with himself afterwards for actually just letting that slip to Sirius, which is quite out of character for him.

“Yet,” Sirius echoes, grinning. Regulus seems like he’s about to start screaming for a second before he rolls his eyes harshly, standing up from his chair.

“I’m going to get a drink,” Regulus grumbles decidedly, and stalks off towards the bar whilst Sirius chuckles to himself in victory. Except his best friend and his baby brother are living together so is he really winning? No, on second thought, he isn’t. Sirius grimaces at his beer glass, watching condensation trickle down absently until Regulus arrives back with two cappuccinos in his hands, placing them lined up next to one another directly in front of himself when he sits down. Sirius flicks his inquisitive gaze from the coffees, to Regulus, to the coffees and back to Regulus again before he decides it’s probably not worth questioning. Besides, he’s got other, more important information to pry out of him still.

“So you had a panic attack this morning,” Sirius begins airily, examining his nails until Regulus groans exhaustedly and slumps low in his chair, looking about the least composed Sirius thinks he’s ever seen him, and coincidentally drawing his attention.

“Do we have to talk about that? We don’t talk about things like this,” Regulus complains angrily between a large, steaming gulp of his coffee, and now it’s Sirius’ turn to roll his eyes.

“Because we don’t have panic attacks anymore to talk about,” Sirius points out impatiently, and when Regulus’ eyebrows raise an inch and his head tilts sceptically, he adds slowly, “Do we?” Regulus’ eyes turn downcast and his lips thin, and Sirius’ jaw drops in alarm. “How often?” He demands, eyebrows creased. Regulus lifts his head, purposely not looking at Sirius as he brings one of his mugs to his lips tentatively, until he does.

“Once a year, give or take. It was due to happen soon anyway; I think seeing yours triggered something in me,” Regulus attempts to joke, wearing an exceptionally strained smile and Sirius just stares, aghast.

“And you didn’t think to let me know?” Sirius asks incredulously, feeling all sorts of complicated emotions inside that mean he has no idea what his face is doing currently, and frankly does not care. Regulus frowns, perplexed.

“Why would I let you know?” He says slowly, and Sirius throws his hands up in the air exasperatedly.

“I don’t know, so I could help you somehow? So at least one person would know because I’d bet money that James sure as hell doesn’t, or didn’t, rather,” Sirius explodes, unable to help himself.

“My therapist knew!” Regulus counters guardedly, eyes wide, and Sirius actually huffs out a laugh.

“Oh yeah, and what’s Gerald gonna do?” Sirius cackles humorlessly, and Regulus cracks a mean smile, allowing himself to agree with this. Sirius takes a long, thoughtful sip of his beer and studies Regulus’ red-rimmed eyes over the top of his glass. “I take it James didn’t know you were meeting me,” He remarks regrettably, and Regulus sighs.

“No, he didn’t. I think we’re fine now though,” Regulus says wearily, and Sirius can’t help but notice the sore quality to his lips again and think to himself disapprovingly that they’re probably more than fine by the looks of things. Shaking those haunting thoughts away, Sirius tilts his head curiously with newfound purpose.

“Why didn’t you tell him before? Why wait?” He asks with a draw of his eyebrows that part and raise when Regulus’ cheeks flush red and he suddenly starts ignoring the existence of Sirius’ body at all costs.

“It’s complicated,” Regulus replies hastily in an odd voice, fidgeting in his seat. Sirius squints at him for a minute.

“You wanted to get fucked by your boyfriend and then got too scared to tell him,” Sirius guesses bluntly, surprising Regulus so much he almost falls off his chair. Attempting to recover under Sirius’ harsh older brother gaze, Regulus grips the table in front of him until his knuckles grow white and takes a deep breath, face positively crimson.

“More or less,” Regulus responds carefully, clearly aiming to sound normal and ends up far from it, and Sirius can tell how much he wants to break their eye contact from the way they keep wandering off to the side before being forced back to interlock with Sirius’ stern ones again.

“You wanted to fuck your boyfriend and then got too scared to tell him,” Sirius corrects himself lazily, and Regulus immediately downs the remainders of his cappuccinos in a rather impressive display and just fully gets up out of his seat to walk away. Scandalised, Sirius thinks he’s leaving the pub entirely until he says otherwise.

“I’m getting more coffee,” Regulus mutters half-heartedly, shaking his head as he walks over to the bar. 

“You can’t keep avoiding conversations like this!” Sirius calls out after him, turning several heads, including Regulus’ who displays a borderline murderous expression just for him before turning back to the bartender serving him.

“No more talking about my love life,” Regulus declares when he returns and settles back down with an armful of espresso shots that he arranges on the table in a particular order.

“Fine,” Sirius agrees, distracted by the sheer amount of caffeine Regulus has just brought with him, and that’s coming from Sirius. Entertained, Sirius looks from the shots to Regulus, already taking one, and arches an eyebrow, lips twitching playfully. “Why are you attempting to have a heart attack?” Regulus shoots him a flat look from over the top of his small, now empty cup. 

“I accidentally had seven shots of espresso in a row last week and James has had me on a caffeine ban since,” Regulus explains with a bitter tone to his voice, though that could just be the espresso twisting his expression into a grimace. Sirius shakes his head disbelievingly. 

“So now you’re going to completely go against that?” Sirius asks because though he doesn’t have much real experience, especially recently, he’s pretty sure that when your partner asks you to stop doing something, you don’t go behind their back to carry on doing it. “I would pay to see you high on caffeine, by the way,” He adds for good measure, and Regulus rolls his eyes, reaching for a second shot. 

“How is it going with Remus?” He not-so-subtly changes the subject, watching Sirius carefully for a visible reaction with a knowing smile of his own. Sirius’ face breaks out into a grin, and he takes a small gulp of his beer before speaking. 

“I’m going to see him this Friday,” He responds excitedly, aware and careless of how ridiculous he probably is coming across right now. Regulus raises his eyebrows, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms as if getting comfortable for Sirius’ rather inevitable lovesick rant. It’s a good job he is, because Sirius can feel it bubbling up in his throat higher and higher before words spill out of his mouth uncontrollably and enthusiastically. “We’ve been texting and calling everyday, and I was so worried my song was going to make it awkward or change things but somehow it’s gotten even better because of it, and it’s so incredible, like I’ve never felt like this before, Reggie. I think he could be The One. Obviously I’m trying not to get overly-attached so early, but it’s so hard not to when he’s so –so him. We’ve kissed and stuff but obviously because of the long distance we haven’t seen each other in a while to kiss again, but we’re still saying that we both want to, and that we’re not seeing other people so I’m not too worried about whether he likes me romantically. I just– I don’t know whether he likes me as much as I do him, like I can’t tell, but I suppose there’s always someone who’s more in love in a relationship, isn’t there? Or is there? You would know. Well, I don’t think that rule applies to you and James from what I’ve seen. Still really fucking weird for me to think about, by the way, but I’m trying to move past it. Anyway, I’m really excited about this, I think it could be really good for me. I mean, I wrote and released a love song, that must mean something, right? I actually can’t wait to see him, though, if you can’t tell. I’ve been missing him a lot, I guess.” Sirius finishes sheepishly, feeling the tips of his cheekbones begin to burn red, cursing both himself and Remus for making this happen to him, the bastard. And his parents for this pale skin that has been exposing him a bit too much lately.

Regulus listens to him interestedly, something like amusement and even affection sparking in his eyes as he turns over Sirius’ words in his head so he can come up with a suitable response to satisfy Sirius’ shameless attention seeking complex. Sirius’ eyebrows twitch as he remembers something else, and he regards Regulus curiously. “Remus mentioned the other day that you sent a load of your new books to the Solar System for him?” Regulus blinks, momentarily thrown by the unexpected offhand comment that came out more like a question before his expression settles into something indifferent, and he nods approvingly.

