The Little Prince Lives on the Sun

Wednesday morning practices have always been James’ favorite. Crisp air and sunrises over the pitch always provide him with just the right boost he needs to get through the second half of the week. 

This Wednesday morning he headed down a little early, sneaking out of his room as the clock reflected 5:30. He’d gone to bed early last night, not having seen Regulus alone since Honeydukes, and woke up promptly at 5 to get ready for the day.

The big game is coming up; Slytheirn versus Gryffindor. James has been silently freaking out about it for weeks, but he stopped being able to talk much about quidditch after Sirius got kicked off the team. And he can’t exactly talk to Regulus, with him being the literal competition and all. 

So James has a lot of pent up stress.

Being the Gryffindor quidditch captain was a dream come true as he entered this year, but it wasn’t exactly how he’d hoped it would be. Sirius was supposed to be co-captain. Sirius and him were supposed to have a massive party to celebrate their promotion and they were supposed to be walking down this hill to the pitch together. 

James is a lone captain. He did not have a celebration, hardly even being congratulated as all his friends tread so lightly around it. James is walking down the hill to the pitch alone, broom in hand as the harsh late November wind bites at his face and stings his open eyes.

James loves quidditch, still. James loves the early rises and big games. He loves the way air feels against his face as he dives and ducks through it. He’s addicted to the adrenaline of the flight, the rush of the game. He’s obsessed with how it makes his heart beat faster, how it gets his lungs working harder and his blood pumping thicker. He thrives on it.

So this morning, the last practice before the game, James gets up early and sleep walks through the halls to the waking wind. His broom is polished and stood straight up in the back of the locker room, and he goes for it before he even sets his things down. He grabs it excitedly in his hands and checks the wood carefully for any scratches or blemishes. It's perfect.

He brings it over to a bench in the locker room, laying it gently on the cracking wood and setting his quidditch bag down beside it. He’s supposed to be locker number 1 this year, since the last captain who used it graduated, but he’s honestly a little bit superstitious so he’s sticking with his lucky number 5. 

As soon as he’s dressed and ready he bounds out to the field, it's about 6 now and they don’t have the pitch reserved so he’s stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of somebody else in the sky working fast loops in and out of the goals. He can’t make out anything about them, as they move swiftly and smoothly around the posts and stands in a rush of black and broom.

“Hello?” James calls out at them from the ground, voice muffled by the wind and the sounds of sunrise. When he garners no response he quickly hops on his broom and starts off after the moving wisp in the sky.

He’s on their tail, whoever it is, but they haven’t noticed him yet. They’re insanely fast, impressively dexterous as they weave tightly over the seats and up the towers of the stands. He can only make out a flash of all black gear before they turn another direction and evade him once again.

He’s so sure they haven’t seen him yet, trying to gain speed by diving quickly towards the ground to flick back up again and accelerate, when suddenly they’re directly next to him smiling by his wind burned ear.

“Potter, you don’t have the pitch reserved for another hour.”

It’s Regulus. Of course it’s Regulus. Clad in a tight black long sleeve that hugs the base of his neck and stretches across his shoulders. His legs are adorned in a color matching pair of trousers, seemingly far too tight for him to be able to move as he is, but apparently very stretchy, and he’s got a pair of loose thin shorts over top of them.

“Regulus?” James asks as he leads them past the left side's goals and starts to slow down, “what are you doing here?”

“Practicing,” Regulus says, matching James’ pace in the air, “obviously.”

“Doesn’t Slytherin practice tomorrow?” James asks, shouting over the whipping wind.

“Doesn’t Gryffindor practice in an hour?” Regulus jests back, eyebrow raised as he tips for the ground, James on his heel fast.

They land softly on their feet, both stepping off their brooms as they make contact with the solid Earth. James holds his broom in his right hand as he watches Regulus hop off his own.

“Yes, they do, but I like to come down early to warm up,” James states as Regulus shakes the wind out of his now rather large hair, causing curls to unfurl and fall back into place on his forehead. 

“Well I like to come down sometimes too, to practice on my own.”

“You need extra training before you lose Friday's game, Reg?” James teases, a smile rising on his face much earlier in the day than it typically would at the notion of teasing Regulus.

“No, James, I just need to make sure I’m not distracted for when I catch the snitch and kick your ass Friday,” Regulus responds, effortlessly casual in his tone and demeanor as he stands with his broom resting against his hip.

“Sure,” James says with a leering smile, “catch me then.”

With that James quickly kicks off the ground and hops on his broom in mid air, careening for the sky at an almost impossible 90 degree angle as he hears Regulus curse under his breath and kick off about a second later.

James is fast, yes, but he is a chaser, which doesn’t require so much speed as dexterity or strength. Regulus is small, he’s lythe and fast. Insanely fast, like blinking or falling asleep. James knows that, and he can feel Regulus gain on him within half a second of him being in the air.

“You think this is a challenge?” James hears Regulus call from a little too close as he ducks behind and around one of the tower stands and nose dives towards the seats.

Regulus is faster. He hooks the other way around the tower and is face to face with James as he turns the corner.

“Got ya’” he says with a smirk, sky eyes shimmering at James with success and gloating mockery. 

James rolls his eyes but can feel a smile break out on his face as Regulus smirks and taunts from his floating position in front of James.

“Your turn,” Regulus whispers through a tight lipped smile about half a second before he’s turned around and diving straight for the ground at a speed James is quite sure will result in a tragic death.

“Stop!” James yells after him as he speeds up in a perpendicular line towards Regulus’ descending figure, “pull up Reg, stop you’ll hit the ground!”

Regulus either does not hear him, or doesn't care, and James is quite sure it’s the second as the pale boy looks up at him with a smile about 20 feet from the ground. James has heard of this trick before, the Wronski feint, but he’s never seen it done, not by anyone outside of the world cup. He’s quite sure that is what Regulus is attempting to do now.

James isn’t fast enough, not nearly, to be able to get to him in time before he hits the ground or falls off his broom, and he can feel his heart beat increase to a level he has never felt before. Fear. He feels genuine crippling paralyzing fear as Regulus barrels to the ground in some sick attempt to show off.

Regulus is about 8 feet away from the ground, the tip of his broom only about a foot above the green floor of the pitch when he sharply tugs up on the handle and flips in a smooth U shape back up towards the sky. He passes James' jaw dropping figure as he ascends once again, James barely having time to hop off his broom before he himself hits the ground.

James rolls a few feet as he comes off his broom, immediately hopping back up to watch as Regulus starts a much slower and safer descent towards him, a wide smile on his bright pink cheeks as he touches down about a foot from James. 

“I win,” he says as he hops off his broom and crosses his arms over his black veiled chest.

“Are you fucking stupid?” James exclaims as he waves his hands uselessly at the sky, “that was crazy! Nobody does that! It’s almost illegal, Reg, what the fuck were you thinking?”

Regulus looks mildly surprised at James' outbreak before he smiles, “I was thinking that I know how to do it, so I might as well.”

“What if you had messed up, Reg? What if you had splattered all over the ground, and I had to run to get Pomfrey to levitate your remains up to the infirmary?” James says exasperatedly, heaving as he tries to catch the breath he lost in his own dive after Regulus. 

“I didn’t,” Regulus says matter of factly, “I didn’t, so there.”

“Are you planning on doing that in the game?” James asks, worried and scared, because the Wronski feint is hard, but it’s harder with 13 other people weaving in and out of the air around you.

“I can’t tell you that James, you’re the competition,” Regulus responds with a small shake of his head and a permanent smirk above his chin.

“Then why even show me you can do it all?”

Regulus pauses, he seems to pinken more which James attributes to the upkick in the wind, as he looks down at his boots momentarily.

“I wanted to win the race,” he says as he looks back up through his thick black eyelashes, blinking at James as he heaves out a sigh.

“Regulus, you could have legitimately died. Died dead. Splat. Gooey dead dead person on the quidditch pitch,” James says as he motions toward the spot Regulus had just barely missed colliding with.

“I didn’t though, James,” Regulus responds with an eye roll, “I’m fine, and why do you care anyway?”

