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I mean of course he was straight he's engaged to a woman, arranged or not.
This sole thought had been racing around Regulus' brain for the past few hours when he couldn't get himself back to sleep. The funniest part of it all was that Regulus would never ask James about it because
1. James is engaged, and
2. James is Sirius' best friend
and if Sirius ever found out about something going on between the two of them he would drop dead and let the Earth use his body as fertilizer. That's not Regulus being dramatic that's just Sirius dramatic. Plus not to mention that Regulus would never be able to work up the balls to ask James anythi-
A sudden and loud knock on the door startled Regulus out of his thought process. He checked the time on his phone that was sitting on his nightstand charging. Turning on the screen he saw that it was 8:30 in the morning.
Absolutely the fuck not. There is no way somebody was knocking on his door at 8:30 AM.
"Regulus" a husky voice called through the door "It's James, we're going out to the shops and Sirius said you needed some stuff. Do you wanna come?"
shit.
"Yea sure!" regulus replied to the question with so much more excitement then he felt "I'll be right down"
"Ok, is it ok if I come in Sirius asked me to give you something?" James asked nervously. He sounded like he was scared that Regulus was gonna lash out at him, and that made Regulus giggle just the smallest bit.
"Sure." Regulus deadpanned dragging himself out of bed and going to open the door.
When he did he was met with the most incredible image he'd possibly ever seen. James had on a white short sleeve button down that hugged his shockingly muscular arms. He had a pair of simple black slacks on with it and gold rings. But the best part was that his shirt was open leaving exactly enough room to see his amazingly chiseled torso. Regulus tried his best not to stare and let James in immediately.
"Sorry about this" James said placing the box down and starting to button up his shirt "Sirius said that it was absolutely urgent that you get that immediately" he rolled his eyes fondly "and since my room is the closest to yours he gave it to me."
"Ok thanks" Regulus responded still trying not to stare "Can I see the box?"
"Oh, of course" James said finishing buttoning his shirt on the button third from the top and handing Regulus the box. When Regulus took it he thanked James again and went into opening it. Taking off the wrapping paper he found a brown cardboard box that he immediately opened using the flaps that were already open. When he opened it he found two things and nearly cried when he saw them. First was a beige binder with a note paperclipped to it
'I knew you'd come with me just for the record
- Siri :D'
Regulus let out a brittle laugh and then saw the next thing was another binder with another paperclip that said
'It's a swim binder :D
But if you prefer we can order you tape.
Happy Birthday Reggie'
And after reading that Regulus finally let the tears that had been welling up fall down his face. They fell slowly, one at a time and patiently sliding off of his face. James had finished adjusting his clothes not too long ago and had taken to picking up the wrapping paper. When he stood up he noticed that Regulus was crying and looked at him before asking with concern evident in his voice "Are you alright?" his forehead had started to wrinkle as he asked and looked around for an answer.
"Yea" Regulus sniffled "Just Sirius being an idiot"
James chuckled "Yea that makes sense. Alright we're leaving in" James checked his watch "30 minutes so make sure you're ready and you eat before we go ok?"
"Sounds good" Regulus replied.
After Regulus responded James gathered the trash and left his room to let him get ready. So he did, walking toward the trunk that he had packed with clothes and pulling out whatever he needed until he found the sweater he was looking for. He almost went through the entire trunk before finding it. A gray sweater with a thick green line and a black zigzag line through the middle, thin white lines on either side of it, and small black designs on the top and bottom. He pulled out the first pair of black pants he saw and put everything on with the binder. When he looked in the mirror that had been in his room when he arrived he was so glad to see that his chest was flat and the straps didn't show through the neckline.
Regulus stared and turned to the side while running his hands up and down his chest to make sure this was real. He turned back and forth for about five minutes running his hands up and down and up and down tears springing to his eyes once again. He smiled slightly relishing in how masculine he looked with a finally flat chest. He grabbed his boots and pulled them on over his mismatched socks (he was in a rush). He was already a decent height but an extra 2 inches never hurt anybody. He ran down the steps almost slipping and tried to find the kitchen.
He turned down three different corridors entering every room before he finally found the kitchen. When he walked in he saw a woman at the stove making what looked to be pancakes. She flipped a pancake before turning around and seeing Regulus. She was gorgeous and a few inches shorter than Regulus. She had a deep brown complexion that mirrored hot chocolate and eyes that were pitch black but seemed to hold the abyss inside them. Her hair was in braids and tied up in a high bun.
"Hi" the woman said "I'm Dorcas, do you want some pancakes?" she held out the plate for Regulus to take.
He took two pancakes before responding "Hi, I'm Regulus. Thanks for the pancakes." Regulus sat at the table behind Dorcas and grabbed a plate along with some syrup.
