Chapter 4.
“No, my favorite is the gold see through lace shirt thingy,” Regulus says as he takes a bite of his eclair. “Wow, I really thought I was good with fashion. What the fuck was that?” Pandora laughs, that was the goal. He really only said that to get Pandora to cheer up slightly, she’s always so stressed about a new collection. Him and Pandora are at this small corner coffee shop- it’s really quite empty so people and paparazzi won’t crowd around. The shop managers tend to help a lot as well when they’re there. They’re currently discussing Pandora’s clothing line, seeing as she’s releasing the collection in a few months and she needs to make her touch ups and find one more godforsaken model.
Pandora laughs slightly. “I love that one but I still haven’t figured out a name for it. And I might need to scrap the overcoat because it doesn’t really fit the vibe well enough- I don’t know. Also need another bloody model but it needs to be someone recognizable because Vouge asked for that fucking feature- and Reg I love you but you’re already going to be the main person on my advertisement and they need a woman and I-”
Regulus puts a hand on her arm. “Hey Dora, look. It’ll work out, yeah? Your collection is already perfect, it doesn't need any more. And I’ll help you find a model. You have time, chin up darling.”
She lifts her head up to look at him, Regulus has never been good at comforting, but he will always try for Pandora. Suddenly she smirks.
“Gods I don’t like that look, what’s going on is that busy little head of yours?” Regulus asks warily.
Pandora’s smirk only grows, she bats her eyelashes. Regulus is terrified. “Oh nothing- just how Potter would probably cease to exist if you called him that.”
Regulus groans. “Oh shut uppp for god’s sake. He would not. Where did he even come from? He doesn’t exist.” He crosses his arms over his chest petulantly.
Pandora giggles. “You’re so flustered it’s adorable.”
Regulus smacks her on the arm. “Shut that mouth of yours, I am not flustered.”
“Mhmmm, sure you aren’t Reggie” Pandora says, smiling victoriously.
Regulus groans and bangs his head down on the table. “Shut upp Dora. Go back to your little fashion crisis, you’re being horrible.”
Pandora sips her coffee and ruffles his hair. “Maybe, but you can’t avoid this forever, you know. You lot are going on tour in what, 6 days?”
Regulus looks up at her with pleading, almost puppy eyes, though he would cut off his left arm before admitting so. “Merlin, don’t remind me. Maybe he has a horrid personality?” he asks weakly.
Pandora chuckles lightly and lifts his head. “I wouldn’t count on that lovely. Don’t worry though, I have a good feeling about this.” Regulus doesn’t respond, because he knows better than to question Pandora’s “feelings”- only because they are quite literally never wrong. That thought makes him smile.
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“I’LL GET IT” James yells to Sirius when their bell rings.
“THANKS PRONGS! Pretty sure it’s just Reggie,” Sirius calls back from the kitchen.
James freezes midway to the door. Fuck. It’s not that he isn’t ecstatic about seeing Regulus or the fact that they’re heading to the airport in less than 15 minutes to get to their first tour destination. It is all so exciting, but James feels slightly overwhelmed and confused and suddenly very self conscious. What clothes is he wearing? Is his hair okay? Fucking shit he needs to answer the door.
He does a little jog till he reaches the door and pulls it open, revealing a very disgruntled yet still lovely looking Regulus. His hair looked a mess and his outfit seemed to be put together hastily. He is pouting and glaring at James, and god doesn’t that just rub off on him the wrong way?
“Well Potter? Are you going to let me in or would you rather stand there ogling me?” Regulus says, clearly aggravated, making an impatient hand gesture to emphasize his point.
James is quite taken aback, he opens his mouth to reply yet he can’t quite get any words out, so he closes it again. He, rather embarrassingly, does this a few more times before simply clearing his throat and clearing the way for him to walk inside. Regulus walks inside and James swears he sees him hide a little smile as he turns his head away. James follows him inside.
“BABY BROTHER!!” Sirius yells and runs into the main room, tackling him into a hug.
“Get off me you imbecile!!” Regulus exclaims, wriggling out of his grip. He glares at him. “We are late.”
“Oh come off it Reggie we’ll be fineee!” Sirius throws his arm around his shoulders. Regulus struggles against his grip for a moment before ultimately giving up. James smiles, he really is quite adorable.
Regulus glares at both of them. “Get your arses moving- Siri take my bag and grab me my tea.” He puts on his sunglasses and sits down on the couch.
Sirius sputters. “Excuse you princess! No fucking way. Get your lazy ass off that couch, I got shit to do.”
Regulus rolls his eyes and waves him off, and turns towards James. He removes his glasses and looks up and him through gorgeous fucking lashes. “Jamie, would you be a doll and go fetch me my tea?”
