James had been many things in his life, but he was starting to believe fool ranked at the top of the list. Why else would he currently be wandless, tied up, and magically gagged, walking down the Black Estate stairs to what was most likely a dark and miserable dungeon. He never should have trusted Dumbledore.
Should never have believed him when he said the thing he wanted most in the world was for the war to end with no further bloodshed. Should have questioned him when he kept repeatedly sending James out on missions alone, missions that he was luckier than he had any right to be to get out of unscathed. Most importantly he definitely should not have followed him when he said he needed James to accompany him for a quick recon mission.
He could still remember the words the traitorous bastard spoke right before he had led James right into the ambush.
“You know Mr. Potter, you are uniquely loved by the members of the order. I think most would go to war, true war, for you if something were ever to happen to you”, he had said the words with the same enigmatic smile he said most things. Even then it had stood out as an odd thing for a person to say on a routine mission, but at the time James took it as a compliment. He had not even thought to think something might be off until he was surrounded by five death eaters with no Dumbledore in sight. A fool as he had said. He should be dead, lying cold somewhere on the ground and he could not think of a reason why he had been captured instead.
He had always trusted Dumbledore, and after his parents and Re- after his parents had been killed, had trusted his mission more than anything. It had been the most important thing in the world to him, even more, important than Lily after their short-lived romance had started. If you could call two desperate people trying to find even a spark of happiness romance.
Oh, Lily, he thought with a pang in his chest, they had ended things shortly after his parents deaths. Both of them realized that they only worked when James was happy enough to do anything for her to feel the same way and when Lily could still be her own person independent of him, allowed space to heal from her own heatbreak.
His miserable clinging in the wake of Effie and Monty's murders had been the final straw for their already tenuous bond. Strained probably beyond repair already after the news of the death of Re- well since James had made it his mission to end this stupid war. He had been reckless since then he knew, even Sirius had commented on it and he was the most radical in their cause right after James himself.
What had that led him to? Betrayal by one of the people he had trusted most in this world and a slow climb down to a dark cell. They were probably going to question him before they killed him, he tried not to shudder at the thought of the things that could happen to him once he reached the bottom of those stairs.
“Scared?” the man to his left taunted, “You should be, there's not gonna be anything left of you when our Lord is finished with ya”. The words left a cold and heavy spot in his stomach. The Dark Lord, in theory James knew that he was real, had known since he had walked in on his parent's bodies lying still on the floor. No one had seen Voldemort in two years though, the Dark Lord becoming somewhat of a recluse since cleansing his own order.
He could still remember hearing that most of the tyrannical pure-blood supporters in the Dark Lord's army had been killed. Could recall the look of strained shock on Sirius’ face as it was reported that his own parents had been amongst those whose bodies had been found. James knew he had no love for them, but he had always said that if anyone was going to do them in should have been him or, well it could only have been Sirius at that point. James had not been able to bring himself to feel for his friend then, had not been able to bring himself to feel for anything since the news of what happened in some Merlin-forsaken cave was reported one night at an order meeting earlier that month.
James glared at the figure who had spoken, some blond man with a sneer on his face. He wanted more than anything to shoot back some scathing retort, but the spell blocking his mouth made it impossible for him to even grunt back in disgust. His glare was cut short when he was jerked back none too gently and brought to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, he wondered if Sirius or R- if Sirius had ever been down here. Knowing their parents he probably did not want to know the answer to that.
The room looked like every stereotypical nightmare he had ever had of cold, dark, damp-smelling dungeons, with several rows of small dark cells blocked off by metal bars. He could practically feel the wards coming off the barred cells from here. No doubt they would stop any attempt at escaping using magic before the prisoner could ever think of them. The cold feeling in his gut chilled a couple of degrees as he was marched to the second cell on the right.
“In the cell, pretty boy,” the same guard sneered at him as he shoved James through the now-opened door aggressively enough that James lost his balance and hit the hard floor with enough strength to force the breath out of him.
“Hope you don’t expect to see anything else but the inside of this cell for the rest of your short miserable life” the line was delivered with swift but brutal kicks to his face and stomach. Pain radiated from both spots as his vision blackened and he could feel blood start to pour out from his nose and drip from his now split lip. His vision blurred further as his glasses fell from his face in two broken and shattered pieces. He was still gasping for breath and letting out small cries of pain when he was hauled up by his arms and his wrists were forced through two large metal cuffs bolted onto the wall.