James guffaws at this, waving his hands wildly in the air around them, “why do I care?! Why do I care?! We are friends Regulus, outright share secrets and make dinner together friends. Why wouldn't I care if you died?”

Regulus pauses at this, chewing on the inside of his wind raw cheek as he rolls James’ words over in his mouth. He seems to be confused by this, his eyebrows furrowing and his lips scrunching up a little at the bottom of his face.

“Oh,” is all he says at first, straightening up and brushing off his clothes, “well.”

“Well?” James says, so confused and so tired, “well what?”

“Well okay. Okay,” Regulus says as he hoists his broom up beside him and nods at James, “we’re friends, and we care about one another. Okay. I’ll try to avoid dying.”

James smiles a little at that, thinking how genuine Regulus is being is really rather endearing actually. James is feeling a little weird on the come down of whatever he had felt up in the sky, he feels a little frazzled, and very endeared by Regulus. He also feels a strong urge to grab him and hold him and tell him never to put himself in danger again. 

“Thank you,” James replies with a smile and a nod, “I’ll do the same.”

Regulus just kind of stands there awkwardly, looking back and forth from the ground to James’ flushed face. He’s squeezing the shiny handle of his mahogany broom tight in his hand, and James can see him biting his bottom lip as he stands in silence.

James and Regulus both look up at the not so distant sounds of Marlene McKinnon heading down the hill with who James thinks is Peter. Peter always comes to watch the practices, he’s sort of their elected coach since he knows literally everything about quidditch except how to actually fly on a broom.

James looks back at Regulus' startled face as the voices get closer and whispers to him quickly, “we leave at 9, the pitch will be free all day after then since Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw never use Wednesdays.”

Regulus looks at him with a sort of soft appreciation, exposed by a soft smile forming on his face and a subtle raise of his eyebrows as his water colored eyes look into James’ leafy ones. 

“Thank you,” he whispers back, starting to step backwards towards the other locker room, “good luck with your practice.”

With that Regulus Black is gone as indiscreet and as quickly as he came. 

James spends the entire practice a little extra awake than normal.

–

Regulus is about to die. He’s slipping, he can feel it, as if gravity is made of arms and hands clawing at him and dragging him down through the thick air. It gets in his lungs and clogs his throat as it whips against his face, it burns and stings his cheeks as he loses his grip. He’s not quite sure how it happened, what went wrong or who got too close, but he knows he’s falling. He knows it’s unlikely he’ll stop before he hits the ground.

He’s loosely holding onto his broom, but it’s tipped from his attempt at the feint and it’s dragging him down faster than gravity. He’d just passed McKinnon when he dove, making sure she was watching him before diving head first towards the ground. He’d seen James, just briefly, like a tree passing a train window who’s branches you can just barely make out. He’d been flying past him, quaffle in hand, towards the slytherin goals. When Regulus dipped he saw, ever so fleetingly, James stutter.

He can barely make out Lockhart’s typically obnoxiously noticeable commentation as the wind whips his ears and invades his open mouth like poison down his raw throat. He can hear shouting, yelling, but he’s really just trying to hear his heartbeat. He’s searching, as he falls in slow motion, for that one beat, two beats, three beats. He can’t find it past all the noise.

The ground is so close. It’s dark green like seaweed, reaching up to tangle around his limbs and growing towards him in sick twists every second. 

His broom is slick, slippery with sweat and stained wood as he attempts to clutch at it, trying to hoist himself back up as the ground approaches. 

All of a sudden there's something warm on him. Something steady and soft that makes all the noise stop dead in Regulus’ cold ears. It starts on his hips, hot and strong, and permeates through his skin, shedding the cold from his bones and stopping the wind as it falls lame at the hands of this warmth.

Regulus isn’t falling anymore either. He’s about 15 feet from the ground and he’s got his broom back under him somehow. And he’s warm.

“You’re okay, Reg, it’s okay.”

It’s James. 

James’ hands are gripping Regulus’ waist firmly, fingers digging into the soft skin of his stomach as they keep him steady in the still air. His face is flushed, beaten red with wind but shining with the gold of the peeking sun. The clouds seem to have parted just for James. Regulus wonders if the warmth is from the sun or this boy holding him together. He thinks there isn’t much difference anyway.

“It’s okay, Reg,” James sounds more scared than Regulus even feels, “you’re okay. I got you, you’re okay.”

Regulus can’t seem to find any thoughts to think at this moment. He’s so warm, and James is touching him, he’s holding him. He’s also so afraid, so aware of the lack of ground beneath his feet and the impending danger of crashing into it upside down. He thinks he might be a little in shock.

“Is- I- are-” Regulus attempts to speak, finding his wind scratched throat in need of clearing and his mind in need of buffering.

“The game is still going, Reg,” James says, still holding him tight and relentless like he’s afraid Regulus would blow off his broom at the slightest of breezes, “do you want me to signal to stop the game?”

Regulus is aware he’s alive. He can feel his heart beat now, loud and fast in his chest, and he’s only really aware because he’s quite afraid James can hear it himself. He knows he’s alive, he knows he’s okay since James told him, so he knows he can probably fly away right now and find the snitch.

James is staring at him, concern creasing his forehead and fear trickling down his face in beads of shining sweat. He looks quite beautiful, is all Regulus manages to think. 

James’ thick black hair is blown big and fluffy atop his head, some strands stuck to his face in sweat, curling on his forehead in magical patterns. His glasses are perched precariously on his nose, and Regulus is quite sure he must charm them to stay on when he flies because otherwise he’s sure they’d have fallen off in whatever move James had to do to catch him in time.

Then it hits Regulus, and he feels a soft smile pull at his chapped lips.

“You caught me,” Regulus says quietly as James looks wildly confused at him, eyebrows raised and lip bitten, “we’re tied now.”

James’ face falls into a look of disgruntled amusement, like holding back a laugh in the middle of class. He has a small smile dancing on his pink lips as he shakes his head lightly, hands squeezing Regulus’ sides as he shares a secret smile with him.

“You’re right,” James says with a nod, “now, are you okay to keep playing?”

Regulus is coming back to himself now, spurred on by James’ warm smiles and strong hands.

“I’ve got to break the tie,” he responds with a small smile, so aware of James’ hands and talking a little slower than normal just to avoid him removing them too soon, “I’m okay.”

James gives him a once over, sparkling sunlit eyes tracing down Regulus’ entire form from the tip of his shoes to the messy pile of curls atop his head. James’ hands don’t move. Not an inch, not even a centimeter. Regulus is becoming aware he’ll have to move first.

He can hear again, sitting still in the air like this, almost level with the stands. There are yells and shouts from all sides of him, surrounding him in a wave of voices and claps. He thinks he just heard Lockhart say his name, but even in his ruffled state his mind knows to tune out the commentary.

James' hands are on him. James’ soft huffs of breath are louder than the stands. James’ eyes are brighter than the sun above him and his skin is enticingly exposed by the unzipped state of his jacket.

Regulus is aware now, of everything happening, of the people flying above him, of the shouts and commands and plays happening above their heads. He can’t seem to care though. Not with James here. Not with James Savior Complex Potter saving his life and holding him like he’d do it again in a heartbeat. 

This is quidditch, he hears his mind remind him, finally forming its own words again as James continues to wait for Regulus to give him a sign. Play the game, this is quidditch.

All of sudden Regulus is aware. Aware of himself and the game and the commentary finally making its way into his ears.

“And that’s a sign of the snitch for McKinnon, she seems to be diving right down for it now, wonder if Black will be recovered in time, he seems to be in some sort of shock” he hears Lockhart’s nasally voice declare through the tinny speakers on the pitch.

Suddenly he’s moving, feeling himself frown when he looks back at James’ concerned face, but feeling alive again with the wind back on his skin. He is not in shock, maybe a little that Hooch didn’t stop the game for his near death experience, but then again he’s seen people actually fall off their brooms in games while the scores keep going.

