Chapter 1
His leg has been anxiously bouncing up and down for the past couple of hours. Not that James Potter has noticed. He is worried sick, he does not know where Lily went and she is not answering her phone. He assumes that she went out as she tends to do on fridays which brings another load of problems to James' mind, because he is unsure, he does not understand their relationship. James does not feel that Lily loves him as much as he loves her. He would do anything for her but his mind has started to doubt if she'd do the same for him.
The love that consumes him for her is so bright and untamable like the fire red of her hair, it makes him as sick as his current worry for her well being, he does not care if she doesn't love him half the time, as long as he gets to be in her life, that is enough for him. James Potter is a sucker for those that do not seem to have themselves in control because he feels like he never is. She has her secrets, doesn't tell him what is on her mind, James has been with Lily long enough to know. Seeing as first they had been friends before they became lovers.
He's learned to read her as well as himself, but even if he understands her physically, he does not know how to read her mind, he desperately wishes to be able to as sometimes she doesn't tell him things. Lets things bottle inside of her until they burn her, make her lash out at him, he doesn't blame her but it is rather exhausting. He does not like when their relationship takes such negative turns, he wants them to be good and happy, and they are but sometimes it does not feel that way. Lily Evans tries to stay on top of things, since the first moment he has met her he has seen the way in which she has tried and succeeded to control as much of her life as she could, and sometimes she did not succeed but James had been there to console her, to tell her things were alright. But now, even as James is aware of all this he can not help but have these worrisome thoughts as it is nearing midnight and Lily has not returned. He has entertained the thought of her perhaps cheating on him, he does not care at this point, he needs to see that she's alright and until then anything and everything else does not matter to him. James would rather see everything burn or he'd do it himself, tear apart what he must if it meant that he could see that Lily is okay. As his mind worries, he forces himself to go take a hot nice shower in order to calm down his thoughts, see if that urge to just see her calms down enough for him to be able to think clearly seeing as stressing out is not really doing anything for him.
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She is giggling and laughing. Talking to herself about the most random things as hiccups interrupt her at times. This is a stranger who is watching another stranger, a very pretty but very drunk one sitting at the bar with an almost empty glass of alcohol held loosely in their left hand. He sees as the back of her head greets his eyes as it is resting upon her right arm on the bar, the stranger is wearing a black dress as her feet swing back and forth with heels still on. It was almost impossible to miss the bright red haired babbling stranger when he entered the usually empty bar. There are a few others here, some have already sent a concerned eye her way, a few very have sent rather ill intentioned ones to her too, and as soon as his mind forced him to be aware of that he is being forced by his mind to make sure she stays safe. The only way he knows he can do that is by keeping an eye on her, Regulus Black has already told the bartender to not serve her anymore drinks and they listened to him simply because he is friends with them. He has not made himself known to the girl but since it is getting rather late, Regulus thinks he should order her a ride or something, she is alone and it is not safe for a pretty stranger like her to be left out in the streets as unstable as she is. He goes up to her after he's had his drink, and finds it being too late for her, Regulus Black sits next to the pretty stranger with only concern taking a hold of him.
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Lily is aware that her mouth has started to make random boop like noises and she can not help but giggle each and every time. They sound like bubbles to her and she so very adores how bubbles look but usually they are made of soap and you have to blow one from the hoop that is brought with the container of soapy water. As another boop like sound escapes her, she begins to giggle yet again until a hiccup interrupts her. A pout starts to form on her lips that has some faded red lipstick on them now, Lily feels free and light. None of her worries or scary thoughts can take a hold of her now. She has made them go away and she feels good, she is happy and she is in control, being in control is a very important thing for Lily as she unknowingly nods to herself in confirmation.
She wants to make a bubble, but she has forgotten how one makes one without soapy water, as she is thinking about this, a shadow falls upon her face as someone takes a seat to her left. This takes her focus rather quickly as she's met with a beautiful stranger. He has black curls that are very elegantly styled and cropped to fit his face shape, she is very approving of his hair. His eyes are a deep gray that she thinks might have some green in them but her eyes can't seem to focus enough for her to be able to tell so she is left just to ponder. Squinting to try and see more, he continues to just stare back at her, a very solemn and serious expression on his face.
Lily bets she can make him laugh, she wants to see this stranger laugh because why is he so very not happy, he should be happy like Lily is happy. She finds herself mimicking his expression, exaggerating his solemn expression, she feels the slight change of his expression to a slightly amused one. As a bright light bulb goes off in her mind, she starts making funny faces at him, sticking her tongue out, making more boop noises that are still being interrupted by these awfully annoying hiccups, she is also mimicking his expression and stops when the beautiful stranger does not appear sad anymore. She would love to be able to see his face clearer but her head feels too heavy on its own so she is staying on having it rest upon her arm for now.