“I did. He asked for them when we were at the Solar System after he heard about my book deal,” He says by way of explanation, and Sirius takes this in with a tilt of his head as he wonders when on earth they had time to arrange that. 

“Oh, right. I don’t know why you’re still with the Sacred Twenty-Eight, though, honestly, there’s so many better, nicer publishers out there, Reg,” Sirius points out nonchalantly, not trying to anger his brother but he couldn’t not say it. Regulus scowls, proving his attempt failed, and he is, in fact, angry. 

“It may not be the nicest to its clients, but it is the best, that’s undeniable. Why are you still with the Sacred Twenty-Eight, Sirius?” Regulus counters sharply. Sirius frowns. He did, admittedly, have that coming as the terrifying, elitist publishing house Regulus uses for his books coincidentally doubles as Sirius’ terrifying, elitist record label that the devil named Igor Karkaroff spawned from. 

“You know I would’ve left years ago if I could,” Sirius snaps, his voice icy as he gestures a hand out to emphasise his point. It’s safe to say this is a sore subject for them; the summary of it is is that Regulus voluntarily works for the company that has haunted Sirius’ life for nearly a decade and doesn’t understand why Sirius wants to join a different label when this one pays so much money, and Sirius doesn’t understand why Regulus wouldn’t want to join a different publisher when this one treats him so horribly as a person, despite how much money it makes him. Regulus exhales deeply, running a tired hand over his face. 

“I know,” He admits defeatedly, and they fall into a tense sort of silence until Regulus flicks his eyes back to Sirius, and they no longer carry any resentment, but a question. “Have you read it?” He asks with an eagerness that would probably encourage him into never speaking again if Sirius commented on it, and Sirius blinks confusedly, his short-lived grudge from their small argument steadily fading. He recounts their conversation in his head, expressing a loud ‘oh’ when he pieces together what Regulus must be talking about, and then winces at the child-like hope twinkling in Regulus’ eyes because no, Sirius has not read it. 

“Your new book? I’m sorry, I got the one you sent to my house but you’ve got to understand I’ve been a bit of a mess and quite angry at you this week so I haven’t read it yet,” He apologises, genuinely meaning it and feeling hot shame wash over him when Regulus’ face falls. “I’ll start as soon as I get home, though, I promise! I’ve heard lots of good things about it,” Sirius rushes, winking as he says this last part because it’s true, he has, both through Remus and online, prompting Regulus to, of course, roll his eyes before he straightens in his seat and clears his throat quietly. 

“Have you seen the dedication?” Regulus’ tone sounds strangely formal, which Sirius knows is his coping method for forcing out words that he doesn’t particularly want to be heard, and so immediately pricks up his ears. Sirius considers this, thinking back to a few nights ago when he was scrolling through the official critics’ reviews for the book after letting his curiosity get the better of him, and doesn’t come up with any relevant knowledge to the dedication, of all things. Sirius’ eyebrows furrow in concentration. 

“No, I don’t think so. Why?” Sirius responds, feeling even more puzzled when Regulus visibly accepts this and takes a deep breath, fishing around for his phone in his coat pocket behind him. It’s only as Regulus is swiping and tapping on his screen, just about to push the phone across the table for Sirius to examine that Sirius’ slow brain connects the dots and he realises what this all could mean with a shocked gasp that he doesn’t have time to exaggerate before exactly what he had just suspected is being spelt out for him on the screen now resting in front of him. 

For the brightest star in the sky.

Sirius stares blankly down at the tab open on the digitized version of Regulus’ book, the beginning dedication page displayed for him, and it really is for him because Sirius, Sirius is the brightest star in the sky. And it says here that Regulus dedicated his latest bestselling book released at the height of his fame to Sirius, not James, not his fans, not any of his friends that Sirius would name but Regulus didn’t tell him shit about his life until recently so he can’t. Sirius presses a shaky hand to his mouth, and tilts his head to meet Regulus with watery eyes. Regulus rears back in his seat, jaw dropped in repulse. 

“Are you crying? Stop. Stop it right now. Sirius, I said stop!” Regulus snaps, eyes wide and frantic with alarm, and Sirius shakes his head, tears streaming down his cheeks from a blurred gaze that can’t stop drifting back to those beautiful words branded against Regulus’ phone screen. Regulus snatches it back when he notices this, muttering French curses under his breath at Sirius’ stupid, emotional patheticness that he doesn’t really care about enough to feel offended right now. 

“I’m sorry, just— you wrote that for me?” Sirius’ voice cracks horribly, and Regulus’ face screws up in disgust, but he nods curtly. 

“Yes,” He answers stonily, and Sirius watches with growing anticipation as he tilts his head to the side in thought, his gaze slowly sliding back to Sirius’ sordid sniffling state, “One of the main characters is based off of you,” He admits reluctantly, and when Sirius lets out a quiet sob his eyes bulge in panic and he quickly adds, “He gets framed for murder and ends up in prison for twelve years though, so it’s really not a compliment,” Sirius nods through his tears in acceptance of this, drawing deep breaths and scrubbing at his face in an attempt to pull himself together because he can see even through swimming vision that Regulus is both of the verge of his seat and leaving. Once confident no more tears will escape his eyes unwanted by not only Regulus but himself, he removes his hands from his face revealing a small, knowing smile that he’s always been told is miraculous to appear straight after being quite upset, except this time it was happy tears so it really doesn’t count. 

“Is he punk rock?” Sirius asks, sounding surprisingly steady and humorous, though Regulus doesn’t look even slightly fazed by the whole affair, mildly shaken if anything at having to see Sirius cry and because of something as mundane as a book dedication, but an incredulous yet affectionate smile creeps up on his face unknowingly, balancing it. Regulus narrows his eyes slightly in thought.

“He tries to be, and he thinks he is, but everyone around him knows he’s not and makes fun of it behind his back,” Regulus answers with a pointed raise of his eyebrows, and they both dissolve into laughter, Sirius pressing an offended hand to his chest, his mouth dropping open. 

Suddenly Regulus’ eyes wander past Sirius’ shoulder and all of the humour drains out of him, taking Sirius’ with it. 

“What?” Sirius hisses, leaning forward, but Regulus doesn’t pay any attention to him, his gaze frighteningly unwavering and his eyebrows drawn together in either concern, confusion, or both. Sirius huffs, and is about to whip around and see what all the fuss is about when he feels the air change behind him and nervous whispering fade into earshot, and discovers he knows exactly what’s going on, and has been through it a million times over already. Suddenly he’s exceptionally grateful Regulus forced him to stop crying a few minutes ago, otherwise he’d be stuck in an extremely humiliating situation right now. Closing his eyes and just breathing, grounding himself for a moment, Sirius lets them fly open again and a dazzling smile magically appears on his face at the same time, and it feels like becoming a newer, shinier person. Sure enough, he spins around in his chair smoothly just before the swaying middle-aged man standing behind him can tap him on the shoulder, his daughter who can’t be much older than nine cowering behind his leg shyly, biting her lip in anticipation. Well, Sirius doesn’t like to stereotype his listeners but it’s safe to say he certainly wasn’t expecting this to be what he saw when he turned around, more used to being met with teary-eyed teenagers or fucking cool twenty-somethings that he immediately becomes best friends with after. So excuse him if it takes him a minute to blink a few times, smile never leaving his face, obviously, and adjust to this… unusual age range. He does though – he’s a professional, after all – and flicks his eyes up to meet the considerably wrinkly face towering above him, batting his eyelashes because somewhere during the time in which he’s become a musician Sirius created a certain edgy and flirtatious bicon image for himself that he can’t really give up now, and when it’s not going too far like his manager keeps trying to take it, he even finds it fun to uphold. The man seems too tipsy to notice, though, or just accepts his fate as he grins widely and unflatteringly back, beckoning for his daughter to step forward and show herself to Sirius. And God, she looks even tinier when half of her body isn’t obscured by who Sirius presumes, and hopes, is her father, but because Sirius is sitting down she just about reaches up to his nose which Sirius suspects helps soothe her nerves greatly because she starts to beam excitedly at him the closer she gets, almost vibrating on the spot by the time she arrives at his feet and her two brunette plaits swing around her shoulders with the force of it. 