The second the cuffs closed around him he could feel the magic within them stop his own. It felt like someone had just taken away the sun, or snuffed out a fire he was not even aware burned within him. Like icy daggers cutting their way slowly down his body through the pathways, his magic usually flowed through.
The physical pain of the kicks took a distant second to this new feeling, he felt like he could barely move and sat on his knees with his arms above his head. He could not even raise his head to see as the two men left him in his cell with a barely heard cruel laugh. Shutting the door and locking it, the clang of the lock fastening shut would no doubt have felt final, but James found he could not concentrate on anything long enough to think much of it.
He could feel tears streak down from his eyes, his vision already blurred from missing his glasses; this did not make it any easier to see. Not that there was much to see besides his cell bars. His shoulders shook as he heaved with half cut off sobs. Halfheartedly tugging at the cuffs before collapsing in on himself as much as he could with his hands stuck above his head. He wanted to go home, back to Hogwarts in his 6th year. Back before everything had gotten so horrible, back to when Lily and he were finally just friends. Back before dark marks and blood traitors, back to when he had Reg- but no he couldn’t go back. Could not even fully think the name of the person he wanted to see more than he wanted his next breath without having a panic attack.
Maybe once he was finally killed he could see him wherever he was going. That thought had him stop sobbing as numb acceptance settled over the cold pit in his stomach. If he thought of it like that he could almost look forward to dying. He was so tired and bruised, inside and out, at least after this the hurting that had been there for so many years would finally go away. No more smiles because people needed them from him, no more jokes and laughter because it was the only way he knew to make his friends happy. No more half-love between two people who had lost the ones they truly wanted to be with. Only together to form an inadequate bandage for wounds that had never stopped bleeding. Not anything.
His acceptance of his inevitable death did not stop him from flinching as he heard the creak of his cell door and he raised his head to see a blurry dark figure walk up to him. He could feel his heart beating in his chest and his throat close as he realized this must be the Dark Lord here to torture him for information before killing him. The magical aura that came into the cell with the man was strong enough for him to feel even with the cuffs preventing him from using his own magic. He shuddered at how powerful the man must be.
He wished desperately that he could make himself stop crying as he looked up, irrationally thinking his vision might be clear and he could get a clear look at the figure before him for all the good it would do him. The figure went still before him, probably looking down in contempt and James felt his chin hit his chest as he dropped his eyes from the blurry blackness before him, it wouldn’t matter even if he could see the man.
The soft touch of skin on his cheek had him tensing. Gentle fingers finding their way below his chin and raising it slowly. His gaze dragged up to the figure's still blurry pale face in confusion at the almost delicate touch. His bloody lip was slowly brushed over with a thumb and James felt the tingle of magic despite no words being uttered before the throbbing pain in both his lip and nose eased, the gentle finger swiping through the blood that was still wet on his face.
“W-what are you doing?” James questions, eyes darting over the darkly shaded person-shaped blur whose hand was still softly stroking over his face. He was as confused at the gentle hand that eased his pain as he was revolted at the thought of a stranger touching him this way. It was almost intimate.
“Which one of the guards did this?” The voice that came from the figure was deep and garbled, sounding almost not human in its anger like some demon was speaking with human lips. James shuddered.
“Why? Going to call in back down so he can do it again” James had meant to shout defiantly, but the words came as more of a frightened whisper.
“I will never let anyone harm you again”, another soft finger swiping at the tears below his right eye even as he tried to pull his head away. The second he even started to move away though the gentle touch grew firm and the hand cupped the back of his head and gripped his hair forcing him to stay right where he was.
“I don't understand, '' he gasped out, confused. He always assumed the Dark Lord despised him and would kill him on sight. He was a blood traitor after all. He could not imagine why he was being treated, not kindly perhaps, but not unkindly by the mysterious figure in front of him. It scared him.
A stream of french left the figure's mouth and the hand holding him was removed. James tensed. He had not heard French in a long time, Sirius stopped speaking it after, well after. The sounds of movement echoed around the cell until the figure once again stood before him and uttered a quiet repair spell. The hand was back in his unruly hair and holding his head and neck still as his now whole glasses were slid onto his face.
