Timeless

Regulus

Everything felt hazy and buzzing and weird as I gained consciousness again. There was one clear sound through all of it though, the same that woke me up by calling my name in that desperate begging tone, full of fear I wanted to make disappear. James should not be in pain. Was it James? Could've sworn it was his voice I heard. 

It came all flooding back then, the gemstones above me, the wet feeling of water against my skin. I moved my hand to my chest slowly enough not to lose my balance. I was floating in the water, which I could do, but I still couldn't do swimming.

My chest was flat. There were no round breasts. I couldn't help but grin. I was alive. I was a guy. I was Regulus Black.

Another sob echoed through the cave and I popped up my head. 

James was on the shore of the lake, his knees against his chest, hands on his face. He looked so little, so broken, it was all my fault. I had to make it okay, somehow, I had to.

“James?”

His head popped up in a millisecond.

“Regulus?” there was disbelief in it, hope, fear of having lost his mind.

“Yes,” I smiled, the damning doubt calling me a liar gone from within me. Finally. I was no longer Regina, I was truly, finally Regulus.

“Merlin fuck don't you ever scare me like that again,” he stood, stepping towards the water.

“NO!” I shouted, a flash of pain went through me, a flash of fear for him, “Don't touch the water,” 

“But you will drown. Reggie, you're too far away to get to the shore without swimming,”

“I-” he was right. I was, “Just don't touch the water. Please,” 

He wrapped his hair between his fingers in frustration, pacing. And then something dawned on him. He pulled out his wand.

“Wingardium Leviosa,” 

And suddenly I was in the air, floating to the shore. How come I hadn't thought of that? How come we had magic at our hands and yet our first instinct in dangerous situations was always to run towards danger as a human, without using it.

I landed a couple of meters from him, on my feet. Still naked and suddenly very aware of it. 

He was absolutely devouring me with his eyes, them not knowing where to land. I smirked at that, I'd really driven him insane but not in the way he'd feared. A completely different way. 

“Regulus Fucking Black, I-” he stepped to me, just a forearm's length between us, then swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut, his hands in fists, “fuck.”

I wanted to reach out and grab his hand but he took a step back just as I reached out my hand to do that. 

There were stars wrapped around my wrist where the unbreakable vow twines had mere hours ago been. I got it now, why I hadn't died when I had kissed James. I had not been Regulus then, I'd been Regina, I'd been wearing a dress and denying myself my real identity. Had not accepted myself and therefore Regulus, James' soulmate, had not quite existed at that moment, only partly. And so I had not died. Or well. Something heavy in me had died when I kissed him, something that had held me back from standing up for myself for so long. Regina had died, right then and there, for while James wasn't her soulmate he was the closest to one. Because Regina was never a whole being, just a tiny part holding me back from being me, and therefore she didn't have a whole soulmate either. 

To prove it, there had been no tattoos, until now. Until I accepted myself. I could remember my wrist itching the whole way here, but I'd never taken off my long sleeves to check it before it was time to get in the water, and my attention was elsewhere then. I had brushed it off. And now I knew why there was itching. 

My constellations matched the ones James rocked on his cheeks. The star-shaped freckles covered both of them now. He had been right the entire time and I had not believed him. He was my soulmate and now he was standing right here, just out of reach.

“I promised you that I would not touch you unless you asked,” his voice cracked twice while he said it, his chocolate eyes almost black from temptation, staring at me, “and I plan to keep that promise. But fuck, if you don't get dressed like right now…”

“James Fleamont Potter,” I laughed, “just fucking kiss me. Please,”

He closed the distance between us in a split second. One of his hands slipped around my waist and pulled me against his chest, the other brushed wet hair aside before landing on the side of my face. 

The cave lit up in golden light and I watched half of his freckles turn into a glistening metallic gold just as  half of what my wrist held did the same.

“I love you so fucking much, Regulus Black, and I am not letting you go ever again. If you try to run I will chase after you til I die. It will still be worth it. You are worth it. In any scenario, you are worth it.”

And then his lips were on mine and the world was alive within me and I was alive within the world and everything made sense.

“I love you too,” I gasped out while panting as we broke for air, just for a moment.

He lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around him, my hands loosely around his shoulders as he left a trail of kisses down my neck and chest and shoulders. I had a feeling some of these would stay for a few days at least and I had nothing at all against it. 

“How did you find me?” I asked his neck.

“We went.” kiss on my neck, “Sirius, Alphard.” another one below it, “Grimmauld's.” and another one, “Found.” another, “Letter.” He pulled away to look at me, want suddenly replaced by something sad, something vulnerable, “I have never ever been so scared, Reggie. I thought I would never see you again, that I would never get to tell you how fucking much I love you too, have since I first met you. I would go through a thousand fires just to put one smile on your face if that's what it took. I would give up anything and everything if you asked me to. You have no idea, Regulus, of the power you have over me. If you ever scare me like that again I will die and I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not, I was two minutes from drowning myself in this very lake because the thought of living in a world where you no longer existed was unbearable,”

“James,” I whispered. I was crying, as was he. I placed my hands on his cheeks. “I love you. I don't know anything about gods or which of them to thank for making you mine because I don't deserve you, but when I find out I will vow my everlasting loyalty to them or something, I-”

“No. No more vows Reggie, please. Not for a while at least, not unless it's wedding vows,” I laughed and pulled his lips back to mine. They were right here but I missed them. How had I ever survived without his touch I had no idea.

“You're wrong by the way,” he spoke between kisses.

“Hm?”

“It's me who doesn't deserve you. You are the bravest, strongest, most fucking stubbornly perfect human being to ever probably exist on this planet and I get to hold you and it's insane and I love you,”

“Keep saying that,” I grinned.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, Regulus Black,”