He can see McKinnon’s blonde ponytail as he tilts himself up toward the sky, trying to speed up quickly as he reaches the altitude most other players are flying at. McKinnon is good, she’s cut throat, but she’s not nearly as fast as Regulus. He’s on her tail quickly, ever so slightly behind her as he catches a glimpse of gold flitter about 4 feet in front of her.

She’s reaching for it as he catches up, riding side by side, knocking against each other as the snitch evades their grasps and dances between them. Regulus is just a half second behind, ever so slightly delayed by warm hands and gentle smiles, when Marlene catches the snitch.

She grabs it quickly, surprisingly large hands clutching it tight and raising it high as the stands erupt in a massive chorus of yells and cheers. She smiles over at him mockingly, cocking an eyebrow as she starts to descend, “too slow, baby Black, better luck next time.”

He just scowls. Feels the muscles on his face contract and constrict as his lips downturn and his eyebrows furrow. She laughs as she turns away, leaving him in the cold air as the rest of her red clad team starts flying towards the ground alongside her.

He lingers for a moment, avoiding looking at any other members of his own team as he starts his descent to the lower pitch. It’s frigid in the air today, damp and heavy air wrapping around his thin frame on his dive. Unfortunately the ground is somehow colder, with the glares from Mulciber and Avery sliding down his back like melting ice.

“Black,” Mulciber shouts at him as he quickly attempts to leave the pitch, starting off towards the locker room when the loud voice slaps his back, “what was that?!”

Regulus does his best to breathe.

Regulus is listening to his heart beat. One beat, breathe, two beats, breathe, three beats.

He turns slowly to face the broad backed boy’s glare, trying to shrink into himself to make himself harder to hit. 

“Did you hear me?” Mulciber shouts at his shrunken form, arms wild in the air as he stares daggers into Regulus’ wind burnt skin, “What the fuck was that?! What did you think you were accomplishing with that fucking stunt, huh?”

“Nothing,” Regulus mutters to his feet, shoes wet with leftover dew and air mist, “I thought I could do it, I’m sorry.”

Regulus feels so small. Mulciber’s voice is so big, so loud and boisterous in his fly frozen ears. Regulus hates being yelled at.

“Fucking Hell, Black, you cost us the game. Don’t you get that?!” Avery pips in from beside Mulciber, squaring up next to him with his thick arms over his chest. 

“I know, I’m sorry,” Regulus whispers back, his small voice falling feeble to their large shouts.

“You don’t know, Black, that could cost us the Quidditch Cup! They already beat Hufflepuff last week, if we don’t beat them next week Gryffindor is in it for the final game!” Mulciber looks like he’d punch walls if he had any around, and Regulus is momentarily grateful they’re outside, despite the chill of the breeze sliding up his skin. 

“It won’t, I’ll get it down by next week, I promise,” Regulus replies, looking up now to watch as the two large boys inch closer to him with heavy steps and wide stances. He starts thinking he’s as good as a wall for Mulciber. He tries to breathe.

The thing is, this could get back to his mother. She’s not all that fond of quidditch but she seems to enjoy having something she can take away from him that isn’t just his brother, or his life. She uses it as leverage, threatening to stop allowing him to do it when he so much as stutters before agreeing to do whatever it is she wants.

Mulciber and Avery’s parents are rather close with Regulus’, and Regulus knows that if they wanted to they could get his mother to take him off the team. He wouldn’t get kicked off for making a mistake, and they couldn’t bench him since he’s their only option for seeker, but if Walburga was swayed she could ban him from so much as looking at a broom.

So Regulus knows he has to do better, knows he has to be faster, smoother, better. He isn’t doing enough, he knows, especially since he’s been opting out of his late night practice for James. And, Merlin, Walburga can absolutely not find out about James. 

“You better get it, Black, or mummy dearest might need to make a visit,” Avery says now, standing about an inch from Regulus’ left side, “surely she could actually get you to practice.”

“I do practice,” Regulus says now, sweating like ice in the sun, melting and slightly wobbly.

“Not enough,” Mulciber says, moving now in the direction of the lockers behind Regulus, shoving his shoulder into Regulus as he walks away.

“Do better, Black, even Snape could have caught that snitch,” Avery says from slightly behind Regulus’ frozen frame.

Regulus is feeling a little off. He’s feeling a little terrified to enter that locker room and see the rest of his team, and he briefly considers finding James to see if he could sneak into the Gryffindor locker room to clean up.

James, he thinks, suddenly spurred into life by a rush of gut churning rage. This is his fault, Regulus’ mind supplies, warming his frozen body with anger, If he hadn’t interfered you could’ve gotten the snitch.

Suddenly Regulus is moving. Fast. His knobby knees clicking as he shakes out his joints with fast paces across the pitch. Almost everybody has headed back up to the castle, quickly fleeing from the cold once the game ended. Only a few people remain, members of the either team standing changed and ready to head back on the outskirts of the pitch. Regulus passes them as they start to leave, carrying a harsh breeze with his rushed steps, but quiet as ever and avoiding being so much as glanced at. He appreciates that about people, their lack of observational skills, or how little they care about anyone other than themselves.

He makes it to the Gryffindor locker room within seconds, peeking inside to make sure nobody else is in there. He momentarily catches a glimpse of James’ bronzed back, damp with shower water and glistening under the lights. He looks away quickly, scanning the rest of the room, glad to find it rather deserted.

“What the fuck, Potter?!” He shouts as soon as he shoves through the door, catching the confused attention of the tall boy across the room. He looks rather bewildered, face open and too noticeable without his round glasses covering his eyes. His hair is curling damp around his neck and sticking to his smooth, dark skin.

“I- uhm- what?” The glasses-less boy responds, gripping the towel around his waist tight and standing frozen half bent over reaching for his glasses as he stares confusedly at Regulus.

“You interfered with my play, Potter, I would’ve won that game if it wasn’t for you!” Regulus shouts, stepping towards James and running his hands through his still rather blown about hair.

“What do you mean?” James asks, abandoning his glasses and standing straight to look at Regulus as he says, “I was under the impression you would have died if I hadn’t caught you.”

“Well,” Regulus starts, remembering the rush of wind and the clawing arms of gravity on his fall, “well maybe, but you didn’t have to keep holding on, you could have let go, and I could've gotten the snitch.”

James suddenly cocks a smile at Regulus, which is rather absurd given Regulus is rather in the mood to rip his entire head off. He can’t imagine his face is portraying an emotion that should evoke a smile.

“Hm,” James hums through his crooked smile, leaning back against the locker behind him and crossing his arms over his chest, bringing Regulus’ sharp gaze down to it, “well you could have just moved, Reg.”

His arms are a little red from how hot he must like his showers, and his stomach is exposed down to his ridiculously defined v-line. It’s soft and plush around his hips, his elbow pushing into the fat there, his biceps quite literally bulging above. Regulus thinks he hates him.

“I-” Regulus attempts to respond, mind blank and body hot with what he will only be admitting is anger. 

James is smiling at him so unbelievably arrogantly, sepia skin stretched in dimples across his face. His legs are crossed one over the other as he leans his weight on the closed lockers to his right, chest stretched and broad and all too distracting.

Regulus promptly turns around and walks right back out of the locker room, not even sparing the cocky boy behind him a second glance as the door shuts and he heads right up towards the castle. He can shower in his room.

He gets about a third of the way up the hill when suddenly he hears rather fast footsteps falling behind him. He starts picking up the pace, huffing out white plumes of breath as he books it up the steep hill. 

“Regulus!” James shouts from far too close to him, fucking athletes, “Reg stop, hold on!”

Regulus does not stop or hold on, he actually basically starts sprinting up the hill reaching the stone path to the door quickly as he ignores James’ continued shouts.

“I didn’t mean to do it as a play,” James says from literally directly behind him, Regulus almost has it in him to be impressed by his apparent athleticism, but he is far too busy hating him.

“Piss off, Potter,” Regulus says as he starts up the steps towards the main doors, sweat dripping down his frigid skin and collecting in the fabric of his pants.

“No, Regulus, please, I didn’t do it to win, I just wanted to, y’know, not watch you die,” James says, somehow getting in front of Regulus to block the door with his broad body.