The stranger introduces himself as Regulus her mind vaguely registers to her, she likes that name, it sounds very fitting for him like the rest of him is. He is asking for her name, searching her head, Lily tells him that her name is Lily. He is asking her if anyone is going to come and pick her up because she is drunk. Lily has no idea on what the beautiful stranger named Regulus is talking about, Lily is not drunk, she feels perfectly alright if you ask her. She's light and airy and just so unbearably giddy than ever before. She tells him as such, to which he responds if she has a fuzzy vision or can't seem to suddenly hold her body correctly, and well Lily does have those things happening to her but she hadn't really thought about it. Okay so maybe Lily is drunk, she finds this funny, she hasn't been drunk in a while so she giggles again. The stranger who is Regulus, asks her if she has someone to pick her up again. She does not, well she can ask James but she doesn't want to bother him, not with something that he doesn't really need to bother with, she can get home just fine by herself.
Regulus seems to disagree, so in order to distract Regulus from being anything but happy, she decides to tell him about the happiest thing that she can think of that happens to just be James, who is her boyfriend and that she loves very much. Telling him his name that is James Potter, how he looks and is very handsome just like Regulus, she spends quite a while just on describing James, but when she moves on she does not forget to say how James is very bright both mentally and just overall. How he reminds her of the sun, she tells him how very in love with him that she is, how when things get tough for her, she knows she can always count on him. That James Potter is the best person she has ever had the fortune to meet and in the middle of her rambling about James Potter she had forgotten her reason for why she had started doing so. But regulus the beautiful stranger has not failed to ask her little questions about James, answering back with a tiny smile on his face, and she is glad that he is happy because she is happy and everyone just deserves to be happy all the time.
She is about to continue on telling him a story about James when Regulus gets a message on his phone, and she only knows this because it makes a very startling ping that sounds oddly loud to Lily than she deems necessary. The time reads as eleven something but Lily does not care as she focuses her attention back on Regulus who seems to be back in a serious mood, and if James were here he would agree with her that Regulus should never have to be serious again if his smile is so much more beautiful. Regulus is now asking her if she knows James' phone number after finding out that her cell phone is dead, Lily brightens by this because she does in fact remember James’ phone number, she sees as Regulus seems to not be calling James but a lift of some sort. He tells Lily that he is calling his brother to drop Lily off at home and then he will go home after making sure that she is okay.
Lily realizes that she should not trust him as easy as she is because that is not safe but Regulus seems to know this too as he tells her things about him and his older brother who is called Sirius, she finds out that they are both named after stars, that his brother has a boyfriend in which Lily is very happy for him. She also finds out that Regulus is currently in college to study the law as his brother is a police officer and that he can prove this to her when he gets there so she can know they mean no harm to her.
Lily agrees with his reasoning and so she waits for Sirius to come and pick her up, she had told Regulus that she hoped that his star named brother is befitting of the name like he is which caused a laugh to escape him. She was very proud of her unexpected accomplishment because it seemed to actually make Regulus happy. Eventually they were greeted with someone new, Lily had forgotten that Sirius was going to pick them up until he appeared much in the same way Regulus did and just stated that he was there to pick them up but not before he proved who he was by showing a badge and she was quite pleased to note that Regulus had been telling her the truth. Sirius appears to be fitting of his name with similar but distinct features to Regulus which surprises her but doesn't as they are siblings. She is happy that they are close brothers as she would have wished that she had that type of relationship with her older sister of who she hasn't heard of or about in years.
Sirius is driving her home after she was able to remember the address of her and James' place. They had laid her to sleep for if she wanted to, in the backseats of the car, as Regulus went to the passenger side as Sirius drove. She was vaguely aware of the fact that Regulus appeared to sound frustrated because James was not answering his phone, she did find that odd as that was not like James but she was too distracted by the calm sounds of the car being driven and the street lights that were dancing across the back seats of the car as she held her arms out to try and see if she could touch them. She was very appreciative of the fact that Regulus and Sirius seemed to be checking in on her every few minutes as they chatted amongst themselves on what to do if James wasn't home.
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The pretty stranger who is and was not fit to go home alone is now in the back seat of his older brothers car, her name being Lily like the flower she had told him. She actually told him a lot about herself and her boyfriend whose name is James, she mostly told him about James.
He would be concerned about how much she told him about James if he were to have been anyone else because who knows what people would do with such information but he told her a lot of things about himself and his brother too so it doesn't really matter now. He is rather curious to see if her description of James is as accurate as she described, he is hoping that her boyfriend is home because if not then that means him and his brother will have to come up with something to do because they can not just leave her. So he is hoping that this James is in fact home and just happens to be currently busy which was why he was not answering his phone.
