Chapter 1
***James***
James loved his boyfriend.
He particularly loved waking up in the morning next to his boyfriend.
They weren't public yet, Regulus' job made that stage of their relationship a little bit more tricky, so they never managed to do this very often, for fear of the paparazzi catching one of them sneaking out the back door or something.
But on the rare days like today, where James could wake up in golden hour, next to the love of his life, it was all worth it. The secrecy, the hiding, the lies, the double life, it was all fucking worth it.
Because as James looked down at the messy head of curls that was currently resting on his chest, he could quite literally think of no other place he'd rather be.
James could tell when Regulus started to wake up, his breathing becoming less and less even until finally the first part of his eyelids cracked open.
Honestly Regulus looked like the action had caused him physical pain.
James had always been more of a morning person than Regulus. What with Regulus tending to prefer the late nights and late mornings that gigs tended to provide.
'Morning love.' James said, kissing the top of Regulus' head as he idly traced a pattern onto his arm.
'Fuck me.' Regulus said, rubbing his eyes.
'Maybe not right now.' James joked.
'Oh you suck.' He said, sitting up against the headboard.
'Not as good as you.' James grinned.
Regulus looked him dead in the eye. 'I hate you.'
'No you don't.' James said, pulling him back down into the bed.
'No I don't.' Regulus sighed, curling into James' chest as he began fiddling with his hair.
'What's your itinerary looking like this week m'love?' James said, idly kissing down the back of Regulus' neck.
'Well we're still technically on tour, but just a little bit closer to home, which is nice. I've got shows up north for the rest of the week until Friday, and then I have two shows at my usual spot in London.'
James smiled, 'Should be sick.'
'It's gonna be fucking amazing. We've managed to book ourselves this gig in Edinburgh for like some underground indie bar.'
'What, like its not very well known or...?'
'No like it's literally underground, like in a cave or something. And the only drinks they serve are ones named after geological minerals.'
James burst out laughing. 'That suits you so fucking well. You're gonna love it.'
'I know it does, and I know I fucking will. I just wish you were gonna be there. It's weird singing all these love songs to no-one in the crowd. I have to keep switching my gaze around the room every fucking ten seconds so people don't get the wrong idea.'
'I know,' James murmured, placing his chin on Regulus' shoulder. 'But you don't need me there to enjoy yourself. Just have fun Reggie, they fucking love you. I, fucking love you. And besides, I'm there at both your shows on Friday, you know I will be.'
'I know, I know. I'm just gonna miss you.' Regulus said, turning himself around to face James.
'I know, I'll miss you too, but then on Friday, we'll have more than enough time to make up for lost time.' He laughed, wrapping his arms back around the boy next to him.
Regulus sighed contentedly as he hugged James closer to himself, and accepted that he probably wasn't getting out of bed that day.
***Sirius***
'Remus! Come here!' Sirius screamed down the hall from where he was sitting in their living room. He heard shuffling from their bedroom and after a few seconds, footsteps coming towards the lounge.
'Jesus, you gave me a heart attack love, I thought you'd died or something.' Remus huffed, setting himself down next to his boyfriend on the couch.
'No, nothing as good as that. Although this is pretty close, look here.' Sirius moved his laptop from where it had been resting on his knees, closer to Remus, so he could see the screen.
'What am I looking at?'
'Him! I found him!'
'Who?'
'Regulus, I found my brother. I've been trying to find him all this year, but no one in the family that I still talk to has heard from him since... well, for a long time, so I thought it was a dead end, but then I put his full name into google, and look what came up!' Sirius squealed, clearly excited.
Remus squinted, 'He's in a band?'
'Yeah, he's the lead singer I think, look at the back there, I think those might be his mates from school.'
'You've met them?'
'No, but they look really similar to how Regulus described them.'
'Christ. You've actually found him. What're you gonna do?'
'I... I honestly don't know. I've been looking for him for so long, and now I've found him, and I thought I'd be rushing to go meet him again... but, i don't know, I guess I'm just worried. I don't know if he wants to meet me.'
'I'm sure that's not true Sirius.' Remus said, rubbing his hands across his boyfriend's back.
'No, no I think it very well might be. The way I left... the things I said... I wouldn't be surprised if he never wanted to see me again.'
'But that was over a decade ago, love, things have changed, you're both older. Don't assume that you know how Regulus feels.'
'Yeah, no, you're right. I guess I'm just nervous. This is the closest I've ever gotten to actually finding him again, I guess it's all just becoming very real.'