“Hi,” Sirius says, smiling softly and the girl makes a quiet squealing noise, bouncing on the balls of her feet and looking up to her father excitedly, making Sirius chuckle. Her father looks proudly down at her as if he somehow organised for Sirius to be in this pub just for her, and thinking about it, why is this little girl in a pub? Isn’t there a law against that? Apparently not. The man nudges his daughter encouragingly on the arm, and Sirius watches amusedly as she takes a deep breath before meeting his eye, getting lost in them for a moment, open-mouthed, until her father nudges her again and she blinks rapidly, cheeks rosy. 

“H-Hi, I’m...Rosie,” The little girl almost whispers, smiling nervously, and Sirius thinks her name is exceptionally fitting. “You’re one of my favourite singers,” Her voice grows a little more confident now, and Sirius’ heart is melting. 

“Hi Rosie, it’s really nice to meet you. I like your hair,” Sirius grins and nods to the animated skull and crossbone hair clip pinned to the top of her left plait, suddenly not having any doubts that she listens to his music anymore. Rosie blushes, and before Sirius can register what she’s doing, she takes the clip out of her plait and presents it to him in the palm of her small hand. 

“You can have it, if you want,” She offers sweetly, her other hand fidgeting with the hem of her jumper restlessly. Sirius blinks, looking back to her from the clip with wide eyes. Rosie must sense his scepticism as she shakes her head dismissively, pushing her hand closer towards Sirius. “I really want you to have it. My mum doesn’t like it, anyway. She says it’s too grown up for me,”  Rosie frowns like she very much disagrees with this statement before she seems to remember she’s talking to her favourite singer, or one of them, at least, and her eyes bulge with mortification, her whole face flushing red this time. Rosie really is the perfect name for her. Sirius smiles to put her at ease, and encloses his hand gently around the one she’s brandishing the clip with, and she gasps lightly.

“I think it looks perfect on you, Rosie, which is why I want you to keep it,” Rosie opens her mouth to argue, eyebrows drawn together, but shuts it again when Sirius continues speaking, “but I’ll take it if you really want me to have it.” She nods earnestly, “Thank you so much, I’ll wear it at one of my concerts soon, so you need to look out for it, okay? Do you think you’ll be going to one?” Sirius asks, taking the clip carefully from her and sliding it onto his undone leather jacket for all to see, actually quite liking the way it looks. Rosie watches him do this, looking like she can’t quite believe her eyes before she replies to his question with a doubtful smile back at her dad who looks positively zoned out in a drunken haze, staring at the wall above Regulus’ head. 

“I hope so. It’ll be my first concert,” She tells him sheepishly, wringing her hands together. Sirius desperately wishes he had something to give her in return for the hair clip, until he realises he does.

“How about I make sure you come and give you some free tickets? I’ll get your dad’s email in a second, and you’ll just have to make sure he checks for an email from me when my tour gets announced. Would you like that?” Sirius' smile widens so much his cheekbones begin to ache when Rosie’s face lights up like he assumes it would on Christmas morning because she’s a child, nodding enthusiastically and she does actually start jumping up and down on the spot at one point, seemingly involuntarily, prompting the two of them to laugh together afterwards. Rosie smiles with all of her gapped teeth.

“Thank you, thank you! You’re so nice, and I love your new song, too. Do you think you’ll play it live?” Rosie gushes, her eyes alighting with hope. Sirius raises his eyebrows, he hadn’t even thought about that yet himself.

“I might do, we’ll have to see,” He answers vaguely, not wanting to promise anything, especially not to a little kid. She accepts this graciously, though, nodding her head energetically.

“I hope you do. I’ve learnt all the lyrics already, and so have all my friends. They’re going to be so jealous that I met you,” Her expression turns ridiculously smug and Sirius throws his head back and laughs. He likes Rosie. “Sorry I interrupted your time with your brother. Hi Regulus.” Rosie smiles meekly and gives a very startled Regulus a little wave over Sirius’ shoulder, “Thank you for talking with me for so long, you’re really inspiring in your music and in real life, I think. Do you–do you think I could get a photo?” Sirius stares back at her in awe because there is no way she’s really talking about him, a man who is currently meeting his brother for the first time in a few weeks after completely refusing to speak to him, or read his new book, in this way. And yet, she is. Blinking frantically, Sirius agrees appreciatively and adjusts his hair and jewellery as Rosie fights to not only get her dad’s attention, but explain to him that he needs to find his phone; a difficult task when the man is very nearly shit-faced drunk. Sirius would like to remind the imaginary audience to his internal monologue that it is only two in the afternoon, and he’s got his young daughter with him, though Sirius can’t really judge because he’s been passed out on the floor of a foreign club at ten in the morning before – yes, it was closed, no, there was nobody else left in the building, and yes, he did have to call emergency services to let him out because the doors were locked and he couldn’t read the signs to see when they opened again. 

A minute or so later, Rosie bounces back over to Sirius, phone over-sized in her tiny hand, and looking extremely exasperated with what Sirius can only presume is her dad but that quickly fades when Sirius grins at her, and she grins back, a hint of mischief in it that Sirius loves. She opens the camera app and tilts the phone so it’s horizontal, stretching her arm out as for as it will go and Sirius leans in so he’s perfectly in the frame as well as she is, face automatically sliding into his signature smirk and dangerous eyes that he’s been relentlessly media trained to pull out every time a camera’s around. Rosie clicks the photo button a couple times and lowers the phone, turning it off and whirling around to hand it back over to her stumbling father. When she returns to Sirius’ side, there’s a sad quality to her eyes, like she’s already missing a moment she’s still in. Sirius absolutely adores kids, he’s decided, and is branching out his stereotypical listeners further to include mini-rebels just like Rosie. 

“It was so nice to meet you! I really hope I can go to your concert. Thank you so much for the free tickets, I’ll tell my dad about them tomorrow,” Rosie rolls her eyes as she looks over to where her dad is deep in conversation with some doddery old man wearing a tweed jacket, and following her gaze, Sirius laughs. Rosie giggles at herself for a second until her expression mellows into a sweet, regretful smile. “Goodbye,” Sirius feels oddly emotional.

“Goodbye, it was lovely to meet you too, Rosie. And don’t forget to carry on wearing your hair clips and whatever else you want, no matter what anyone else says because you fucking rock them, and you can tell your mum that next time she says you’re too old for something,” Sirius’ head tilts as he watches Rosie’s eyes widen with awe when he swears, something he had forgotten he’s not supposed to do in front of children, and decides to revise his statement a bit. “Maybe don’t swear at her, but you get the point,” Sirius says sheepishly, and Rosie laughs, clutching her stomach, and thanks him one more time before she skips away happily to her father and the old man, and Sirius watches her immediately start to chatter excitedly at them from a distance, a fond smile on his own face. Just as he’s about to turn back to Regulus, Rosie’s father is pointing an outstretched finger in his direction, startling him and then the man starts nudging the elderly one he seems to have adopted next to him with his elbow, and the grandpa adjusts his glasses fruitlessly as he stares at Sirius’ face before fully giving up on attempting to see and staggers off towards the bar. Rosie’s father, however, begins striding straight towards Sirius and Regulus again, with a purpose that Sirius can’t help but dread the origin of. Although when the red-faced man reaches their table, his daughter standing and cringing a few, awkward metres away, he walks straight past Sirius, to his admittedly vain shock, and instead lands beside Regulus who is gazing up at him with a certain mix of fear, irritance and threat in his eyes. The man squints down at Regulus’ face concentratedly, as if he’s searching for something he can’t find.

