“James, just talk to me.”
“That's rich coming from you.”
They’d done this dance the past year and a half, James and Regulus had. Secret rendezvous and hidden alcoves, letters passed when they thought no one was looking and it had been good, stressful and anxiety inducing at times but good. It had taken some work in the beginning but it startled the both of them how well they worked together, how seamlessly they could fit into one another's lives if they only put in the work. They’d gotten together not long after the start of James’ sixth year, Regulus’ fifth, and with January of the older’s seventh year now behind them they should have been fine. Should have been being the operative term in the statement.
In the years that James had known Regulus as only Sirius’ little brother, the younger had refused to open up to him at all. It had taken six months of dating before Regulus was even willing to show a crack in his public facade to James. It had been in the Come and Go Room, just the two of them. Storms had rolled in and James found himself on a large plush bed in the middle of the room with Regulus clinging to him as if his life depended on it. The pressure placed on the boy had finally come to a boiling point, he only needed a means to express it. James had learned that night that Regulus saw him as being his place of safety in a world where the darkness grew by the day.
It had taken months for James to get Regulus to truly talk to him about what was going on in his head, something James did readily with the younger already. But after the winter hols, Regulus found himself shut off from that safety. James had stopped responding to his letters not two weeks in, just before the new year began. And upon returning he had found that the older boy was isolating himself to a degree that even Sirius could not get to him, not that Regulus was supposed to know that. He’d watched the four Gryffindor boys day in and day out since returning, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were often together and watching James with concern while the Potter boy kept his distance no matter how desperately they tried to make contact.
“James, please,” Regulus couldn’t take it anymore. He could handle being ignored by most others, but not James.
“Are we begging now? That's new, usually you only do that in bed.”
Regulus, renowned for his dislike in physical contact with others, reached out to James. He grabbed onto the older boy’s upper arms and held on for dear life. Without a word, he locked eyes with him as if to silently ask what was wrong. “Don’t make me regret falling in love with you, what is wrong?” He finally asked.
Regulus didn’t usually verbalize his love, it was on rare and cherished moments that he spoke up about it and each one James held dear to his heart.
There was something in those silver eyes of his, both love and desperation, that James could not avoid. He’d kept his distance from his boyfriend for a month now, terrified that if he told him, told anymore, that he’d leave him. He hadn’t even told Sirius what had happened, only his Mum and Dad. “I was attacked,” he said quietly. If Regulus wasn’t so close to him he might not have even heard it.
“It's alright, I still love you,” Regulus pushed forward, his forehead against James’ as he stood on his toes with his eyes closed. One of James’ favorite things to learn about Regulus after he’d finally begun to open up was that when he willingly gave physical affection it was the most grounding feeling on earth. If possible, James would willingly spend the rest of his days with Regulus in his arms as the younger nuzzled up to him.
James tried to turn away, much to no avail as Regulus would not let him. One of his hands reached up to cup his face, those delicate spindly fingers weaving themselves into the hair at the nape of James’ neck. “Not if I tell you you won’t.”
“Nothing will stop me from loving you,” they were words that Regulus had been meaning to say for a while. Words that carried heavy implications, such as ‘I will take up your offer of running away because I am that desperately in love with you and cannot stomach the very thought of them marrying me off to some pureblooded witch so they have another generation to torture.’ “James please,” he whispered close, his lips ghosting James’.
Without a further word Regulus captured James’ lips with his own, leaning back and pulling the other boy flush against him. James recoiled in an instant, a sharp hiss in pain falling from his lips.
“Don’t do that,” James reached up and touched his lips as if to wipe away nothing at all.
Regulus, shocked that James had asked him not to kiss him when before the other boy would have him pressed against the wall of the Come and Go Room in a heated kiss before the door had a chance to fully close, stared at James. “What?”
James, recoiling from the pain that still racked through his body, repeated himself, “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do that?” Regulus stared at him, “Don’t kiss my boyfriend? The very same boyfriend that can barely keep his hands to himself when we are alone? The same one who would cast a million ‘notice me not’ spells so that he could have his arm draped around my waist in the library? The same one who would rather throw me against a wall and kiss me like his life depended on it before dragging me to the nearest bed to have his way with me? That boyfriend?” He wasn’t going to come outright and say he felt insulted by James’ request, but he made sure he made his feelings known through the tone of it.
James recoiled from Regulus’ touch and ran to a water basin that had not been there previously. Regulus watched as he desperately washed his mouth out, as if convinced that Regulus had poisoned him through a kiss.
At that moment Regulus was tempted to leave, to return the cold shoulder that James had been giving him the past month to see how he felt about it. Dinner was being served in the Great Hall, and his snack of garlic bread which he stole from the kitchens just before coming here was not enough to hold him over the night.
James caught his eye as he spit out yet more water. “I’m sorry, just don’t do that.”
From a distance Regulus could see what had been hidden at such a close distance, there was pain and desperation etched across James’ face and it was all tied together with a healthy dose of fear that cut through all of it. His request not to kiss him was not made out of a desire to end things but instead out of desperation. Regulus had learned long ago how to read James Potter like any of the books in the library, this James was making the request out of safety. He needed Regulus not to kiss him for his own safety, but why?
“What did you eat?” James asked quietly, still hunched over the basin.
Regulus took a step closer to his boyfriend. “Excuse me?”
“What did you eat?” He asked again, this time slightly louder.
“Garlic bread?” Regulus was trying to keep his mind at bay. By the end of his first year he had already figured out that Remus Lupin was a werewolf, certain patterns and habits made it obvious to anyone that knew what to look for. He didn’t want to reach conclusions here and theorize what exactly had happened to his boyfriend, what had attacked him, he just wanted to hear him say it aloud.