'I get that. Why don't we go see one of his shows? Maybe we could speak to him then?'
'That's... That's a good idea.'
'I know it is. When's his next gig in London?'
Sirius paused a moment before speaking, 'It looks like he's got one this Friday, actually no, scratch that, he's got two this Friday.'
'Does it say anywhere, where you can buy tickets?'
'Uh... They're proper sold out on their main website, but for sure I should be able to grab something off a resale website or something. Give me a minute, I'll have a quick look.'
It was about twenty minutes before either of them spoke again. Remus by that point had grown bored of watching his boyfriend scroll endlessly on very suspicious looking ticket websites, or on surprisingly disturbing fan pages, looking for hints as to somewhere that might have tickets for sale, so he had ventured into the kitchen. Remus had just begun putting milk into the two cups of tea he was preparing when Sirius broke the silence.
'Remus! I've found something, fucking hell that took a long time.'
'Nice! What horrifying corner of the internet have we ended up on then?' Remus said, carrying the two mugs into the living room and setting them down on the coffee table.
'You know what? It's not that scary. It's just on some person's Facebook Marketplace page thingy, they're selling them for like a hundred quid a pop. They're like a superfan, their entire Facebook page is dedicated to fancams of Reggie's band, it's terrifying.'
'Christ', Remus said, looking over at the very expansive collection of edits the person had on their page. 'This is borderline stalking.'
'I know right? But regardless, they're the only tickets I've found so far, so I guess it'll have to do.'
'Have you bought them?'
'Course, I've got the confirmation email and everything.' Sirius took a deep breath, the expression of his face turning puzzled, 'This is really happening isn't it, I'm not just dreaming this all up on some hangover fever?'
'No love, this is real, I promise.' Remus said comfortingly, before setting the laptop aside, and pulling his boyfriend into his arms.
***
The week leading up to the concert was torturous. Every day, there was a silent countdown playing in Sirius' mind, each minute, each second, being slowly stricken off the clock.
He couldn't quite tell wether he was nervous or excited, wether the ruthless anticipation that had been trembling his hands, and clouding his mind for the past few days signalled that Friday was going to be the best or worst day of his life.
Regardless, Sirius had made peace with the fact that it was happening. About two hours after buying the tickets, he had a slight freakout, and honestly quite seriously considered not going at all. But then Remus metaphorically and literally slapped some reason into him, cutting that line of logic short.
But as the days passed, and the time until the big day got less, Sirius' feeling of anticipation, ominous or excited, only grew, the feeling seemed to be lodged in his chest, like a nest of butterflies had died there.
He had managed to get tickets for both he and Remus, and a couple of his friends, namely Lily, Marlene and Mary. He had talked to the person on Facebook, explained the rather personal situation, and they had been nice enough to give him the ticket's for free.
He had asked James wether he would like to go, but he said he already had plans. He rather purposefully left out the part about meeting his brother when he asked him, not wanting to worry his friend unnecessarily. Plus, if James knew what was actually happening, he'd have dropped everything to come support him. Sirius did not want to be the reason why James had to cancel plans. He could handle this himself, he knew he could.
Sirius tried really fucking hard to tell himself that.
***James***
James fucking missed Regulus.
He knew what it entailed, being Regulus' boyfriend, when he started dating him. It wasn't like he had some fucked up fantasy of what his life would be like dating someone like him. He knew what he would have to deal with, and he did it anyways, because Regulus would always be worth it.
But regardless of that fact, it was still hard. It was hard to have him gone for days, sometimes weeks at a time, for the house to be so warm when Regulus was home, and then suddenly colder than ice when he was gone.
It was always whiplash, and James never got desensitised to it.
He felt a little pathetic when he admitted to himself how much Regulus' absence affected him. How heavy his heart felt when he was by himself again, how empty he bed felt without him there. But then he remembered that time when he went on a field trip with his class to Cambridge for two days, and that when he came back, Regulus had fashioned himself a small cave out of his hoodies and jumpers, because it was the only way he could fall asleep without him there.
But he also knew he wouldn't have to bear it for long this time. It was only a day until the concert and then James would have him back, at least for a while.
But something in him was less excited at that prospect than it should have been. Because yes Regulus would be back, but James knew that while they would get back into their routine of domestic bliss, he also knew that he'd have to hide it.
He'd have to go through the back gate to get out of the house again, and he'd have to keep his hands in his pockets when they walked down the street together, instead of holding his partners hand, again. James knew why they weren't public.