“You–You’re the bloke who was at the football match the other day, weren’t ya?” The man sways on the spot and attempts to point at Regulus but misses and somehow ends up booping him on the nose instead, and Sirius could actually piss himself laughing. Regulus jolts and scrapes his chair further away from the man, looking downright appalled. 

“I was at the Gryffindor Lions’ football match on Saturday, yes,” Regulus answers slowly, his eyes murdering Rosie’s poor, blissfully unaware dad ten times over. The man beams in recognition, rambling incoherently about the match and what he thought of it and what he thinks Regulus must’ve thought of it too, with being in the VIP box to watch and all, whilst Regulus’ eyebrows furrow in concentration as he nods along apprehensively, bravely attempting to follow the man’s slurred words and wild arm waving. Sirius folds his arms, eyes sparking with amusement, and shakes his head with a mock-sympathetic pout when Regulus shoots a desperate look in his direction. 

“Is James Potter here?” Rosie’s father asks, who Sirius thinks is named Paul from what he managed to pick up in the conversation between his own cackles and Paul’s drunken ones, his head swinging around the room wildly as if James will suddenly run in in his football gear, ready to sign an autograph or something. Regulus scrunches his nose in distaste, like the thought of allowing this man who booped him on the nose anywhere near James is genuinely laughable because of how unrealistic it is.

“No, he’s not here,” Regulus snaps, and Sirius’ eyebrows fly up. Someone needs to get PR trained. Paul’s face falls with disappointment, though he doesn’t stop craning his neck around for James just in case Regulus is wrong, prompting Regulus to drop his head into his hands with badly contained outrage. Paul gives up only when his neck grows tired, and turns back to Regulus with a toothy smile. 

“Can I get a picture, mate? I need to show Big Bazza I met you, he’s from the chip shop, I don’t know if you—” Paul starts shamelessly and Regulus interrupts him before he can go off in another tangent, closing his eyes with frustration.

“Yes, you can get a picture,” Regulus says, his tone deceivingly calm and even, and Sirius’ smile fades instinctively at the audible danger that looms behind it. Paul’s doesn’t though, in fact his grows wider as he fumbles for his phone in his jacket pocket, actually hurrahing victoriously when he grabs hold of it, much to Regulus’ obvious scandalization as the noise, unfortunately, is directed right in his ear. Paul spins around, pointing his finger far too close to Sirius’ face and for one, terrifying moment he thinks he’s going to get booped as well, until it wanders over to his forehead and starts poking away up there instead. Sirius bats it away, mildly horrified, and looks back to this stupid man with a sharp glint rolling off of his silver eyes like a knife poised to stab. 

“You! Get in as well, mate, you’re famous too,” Paul waves Sirius over frantically, and speaks condescendingly and impatiently in a way that Sirius suspects is because of the considerable amount of years the other man has on him, even if there’s one thing Sirius has learnt during his time in the music industry, it’s that age certainly does not equal intelligence, emotionally or academically. Sirius rolls his eyes behind Paul’s back as he gets up from seat to crouch beside Regulus who suddenly looks very uncertain on why he agreed to this in the first place, something Sirius is also wondering as Paul accidentally not only switches his phone camera onto video, but slo-mo as well, just to make matters even better. Sirius smirks as always, and Regulus attempts to look normal when he very much doesn’t feel it, as always, and after the photo is taken they together send Paul bumbling back off towards his visibly pained daughter with one, final matching Black family glare. Sirius shakes his head after him, considering how the fuck such a plain idiot can produce such an amazing child, then thinks amusedly to himself that his parents would know all about that, having somehow done it twice. 

Sirius walks around the table to sit back down, huffing a sigh and scrubbing at his face furiously so his vision turns into a kaleidoscope for a moment before it settles back into Regulus doing the same thing opposite him.

“Are they always like that?” Regulus asks, his hands falling from his face, eyeing Sirius wearily like that whole exchange was his fault. Sirius makes a face, shaking his head slowly from side to side. 

“No, definitely not,” He answers honestly, because normally his fans are considerably younger and sober when he meets them, even though occasionally they can be just as intrusive as Paul was to boop not only Sirius on the nose, but Regulus too. Sirius fingers his new skull and crossbone hair clip absent-mindedly against his jacket and when Regulus notices this, he smiles knowingly, eyes twinkling. 

“When was the last time you spoke to a little kid?” Regulus inquires, eyebrows quirking, presumably in reference to how he just taught a nine year old girl to tell her mother to fuck off whenever she’s ordered to wear something she doesn’t want to. Sirius still considers this a valuable life lesson, but has an odd feeling Rosie’s mum would disagree. Sirius laughs, running a hand through his hair as a crease appears between his eyebrows in concentration. 

“God, I don’t know, I think it must have been…” Sirius trails off, tilting his head before he lights up with a revelation, snapping his fingers, “Dora. Andy’s daughter, Dora, I haven’t seen her in years, have you?” Sirius exclaims, genuinely curious for Regulus’ answer because the last time he saw his cousin Andromeda and her daughter Dora, legally Nymphadora but Sirius truly believes that name is a crime in itself and so has vowed to never utter it again since the first time he heard it, was about three years ago when he visited them in France, and Dora was only five years old, though Regulus did not come with him. Regulus blinks and screws his face up in thought for a few moments.

“Two years ago when I was in Paris for a business meeting and Andromeda offered for me to stay with her, even though we hadn’t spoken in ages,” Regulus answers solemnly, a faraway look to his eyes as he sifts through the memories. Sirius takes this in and nods interestedly, not surprised by Andy’s act of kindness in the slightest. 

“Are you still in contact with her? We text occasionally, but I wish we were closer. It would be nice to have some family that’s not just each other, you know?” Sirius says idly, busy swirling around his lukewarm beer in its glass and not seeing how Regulus’ face falls.

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t know you texted, I don’t think we ever have, except for a little while after I stayed with her, but that kind of fizzled out on its own. What, do you text her first? Should I be doing that? I don’t even know her birthday anymore,” Sirius looks up to find Regulus’ eyes wide in panic and his demeanour oddly stressed, and for once it’s Sirius rolling his eyes, not Regulus. 

“Relax, will you? It’s kind of equal between us, and I bet if you sent a text asking how she is every once in a while then she would do the same for you. And her birthday is the fourteenth of September, but Dora’s is the third of November so you could talk to her about that, if you’re looking for a conversation topic,” Sirius berates him until Regulus’ shoulders visibly deflate a bit, resisting the urge to roll his eyes again because his brother is just really that ridiculous sometimes. Regulus sips thoughtfully at one of his remaining espresso shots instead of chugging it, which Sirius counts as some sort of win towards the active achievement of not encouraging his brother to have a heart attack before the ripe age of thirty, and hums dismissively when he eventually sets it down again. 

“Maybe. Do you want to get food?” Regulus changes the subject, and Sirius blinks but picks up one of the discarded menus spread across their table as an answer, his eyes searching for one specific thing and grinning hungrily when they find it. He throws the menu down again with no use for it anymore and Regulus peers at him sceptically from over the top of his own. 

“You already know what you’re getting?” Regulus raises his eyebrows, and Sirius smirks, nodding. Regulus gestures for him to continue impatiently with his hand and so Sirius leans back in his chair coolly, taking his time before answering, primarily to piss Regulus off and teach him the ever-important virtue of patience, and partially because though Regulus won’t know the weight behind his next words, it still feels heavy for him to lift them out of his own mouth. 