James shut his eyes, his head hung low. Over the course of their relationship he had learned one very crucial thing about Regulus- he loved the flavor of garlic. He had convinced himself over the past few weeks that Regulus had figured out what had happened to James and would break up with him because of it, the taste of garlic and subsequent pain it led to only solidified that belief. “Just leave, break up with me and leave me be.”
Regulus stared at him in disbelief at what he was hearing. If James thought he would leave him for something so trivial as being attacked, something he could not have helped, then he’d go to Sirius that moment and tell him of their relationship that instant. He needed to prove to James that he was there for him as he had done so many times. For the longest time, James had been a rock in secret for Regulus. If James needed someone to ground him, then Regulus was more than willing to be that person now if he needed it. “Break up with you? I came here to talk to you and now you’re shirking away asking me to not kiss you and to break up with you. What is wrong, James? I know you, something happened. And don’t say you were attacked again, what happened because of it?”
James was silent for a long while, his eyes glued to the ground as Regulus watched him once more. In the time that James had spent not responding to Regulus’ letters over the hols, the younger Slytherin had learned something crucial about himself. He was desperately in love with James, something he already knew, and would be for the rest of his life. Locking himself in his room, Regulus had refused to leave for three days when he was hit with the revelation that James might very well be the great love of his life. He wasn’t going to lose him over some miscommunications and a distinct lack of kisses.
“I was attacked,” James said again but seemed unwilling to continue on.
Reaching out for him, Regulus waited. He could see the older boy was shaking slightly now, the theories of what had happened forming in Regulus’ mind. Following as James had done earlier, he washed his mouth out as the other boy had done as if to show they were on equal footing here. James was silent the entire time. Regulus gently coaxed him back to the bed that the room had conjured up, the very same one they’d utilized many times in the past. He sat James down amongst the plush bedding, taking his place across from him in wait.
After what felt like eons, he finally spoke up. “It was late and I was out in the forest. Sirius had gone to see Remus and I was alone or I thought I was until I saw him.”
At the pause, Regulus asked, “You saw Sirius?”
“No,” he looked up at Regulus and he could finally see the tears that had been welling up in James’ eyes.
Regulus pulled his arms around James, holding on tight with little intention to let go.
“It all happened so fast,” James pleaded into Regulus' shirt. “I could barely see the look in his eyes before he bit me. The next thing I knew was that I was crawling out of a shallow grave.”
Regulus didn’t know when he had stopped breathing, but he became consciously aware of it at that moment.
“I know I tried to stop him, to get him off of me but it was a moot point once he had latched on.” James was sobbing into his shirt now, the younger boy petting the back of his head in a comforting way. “You can’t get a vampire off you once they bite you, not until they turn you or kill you. The books get that one right at least.”
“It's not your fault.” James had told him the exact same thing many times when the world grew to be too heavy and he felt like the root cause of all problems.
“I’m a dead man walking, starlight,” James pulled back from Regulus. “A monster.”
He could now see how distraught he was, his hair a mess and his face stained with tears.
“You’re not a monster, I’ve met monsters and you are as far from them as they come. Anyway, is Remus also a monster then?” Regulus asked as he tucked a lock of James’ hair behind his ear.
“No,” he replied as if he suddenly grasped what he had said. “But Remus knows how to navigate being a werewolf and he’s only classified as being dangerous on full moons. You know what the Ministry says, vampires are always dangerous and should be locked up. If I could have just kept him away from me then I wouldn’t have been attacked then I’d be fine and you’d be safe around me.”
“I’m still safe around you.”
“No you’re not, I’m dangerous.”
“No you’re not. You are as dangerous as one of those small, white curly dogs the muggles like so much. You’re as dangerous as a ladybug. You won’t harm anyone, you love people too much.” Regulus reached around the back of James’ neck, his hands pressed up against the turtleneck collar that came up to just below his jawline. He pressed a kiss to his forehead and left his lips there just millimeters away from the skin afterward. Now that he’d said it aloud, Regulus realized some new and crucial details about James that he hadn’t noticed before. Before his James had always been warm, as if the heat of the sun burned under his skin to warm those around him, but now he was quite a bit cooler. He wasn’t cold enough for it to be alarming but it was enough to recognize a distinct change in him. And looking at him, really looking at him he could also recognize that his boyfriend was slightly paler. Again, not enough of a noticeable change to make a difference but enough of one if one knew what they were looking for. What Regulus hadn’t expected was the change in his eye though. They were still as brown and beautiful as they had been before, but now there was a certain depth to them that had not been present previously. If Regulus could have gotten lost in his eyes previously, then he was positive he could drown in their depth now.
James was silent again, recoiling in on himself as a means of protection.
“You are the least dangerous person I have ever met, mon soleil, the least dangerous. And I am not going to break up with you because you were attacked and I’m most certainly not going to break up with you because you are now a vampire. I loved you endlessly when you were just James Potter and I still love you. You’re it for me, there's no one else, and a vampire attack will never change that. I will leave this room right now and declare to the world that I love you. I will go to my brother and tell him this instant and sneak off to gather my things from Grimmauld to bring them to your parent’s. Nothing will ever stop me from loving you, no matter what you become.”
James laughed, something watery and broken but a laugh nonetheless. “Those sound like the lead up to a proposal, starlight.”
Regulus brought his lips to ghost over James, his mouth now devoid of the garlic that had caused such a pain for his love. “Give me a chance to find a ring for you and they can be.” He mustered up as much passion and love as he could on a moment’s notice to kiss James with. He knew it would take time for the older boy to accept it, but Regulus knew that in time James would realize he was being truthful. Regulus kissed James with all that he had in him, vampire attack be damned.
James’ lips were cold, but Regulus could get used to that.