James has ceased to exist. This is horrible for his health. Did he just say Jamie? James is going to cry. He feels lightheaded, is it hot in here?? And don’t get him started on the whole doll thing.
“Oh and would you grab my bag for me while you're at it darling?” He smiles up at him sweetly as if he isn’t currently making James weak in the goddamn knees. The word “darling” has no right to sound that good in anyone’s mouth. James barely has time to recover before he finds himself kneeling at Regulus’s feet to grab his bag.
“You are just sunshine.” He smiles down at him and pats his fucking head. James gets up as quickly as he can, proceeds to trip over air, and attempts to walk towards the kitchen while staring at Regulus. What the fuck was that.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!” Sirius exclaims.. “You did not just seduce my best friend into getting what you want.”
And Regulus? Regulus is on a mission to kill him. He looks up at Sirius and bats his bloody lashes. Those perfect goddamn lashes. James isn’t sure if he’s in heaven or hell. “I have not a clue what you mean Siri.” He says innocently, the little demon.
James bolts. He genuinely runs towards the kitchen because he is so sure he can’t take more of this without spontaneously combusting. He pours a cup of tea for Regulus and proceeds to bang his head against a cupboard repeatedly. Fuck fuck fuck. He is so screwed. James is sure he has never met anyone as painfully beautiful as Regulus, and he is even more sure that he is utterly fucked. He takes a few more moments to recollect his wits- and catch his damn breath- before walking out of the kitchen with a mission.
James walks up to Regulus with a mock bow, holding out his tea. “There you are your highness.”
He sets the mug on his side table and grabs one of Regulus’s hands gingerly into both of his. He brings his- horribly pretty, ringed hands- to his lips and kisses it, keeping eye contact. He relishes in the way Regulus’s eyes widen and his cheeks pink. “Any more requests?” Regulus stares at him blankly with his mouth open, before he seems to think better of it and shuts it again, resorting to simply shaking his head.
James smirks. “I’ll be waiting in the car then.” He says as he grabs Regulus’s bag- along with Regulus’s suitcase, his own duffel bag, and Sirius’s two bags- because why shouldn’t he be a little extra mean? And he takes them out to the car.
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Well, shit. Regulus did not expect his plan to backfire so horribly. Firstly- James does not get to be so bloody fit. He’s like a goddamn Olympian- how many bags was he carrying?? Fuck. Don’t get him wrong, his plan was glorious for a few minutes. He relished in how painfully flustered James looked, but perhaps he should not have pushed it so hard? His hand still tingles from where James kissed it. Holy shit.
Sirius is gaping at him. Suddenly he’s cackling. Regulus glares daggers into him, though it loses most of its effect when he’s blushing so furiously. Nonetheless, Sirius ignores it.. “HA!! FUCK YOU, YOU LITTLE SHIT! THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR TRYING TO SEDUCE MY BEST FRIEND. I hope you never recover!” he adds sweetly after laughing in his face.
Regulus glares harder. “I am perfectly fine thank you very much, and I wasn’t seducing anybody.” he says, now staring at the floor.
Sirius looks at him, unimpressed. “Yeahh right. Whatever. Come on, let's get to the car, grab the chess set, why don’t you?” Regulus rolls his eyes but drops the matter and goes to grab the chess set.
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After a painfully long car drive with the just lovely company of James, Sirius, and Peter (Remus was actually quite nice, we had a long conversation about literature)- they had made it to the plane. They got out of the car and were immediately swarmed by paparazzi. By god they’re annoying. Regulus keeps his head down and doesn’t make contact with the cameras, suddenly he feels something tug on his leg and he looks behind him, irritated.
As he looks behind him his scowl quickly drops as he sees an adorable young girl, who can’t be older than 6, with bright green eyes which have that childlike innocence he lost by the time he was 9. The sight brings a soft smile onto his face.
“Well hello there lovely, are you alright?” he says in the softest voice he can manage. The young girl blushes and looks down. She nods shyly.
“Mhm! I wanted to ask if it would be okay for me to take a picture with you? You have pretty hair and a pretty voice.” She says looking down, clearly trying to be as polite as possible. Regulus can’t help smiling wider, he looks up to see her mom waiting behind her smiling at him.
“Hello! I am so sorry to disturb you, my daughter here loves your movies and all your music. She’s also trying her very best to practice her manners. Isn’t that right Delilah?” Her mother says encouragingly, and the young girl hides her face in her hands and nods. Regulus would vehemently deny the way his heart melts. He may have a soft spot for polite children okay? Leave him alone.