“The spaghetti carbonara,” Sirius says simply, hoping that the frenzy of butterflies that have taken up residence in his stomach do not show on his face because he doesn’t particularly feel like explaining that he’s been eating a recreation of the one meal Remus has cooked him at any chance he gets over these past few weeks, not even to Regulus. Especially not to Regulus. Regulus eyes him suspiciously for a moment, and Sirius holds his breath in silent prayer, before they flick back to the menu boredly, and he releases it loudly like an idiot, causing them to repeat the whole process again. Eventually, Regulus tosses his menu to the side and just decides to get the same as Sirius with a frustrated sigh, and Sirius tries not to think about how weird it feels that Regulus is going to eat the meal he’s labelled in his head as the food one should eat when one wants to express their eternal devotion and appreciation to the God of Remus Lupin, and attempts to hide his tiny, uncontrollable smile as he tells his order to the bartender in fear of Regulus who is waiting beside him calling him out on it in front of other people, and in general. 

They return to their table in content silence, and Sirius considers asking Regulus to tell him about some of his friends, even though he knows the odd question will be met with a judgemental glare and rejection, however Regulus saves himself from the trouble of going through all of that and brings up something else Sirius is perfectly willing to speak about instead. 

“Have you seen James’ latest tweet?” Regulus asks, a weariness overtaking his tone and facial expression that makes Sirius lean in curiously. 

“No?” He says, raising his eyebrows as Regulus exhales a deep, long sigh, reaching for his phone for the second time since he’s been here, and for a second time Sirius feels anticipation rise in his chest as he watches Regulus tap at his screen concentratedly, though he doesn’t have an unexpected grand revelation before it’s handed over to him this time. Sirius scans the Twitter page open in front of him, starting with the tweet that Tom Riddle has tagged James in that Regulus certainly did not mention and he had no idea about, and then James’ short and sort of iconic reply. Sirius goes to cackle at the display in front of him that is frankly hilarious when you know both Riddle and James personally, before he spots Regulus’ regrettable expression staring back at him disapprovingly and his smile fades, his humour found in the situation going with it without explanation. Sirius checks the timestamps on the tweets and the incomprehensible amount of likes, shares, and retweets below them, and puts two and two together with a small gasp, his second grand revelation running slightly late. Regulus really did have an eventful morning, and he can only guess what this means for James and his career. 

“Shit,” Sirius whispers, eyes wide, and Regulus nods gravely in agreement. 

“Shit, indeed.” Regulus replies, shaking his head disbelievingly, and takes a long sip of his espresso before turning to Sirius with a particular glint in his eye that Sirius knows all too well and loves. “Let me tell you what happened. Listen to this, right,” Regulus begins, taking one more sip of his coffee that Sirius uses to get comfortable and ready for an infamous Black family gossip session before continuing, leaning in conspiratorially. “So Alastor Moody is spamming James’ phone and he screams back—”

                                                                     * * *

James

“—the word what really aggressively, and apparently Moody is like shouting at him to get it together, but James isn’t replying so—” James hears the whispering of the interns walking behind him as he makes his way back to the changing rooms alone after training because he was, thankfully, not fired but very clearly warned that he’s growing bloody close to it. Word has gotten out about James’ tweet both in Gryffindor F.C building and the rest of the goddamn world, and it feels like everybody is talking about him. Having reached his absolute limits around about when Moody shouted at him for not receiving a frankly obscene pass from Caradoc Dearborn, who did apologise profusely to James afterwards but still, it’s the principle of the thing, right after getting absolutely torn apart by an entire publicity team and other apparently important people dressed in suits that he swears he’s never seen before, not to mention Moody himself, and eventually Kingsley joined them as well once he caught wind of the everybody-let's-hurl-insults-at-James-and-threaten-his-job party going on inside Moody’s office, James spins around on his heel sharply to face the two gossiping interns. They can’t be much younger than him, and James enjoys the panic flitting across their fresh faces when they realise the man they’ve been talking about in badly hushed voices for the past five minutes has been listening in front of them the entire time, and is now reaching a point where he’s quietly seething at not only the universe in general, but the two of them specifically as well. 

“What you’re talking about is none of your fucking business, who even are you two? I can get you fired in the next ten minutes if I want to,” It might be possible that James is projecting a little bit. “and I do, but I won’t because I’m a nice fucking person who doesn’t talk about other people’s personal lives. Now, where do you need to be? The cafe to get people’s coffees for them?” James rants angrily, laughing when they both slowly nod their stupid heads together at his last question, eyes wide with fear. “Go on then before I tell the people you’re getting them for how unprofessional you’re both being in the workplace, and how the reason you take so goddamn long is because you walk like sloths whilst working for a sports team, of all things. Honestly, pick up the pace or pick up the unemployment line. You know what, just go and get your coffees that aren’t even for you, and keep my name out of your fucking mouths whilst you’re at it.” James finishes bitterly, punctuating his sentence with an judgemental arched eyebrow that is actually the thing that makes the two interns scuttle off down the hallway worriedly, nearly jogging in their haste to get away from him, and maybe that shouldn’t feel so good for James but it really does. Regulus would be proud, he thinks, and usually that wouldn’t necessarily be classed as a good thing in his head, as much as he loves the man, but James has taken far too much verbal abuse and stress today to act as anything other than completely hostile anymore.

He trudges down the hallway to the Lions’ changing rooms and doesn’t let himself wonder about how Regulus and Sirius are getting on because with the mood he’s found himself in, that would be a devastating idea, for everyone involved. Instead, he goes over his dragging list of orders he’s meant to carry out in the operation to save his, and the Lions’, reputation that all the people James was trapped in the office with devised frantically whilst he sat with his head hung low in guilt for all of the excess work he’s causing and listened. Apparently, the only solution here is to use the angle of James and Riddle’s infamous rivalry to the best of their ability so the tweets turn into the publicity stunt James thought it was in the first place – turns out nobody was warned that Riddle would post something like that, knowing full well the effect it would have on social media, or understands what he’s trying to hint at in reference to the Yule Ball. James still thinks he’s bullshitting, but whatever. James has been told to ‘wait patiently with open ears’ for the next move that Riddle is bound to make, whether it’s choreographed by the Slytherin Snakes’ and Gryffindor Lions’ media managers together or by the man himself alone, and that he’s not allowed to make any activity on his official social media accounts without express permission from someone working for their publicity sector. This is fine by James, because at least they’re not asking him to do anything yet, but he’s understandably weary of what’s yet to come. Riddle couldn’t have just kept his big mouth shut, honestly? Apparently fucking not.

With a face like thunder, James bangs his way into the changing rooms to find the entirety of his team already there and changing back into their home clothes, most of their hair dripping wet from the showers and creating annoying, damp little puddles all over the floor. James took the long route around from the training pitch to avoid wasting the remainder of the heavily drained amount of social battery he has left in him after the day he’s had, and now just prays that the warning in his eyes will advise anyone thinking about it against using it up. He knows he’s the Captain and should be bouncing around the changing rooms like an excitable puppy, hollering about how amazing everyone is after they won against Durmstrang the other day, and it was for his exceeding ability to do just this that he got appointed as such in the first place, but his teammates have all seen the tweet, most of them even before he did, and how harshly Moody and Kingsley were treating him during training today, and so even if they don’t know the full story, they know enough to stay out of his way for at least a little while. Or so he thought. 