“Move,” Regulus grunts out as he tries to step around James who matches his every move annoyingly.

“No,” James says rather matter of factly, spreading out his wing span to block the entire door, “Reg, look at me please.”

Regulus pointedly stares at the cracking wood next to James’ head, attempting to be entertained by the way the wood is peeling and the patterns of the black iron decorating it.

“Would you move,” he requests harshly, voice flat like shaved stone and colder than the air around them that paints James’ face pink.

“Maybe if you asked nicely,” James says with a cock of his eyebrow, always always always the flirt.

“No, move,” Regulus says, giving up and resorting to elbowing James directly in the abdomen to get him to move so he can push the door open in the time it takes for him to double over in surprise.

‘What the fuck?!” James exclaims from behind him as he rushes into the empty hall behind Regulus, “Reg, please will you just stop for a moment and listen to me?”

He sounds genuinely distraught, cockiness lost to desperation as he stops chasing Regulus and stands helpless in the middle of the cobble stone floor. He’s staring at him open with concern when Regulus turns towards him. His eyebrows are furrowed deeply, creasing his forehead and tinging his eyes with shadowy glossiness. 

James just stares at him for half a minute as Regulus finally stares back, brought back to himself by the warmth of his searching eyes, feeling anger seep out of himself as he watches James watch him.

“I’m listening,” he says when James remains silent for a little too long.

James seems to start, as if he’s suddenly become aware Regulus is actually looking at him, that he actually stopped. Regulus is starting to question his resolve.

“Oh, right,” James begins, stepping closer to Regulus as he reaches towards him, “I didn’t mean to mess you up, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to apologize for catching you. I’d really rather you not die.”

His hand is on his arm now, warm and soft from whatever soap he uses. Regulus feels the warmth again, just like in the sky, heating him softly from the point of contact to the ends of his body. He feels himself nod, feels his bones soften with warmth and his joints move slowly as James stares intently at him. 

“Why are you mad at me, Reg?” James asks, suddenly seeming so young, like a child facing their first brush with the wrath of a friend, Regulus remembers he’s only 16.

“I could’ve caught the snitch, James, I should’ve,” Regulus responds, voice small as his littlest finger.

“That’s not my fault, it’s not yours either,” James says, shaking his head and stepping even closer to Regulus as he squeezes further up on his sweat damp arm.

“Yes, it is,” Regulus says with a scowl, “my fault, I mean. It’s me who messed up with the feint, it’s me who wasn’t fast enough getting back up.”

“Reg,” James says with a sigh, and Regulus hates that. Hates it. Hates the soft sort of pity tangled into that single syllable as it tumbles from James’ lips.

“Don’t,” Regulus says, “don’t comfort me. I just have to do better.”

“You’re so good though, Reg, you’re the best seeker in this damn castle! You’re doing eno-”

And suddenly James is looking over Regulus’ shoulder, a look of shock and confusion painting his features before he looks back at Regulus like a child about to apologize for breaking their mother’s favorite vase.

Then Regulus is being shoved. The hand on his arm twisting and pushing, causing him to stumble back, mostly out of sheer surprise. He trips on a jagged stone and lands on his bum on the cold ground as James looks down at him with the most complex emotions Regulus has ever seen him display.

James is talking now, saying something Regulus’ brain is having trouble even processing.

“Fuck off, baby Black, and take a shower, you stink worse than Snape,” James leers, body contorting into a position Regulus has only ever seen from the outside.

Because, yeah, James can be a little mean. He isn’t cruel, Regulus knows he isn’t because Regulus is cruel. James Potter could never be cruel. But James can be mean, when he wants to be. When somebody says that one word to the redhead he’s friends with, or when someone mocks Sirius in the halls. Or literally anytime he sees Snape.

Never to Regulus, though. He’s never shoved Regulus the way he does Snape, never cursed at him, never even really acknowledged him, not before now.

“What did he do now?”

And, oh, Regulus thinks.

“Pads, your little brother just tried to blame me for his inability to catch the snitch,” James says, turning to face Sirius as he approaches from the bottom stair to the hall. 

“Ah, seems like him,” Sirius says as he glances down at Regulus’ gravity stuck frame, “Huh, Reggie? Still incapable of taking responsibility for your own actions?”

Regulus wills the ground to give out. Wishes for the cobble stone to crack and crumble and swallow him whole in the rubble. Because, wow, does Sirius still seem to know how to hit him where it hurts. It’s almost funny. Sirius used to be the one who took the hits for Regulus, never letting him feel pain, the hurt. Now he’s the one causing it. If Regulus didn’t feel like he might very well cry for the first time since he was 12 he’d probably laugh at the morbid irony.

Instead he has to sit there silently watching his brother and his friend mock him from above. He thinks that’s rather fitting, that even when they’re shoving and cursing at him they’re still the bigger men. Still higher up. They’d probably be praised for this once the rest of their house hears about it.

“Sirius,” James starts, fully facing away from Regulus as he looks at his best friend, “he’s hardly worth it, how about we go see if any other Slytherins are out and about for some practice with that laughing charm Moony made?”

Sirius is immediately distracted from Regulus’ sprawled out form, grinning madly at his best friend as he turns to face him. Regulus, free from either of the boy’s gazes, finds himself able to move and scrambles to his feet quickly, brushing dust off his knees and turning to escape down to the dungeons.

He’s stopped almost as soon as he turns towards the stairs by a warm hand on his elbow and a brush of hot breath on his neck.

“Midnight, the pitch, please come,” James whispers as he lingers ever so slightly, Sirius bounding down the stairs in front of them quickly as he grins at the prospect of mischief. 

Regulus just shoves James off and starts off down the stairs quickly, passing Sirius without a glance and walking hastily towards the common room. The wall opens with his whispered word and he traipses unceremoniously through the dark open room to the stairs down to his dorm.

Evan and Barty are laughing on the floor when Regulus walks in, heads immediately snapping up at him as the door closes.

“What’s wrong?’ Evan asks from the floor, looking up as Regulus flops down onto his bed.

“You okay, Reg?” Barty adds on, both boys spinning on their asses to face Regulus’ belly flopped shape on his bed.

“We lost,” he says.

Ev and Barty hadn’t come to the game today, never all that interested in quidditch anyway, said they had some weird club with Slughorn they had to go to. Regulus wasn’t upset, if anything he’s actually rather grateful they didn’t have to watch what happened with James.

“Damn, Reg, I’m sorry,” Evan says with a shake of his head, “Mulciber and Avery say anything to you?”

“You can tell us if we need to beat them up for you,” Barty adds with a small smile.

Regulus laughs lightly, sitting up and shoving the hair out of his face with his hand as he responds, “just told me I need to practice more, I might honestly go back down there soon and get some laps in, need to let out some steam I guess.”

“Alright, well we’re sneaking out with Dorcas later, said she bought some sort of something from a couple Puffs she wants us to try,” Evan says with a wink, Barty nudging at his chest with his elbow with a small laugh.

Regulus watches them smile at each other as he gets up, grabbing a sweater and a pair of looser trousers as the boys beneath him bicker over some sort of coughing debate.

“Well, you two have fun, are you going to the greenhouse?” Regulus says as he changes his socks by his trunk.

“Yeah, probably gonna go inside tonight because of the cold,” Barty says, handing Regulus a jacket from on top of his own trunk.

“Maybe I’ll join later, how late are you gonna be out?”

“Not leaving until midnight, Cas has a paper for McGonogall to do, and she went down to the library with Pandora a few minutes before you got back,” Evan says as Barty lays down on the floor, head in his lap.

“You should come, Reg, you seem like you could use some good old relaxation,” Barty says as he looks up at Evan’s downturned face.

“I’ll think about it,” Regulus says, sliding the jacket on and grabbing his wand off his bed.

“You get dinner, by the way?” Evan asks as Regulus starts towards the door again.

“Had some lamb chops with the team before the game, thanks,” Regulus answers as he reaches the door and twists the knob.

“Good,” Evan says with a smile, laying his hand on Barty’s stomach.