“Of course sweetheart. You said your name was Delilah?” He asks her, the girl nods again. “Well isn’t that pretty. Come on, let's take a photo.” He puts out his arms for her and she jumps into them, now grinning wildly. Regulus bites back a grin of his own while he picks her up. Her mom “awws” and coos as she takes a photo, and they say their goodbyes. Regulus looks towards the group and his smile falls immediately at the sight of them grinning- Remus at least having the decency to try and hide it behind his hand. He glares at all of them.
“What.” He spits out, aggravated.
Sirius’s grin only grows. “Nothing Reggie, just didn’t know you had it in you to actually be a decent human being. You really are just a big softie huh?”
Regulus scoffs and rolls his eyes in response. “Come off it. Let’s go.” He looks towards James and stops in his tracks. His mouth is wide open and he looks like he’s about to cry- and is Regulus hallucinating or is he blushing? He abruptly realizes he’s been looking too long and walks as fast as he can away from the group and towards the gate. He hears someone catching up to him, only causing him to walk faster. Too late. He looks to his right to see a wheezing, blushing James Potter.
“Jesus fuck Reg, what the bloody hell are you running from?” James says, breathing heavily. Regulus promptly ignores this and begins to walk away again, before feeling a stupidly large hand catch his wrist. “Reg. Stop it.” he says sternly enough that Regulus stops in his tracks.
“What do you want, Potter?” Regulus says with a glare in his direction. “And why the fuck are you touching me?”
James only rolls his eyes in response. “If it bothers you so much why don’t you pull away?” he says as he brings both of his hands down to hold the one he was just grasping. Regulus opens his mouth only to shut it again. He will pull away…once his limbs start to work again. Shut up, its fucking hard to function when James Potter is staring daggers into you with his sparkly fucking eyes, and his hair all tousled, with both of his huge fucking hands cupping one of yours, and- fuck he’s screwed.
James smirks. “Thought so.” Regulus looks down in surrender. James continues on, “What’d the little girl want.”
Regulus’s cheeks pink when James mentions the interaction. “She just wanted a picture for fucks sake.” Regulus understands he’s being a bitch for no reason but honestly it’s his only defense mechanism against James’s- everything. He expected a rude comment back but instead James only gives him a soft smile.
“It was cute. She looked happy.” James says softly, chasing Regulus’s eyes.
Regulus looks away. “Yeah whatever, it was just a picture.” he murmurs. James uses one of his hands to cup Regulus’s chin and turn his head towards him again, looking into his eyes.
“You looked happy too. You smiled, and it was….you know, pretty.” James says sheepishly. Regulus is terrified. He should probably say thank you or something, but fuck that. The only response he could come up with was to smack James’s hand that was cupping his chin away and walking away as fast as he fucking can. The only problem with this? James is still holding his goddamn hand, and Regulus is still powerless to do anything about it, so now he is pulling James along towards the gate.
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James is hyperventilating. He is a blushing, flustered, mess. He is trying so hard to have even one coherent thought but fuck if that isn’t hard when Regulus looks like that? Honestly it should be illegal for someone to be that pretty, and so mean but will still hold his hand, and his perfect fucking eyes, and- shit.
So James wasn’t paying attention. Sue him. He doesn’t pay attention when they walk towards the gate, he doesn’t pay attention when he signs a girl’s autograph, he doesn't pay attention when he stores the bags- why?Well because Regulus is still holding his hand through it all. Shit.
He finds himself sitting next to Regulus on the plane- and he finally, finally lets go of his hand. Not that James didn’t love it- it was just, a lot. He doesn’t even know why, for god’s sake. He barely knows Regulus. He’s just so…mean and pretty. Merlin, he’s hopeless. He looks to his left and Regulus is sitting there, with his headsets in, the sun shining over his perfect features- and it’s all too much but somehow not enough at all. With a sigh, James goes to put in his own headsets before a cold, ringed hand on his arm stops him.
“Why are you fretting?” Regulus asks cooly, not even looking at him.
James whirls on him, “I am not fretting!” Regulus only looks at him lazily, raising both of his eyebrows. His hand is still on James’s arm by the way? Why would he do that?? Of course he is fretting???
Regulus continues to look at him with his perfect, icy eyes before humming. “Mmm , okay.” and he looks down at his phone again.
James closes his eyes and just breathes for a second. But really when Regulus is right next to him how long can he go without looking at him? He looks over to see Regulus smiling down at his phone and well if he isn’t awake now. A hot spike of anger- he thinks, something similar in any case- goes through him.
“Who are you texting?” James demands, much too aggressively for this situation, but hell if he cares- or notices.