"Yeah I know who you are. Sirius' brother right?" She questioned going back to her pancakes.
"Yeah I am" Regulus responding cutting his pancakes into small triangles
"He talks about you a lot. It's nice to finally meet you." She said placing the last pancake on the plate and turning toward the table where Regulus had begun eating.
"He talks about me? Also these pancakes are incredible" Regulus raved
"Oh yea all the time it's always Reggie this or Reggie that. And thank you."
"Cool" Regulus responded before going back to eating his pancakes silently.
The two of them ate across from one another not speaking. The air was comfortable and despite them having just met there was no lingering awkwardness between the two of them. And Regulus was so glad that there was some silence in this house until
"Heyo!!" Sirius bust into the door and sat next to Regulus grabbing some pancakes "How did everybody sleep?"
James followed in shortly after "Morning everybody!"
Dorcas looked tired of them already and Regulus assumed that he looked exactly the same. Dorcas blinked back the annoyance in her face and asked "Hey James, where's Lily?I thought she was coming with us."
"She was, but she said that she wasn't feeling up to it."
Regulus tried not to smile but if Lily wasn't there then maybe Regulus could talk to James a little. James looked at him and smiled just a little and instantly Reglus knew that he was so unbelievably wrong. They all sat together and ate rather quickly, the only noise being small giggles from Sirius and James. They finished eating not to long after and left their dishes in the sink. Leaving the house everyone but Sirius made their way toward the car to the right of the door. Sirius made a left towards a motorcycle. Regulus looked at him extremely confused then looked to James and back at Sirius.
"He's trying to impress Remus" James whispered close to Regulus making him jump.
"Oh that makes sense" Regulus responded and slid into the backseat of the car "does he know how to drive it?"
"I would hope so, he's been taking it to the village almost everyday for the past year." James responded smiling slightly while closing the door to the backseat and going around to the front seat.
"Oh" Regulus said unable to think of the right words to respond with.
Just as Dorcas was about to start driving the three of them heard the door open and close. When they turned toward the door they saw a pudgy boy in a white T-Shirt, a blue jean jacket and black bottoms jogging toward the car. He opened the door and slid in sitting opposite Regulus.He looked slightly out of breath, like he had just run down the stairs. When he caught his breath a little more he lifted his head a little and breathily remarked "Ok we can go now, sorry." And with that Dorcas took off.
"So Pete" James started sounding slightly confused "I thought you weren't coming?"
"Yea I wasn't" Peter responded catching his breath a bit more "but I really need a haircut and when I called Marlene she said she could take me today but that she was pretty booked for the next couple weeks and I don't wanna wait that long."
"We're going to Marlene's?" Dorcas asked sounding a bit stiffer than earlier "That's great I actually need my braids redone!" She touched her ends while saying that to emphasize her point
"Apparently so" James replied "Reg do you need a haircut?"
"Nope I just cut it a few days ago" Regulus responded simply
"Ok good then you and I can hang out around the shops while Dorcas and Peter get their hair cut."
Regulus visibly stiffened, he still didn't know enough about James to hang out with him one-on-one. I guess there's no time like the present, right?
They arrived in the village about a minute later and started walking toward Marlene's place. Walking around all that Regulus could do was look around at all the shops here. When they reached Marlene's Regulus looked across the street and saw a store that looked vaguely familiar "DIAMOND DOGS". It had a black motorcycle parked out front and through the little bit that Regulus could see in the window, he saw his brother's short frame wrapped in leather and Remus' golden brown hair almost a foot above that. He rolled his eyes and continued walking. When he got to Marlene's store Dorcas and Peter quickly shuffled inside and as James was about to walk away Regulus stopped him "I'm just gonna go say hi really quick" he told James and walking inside.
"Hey Marlene!" He said the second he got inside
Marlene turned around and saw Regulus running to hug him. "Oh my god! Reggie! it's been forever!"
Regulus giggled before responding "Yea I'm sorry, my parents stopped letting me come to Pottermore after Sirius ran away."
"Ew. who's been cutting your hair??"
"Oh I've been doing it, just cutting somewhere along where you did."
"Wow really? It looks great!"
"Thanks! Alright I should get going James is waiting for me outside."
As he said that James walked into the store "Hey Reg is everything alright?"
"James!" Marlene exclaimed at seeing James.
"Hey Marls, how's it going?"
"Ugh don't even get me started I've been booked for days straight with almost no breaks."
"I'm sorry"
"Ah don't worry at least I make the money"
"Well me and Reggie should be going we have shopping to do."
"Course, have fun you guys!"
James and Regulus waved good bye and walked out together. They walked side by side for a little bit until James spoke up
"So, what kind of stuff did you need?"