James strides over to his locker with his head straight, ignoring all of the concerned expressions and exchanged looks he still manages to catch in his peripheral vision, snatching up his stuff and forcing his way into a shower cubicle with a bang as the door shuts a little too hard, stunning the murmured voices around the room into silence. James closes his eyes, cringing, as he listens to it ensue in his wake and sends silent thank-yous to the ABBA gods above when he begins to run the water and everyone takes this as a cue to hesitantly carry on with their conversations, the volume of the room climbing into something familiar and comfortable that relaxes James’ shoulders, along with the steaming water pattering against his tense muscles. How can a day that started out so brilliantly go so, so wrong? It turns out when the walking-talking catalyst named James Potter is involved, it really isn’t all that difficult. He lets his head fall back against the thin wall of the cubicle, scalding water raining down on his face, burning into his eyes and taking the shape of Regulus’ juddering body sprawled out on the floor earlier that’s become a mold for all of his other thoughts since, because fuck, why didn’t he know what to do? Why didn’t he know how good at hiding Regulus could be, both with his panic attacks in plain sight and when he wants to get away from someone in his own home? Why is he only finding out how to help him now, how to speak a single word of French now, when Regulus has always needed help and English has never been his first language, since the first day James had met him over a decade ago? And here he is, receiving praise online and by his own teammates before he shut them up with a deadly glare when they first poured into the building noisily today, for publicly calling another man a bitch, and meaning it. James is really beginning to think the universe has something serious against him, that or he just has exceptionally poor judgement when it comes to his life decisions and their fateful outcomes. 

James runs a towel through his hair, tugging on today’s pair of joggers, some nice sapphire blue ones that his mum says compliments his skin tone well, unwilling to drop his towel in the changing room and get wolf-whistled at by Kieran today, and quickly pulls on a white t-shirt before exiting his cubicle feeling less like he’s going to explode than when he entered it, which is a win by his standards. Peter is standing at his own locker besides James’ when he arrives back, arguing heatedly with Gilderoy over what seems like an unmarked bottle of cologne, Gilderoy’s signature, famously secret scent if James is correct, though they both quieten with a few final hisses to one another in fleeting attempts to get the last word in before James approaches, internally sighing at how everyone seems to be treading on eggshells around him now. Everyone except Kieran Sparks, obviously. James is just innocently putting his glasses on when the nuisance of a man comes bounding up behind him, clapping him on the shoulder aggressively a few times which he receives with not even a single attempt at a fake smile, tugging his body away from his tight grasp with a grunt. James tries so hard to like Kieran and his obnoxious mannerisms and stupid man-bun and tendency to hog the ball during matches just to show off, but he really, really doesn’t have it in him today. And maybe he wouldn’t have said anything if Kieran hadn't slung an arm around his shoulders when he made it very clear he doesn’t want to be touched currently, and announced what he did to the entire changing room.

“Potter, why're you in such a mood for? Cheer up, lad, it’s just fucking Riddle, ain’t it?” Kieran shakes his head amusedly, chuckling when he sees James’ face hasn’t shifted one bit from its firmly thinned lips and furrowed brows. “No? Alright, I know what it is. Everyone! Potter needs to relax and get laid, call up your favourite lady friends for him! Now, do you like your women curv—” Kieran yells at the top of his lungs, grinning like a madman, to various whoops of encouragement throughout the room on James’ behalf. James freezes because— just no. Absolutely not. Not today. James whirls around and shoves Sparks off of him a few paces backwards like he should have done to begin with, cold satisfaction rippling through him when Sparks’ eyes bulge in shock and then his jaw unhinges at the raw fury spreading across James’ face. 

“You don’t know shit about my life, Sparks, so stop acting like it! We’re not friends. If you did know me then you would know I would never be friends with someone who talks about women like that either. And when I tell you to stop touching me, you stop touching me, alright? You fucking weirdo. Look, I’ll come to training tomorrow and we won’t mention this again and I’ll be completely back to normal – you hear that, everyone? But if I hear anyone disrespecting women like that again I will be going to Moody about it, and respect each other’s fucking boundaries too, God! I’m sorry if I’m being too harsh but I’ve had a really fucking shit day, and that’s not an excuse, but I wasn’t about to put up with that when I’m supposed to be the Captain in here. Am I understood?” James zips up his duffel bag and swings it over his shoulder, and when he’s met with stunned silence he straightens up and raises his eyebrows, staring around the room accusingly, “I said, am I understood?” He bellows fiercely, channeling his inner Moody. This gets a reaction, several people flinching and everyone, James checked, expressing their agreement to his demands with varying levels of shame, just as they should be. James also mentally notes those who weren’t cheering along to Sparks’ idiocy, and seem to largely support his ideals; Peter, Caradoc, Fenwick. “Good,” James remarks at a normal volume, though his tone still withholds the same bitterness as before, and he nods goodbye to a select few people on his way out of the room, the noise of his footsteps slapping against the tiles the only one to be heard. He reaches the door and turns around, blinking. “Peter, are you coming?” He attempts to sound less intimidating and forceful than he was going for a second ago, and winces when his voice doesn’t quite get the hint and it comes out more snapped than gently suggested. Peter flinches again, which does not help James’ case, his eyes wide with panic and then his head is swinging around frantically in search of someone else’s. 

“Er, no–no, uh,” Peter begins, stuttering over his words and simultaneously releasing a hot bout of shame throughout James’ stomach that he made one of his friends, and closest teammate, feel so nervous just by the sight of him angered. James doesn’t regret it though; it needed to be said, especially since nobody else seemed very inclined to put a stop to it. James hates sports culture sometimes. Peter’s gaze abruptly lands on Gilderoy who has since migrated from Peter’s locker to Caradoc where they’re huddling together awkwardly as if in shelter from James, and James watches him visibly relax a fraction when he meets Gilderoy’s reassuring blue eyes. “Me and Gilderoy are going out for a drink,” Peter says, sheepishly turning back to James, his cheeks tinted pink. James blinks. Normally Peter and Gilderoy, though James assumed it was all dramatic banter, are arguing about something or other, more often than not that something being the stench of Gilderoy’s pungent cologne gassing up the changing rooms to the point where everyone walks out smelling of it each day, and so it feels slightly odd to James that they’re suddenly going for a casual drink together as mates, even though he supposes they must be somewhat friends by now. James doesn’t much mind Gilderoy, though he finds that if they’re left in a room for too long together then their egos begin to clash quite viciously, eliminating the possibility of them ever being anything other than friendly teammates. 

Peter must misread James’ literal three seconds of silent processing as he cowers backwards cautiously, apparently convinced that James is going to attack him like he did to Sparks, who is still glaring at James from a corner and rubbing tentatively at a bruised shoulder like the asshole he is. James believes that ‘attack’ is a strong word, considering he was rather defending himself against standing complicit to baseless assumptions in his name. In other words, he didn’t want to accidentally out himself like he was so close to doing just to shut Sparks up for one goddamn minute and had to take the opportunity away by expressing his anger in other, slightly more responsible ways like actually putting his good muscles to use and teaching Sparks a lesson. Gilderoy tilts his head lazily over to face James, his eyes flashing a warning that James guesses is in the regard of Peter, and he wonders to himself when the fuck they became so close with one another. To think about it, James has never seen Gilderoy be very close with anyone before, except his own reflection, and thinks to himself that it will be interesting to see how this plays out another day. For now though, James just wants to go home. He blinks again in the wake of Gilderoy’s thinly veiled death threat etched across his face, and takes another step towards the door, hitching his bag up his back further as he goes. He nods to Peter, shooting him a small smile. “Alright. Have a good one,” The last thing he sees is Peter melting with relief, smiling faintly back at him, and the last thing he hears is Caradoc politely asking if he could come to the pub with them too and Gilderoy snapping a forceful ‘no’ without missing a beat in response, James shaking his head disbelievingly once the door shuts behind him.