And Regulus, the little shit, doesn’t even look up from his phone and says “Barty.” calmly.
“Well who the fuck is Barty?” James asks again, getting more annoyed. He knows Regulus can talk to whoever he wants and that he can have a boyfriend or whatever he wants but just-
His thoughts are rudely interrupted by Regulus’s perfect eyes snapping up at him, seemingly finally noticing his tone. “Uh, my friend? One of my best friends actually. Do we have a problem??”
Shit shit he sounds upset. God that was so not his intention. The last thing he ever, ever wants is for Regulus to be upset- and no he will not further examine that thought thank you. And once again his thoughts are interrupted by a ghost of a smirk on Regulus’s face, before he leans over and puts his head on James’s shoulder. Yeah, this is definitely not real. James is either dreaming, hallucinating, or has died and is either in hell or heaven. He can’t tell yet. The ghost of Regulus’s curls brush on James cheek while his perfect eyes (which he literally cannot shut up about, because like, have you seen them?) look up at him through thick lashes. No this is definitely hell. Merlin this is not a normal reaction at all.
Regulus smiles up at him. “Tell me about yourself James.” James gulps. God, the way his name sounds in Regulus’s mouth is enough to feed a starving man. The way his tongue curls all pretty around the syllables with his slightly french accent.
James shakes his head to knock himself out of it, and he finally registers Regulus’s question. One day he will be able to speak to Regulus like a normal person. One day. “Uh, what do you want to know?”
Regulus shrugs. “What you like, how you grew up, who you are. Anything you like.” Fuck he has a pretty voice, did he mention that already?
James tries his best to get it together. “I don’t know, I mean I’m pretty boring.” Regulus raises his eyebrows at this, James rolls his eyes and ignores him. “I was a big rugby guy at school- shut up don’t look at me like that- I’ve learned to cook pretty well from my mom so I usually do that for the guys. I’m very much a cat person,” he looks down at Regulus as he says this, listening intently, with his eyes closed and lying lazily. It reminds him a lot of a cat. He coughs “ Uh I’ve always loved music, just ask my parents.” James adds with a laugh and his eyes light up.
“Oh my parents! Regulus I have to tell you about them, they're the best. Gosh you’d love them, they’d love you.” Regulus’s eyes snap open at this.
“Yeah no they definitely would not. I’m not good with people, let alone parents. They all hate me” James rolls his eyes at this.
“Well I’m gonna prove you wrong then stupid. Tell me about yourself.”
“No. I’m boring.”
James rolls his eyes again. “Regulus I don’t care.” He looks down at him, “Please?”
Regulus sighs, seemingly resigned. “Fine. I like quiet, books-”
“BOOM!! Already, books and silence. My dad will love you, he’s literally the same. And like my mom literally fell in love with him so she’ll love you too. ” James says victoriously, snapping his fingers.
Regulus is now the one to roll his eyes, though a ghost of a smile is visible on his face. “Anyway. I just read a lot, I drink too much tea, and I don’t really tell people but I’m a big poetry person.”
James grins. “That fits so well. Plus I was right, my parents will literally fall in love with you immediately.” Regulus only gives a soft smile in response. Which, woah. His smile. God-fucking-dammit James is so screwed.
They sit like that talking for hours. Somewhere along the line Regulus’s head ends up on his lap, and don’t ask James how he’s handling it, because he is not.
James looks down to ask Regulus a question, and promptly sees Regulus fast asleep on his lap. Shit, he’s so cute. James can’t help how beautiful and peaceful Regulus looks like this, like a fallen angel. His face free of his usual scowl, his curls forming a halo around his head, and his face sparkling under the faint airplane lights.
James sits there admiring him with a loving smile on his face for god knows how long, before Sirius walks over.
“Hey prongs, you want this drink I- oh.” He says softly in realization. James hums in agreement, still not looking up from Regulus’s face.
“James?” Sirius says in a low voice. Now James looks up to see him staring at Regulus with so much adoration and love in his eyes, the way he will only look at Remus (don’t tell him, he probably doesn’t realize it yet).
“Yeah padfoot?”
“Let him stay like that for a bit, okay? He rarely ever sleeps, let alone with people around. He needs this.”
Warmth bubbles up in James’s chest at Sirius’s words. It makes him feel special in a way, that after one whole conversation Regulus trusts him enough to fall asleep. “Of course Sirius, wouldn’t dream to wake him up when he looks like that innit?” James says softly with a grin, knowing damn well he means every word.
Sirius grins back but rolls his eyes anyway. “Yeah yeah idiot. I’ll leave you two alone now.” He adds with a wave of his hand. And James is left to gaze down at the star in his lap for as long as the universe will let him.