He blinked, the sudden clarity of his vision taking a moment to get used to before he took in the man before him clearly for the first time and froze. His eyes wide and his chest barely moving with shallow breaths he raked his gaze over a face he had thought he would never see again.
“Y-you? What- how? I don’t understand” he sobbed out, “Is this some kind of trick? I won't tell you anything even if your wearing his face”. His breaths were coming quicker, almost panicked in their haste, as his eyes stayed glued to the face that had haunted his dreams for years. He looked a little older, the child-like roundness of his handsome face gone in favor of stark cheekbones and a sharp jawline. He looked like every dream James had ever had about love. What a cruel ploy for information.
“No Jamie, I don't need anything from you. Now that I finally have you again I don’t need anything from anyone. Do you even know how long I've been trying to get you away from that fucking lying old man” the voice that left that all too familiar mouth came out now in the smooth deep tone, as familiar and strange as the figure before him. A thud drew his eyes to a black mask that had dropped out of Reg- of the things hand and James distantly thought that there must be some kind of voice-changing spell placed on the object, because he never could have thought if his true voice as anything other than a blam to his soul.
The dark haired man kneeled before him, his own gray eyes now level with James’ brown ones and his other hand came up to mirror the position of the other, cradling James’ head in between them.
“No. No, you drowned. Dumbledore told me you drowned in a cave. Stop, please just kill me I can’t do this” his tears redoubled and he looked for a shimmer or something that would indicate someone was using an appearance-changing spell. Anything to explain what he was seeing.
“No Soleil, it is me I promise. I'm sorry I left”, lips pressed under each of his eyes as fingers tightened in his hair, almost painful with how tight their grip was. “I’ll never let you leave again James. I've dreamed of seeing you like this. Here where it will be so easy for me to keep you, chained to me forever”. The words caused James' stomach to flutter, a dangerous flare of hope igniting in his chest that maybe this was not the lie he feared it to be.
“If you are him you need to tell me, what happened?” the question came out in a desperate whisper as he tugged against the cuffs his wrists were still locked in, “Why are you here?”. The beautiful face before him smiled. A cold and cruel thing that James had never seen on the face he could map with his eyes closed.
“What happened is that it's easy to end a war when everyone thinks you're dead, love. Even easier to take over an order when you’ve slaughtered everyone loyal to the leader you killed”, the words were taunting, the sadistic smile gleeful as cold fingers tugged back on his hair, forcing James to expose his neck. The dark-haired man lowered his head to kiss along James' jawline and James tried and failed to understand what he was saying to him, there was no way the words coming out that familiar mouth could be true. Small sparks of pleasure echoed where lips touched his skin as his body tried to inch closer to the one in front of him without his permission.
He had not been touched like this in years, not been touched how and by whom he had wanted to be since the man with the same face who was now kissing his neck had rolled up his sleeve and shown the mark that had been placed upon it like a scar.
“Regulus” he half moaned, skin scorching everywhere he was being touched.
“Yes love?”.
“How, how do I know you’re you?” the man before him halted where he was sucking small little marks into James’s dark skin, eyes now burning as they met James’ once again.
“Because I would never let anyone else touch you like this. You’ve been mine since the night on the astronomy tower” he hissed out a hand dragging down his back to encircle his waist.
The astronomy tower? That had been the first place he and Regulus had kissed, the first time they had, well done a lot of things. It had been a special place for them, special enough that he had never even told Sirius about their time there. The only person who had ever known was.
“Regulus? Regulus. Regulus! I’ve missed you so much” he said with a quiet cry, “Why did you leave me! I'm sorry I got so mad about the mark, I take it back just let me stay with you, please don’t leave me again”. He desperately tried to move his head closer to the lips in front of him, needing to feel them on his more than anything else in the world.
“As if I will ever let you leave me again” the words were as possessive as the lips that claimed his, bruising and dominant as he now fully relaxed into Regulus’ hold on him. The cuffs holding his hands openeing as he brought his own down to reverently touch Regulus’s face. Nothing had ever felt so right, and as he moaned into the kiss he had wanted for years, he felt like the world righted itself on an axis he had thought shattered long ago.