“Have fun out there, star boy, try not to fall out of the sky or anything,” Barty says as Regulus steps out the door.

Regulus laughs a little at that, hiding a wince with a smile.

“I’ll do my best,” Regulus says as he turns back towards them and grabs the door knob, “see you wankers later, use protection.”

Barty falls into a fit of laughter at that and Evan looks like he may very well have forgotten how to breathe. Regulus tosses them a smile as he closes the door and feels it fall off his face as soon as the wooden door blocks him from view.

He starts towards the pitch, resigning himself to just shower after he practices some more. He’ll use the Gryffindor showers, he’s heard they have better water pressure.

–

James thinks he’d deserve it if Regulus doesn’t show up later. James thinks he’d deserve it if a Hippogriff walked into the castle and bit his head off. James does not think he deserves to be laughing and smiling, however fake it is, with his best friend as they watch a gaggle of seventh year Slytherins double over in compulsive laughter. 

Rabastan Lestrange is trying to mutter curse words in his anger but everytime he does he gets cut off by another fit of wild laughter. Narcissa seems to have it figured out as she watches Bellatrix and Rabastan fall to the ground in roars of laughter each time they open their mouths to so much as breathe. She clamps her mouth closed around a laugh, swallowing it down and straightening herself out as her sister quite literally rolls around on the ground.

Sirius is beside himself with joy. One thing about Sirius Black; he loves pranks. Moony’s always been the best at planning them, the bigger more complex ones always come from him, Sirius likes those ones best. The ones where they spend days in the dorm mapping it out and coming up with new spells that cost them several pairs of socks from experimentation. Sirius has a sweet tooth for mischief, something all the boys love, but Sirius definitely cares about it as more than just a laugh. James assumes that comes from the lack of playing he did as a kid, he’s got to get it all out now, and a 16 year old boy can't walk around a school with a toy dragon.

So Sirius pranks. He plots and plays with spells, childishly indulging in the magic he creates. James, who refuses outright to ever grow up, is happy to join.

Except right now he feels like he’s aged fifteen years. He feels like he’s decomposing. Like he’s being pecked apart by vultures of his regret and guilt. He should not be laughing, or smiling, he should not be here with Sirius Black who just carved the heart out of his little brother alongside James.

There are only 3 hours until midnight, the game having ended at about 8, and James spending the past half hour mastering Moony’s spell with Sirius. James is prepared to be shoved back, if Regulus shows up. James is honestly kind of hoping he gets shoved, hoping Regulus makes it even so James doesn’t have to feel this stomach churning guilt anymore.

He’s never felt like this. Not after he messes with Snape or Avery, after which he typically actually feels rather self proud. But he’s never done that unprovoked, always catching murmured slurs from their slimy mouths and shoving them right back down with a curse. He does that for other people, for Lily or Mary half of the time, for Moony. He didn’t do this for anyone.

He did this for himself. He did this so his best friend wouldn't see him getting a little too close to Regulus, so Sirius wouldn’t question him. He did this so he wouldn’t be the one getting shoved and cursed at. 

He really hopes Regulus lays him out. Hopes he pushes and shoves and kicks and punches James until he’s beaten all the regret out of him. James is not used to being the mean one.

“C’mon, Prongs,” Sirius says from beside him as Narcissa spots them, “we’ve gotta go, now.”

With that Sirius grabs James’ limp hand and drags him quickly up the stairs, taking them two at a time to avoid being followed by Narcissa. James glances back briefly to see that Narcissa isn’t even looking at them, instead trying to get her sister up off the ground and motioning for her to close her mouth.

“Pads,” James huffs out as Sirius whips them around a corner, “Pads they’re not following us, we’re good, slow down, Merlin.”

Sirius shuffles to a slower stroll as James sighs out a heavy breath, inhaling deeply before saying, “I just played an entire game of quidditch, give me a moment of rest.”

“Right,” and there's that look, that flicker of hurt every time anyone mentions quidditch in front of Sirius, “right, sorry. Let’s just get back to the dorm, I want to tell Moony.”

Sirius perks up as he mentions Remus, his lips turning up the name, curling softly around the syllables as they roll over Sirius’ tongue. James feels himself warm, ever so slightly, watching Sirius so quickly forget his hurt at the simple name of his friend. Or, not friend. His Moony, James assumes it is what he would call it.

“Alright, you’ll have to ask him how long it lasts too, I want to know if they’ll be silent tomorrow too.”

Sirius beams at him, elegant and broad, perfect white teeth parting his pink lips and creasing the skin at their corners. He looks like a poster. James just smiles back and follows his lead as they return to the common room.

Remus is reading when they open the door, and Peter is Merlin knows where, but definitely not in the room. Remus only looks up from his book when Sirius quite literally sits on top of him.

He’s sitting, legs spread, on the end of his bed, he’d had his head bowed down over his book, elbows resting in his knees as he read. Sirius just bumps his arms to the side with his hips and cozies down onto his thighs. Remus, shockingly, does not seem at all bothered, putting his book down and wrapping his long arms around Sirius’ waist.

“Moony!” Sirius says through his smile, looking up at Remus’ face excitedly, “we used your laughing spell! It worked so well!”

Remus smiles back at him, nodding, “really? That's splendid, Pads, who’d you use it on?”

James sits down on his own bed across from them, “cast on the first people who exited the Slytherin common room, so his lovely cousins and Bella’s boyfriend.”

Remus nods, “good picks, I’d say,” he says as Sirius shifts slightly and turns to face James.

“Damn, James, we should have done it on Regulus!” Sirius exclaims, shaking his head as he frowns slightly, like a petulant child who was told they couldn’t have any more sweets.

“Hm?” Remus hums, “you saw Regulus?”

Sirius nods as he turns back into his spot, “yeah, he was being a little snob as always, was blaming James for how he lost the game.”

Sirius rolls his eyes so hard James thinks they probably turned all the way around in his head. James isn’t quite sure what to say, but now Remus is looking at him with something akin to curious concern. James is not used to being looked at with concern.

“Yeah, he was just being a bit of a poor sport, I suppose,” James says, trying to neutralize his face to the best of his ability, feeling guilt tugging at the muscles by his mouth.

“It’s alright though,” Sirius says with a smile, “James laid him out with a single shove.”

James tries not to wince, tries to hide the grimace on his face as Sirius praises him for what might be the absolute worst thing he’s ever done. He recalls the look on Regulus’ face, the hurt, the confusion. He didn’t realize Regulus fully trusted him until he saw that look, the look of blatant betrayal. He looked like a wounded animal, so small and vulnerable, lost in the woods with a wound on its chest.

James had wanted to just pick him right back up, to hold him and apologize until his voice stopped working. He hadn’t expected Regulus to fall down, hadn’t expected to be looking down on him with Sirius as they mocked him; it somehow made it worse. 

Remus is watching him now, as he contorts his face into a makeshift smile, putting the pieces in the right place until it clicks, and Remus smiles back. The lazy one, like he doesn’t feel like using all the muscles in his face but lets them twitch ever so slightly. It’s honestly kind of hot. Good for Sirius.

“Nice one, James,” Remus says as he turns back to Sirius, “seems like he probably deserved it.”

Sirius just nods and presses a kiss to Moony’s cheek as he stands up and moves to lay on the bed behind him. James isn’t quite sure what to do, but he feels as if he should leave.

“Uhm,” he starts, standing up and grabbing a sweatshirt from off his trunk, “I’m going to go get some practice in.”

“James you just won a game,” Remus says with a raised brow.

“Uhm, yeah, well, I should still practice,” James says with a practiced smile as he approaches the door.

“You sneaking off to lover boy again, Prongs?” Sirius asks from the bed, voice muffled by the blankets Moony is shuffling so he can join him.

“No, I, uhm, I just want to get some air I guess,” James responds as he slips the hoodie over his head.

“What didn't you get enough when you were literally flying through it for two hours?” Sirius asks a little harshly as Moony slides under the covers beside him.

