Chapter 2
“Ah, the prince finally returns to his castle.” Voice lazy, drawling, cold.
Not good. James tensed up in anticipation.
It was late enough that James thought he had a good chance of sneaking in undetected. Regulus was kept increasingly busy by the master they both pretended didn’t exist and the orders they both ignored every day when The Daily Prophet was tossed aside. James was starting to have a fair few of late nights himself as the head of Sleekeazy’s and one of the few prominent Purebloods dedicated to neutrality in the war that had never been officially declared. Who knew being courted by Dumbledore’s stooges and, and, Dea- Regulus’s friends that James didn’t talk about could be so exhausting.
Their hectic schedules meant that they had barely time to talk in a month, much less be intimate. They seemed to pass each other like ships in the night, benched at the same harbor but intersecting less and less.
Truthfully, guiltily, it suited James fine.
You either had it or you didn’t-
And him and Regulus just hadn’t, they didn’t-
He should not complete that thought. Not when the man he had sworn secret vows to years and years before when they both had been slighter and stupider stood before him so cold and so languid and so angry.
James removed the scarf from around his neck and tried to act casual as he could. “Had a late night in with some of the boys.” He tossed it on the table as carelessly as he had flicked a broom across the room back when he had been a Quidditch champion. He liked imbuing each of his movements with thoughtlessness, it brought him back to a better time.
“Is that so?”
“It is!” James snapped back. Always with that haughty tone, Regulus was so good at dishing it out and so terrible at taking it. “Merlin, Regulus, I was not aware I was stepping into the Inquisition of 1619 when I walked into my own kitchen!”
“You’re out every night, James.”
“Oh and I suppose you’re just waiting around here like a good little bedwarmer!”
“I don’t make a habit of drinking with the ladies of Knockturn Alley!”
“No. Just Barty Crouch Jr.”
Regulus gave an inhale that might as well have been a shout. Ever since Remus had defected to the wolves and cut off all contact, Barty Crouch Jr. had been a forbidden subject between the two.
Regulus tossed back his head, his curls luxurious in the moonlight, and all James wanted to do was rip it from his skull. It was meant to signal indifference but James had known Regulus for five accursed years and it meant he was very, very bothered.
“I” Regulus snarled, “have never once-”
“Liar!” James yelled. “Liar! Liar! Liar!”
“Shut up!”
Regulus was hunched over the table, knuckles white and gripping the sides. His eyes looked wild and red-rimmed, every inch of his body was shaking.
“I don’t love Barty Crouch Jr. I…” He paused as if the next words were to give him physical pain. “I love you, James. I love you so much that I feel like my insides are being ripped to pieces.”
James knew that he should say it back.
He could say it back.
He was so tired.
“I’m… look Reg, I’m tired.” He flopped on the couch, all fight suddenly draining out of him.
“You’re tired.” The voice was flat.
“Yeah, I’ve had a starkers of a day and -”
“I just confessed everything to you and you’re tired.”
That seemed like it summed it up nicely but James could hear the ice cold fury in Regulus’s voice.
“Reg.” James placed his hands on his eyes, a headache brewing. “It really has been a long day.”
Regulus slammed his hands down on the table. “Fuck that and fuck you! You think I don’t hear about what you get up to in Knockturn” James couldn’t imagine why not, James certainly heard a lot about Regulus and Barty Crouch Jr, I don’t love him James be damned “you think that I’m unaware of how you spend your time at the pub bemoaning how you should have taken Evans up on her offer, or how you think my own bloody brother-” Regulus cut himself off with a hiss.
Regulus and James never talked of Sirius. It’s not like there was much to say. Sirius had cut all contact with the pair in sixth year. Last James heard, he was helping to plan Lily’s hen party (and also planning an after-party of his own with the Prewett twins, of which James had heard some truly scandalous rumors). He was also an auror now: The Daily Prophet liked to refer to him as both a hero and a thrice winner of the Most Charming Smile Award in equal breathless measure.
James could have been an auror. Not when he was dating the heir to the House of Black with ink on his arm, of course.
He could have been a Quidditch champion as well. Same problem.
“Can’t appear political, Jamie.” And at least Knoll had the decency to look slightly embarrassed as James stalked out of the room.
Politics. All politics. He had told Regulus to damn the consequences and blare their love to the world and now he was mired in muck he didn’t want and a company he hated and an allegiance to a cause that made him uneasy at best and shackled to a man he didn’t-
James was so tired.
“You believe idle gossip over your own boyfriend then.” Regulus should: every word of what he just spit at James was what he had been bemoaning at a seedy Knockturn pub.
“James.” Regulus’s voice had suddenly turned pleading and low. “James… what do you want? Do you think I don’t notice? How you’re never around, how we don’t have fun anymore, how you never smile or laugh when I’m around, how we don’t even share a bed? We used to, I used to- you loved me. You told me you’d give up everything for me. I just don’t understand what happened -
James couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m bored!”
Regulus went stock-still, grey eyes flaring and mouth tightening. “What?”
And there it was. What kept James up at night, what haunted him in his sleep. Regulus was pretty and snarky and he had been exciting for the first few years in Hogwarts but now he seemed so… dull. Common. Not interested at all in James hobbies or pranks or ideas. Not at all the schoolboy who had looked at him like James was his whole world and glowed with the heat of the sun. Regulus was just Regulus now. Heir to the throne of the Blacks. The second choice if James was being honest. The weaker, softer, less interesting choice.
At the time, Evans had served James yet another ego blow and Sirius seemed too hung up on Remus to regard James as anything more than a friend. Regulus had been a challenge. Regulus had been all beautiful and broken and fascinating back then, he had never tried to curb in James wilder or crueler instincts, he had never asked questions. He kept his secrets and let James keep his. He had made James feel good.
Now?
James just felt nothing.
(Barty had told Remus the exact same thing, hand wrapped around Evan’s waist. Remus had just quietly slunk out the door and out of their lives.)
Regulus wasn’t going to do that. His eyes narrowed into slits.
“Oh. I see.”
James didn’t have the energy to sit up and face him. “Regulus, we were… we were a Hogwarts fling. We didn’t have anything in common then and we don’t now. We’re just… stuck with each other.”
“James.” Regulus whispered and James should feel bad but then again, he should have felt bad when Regulus came in covered in scorch marks the last week and The Daily Prophet ran a front page story about a burned Muggle-born orphanage. The accolades that Sirius and Lily and Dorcas and Marlene get each week for being such brave, bold Gryffindors? That could have been him. That should have been him. He never wanted to be mixed up into Death Eater business or deal with Remus’s sad eyes. He just wanted to love a beautiful boy and play Quidditch.
“Don’t feel too bad, Reggie.” James had not called him that in ages. “What is it you and all your pals I have conveniently never met say? Tomorrow belongs to us?” They could always have tomorrow. Just not today. Never today
James could tell the fight had left his boyfriend, the man he had sworn an Unbreakable Vow to. He could hear the shuddering breaths and the soft shuffle of coats and then the very slight slam of a door. James was sure Crouch would be hearing about everything that went down and James supposed he should iron-guard his door. Crouch was a complete psychopath in every aspect. Not that he minded, truthfully. James would love to have an excuse to decimate Crouch in a duel.
James nestled into the couch, turning his face into the cushions. He should traipse up to bed but his eyes were drooping and the fight had taken so much out of him and he could have, that should have, The Daily Prophet, Regulus, Crouch and Crouch’s madness-
Tired. He was so bloody tired.
He would sleep tonight. Soundly and well. Tomorrow would probably belong to them after all. That’s what all the Death Eaters said.
James could only hope that he never woke up.