"Oh just like shampoo and stuff like that. Is there like an Apothecary here?"
"Yea I think so"
The two of them walked and walked letting the comfortable silence hang around them. Regulus finally broke the silence when he saw an apothecary. There was a wooden sign hanging above the door with a rose and the name of the store surrounding it.
'ROSIER APOTHECARY'
In big black letters on the sign, on the windows, and again smaller on the door.
"I don't think that they put their name up enough times" Regulus rolled his eyes making James giggle just a little and Regulus thought that he would die a couple times over so long as he would never lose that laugh. The bell above the door rang and the man behind the counter spoke "Hi, welcome to Rosiers Apothecary. I'll be here if you need anything" the man sounded bored out of his mind. He was staring at his phone scrolling through something and occasionally pushing his light brown back and away from his forehead. He had fair skin and was pretty tall.
"EVAN GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE"was heard from the back room very suddenly. James and Regulus looked at each other and shrugged before they continued to shop. There was a little bit of a commotion in the back before the guy from before, Evan, came back out with another guy and they were checking something behind the counter. This other guy had darker and shorter hair and he was about an inch shorter than Evan. Regulus finally found the shampoo set he used, grabbed it and went up the register. When he got there James was following closely behind and Regulus set down the shampoo and a green box that had some skincare products in it. The second guy rung Regulus up and Regulus caught a glimpse at his name tag 'Barty'.
"59.63" Barty said as he finished ringing everything up. Regulus reached into his pocket and grabbed his wallet but before he could pull it our James had already handed him a debit card. Regulus stared at James in disbelief. Barty wrapped everything up and placed a receipt in the bag.
James grabbed it and looked back at Regulus "My treat" he said it so nonchalantly
"I had it" Regulus grumbled back
"Alright" James said shrugging "I wanna update my record collection and I need new strings for my guitar so do you wanna come with me to the music store?"
"Sure"
They walked the short distance to the music store and when Regulus walked into it he almost screamed. The place was beautiful. On one side of the store was something resembling a small library and on the opposite side the same setup but with records. In the back of the store was an in house coffee shop and two reading nooks on each corner. Regulus immediately ran toward the books and started searching through the titles to see if he found one he didn't have.
James giggled as he watched Regulus scan each and every spine on the shelves available. He on the other hand walked toward the records until he found a couple he liked. To his shock he found four: folklore by Taylor Swift, A Day At The Races by Queen, Doo-Wops & Hooligans by Bruno Mars, and evermore by Taylor Swift. He did not almost scream when he found evermore, he would never, he's a very tough guy, he would never.after haphazardly stacking the four records in his arms and went to find Regulus. He didn't have to look far. Regulus was sat in the reading nook with books piled up next to him, one in his hand, and an iced coffee in the other. He was reading "The Song of Achilles" or at least that's what James thinks he saw. Instead of telling him that he finished up and they could go now, James silently sits next to the stack of books and grabs the one at the top "The Secret History", and puts it down and into a new pile. Under that was a copy of "Pride and Prejudice" which James moved into the new pile. The next book he picked up looked a little more interesting "Little Women", but nevertheless he placed it onto the new pile and moved onto the next book "If we were villains" this one intrigued James, the cover art and the title mixed seamlessly to create a swirl of questions in James' brain. This time he placed the book in his lap instead of in the new pile. The last book left on the old pile was "the goldfinch" James simply placed it into the new pile, moved the new pile to where the old pile was and began reading the book Regulus had indirectly recommended.
Regulus looked up from his book to see that his books had been rearranged and that James Potter was next to him, reading??? The shock in Regulus' thoughts was not intentional but he never thought he would see James read, like ever. Regulus watched him for a little bit. Watched how his lips mouthed the words he was reading, watched as he put his glasses back off after they slid off from him looking down. He was mesmerising, the way his finger traced over the words he was reading so that he wouldn't lose his place. Regulus thought that if he died right now he would be perfectly happy having James Potter reading be the last thing he ever saw. As Regulus stared James looked up, he mad eye contact with Regulus and smiled.
"Are you ready to go? I didn't wanna interrupt your reading." Yep Regulus thought I'm done for
"Yea, I already paid for these so I'm just waiting on you"
"oh ok" James said standing and reaching a hand out to help Regulus up. Regulus took it absent-mindedly and when James pulled him up and he pushed himself up their faces sat mere inches apart from one anothers until Regulus pulled away and started packing his books into the bag he had bought here. "Hey, there's a movie theater around here do you wanna go?" James asked Regulus the question terrified of his answer.
"Definitely" Regulus spoke without even the smallest bit of thought. Would he regret this later? maybe. did he care at the moment? no.