How not to explain things
Regulus was the happiest he’d been in years. He was vibrating with energy as he took the stairs two at a time running up to his brother’s place. He was not sure when this even became a thing, but when something remotely meaningful happened he wanted to tell Sirius. He could call, of course, but he was not far from here anyway.
So yeah, here he was running up the stairs to his brother's and his husband’s flat. He knocked on the door and waited, knocked some more, and when 10 seconds later no one opened Regulus knocked again. There was a sound of the lock turning and Sirius cracked the door open.
Regulus pushed past him into the flat.
“Hello to you too,” Sirius said raising his eyebrows. “What are you wearing?” Regulus turned to the mirror and let out a chuckle.
“Oh, it’s James’,” he smiled.
“James’? And you are wearing his clothes because?”
“I stayed over.”
“Well, that is some development at least.”
“Oh, it is. He kisses just as good.”
“Huh?”
“I umm… I did something not very smart.”
“Okay,” Sirius sighed and pushed Regulus farther into the flat. “What did you do?”
“I invited him to your birthday dinner,” Regulus turned and stared at Sirius, Sirius stared back. “Please, don’t make this weird.”
“Oh, I absolutely will,” Sirius grinned. “Wait, are you a thing? Are you official?” Regulus blushed and that was all Siris needed. “I’ll give him the big brother’s speech,” he gasped.
“Sirius, I don’t want him to run off two days after we actually became a thing,” Regulus said.
“No, you don’t understand! You gave Remus the speech and he was intimidated! James just laughed! He laughed, Regulus! He said you were the more intimidating out of the two of us!”
“Yeah, you told me that a million times before. My point still stands.”
“I don’t think he will run off,” Sirius moved to the kitchen. “Tea?”
“Yeah,” Regulus looked around. “Where’s Remus?”
“He’s at work,” Regulus hummed, Sirius poured hot water in the mugs and dropped a tea bag in each. He pushed one mug towards Regulus and sat by the table. “It is very early to talk about it, but you know that you’ll have to explain our situation at some point?”
“Yeah, I thought about it, actually. But as you said, it is very early for it. Also, I really can’t think of where to start with it,” Regulus fumbled with the paper tag on the tea bag. “That’s the other reason I came here. We’ll have to be careful with what we say at the dinner. I didn’t think it through, I just wanted him to be there.”
“It’s okay,” Sirius tried to catch Regulus’ eyes. “Andy and Cissa will be fine with it, you know it. Ted and Draco won’t be here this time, so it is a good thing. Fewer people could say something that would sound off.”
“Yeah, but I have to tell them too, they don’t know about it,” Regulus looked at the tea in his mug. “How do I tell them?”
“Well, you just texted in our group chat, when you saw James for the first time you can do it again,” Sirius shrugged.
“Yeah, okay,” Regulus sighed. He didn’t think long about what he was going to say. He just typed the message to the family group chat and sent it. His phone started vibrating a few moments later but he ignored it.
He spent the rest of the day lounging around Sirius’ flat, helping him to make dinner, and picking a new freelance project to work on. He went home a couple of hours later but stopped by James’ coffee shop on the way to get a pastry and steal a kiss.
Two days later James was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, his leg was bouncing up and down. Regulus noted that was yet another thing that somehow didn’t change about him, he was always twitchy when nervous.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t have brought a present? Not even a small one?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I have a present, it will be from the both of us. You can’t possibly choose something for someone you met once.”
“Twice,” James corrected him. Regulus rolled his eyes.
“Okay, you can’t choose something for someone you met twice but were not properly introduced to,” Regulus placed his hand on James’ knee in what he was hoping was a soothing gesture. “It’s fine, Jamie. It is just my brother, his husband, and two cousins.”
“You said you had more family,” James cocked his head.
“There’s Ted - Andy’s husband, and Draco - Cissa’s son. But both of them are out of the country right now. Ted does research on arctic life, he’s currently on Svalbard. Draco is there with him because he likes the polar night season, northern lights and all that.”
“Huh,” James frowned. “Your cousin and her husband live separately?”
“No, she came here to help Cissa with family business. And she wanted to do some holiday shopping before she comes back there in December.”
“Makes sense,” James nodded. “So, tell me, how do I win over your brother?” He laced his fingers with Regulus’ and smiled looking at their hands.
“I don’t think you need to do much. He’s like an overgrown puppy, gets excited over the smallest things. When he tries to be intimidating - don’t fall for it. He will try it, unfortunately. The “bid brother speech” is on the way, you’ve been warned,” Regulus rolled his eyes as he tried to look like it was not a big deal. But he was not sure who he wanted to reassure at this point James or himself. Because he was terrified that either one out of four of them might do something that would scare James off.
“Let’s hope I survive this,” James sighed.