It feels strange signing out and making his way across the car park on his own when Peter’s company is built into his work routine by now, but he has far too much plaguing on his mind to find himself minding as much as he might do on a normal day. Today has not been a normal day. James’ brain feels so crammed full with memories and emotions and overlapping thoughts, the pressure is making his forehead ache terribly and himself ache longingly for release of this pain; overwhelmed. Regulus, Sirius, their meeting, their panic attacks, the paparazzi photos from weeks ago still circling the media, the media still circling James like a vulture after that fucking tweet, Moody, a vulture, ripping James apart earlier with visceral rage, James, viscerally raging, ripping Sparks apart earlier, Regulus ripping up his own nailbeds, Sirius tearing his knuckles with a punch to James’ face, Moody threatening to tear James’ Yule Ball invitation up was like a punch to his face, the Yule Ball. What’s going to happen at the Yule Ball? How many mistakes can James make with Moody, with Regulus, with Sirius, with his own parents before they all see sense and give up on him? James cannot see much sense in his own actions as he drives home, to Regulus’ house, purely based on instinct, his vision blurred and his glasses foggy. He may give up on himself. His breathing feels odd, too short and shaky. James feels shaky. He lets himself into the house with fumbling hands, the night sky casting a darker light on not only James’ body, but his thoughts as well. Crying out in frustration, James jams the key into the door handle with the same force that he used for Sparks. Moody. Regulus. Sirius. James tumbles through the door, slamming it shut behind him and supporting himself against it with heaving, gasped breaths, his lungs squeezing against his ribs and punching each one out of him too early. He swipes at his eyes furiously, his fingers juddering and threatening to drop his glasses on the floor and suddenly something vile and unforgiving rises from his stomach to his chest to his throat, taking another shard of his heart with it, and the horror left in its place is so incredibly overpowering that James’ body rejects it, casts it out, and James sprints to a bathroom to let something that speaks stronger volumes than his words ever could pour out of his mouth. Strangely, it helps. Because now he can tell himself assuredly that he wasn’t just overreacting or that he was unknowingly victimising himself as this, this physical, tangible repulse his body has taken against the events of today is the proof that James needed to validate himself in freezing with Regulus, in arguing with Moody, in shoving Sparks and scaring Peter, in emptying the messy contents of his stomach and at least a third of the worries from his head into the toilet. James has not acted like himself today, instead driven by anxieties and nausea and hatred that escalated so quickly it felt like he was on the road travelling head-first into a direction he couldn’t come back from, and this lurch of shock his body is experiencing from braking right as this metaphorical car was teetering over a metaphorical cliffside, and now he’s slumping back against the bathroom tiles with the effort it took to reign himself in from jumping over the edge to psychological ruin. 

Attempting some of the breathing exercises Regulus taught him earlier, still in French because he can’t be bothered to unlearn it and spend time translating when he already knows what it means, and grips the edge of the sink as his crutch to help him climb up from the floor. Gradually, he splashes cold water on his face, cleaning his glasses and washing his hands in the process, and then brushes his teeth with one of the disposable toothbrushes Regulus keeps stocked in every guest bathroom, even though he’d rather evacuate his own home than let anyone other than James stay in it – a direct quote from the man – and it’s as James thinks back fondly to the moment Regulus told him this months ago, a weak smile on his face in the mirror across from him, that he realises he has no idea where Regulus is. In theory, he should be back from the Three Broomsticks by now, unless he and Sirius decided to go on a night out, or take a spontaneous trip to Paris together, something they’ve been known to do, but James is absolutely positive Regulus would at least text him in either of those situations. Would he? James’ smile fades, and he quickly finishes brushing his teeth, forcing himself to stay calm and proceed as he usually would to the kitchen to get a glass of water where Regulus will probably be curled up signing more books at the dining table, even though he already reached his goal of signing a thousand two days ago, but James needs to stay calm so he’s letting himself believe maybe, just maybe. James speed-walks towards the kitchen, kicking off his shoes as he goes, head swinging around the room for any sign of human life. Maybe not. James does not find Regulus, but he does find a neon yellow post-it note stuck to the counter, stark against the polished marble, that has one word scrawled across it. James picks it up, exhaling deeply when he reads it and feeling rather proud of himself for not panicking as much as he could have, smiling loosely at the little scrap of paper. Roof. 

His movements much slower and content, James takes his time to sip some water and test walking the length of the kitchen to ensure he’s stable enough on his feet after his little episode to clamber up onto a roof and not fall straight back down again, presuming that would be a dead – literally – give away to Regulus of how unstable he was feeling about ten minutes ago. Once confident he’ll be okay not only walking but talking, James pockets the post-it note and makes his way upstairs to the highest floor, because, yes, Regulus’ house has three floors, and steps into the master bedroom that Regulus didn’t claim as his own because he said it was a bit too big, whilst the nice, cozy one below it is just right. James smirks, thinking to himself that he’s practically engaged to a male, meaner version of Goldilocks, and isn’t surprised when he finds the balcony doors pushed open wide, their thin, white curtains billowing in the harsh October breeze. James shivers and tugs his sleeves down lower over his fingers, stepping out into the cold and taking a moment to appreciate the distant city lights glowing in the twilight backdrop of Gryffindor before turning around to face the rickety wooden trellis he and Regulus found and painted the summer Regulus bought the place. Yes, it is a health risk, and yes, James feels mildly terrified as he scales it, distributing his weight as carefully as possible until he reaches the familiar terracotta roof tiles he’s required to shift himself onto next, but it’s all worth it for the view. It’s a good fucking job he’s got upper-body strength from all of his time spent in the Gryffindor Lions’ gym because otherwise he’d easily find himself stuck here, suspended at the top of a building under the cover of night with no one else around to hear him cry out over the deafening whir of London city life. He hauls his ass onto the roof with a grunt, knowing well enough not to look up or attempt to find his balance just yet, crawling, his brown knuckles turned white with instinct to literally grip onto these tiles for his dear life, until a dark outline he would recognise anywhere fades into his view. Grinning but due to the physical strain it dampens into more of a grimace, James unclenches his fingers reluctantly yet very carefully and straightens until he’s standing up, not willing to have the image of him dragging his body into an army crawl over to Regulus the first impression the man gets of him and his mental state after the past seven hours, despite how desperately uneasy James feels as he tip-toes over towards him, strained, involuntary noises of panic whenever his foot slips a little too far announcing his arrival for Regulus.

Regulus whips his curly-haired head around, smiling even in the pale moonlight as he spots James shuffling cautiously over towards him, shaking his head affectionately when James flops down onto the little concrete ledge he’s perched on with a deep exhale of relief, immediately burying his head into the safety of Regulus’ hoodie, which is actually his hoodie, but apparently they’re sharing it now, though the material feels so warm and comforting against his squashed cheek that he can hardly complain. Regulus chuckles softly as James wraps his arms around his waist to fully envelope himself into a hug, lifting his own hands to card them through James’ hair soothingly. Regulus presses a kiss down to the top of his head, and James hums appreciatively into his chest. 

“You’re OK?” Regulus murmurs into James’ curls, kissing them again when James nods his head in a ‘yes’ against the thick fabric of his hoodie, perfectly content to carry on breathing in the sweet remedy of his vanilla-scented and coffee-flavoured boyfriend. Regulus has been drinking more espresso, James can smell it, but decides that he can postpone the scolding that deserves until tomorrow, because he’d rather roll over and off of this roof than ruin this moment with something so meaningless. Regulus’ fingers carry on working through his hair, occasionally wandering down to the back of his neck before trailing back up again, and when James feels his eyes begin to droop from the pure serenity the sensation is giving him he slowly lifts his head from Regulus’ chest, causing Regulus’ fingers to still, because he simply refuses to fall asleep on a roof, no matter how much he trusts Regulus to keep him safe. James blinks as his vision comes back into focus, seeing stars for a moment before he realises after brief, slightly panicked confusion when they wouldn’t clear that there are actual stars in front of him. An exceptionally rare sight in the center of the city, yet it seems to be a beautifully clear night, despite the obvious chill in the air, meaning he and Regulus can do something they’ve rarely done ever since they left school; stargaze. 