“Merlin, Pads, I just feel like I should give you guys some alone time, okay?” James huffs out, feeling the emotions he’s got stored in his chest right now starting to bubble up. He does not need to get mad at Sirius just because he's mad at himself, he knows that, but James has never been all that good at being mad.

“We didn’t ask you to leave, James, it’s okay if you stay,” Remus says softly, looking at James with such genuine care written in the scarred shape of his face. 

“I know, I’ve got to go anyway,” James says as he leans against the door.

“Right,” Sirius scoffs, “off to your new best friend you go.”

James stops. Stops breathing, stops moving, stops thinking.

“What?” he asks as Sirius rolls onto his side, his back now to James as Remus looks rather stuck between them, eyes darting back and forth from each.

“Nothing,” Sirius’ muffled voice carries, “go have fun.”

“Mate, you are literally in bed with your boyfriend right now, did you think you and I were gonna have some nice best friend bonding time?” James asks, a little too harshly for his liking, the bubbling anger and guilt and hatred boiling over, spilling out in his words.

James isn’t even mad at Sirius. He’s just mad. He doesn’t know what to do with it, he hates it.

“Well, I guess I assumed since we’re all friends we could still hang about and talk, but you’d clearly rather be talking to whoever the hell it is you spend all your time with anyway.”

Remus is literally hiding under the blanket. Sirius is still laying with his back to James, his long black hair spread over the pillow beneath his head, tangling like thorny stems on the soft white cotton.

“Are you jealous right now?” James asks, “are you seriously jealous right now, Sirius? You are in bed with the man you spend every waking moment with, and you are jealous of someone you don’t even know because I spend a couple hours talking to them at night?! Because we’re friends? You sleep in the same bed as Remus, you tell him everything, and you are the jealous one.”

Sirius doesn’t turn over. Doesn’t look at him. James would be sure he was dead if he couldn’t see the rise and fall of breath in the side of his chest.

“You are not friends with them, whoever it is. You’re not.”

James stands there. Just stands there confusedly staring at the back of his best friend.

“Sirius?” James asks, softer now, trying to swallow the acid of his anger back down, trying to stomach it so he never has to taste it again.

“Go, James,” Sirius says, turning his head over his shoulder to look at James’ stricken face, “please just leave.”

James stares at him as he turns back over and Remus emerges from his blanket cover, looking at James with such an open honest apology in his face. But he doesn’t get up, he wraps his arms around Sirius and looks at James like someone who just accidentally lost his favorite shirt.

So, James leaves. Angry and hurt and full of self hatred as he stalks out of the room, rushing through the castle in a blur of flesh eating guilt. He is actually just going to the pitch, knowing Regulus won’t be there yet, hoping he can fly some laps in peace.

He’s never done that. He’s never yelled at Sirius. He’s never made Sirius curl up in bed and beg him to leave. He’s not even sure where it came from, he’s quite sure Sirius really doesn’t have any room or right to be jealous, but he’s also pretty sure he doesn’t either. 

He loves Remus. He always has, he’s his best friend. So is Sirius. So seeing them both happy has only been rewarding, but sometimes James misses the nights Sirius would crawl into his bed. He misses the late night talks and silencing spells while they’d talk until the morning. He misses him, and he has Regulus, he has late nights and whispers and silencing spells, but when he gets back to the dorm Sirius is in Remus’ bed, curtains closed. They don’t even say goodnight anymore.

Maybe Sirius feels the same way, but he didn’t lose two of his best friends to each other. James misses Remus too. Misses early mornings before practice when Remus would already be up reading and he’d talk to him while he showered. He misses kitchen runs and copied notes at night. And Sirius and Remus are in love, they get so much of each other that nobody else, not even James, will even be able to see.

James and Regulus are friends. Sirius shouldn’t be jealous, not over that. 

So, sure, Sirius is jealous, but James is not in the mood to deal with it. Which actually only makes him feel worse. 

He’s so mad at himself for Regulus it’s all he can think about. He can't fix him and Sirius right now, not until he fixes this. And maybe, just maybe, he can convince Regulus to talk to Sirius so this never has to happen again. Then maybe he can get his best friends back, and keep Regulus, and maybe when they walk through the halls they can do it all together. James is actually rather sure Remus and Regulus would get along perfectly, he hopes one day they get too. He hopes it's soon.

The wind is harsher as night falls on the grounds, dark wind whipping against James’ face as he pulls his hood up over his head and trudges down the hill to the distant pitch. He can’t look up with wind whipping so harsh on his face it makes his eyes water, so he follows the trodden grass path down to the pitch with his eyes, watching as his feet step one after the other all the way down.

He approaches the locker room quickly, practically prancing down the hill to the warm room. The door is cracked open which he briefly notices as odd before remembering he was the last one in here, and he’d rushed rather obliviously out after Regulus. He shuts it all the way when he enters, making sure the lock clicks in place as he starts towards his locker and tugs his sweatshirt up and over his head swiftly.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” a voice says from behind him, it's harsh and rough and James recognizes it instantly. He’s starting to think he’d recognize that voice in his sleep.

“Regulus?!” James says as he whips around to face the smaller pale boy who’s currently standing with his arms at his sides in the middle of the room, shoeless and shirtless beside the benches.

Regulus’ chest is pale, porcelain in the dim locker room lights, fragile and beautiful. Something made to be admired, made to be handled with care and gentleness. The muscles of his stomach are shockingly defined and his waist is slim, turning in above his hips and so softly curving down. James is rather struck by the feeling that washes over him as he looks at Regulus, as he makes up metaphors in his head about his stomach and the curve of his shoulders. He wants to hold him. He has the odd thought he’d like to bite the softer plush piece of Regulus just above the waistline of his pants.

“Observant, yes, that’s my name,” Regulus says with an eye roll, waking James from his stupor, “what are you doing here?”

“Uhm, this is literally the Gryffindor locker room, what are you doing here?” James asks, arching a brow at Regulus and trying oh so hard to avoid looking down at his slightly damp chest.

“Needed to practice more, and these showers are better than ours,” Regulus responds as he snags a gray piece of fabric out of the bag on the bench beside him. Looking away from James as he slips the shirt over his head and shakes his curls out. “I’ll leave now.”

“No,” James starts a little too quickly, causing Regulus to look up at him with a raised eyebrow and a stoic face, “I mean, you can stay, I’m sorry.”

Regulus looks back down at his bag, just staring at it blankly.

“I really am sorry, Reg, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to do that, it was just Sirius was there, and I didn’t know what to do; I didn’t mean to make you fall down,” James rushes out quietly, words falling from his lips quickly as Regulus grabs a pair of white socks out of his green bag.

“James,” Regulus says as he looks up at him, “I know.”

James feels his shoulders sigh with relief. Regulus knows. Regulus gets it.

“Oh, okay, I’m still sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I should have just walked away,” James says, stepping a foot closer to Regulus as he sits on the bench to put his socks on, looking back down away from James.

“It wasn’t your fault, I guess, it’s really Sirius’ fault,'' Regulus says to the ground.

“What do you mean? I did it,” James replies, stepping even closer to him, only about 2 feet between them now.

“Yes, you did, but you wouldn’t have if it wasn’t what he would have expected.”

James feels his face contort at that, “what?”

“I mean,” Regulus starts, standing up and fully facing James now, “you wouldn’t have done that if Sirius wouldn’t have thought of it as normal. If he’d seen you talking to me he’d think it was weird, if he’d seen you just walk away it would be weird, he expected you to be mean. It’s what he wanted.”

James stares at Regulus as understanding starts to seep through his brain, “it’s not his fault, though, I still did it,” he says, suddenly not sure what to do with his hands as they hang at his sides, “and Sirius isn’t mean, it’s not what he would want.”

“Okay, so why aren’t you still with him? Did you really not talk about it after?” Regulus asks with an eyebrow raised. James realizes how bad he is hiding his emotions. Regulus is so good at it, so good at wiping his face clean, an expert at flat lips and neutral eyes. James’ face is a mirror of his mind.

“Okay so maybe Sirius and I fought but what makes you think he was mean? Or that it was over you?” James says with a sigh, his chest heaving as he speaks. Regulus just looks right through him.