“You will,” Regulus squeezed James’ hand. But not for the first time he wondered if it was a good idea at all to do this. He could have met all of them in a less formal setting. And what if James felt uncomfortable with it so early into their relationship? Now Regulus was spiraling a bit because he just realized that James would not tell him if he was uncomfortable.
“Hey,” James brought their hands to his mouth and kissed Regulus’ knuckles. “Breathe.”
“Sorry, it’s just… Okay, be honest with me, does it make you uncomfortable? Is it too early? Should we just go on a date instead since we are already dressed up nicely?”
“No, no and we can always do something after. I’m just nervous because I want to make a good first impression,” James smiled. Regulus chose to believe him, because how could he not when he looked at him like that? “So, what about the rest of your family? Any tips?” Regulus chuckled and proceeded to tell James about his family members.
The restaurant Sirius chose was on a fancier side than he usually would go for. Regulus pecked James’ lips one last time before leaving the car and going inside.
“Okay, relax, it will be alright,” he whispered when they were near the table. James had no chance to respond because Sirius already noticed them and was beaming.
“Hello,” he got up and gave James a half-hug. Regulus felt his eye twitch. Who hugs a person they supposedly don’t know? So much for not acting weird.
“Uh, hi,” James said awkwardly. He returned Sirius’ hug and shook Remus’ hand after. “I’m James.”
“We know!” Sirius’ wide smile was still in place. Regulus shook his head.
“Regulus talks about you a lot,” Remus said.
“Does he?” James grinned and looked at Regulus.
“Oh yeah, so it is nice to meet you properly.”
When Andy and Cissa arrived there was another round of awkward introductions, but overall it was not as bad as Regulus anticipated. As evening progressed Regulus noticed Remus scooch closer to James.
“As someone who was new to this family once, I can provide some valuable advice if you ever need any,”
“Thanks,” James visibly became more relaxed. “I could really use some.”
Never before Regulus was so grateful for Remus and the way he was able to make people calm down. It also seemed to be the start of a very tentative bond between them, since they talked for the rest of the night.
“How did I do?” James asked once Regulus was in the driver’s seat.
“Marvelous,” Regulus smiled.
“Flattery won’t get you anywhere,” James huffed.
“And here I was, hoping for that date you promised on the way here,” Regulus sighed.
“Oh, there will be a date!” James laughed. “But since we already ate we have to eliminate this option. Movies were last time…”
“Last time? We haven’t even been on a date yet!”
“What?” James yelped. “We have! The Halloween night, it was a date!”
Regulus blinked. “Oh, well… Okay then. Now it’s my turn to choose.”
“That’s not fair,” James huffed. Regulus hummed but said nothing. “What do you have in mind?”
“Stargazing.”
“Stargazing?”
“Yes, stargazing.”
“We’re in Central London, love. You can’t see much here.”
“We’ll go outside the city.”
“Sounds adventurous,” James smiled. “Let’s do it.”
And so they did. And then there was another date, and another one.
By the end of November, they’ve been on a dozen dates and more often than not stayed at each other’s places for the night.
Regulus knew that he had missed James, but he only realized how empty his life had been once he got him back. Before that, there was only one thing he was looking forward to — the day they’d meet again and he was not 100% sure if that would ever happen. Now he had a lot of things to look forward to. It was unhealthy to make his world revolve so much around one person but he didn’t care, Regulus was happy and all he did care about was that he wanted to make it last forever.
Waking up next to James was one of his favourite things in the world, and the thing that surely made him happy. So when Regulus reached for the other side of the bed but it was cold and James was not there he was confused. He lifted himself on one elbow and squinted at the semi-dark room, James was not in it. Regulus’ heart picked up speed, he tried to think what he could have done wrong for James to just leave like this. But then he heard muffled noises from somewhere in the flat.
Regulus got up and went towards the noise. He walked into the kitchen and saw James there. A wave of relief washed over him.
“Babe, do you have anything…” Regulus started but then noticed what James was holding. It was a bag with donor blood that he had to inject this week. It was in James’ hands, opened. Content from it was in the glass on the table. The relief was gone in an instant.
“I can explain…” Regulus said, panic rising inside of him. Can he explain though? What would he say? “Hey James, I have this virus that basically makes me immortal if I feed it blood”? Or “I’m kind of a vampire”? Does it sound believable? Absolutely not. But he needed to say something, anything. He should have come up with a believable story earlier. Or, well, he shouldn’t have been this stupid and left the blood somewhere James could easily find.
“I really fucking hope so,” James had a pained expression on his face. Regulus couldn’t blame him, a bag with donor blood in the fridge was not a normal thing to have casually lying around. His mind was strangely empty of any type of explanation.
“Ummm… I’m ummm… A vampire,” was all he could say. He could come up with any lie, made up absolutely anything. Instead, he went with what was closest to the truth. And it was a mistake. Because James looked at him with a blank stare.