James feels something move against his knee and glances down from admiring the ethereal glow of the moon to find a blanket draped across his lap, and traces it back to Regulus’. 

“How the bloody hell did you get a whole blanket up here?” James asks incredulously, smiling as he adjusts it to fit his legs better, and Regulus shoots him a strange look.

“I don’t know why it’s so difficult for you to climb up here,” Regulus replies condescendingly, shaking his head. James scoffs, gesturing to the area around them. 

“What do you mean why is it difficult for me? Why are you so comfortable with prancing around the roof of a three-story building?” James insists, eyes wide, and Regulus just snorts, smiling something so warm when he turns back to face the view stretching across the sea of city lights which from far away almost look like stars in themselves that James thinks it could save him from freezing over more than any blanket ever could. 

“Did you get fired?” Regulus asks lowly, looking back at James when he exhales a heaving sigh, stretching his arms above his head. 

“No, but apparently I’m going to be soon if I fuck up again,” He answers mournfully, and Regulus’ face shifts into something sympathetic that James dismisses with a simple shake of his head. “It’s fine, really. I just have to be careful. They’ve banned me from doing anything on my public social media accounts without permission, so that’s great. All I’ve been told to do is wait for Riddle to ‘make the next move,’” He adds some sarcastic air quotes in here, turning his voice falsely excitable which makes Regulus chuckle, and he cracks a smile, tilting his head. “I got yelled at by like twenty different people, which was fun, but when Moody was in the middle of cursing me out my alarm for training went off and it got really awkward and silent and then I was told to just leave the room entirely,” James makes a face at reliving the painstaking, rather fresh memory, and Regulus blinks. 

“Is it still Dancing Queen by ABBA?” He asks, eyebrows drawn together, and James nods slowly, a regrettable expression downturning his lips. Regulus processes this and bursts out laughing, clutching his stomach, and James scoffs disbelievingly, pressing an offended hand to his chest because it genuinely was one of the top ten most humiliating moments of his life, but he eventually throws his head back and cackles into the night as well, because how could he not? It takes a while for them to calm down as whenever it began to grow silent one of them would picture the scenario again and let out a small giggle that sets them both off entirely like clockwork, and it’s as James is peeling himself off of Regulus from where his forehead dropped onto his shoulder in a particularly excessive bout of hysterics, he blinks, remembering something, and sobers the mood between them with a question. 

“How did it go with Sirius?” James manages, still smiling as he supports himself to sit upright again, and Regulus sighs something content, running a hand through his hair.

“It was good, I think— stop laughing! I think he’s doing OK, he was a lot happier and normal than I expected him to be, but I suspect that’s thanks to Remus.” Regulus tilts his head, “You know they’re, like, talking everyday and stuff and Sirius is even going to see him this Friday? Sirius is really excited about it, but I think if Remus backs out in general it will break his heart, even though they haven’t known each other that long. I’m a little worried about that, I must admit. I don’t know how much more of this Sirius can take,” Regulus finishes solemnly, grimacing and flicking his eyes downwards. James takes his hand and squeezes it.

“Remus won’t back out. I’ve got a feeling about them,” James announces confidently and Regulus raises his eyebrows, lips twitching with amusement.

“Oh, a feeling?” He responds mockingly and James nods enthusiastically, and they both smile, huffing a matching light laugh before naturally being drawn back to the mesmerising constellations above. 

“That one there is—” Regulus begins after a sweet period of silence, pointing towards a patch of sky that when James follows his gaze, is secretly delighted to find he already knows what he’s talking about without any further explanation. 

“The Andromeda constellation, the brightest star in it is Alpheratz—here,” James shifts Regulus’ finger to the right by an inch, grinning, “And it’s named the Chained Lady after the Greek myth,” James finishes proudly, dropping his hand from Regulus’ still outstretched, and pretending to act indifferent when Regulus stares at him with his lips parted, shocked to his core. 

“But you’ve always struggled so much at astronomy?” Regulus says slowly, and James ducks his head with a smile, guilty. 

“I just wanted you to touch my hand to correct me when I got it wrong. And I like hearing you talk about it. Back at school I would sit there and memorise the pages of this astronomy book so we could have something to talk about and so I could impress you with good questions. It worked,” James admits sheepishly, cheeks burning because until this moment not a soul on this planet knew about that. Regulus stares some more before promptly closing his mouth, shaking his head disbelievingly. 

“I cannot believe I fell for that. And you would just let me drone on for ages about stuff you already knew, James! This is so embarrassing. Little me would be mortified,” Regulus complains upsettingly, quite clearly focusing on the wrong part of James’ grand romantic gesture. James huffs, rolling his eyes as he holds both of Regulus’ hands and shakes them a little bit to get his undivided attention, his rings and the various gemstones they carry glinting in the moonlight. 

“I did it because I had a massive crush on you and wanted you to hold my hand for a few seconds each day, and it was never ‘droning on’ to me, Regulus. It was getting the privilege of listening to your pretty French accent talk about something that you love and gradually growing to trust me in little pieces throughout that, like an art. Little James would be mortified too if he knew I was telling you all of this, really,” James explains honestly, and Regulus’ expression softens until he blinks, once, twice, and his eyebrows draw together, a sly smile carving its way across his rosy lips. 

“That sounds like a line from one of my books,” Regulus accuses, entertained, and James rears back, frowning. 

“No, is it? Surely not. That came from my soul, Regulus! I bared out my soul to you and you accuse me of plagiarism. Oh, the pain!” James clutches his heart, wounded, before straightening up again, squinting concentratedly. “I think it could be, though, I vaguely remember reading it somewhere, actually. But I still mean it,” He insists bashfully, smiling and eyes flitting over Regulus’ pretty face that just cleared in realisation.

“No, it’s definitely from one of my books, I remember now.” Regulus says, tone firm and rid of any uncertainty, and James hums dismissively, going to nestle his head in the crook of his neck because it’s one of his utmost favourite and comfortable things he believes anyone could do, except they can’t because Regulus is his, when something floats into his mind, causing him to bolt upright with a surprised ‘oh!’. Regulus blinks, studying him confusedly.

“What?” Regulus demands, and James begins to bite his lip excitably, unable to help himself.

 “Speaking of remembering things, watch this,” James starts mysteriously, wriggling on the spot and taking a deep, dramatic breath in preparation for his new party trick which he spent his snack break at work learning because Peter was off somewhere on an important phone call and he was bored. He locks eyes with Regulus, something affectionate and meaningful charged behind his own. “Je t’aime et je veux ton…mari,” He attempts to get the pronunciation right, almost forgetting the last word and cursing himself internally for that afterwards, and he watches Regulus carefully in nervous anticipation for a reaction. Regulus takes his words in and pauses, eyes widening with alarm when he realises a second too late that he was speaking French not English, and James smiles shyly.

“You learned that for me?” Regulus checks, sounding quite faint, and James scans his face warily, eyebrows tugging together. 

“Yes, obviously, who else?” James responds amusedly, and Regulus inhales sharply, staring at James for a moment more before tugging him quite fiercely into a kiss, his mouth conveying his feelings in ways other than words. James moans quietly when his fingers begin to knead his hair with increasing desperation, and breaks them apart just enough to be able to speak freely, feeling Regulus’ fingers begin to twitch at the hem of his t-shirt. 

“One more thing,” James pants, smiling wickedly. Regulus arches an eyebrow. “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” Regulus groans and scrambles up so quickly James thinks he might genuinely fall off of the rooftop, and almost brings James with him by the way he’s suddenly gripping his wrist and dragging him with such an air of neediness it could be tangible; James takes that as a yes, smirking back at the rest of the city before he ducks out of sight because he may be a walking-talking catalyst, but this time the dire string of events it took to get to this moment is utterly and completely worth it, or will be in about ten minutes, anyway.