They arrive after a while, it seems to be an apartment complex, with a tsk of his teeth, they ask Lily for the number of the apartment. They begin to carry her throughout the building until they land in front of number 103.
Sirius tells him that he's going to go back to the car and to call him if her boyfriend isn't there, he agrees and is holding Lily up by the waist, his arm wrapped around her snugly. She is giggling and mumbling into his neck, he thinks she might've whispered that he smells good but he's ignoring that in favor of redialling the number she had given him earlier of the guy, even as his insides seem to turn fuzzy.
As Regulus holds his phone up between his shoulder and ear. He brings his other now free arm to hold Lilys waist so she doesn't give out under him like a toddler that doesn't want to walk. She's still giggling and such as the phone rings in his ear, and he can hear it echo softly in the distance.
This makes him curious as he tells Lily to shush as nicely as he can to see if the ringing is actually coming from inside the apartment they're currently standing in front of. After, a few moments of Lily looking at him in a dazed sort of confusion as he stares back at her. He confirms to himself that the ringing is indeed coming from inside as it stops just as the phone call in his ear takes him to voicemail.
He never lets the voicemail even start before the lady that directs him to it finishes. So he does the next best thing and knocks on the door when he hears shuffling behind the door as he gently pushes Lily to follow him so they're both leaning against the door. Lily must think that it is a game because she is giggling and looking rather innocent even though she's quite literally drunk.
Regulus knocks again for the last time as he pulls Lily from the door and just as he looks towards it, does it open up to reveal the person who he assumes to be Lilys boyfriend, James, but he did not expect him to look like that.
James whose hair is slighty wet but appears to be in the middle of drying as curls that are messier than his own are in different stages of drying. His shirt sticking to his upper body that you can see easily see the outline of muscles on his arms and some shorts he thinks because he isn't looking down to check. He does see physically the appeal of James being like the sun because as soon as Regulus laid his eyes on him, he became the brightest thing in his sight which says a lot with the red headed girl he’s currently holding. James who ends up holding Regulus' eyes for longer than necessary which his mind unhelpfully points out as his heart decides to skip a traitorous beat. The man looks away from him to look at Lily, the slight confusion changing to relief and worry.
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There’s Lily, his Lily. In the arms of another as she seems to be giggling to herself. He can instantly tell that she’s not sober, that she’s drunk but the other man seems to only be looking at him. Allowing him to take in the situation, he appreciates that, he was rather surprised to see someone as beautiful as him to be standing out of his shared apartment door, never having seen him before just as his phone had stopped ringing. He’d left it on the table in front of the couch and was changing when he heard the rings of his phone but they had ended to then hear knocking at the door.
James goes to grab his Lily and pulls her into his arms as she seems to recognize it’s him, he is holding her with his left arm after seeing she’s okay and not hurt, afterall he doesn't know this man. Then the anger that he could've been hurting his Lily or anything else pops into his mind when he goes to meet the others eyes again. But just like the first time, it’s like his heart stops beating for a second, he is choosing to deeply ignore that in favor of other important things. He asks him who he is, he tells him that he’s Regulus, his mind unhelpfully decides to supply as the stars so naturally he ends up whispering that out loud, and if James saw the faint look of surprise on the beautiful strangers face, no he did not.
James tries his best to look serious and ask what happened as Regulus tells him that he found Lily quite drunk and offered to take her home, that she told him a lot about him and their relationship, that his older brother dropped them off but he’s waiting for him, and that Lily would not stop gushing about the different ways in which she thought he was like the sun. That she very clearly loves him a lot. The confirmation that his overthinking thoughts had been making him doubt instantly vanished as James felt lighter in a way, he liked Regulus and he's glad he decided to help Lily instead of harming her. He tells him thanks and just as he’s about to close the door asks him, if he was the one that had been calling him to which he says yes and James apologizes because he'd been showering and had left his phone in a different room, Regulus tells him why and how he’d been able to call him and they say bye again as James takes Lily to bed.
After helping her change out of her clothes into more comfortable ones, removing the makeup that had smudged on her face, James goes to lay next to Lily as her soft snores fill the quiet of the room. Even as James has all that he needs with him, his mind does not appear to want to stop replaying the beautiful stranger in his mind. He falls asleep ignoring the way his heart had reacted to that first glance into each others eyes, like he was the match for the dimming light in his life. Before James could think much of it, he quickly grabbed his phone that was beside the bed on their nightstand, to find the number of Regulus, making him a contact and saved him as “beautiful stranger regulus” with a star next to it, and just as quickly he put his phone away and closed his eyes. James Potter fell asleep with Regulus and his endlessly gray eyes that had lit up every part of him that needed it.