“Why did you come here?” Regulus asks, quietly and emotionless.

“I just wanted to let off some steam I guess,” James says as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“You’re angry, James,” Regulus says, “you’re angry with him.”

“I’m angry with myself, Regulus. I’m unbelievably fucking mad at myself for what I did. Not him. It’s not his bloody fault I was an arsehole to you, I did that, I made that choice, and I am so fucking mad at myself for it, so I came here to let it out.”

Regulus nods, “what did he say to you, James, that made you think shoving and yelling at me was the best way to get him to act normally?’

James is so confused. He’s honestly so lost. This shouldn’t be about Sirius, this shouldn’t be about anyone except for them, except for him. 

“It’s not his fault, Regulus, I hurt you! I did,” James exclaims, waving his hands in front of his space as he raises his voice. He stops when he sees Regulus flinch.

“You didn’t, James, not as bad as he did,” Regulus says, suddenly so small, shrinking in on himself as James lowers his hands and looks at him. 

“I shoved you,” James says quietly, like a confession in a dark room.

“Yes, you did, but what he said was worse,” Regulus says, “and you got him to leave, so I’m not mad at you James, I’d rather you do that than he finds out. I don’t want to hear what he would say to me if he found out.”

“Reg,” James starts, working through the past two hours rapidly in his head as he looks at the small scared boy in front of him, “he didn’t mean it, there’s no world in which he’d have meant to hurt you.”

Regulus scoffs at that, loud and huffed, “right.”

“What do you mean, ‘right’, I mean it,” James says, “he’s not cruel.”

“Well what did he say to you that made you come down here early, then?” Regulus asks, face flat as stone, eyes wild like the tide as he takes a bold step closer to James.

“It was just a small fight, it wasn’t about you,” James pauses for a moment as he speaks, realizing that, “well, it kind of was, but he didn’t know it was about you.”

Regulus’ face breaks at that, his eyes widening with confusion as he looks up at James through his thick black lashes.

“You’re going to need to explain that,” Regulus says as he waits for James to respond.

James isn’t sure what to say. He doesn’t want to freak Regulus out and make him think Sirius is on to them, but he also really wants to get Regulus to just talk to Sirius. He feels himself step a little closer to Regulus, wanting to comfort him, wanting to console him.

“He’s just upset I keep hanging out with you, but not because its you, he doesn’t know it’s you, he just doesn’t like how much time I’ve been spending with you,” James says, suddenly realizing he’s gotten much closer to Regulus than before, only a couple inches between them now as they each huff with the exertion of a fight. Their chests almost touch as they heave in breath and their exhales mingle in the air between them. 

“So you’re not allowed to have other friends?” Regulus asks, words so close to James that he feels them bounce off his skin and roll down under his shirt with Regulus’ breath.

“No, I am, that’s not the problem,” James says, exasperatedly running his hand through his wind wild hair, tugging at the skin at the base of his neck and searching Regulus’ face for some sort of understanding.

“Then what’s the problem?’ Regulus asks, suddenly quieter, shy, his cheeks pink with the fight, his eyes softer as they reflect James’ own.

“It’s- he thinks- well, I don’t know okay?!” James says, quiet and fast like a snake in the grass. 

“I don’t think I understand,” Regulus says, and he’s looking at James, really looking, the way he does when he laughs or smiles or James touches him for a little too long. 

“We both know that’s not the problem,” James whispers, so close to Regulus he can make out a small black fleck in his left eye like he stared at the sun too much as a kid. 

Suddenly he’s warm all over. He’s melting, he’s a puddle at Regulus’ feet. Because suddenly Regulus’ lips are on his and he has no idea who had that idea but if it was him he thinks he might be the smartest man alive.

Because this is so much better than yelling. This tastes like orange bertie botts and something soft, something so sweet and still somehow harsh. This is so much better than a hand hold in a dark tunnel, or the touch of an arm in the hall. This is everything. This is flying and falling and sinking and swimming and drowning. This is the best thing that has ever happened to James Potter.

Regulus is against him, his lythe body pressed up against James’, and James is sure he must be on his tiptoes to reach him which is so endearing James feels himself smile a little into the kiss. James’ hands are moving on their own accord, wrapping around Regulus’ smaller frame, settling on that perfect pretty waist he was so happy to look at earlier. He never wants to look again, if he can touch. If he can have this, he never wants to open his eyes ever again.

It’s harsh. It’s full of teeth and bites and tugs at James’ lower lip, it’s screaming and shouting and rage. It’s so soft, though, Regulus’ lips are soft as peaches, smooth and warm against James’ as they collide. It’s held hands, it’s late nights and stars. 

James feels like he’s drowning in Regulus. James thinks he’s floating. James can feel him everywhere, warm and light against him, his smaller chest fitting so perfectly against James’, his wet curls brushing James’ temple as they kiss and kiss and kiss.

Suddenly James’ hands are empty.

“I’m sorry,” Regulus says, rushed and quiet as he steps so far back from James he collides with the wall behind him. He jumps a little at the contact and scrambles to grab his shoes.

James is frozen, his hands still in the air in front of him as if Regulus’ perfect waist should still be between them.

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn't have- I’m sorry,” Regulus stutters out as he slides his white sock clad feet into his shoes. 

James stutters back into life as Regulus laces his shoes, stepping quickly over to him and grabbing his perfectly flushed face in his hands before promptly crashing their lips back into one another. It’s a tidal wave. James can’t even breathe, but he’s never felt more full of life.

Regulus stills and leans into the kiss, James grasping his warm face in his broad hands, a palm covering each cheek. Regulus is arching his back from his seat to meet James who is doubled completely over to kiss him. Regulus’ hands are still in his lap as James kisses him.

This one is softer, less teeth, no tongue, just a long languid kiss. Lips closed, slotted against one another like perfect puzzle pieces. James can’t imagine what Regulus had apologized for, this is the best he’s ever felt. Can’t imagine how Regulus thought he’d gone wrong, this is everything right in the world.

James pulls back, just an inch or so, and looks into Regulus’ glossed over eyes. His lips are wet and bitten dark red, his cheeks are pink as lipstick and his pupils are so wide James can see his whole face in them.

“Don’t apologize,” James whispers, “please don’t apologize.”

Regulus just nods, a little stunted since James is still holding his head steady in his warm hands, “okay, is- is this okay?”

James feels himself smile, feels his lips part and his eyes crinkle, “Regulus,” he starts, pausing to place a chaste kiss on the boy's closed mouth, “this is more than okay.”

Regulus looks genuinely surprised by that answer, his eyes blinking rapidly and his mouth opening and closing like a caught fish.

“I-” he starts, swallowing the rest of his sentence as he blinks up at James, James thinks this is his favorite look on Regulus, soft and wide with wonder, “really?”

James nods and runs a hand indulgently through Regulus’ thick curls, feeling the soft hair wrap around his fingers, “really. I mean, this is the problem Pads is so stuck on, but it’s so much more than okay. It’s good, Regulus, so good.”

“It’s a problem, though,” the younger boy says through a small pout.

“No, not to me, it’s only good,” James says, suddenly feeling so stupid he hadn’t done this first, so mad at himself for not meeting Regulus in that corner those weeks ago and snogging the life out of him, “I didn’t even know, so I’m sorry, I should have done that so much sooner.”

Regulus shakes his head slightly, leaning into James’ hand still on his left cheek, “no, I think I would have punched you if you’d done it any other time before now.”

James laughs, feeling it ripple through his lungs and spillover his lips, he indulges warmly in the smile it causes on Regulus’ pretty pink face.

“Well, then I’m not sorry, and I’m just really glad I did it now,” he pauses as Regulus smiles at him, “can I do it again?”

Regulus’ smile expands as he nods, “yes.”

And so they’re kissing again. And realistically James knows they should be talking about this, he knows they should be discussing what this means and how they would go about doing it forever, or however long Regulus would let James do it with him. They should talk, they should, about what this makes them. But James figures that can wait, figures if he can kiss Regulus now he is absolutely going to. 

So he does.