Regulus wanted to make sure that James was comfortable in their relationship, that he was sure that this is what he wanted, before he was thrust into the limelight that his partner took up as a living.
And then there was the issue of Sirius.
It was a touchy subject for Regulus, and James did not often bring him up around him, but he was also a largely unspoken reason as to why they kept their relationship under such lock and key.
When they had first started talking, James had no idea that Regulus was Sirius' brother. Sirius himself rarely talked about his family, if at all, and when he did, it was usually to mention his mother or his father, but never a brother.
Plus, Regulus had no reason to think that the 'James', that his brother had talked about as a child, the one he had gone on and on about when he would come home from boarding school, was somehow the same James that he met outside a dingy bar in the middle of London.
It was pure coincidence that they met, but perhaps not that they kept on meeting.
It was only about a month into their relationship that they begun to suspect something. James never really called Sirius 'Sirius', in passing. Usually opting for 'pads' or 'padfoot', or some other variation of that. And indeed the same went for the rest of his friends.
He didn't do it consciously, but he supposed that old habits die hard, because even weeks into their partnership, Regulus had yet to hear their actual names. It was bound to happen though, not that James was intentionally keeping their names from his partner, but it was inevitable that eventually he would accidentally slip their names into a sentence or into a conversation.
And that's exactly what happened. James had been rambling for a few minutes about something his friends had done at the pub the night before.
'Yeah, so then Sirius-' Regulus had whipped his head round to face him, his eyes round.
'What did you say?' Regulus said.
'Sirius... oh shit! I don't think I've ever said his name before, yeah padfoot, his actual name's Sirius. Christ that's bad isn't it.' James was laughing, but Regulus remained in his state of near shock.
'Is something wrong honey?' James said, suddenly realising that his boyfriend did not share the same levity he was enjoying.
'What's your friend's last name?' Regulus said, his voice growing quiet.
'Black, why?' James said confusedly.
Regulus sank to the floor. 'Shit.'
'Regulus tell me what's wrong?' James said, joining him on the cold kitchen tile, his face a picture of concern.
Regulus didn't speak for a moment, though his mouth opened as if he was about to. 'I think your best friend might be my brother.'
James laughed for a moment, slightly hoping that it was a joke, before stopping after seeing Regulus' face stay solemnly serious. 'I'm confused, Sirius never said anything about a brother. Are you sure that it's him, that it's not some big coincidence?' James said hopefully.
'James, how many people do you know with the name Sirius? Honestly? And let me see, are his parents called Walburga and Orion, did he run away from home when he was fifteen?'
It was James' turn to not speak now, his face turning confused, then pensive, then shocked all within the space of a moment, he slumped against his cupboards. 'Shit, is this really happening, am I actually fucking dating my best freind's secret estranged brother?'
They both turned to look at each other, sharing a smilier look of disbelief before bursting out into laughter.
'Fuck,' Regulus breathed, 'I can't believe this is happening... What do we do now?' Regulus said, burying his head in his hands.
'Well... as much as I love Sirius, and I do,' James admitted, 'I'm not exactly inclined to go the break up route. I like you regulus, I know we've only been dating a month, but I really fucking like you. Is it bad that I'm not quite ready to give that up?' James said quietly.
'I really fucking like you too.' Regulus laughed, before his face hardened, his tone growing serious again 'But I mean, James, I'll let you know this now, before we go any further with this, I genuinely have no intention of ever speaking to my brother again. I don't hate him or anything, and I genuinely wish him the best, but, I'm not really in the right place right now to have him back in my life.'
Regulus paused again for a moment, 'actually no, I'll go back on that, I'm open to the idea that one day, I can be in touch with my brother again. But that day is not today. And I don't foresee that day coming for a while. I know you care for him a lot, I can tell, so would keeping a secret like this from him be a deal breaker for you? I completely get it if it is?' Regulus said, his gaze averted to the floor.
'Sirius doesn't need to know everything that goes on in my life. I don't think I'd be a bad person if I kept this part of my life for myself would I?' James smiled, taking Regulus' hand into his own.
'No you wouldn't be, no more than I am.'
And so that's how the secret started. But it's been five months now, and the secret has started to weigh on him, the lies he's told to get out of things so he can spend time with Regulus, the stories he's told to explain his absences at his own flat, sitting in his chest like molten iron, burning hotter every day.
He would never pressure Regulus into anything Sirius related, James knew that whatever went down when they were young needed to be sorted out in its own time. He just hoped that he wouldn't have to wait forever.