He bathes in the softness of Regulus, in the cold of his small hands in his hair and on his face. He revels in the warmth of his mouth, the sweetness of his tongue, the taste of his smile.

They’ll talk later. Or maybe they’ll just keep doing this. James isn’t fussed either way.

–

Regulus Black is not smiling as he walks to the greenhouse. He is absolutely not smiling or blushing or biting his lip to taste a little bit of James. Nope.

Regulus Balck is simply walking, walking with his flushed face tipped down with a smile and his bottom lip tucked into his still so warm mouth. He’s bracing himself against the cold in a jacket that does not belong to him, that hangs off him like a child playing hero in a cape made of a towel. It’s soft on the inside, and Regulus runs his hands over the fleece lining in the sleeves that swallow his entire hand.

He has his own jacket, yes, but that one is thin and a little too small and James didn’t even have to ask if he was cold once they’d exited the locker room. Regulus is small, he’s aware, he’s skin and bone and nothing in between. He rattles with the wind and shakes with the cold, so James, who’s probably never felt less than warm in his sunshine infused life, gave him a coat.

It’s nothing more than a friendly gesture, James likely didn’t even think twice before offering it, chivalrous as ever. Regulus had wanted to refuse, so say something snarky and comment on the lame romanticism that is James Potter, but something in him softened when James Potter kissed him for the first time, and he was melted butter by the time James held out his coat. He was helpless to do anything but let James slide it on for him and zip him up like a child. 

They didn’t talk. Not about the kissing or the fighting or Sirius. They kissed and joked and existed in sweet nothings for a few magical hours, and Regulus let James swallow down all his concerns with each press of their lips and swipes of their tongues. 

Regulus knows they’ll have to talk, knows James will want to, but for now he’s content with ignoring that. Because he knows when they talk he can’t give James what he’ll want. He can’t give him held hands in the halls and Christmas gifts with the family. He can’t give him kisses in the Great Hall or dates to Hogsmeade. He’d only be able to give him darkness, dimly lit rooms and whispered romance. And James is made for the light, for yells of love off roof tops and overly intense PDA in the mornings. James needs those things, needs public confessions and sunlit kisses, he needs dates to Honeydukes on the weekends with his friends. Regulus can only  give him secret tunnels and late night lies.

So Regulus doesn’t really want to talk, he’s going to do everything in his power to avoid it. He’s sure he and James can survive on kissing for a while, if James will let him. He’ll just snog him senseless every time he opens his mouth to speak, and bite down on his bottom lip every time he asks a question. Regulus hopes that’ll save them for a while, preserving them in dreamy sunny amber full of kisses and kisses and kisses.

For now, Regulus Black is just doing his best to shake the blush off his cheeks as he approaches the green house. He can see fog inside and make out the muffled laughter of his four best friends, Pandora’s loud guffawing laugh recognizable from the outside. 

He scrubs his face with his hands roughly once before he steels himself to open the cracked door. He can smell the smoke from here, watching as plumes of white roll out from under the door and dissipate in the cold air. 

“Reggie boy!” Barty exclaims happily as Regulus enters, a wide smile on his red face as his eyes squint at Regulus, “so glad you could make it!”

Regulus just huffs out a small laugh, stepping over to the small circle formation his fiends have formed on the greenhouse floor and squeezing in between two criss-crossed girls. Dorcas is holding a half smoked joint in her ring clad fingers, Pandora is deeply distracted by some sort of leaf that seems to keep hitting her forehead when she moves.

Barty and Evan are clearly high, losing all of whatever it is that keeps that little bit of distance between them when they’re sober. Not physical distance, of course, since they’re bloody all over each other, but that little bit of tension that sits in the air between them. It’s gone now, as they laugh openly into each other's mouths and Evan lays all over Barty’s lap to escape the cold ground. Regulus watches as he tucks his knees up and under James’ jacket, his whole body fitting inside what clings so tightly to James. Regulus tries not to think about that, or how James’ single hand covers his entire back when he kisses him, or how his body is so broad that when he had Regulus against the locker he covered him whole.

Very much not thinking about that.

“Regulus!” Evan says now, sitting fully in Barty’s lap as he turns to look at Regulus, “were you off with that secret lover of yours again?”

Regulus just tucks his head into the jacket, hiding the blush that heats up his face and reddens his nose. 

“Is that his jacket?” Dorcas asks now, handing the joint over to Barty who thanks her with as much of a bow as he can muster with Evan currently on his lap.

Regulus just huffs and removes his head from his warm hiding hole to look very pointedly not at Dorcas.

“Oh Merlin! It is, isn’t it?” Dorcas says with a laugh as she boldly puts her hand in Regulus’ hair to mess it up before saying, “oh and your hair is quite the mess Reg, someone have their hands in here already?”

“You are so,” Regulus makes a strange sort of strangled noise with his throat as he starts choking air with his hands in place of an adjective, “when you’re high, Cas.”

“Oh, you love me, and apparently however this jacket belongs too,” she says, scanning him with her barely open eyes before saying, “must be someone big, I’m guessing about six feet from the jacket, someone wider than you…”

“You’re dating a jock?!” Evan exclaims from his position now fully curled up in Barty’s lap, taking drags from the joint when Barty lowers it to his mouth for him.

“I am not dating anyone,” Regulus says, noticing how Pandora abandons her leaf to look at him curiously, he wills her to at least have enough consciousness to not say the name he knows she’s thinking of right now, “and it’s cold out, okay? He was just being nice.”

Regulus realizes a bit too late he said him, but simply wills the powers of weed to place ignorance in his friends minds.

“I didn’t even know you were dating anybody,” Barty says with a small frown, emotions written all over his face due to his lack of conscious control, “how come you didn’t tell me you were dating someone?”

“I didn’t tell you because I am not dating anyone,” Regulus says with a roll of his eyes, “now pass me that or I might actually start beating you all up.”

Pandora eyes him curiously, tugging on the leaf above her absentmindedly as she scans his face. 

‘You do like him, though,” she says with a whisper, managing to lower her voice enough that the other three people don’t even blink twice at her.

Regulus just nods, small and quick, feeling that familiar blush dance on his cheeks once again, “I think I really do.”

“I’ve got a feeling about this,” Pandora says, looking wistfully back at her drooping leaf, “I can’t tell what it is, but the coat looks good on you, so I think it’s a good feeling.”

Regulus should know better than to doubt one of Pandora’s feelings. She’s never been wrong before, but he knows better than to assume anything that could come out of kissing James Potter, other than the kissing, would be good. So he just smiles at her and nods.

“For our lovely little prince,” Dorcas says, taking the joint from Barty’s limp hand and passing it to him, “I’ve got water if you need it.”

Dorcas seems to be the most sober, although he’s sure she’s smoked just as much as the rest of them. She’s always been more of a body high, the type who sinks into the floor and says her feet feel weird but can still hold a three hour conversation about the Goblin wars.

She smiles at Regulus as he takes the joint, holding it to his lips as Dorcas lights it with the tip of her wand. He’s seen that tall scarred boy his brother seems to be so enamored with light cigarettes with a snap, and even if Regulus isn’t much of a smoker has to admit it’s ridiculously hot. 

He takes a long pull from the joint, inhaling with his mouth closed before opening it and exhaling through his nose. He watches as the smoke trickles out of him and dances in the still air, floating over his friends red eyes and lazy smiles.

Pandora leans over to take a drag from it as Regulus holds it between his index finger and thumb, tilting a bit towards her as she inhales.

It goes out after a moment as he thankfully sips the water Dorcas mentioned and does his best to suppress the itch in his throat. He holds the joint backup to his lips and motions for Dorcas to put her wand down when she goes to light it again.

“Oh Merlin he’s gonna try to light it with his hands again,” Barty says slowly, as if his tongue is a little swollen and heavy in his mouth. 

Regulus glares at him, “last time was just a practice, okay?”

“So it was just a practice when you quite literally set Ev’s tie on fire?” Barty asks with a very slight raise of his eyebrow, the muscles in his face seeming to slow down or gain weight as he uses them.

“At least we know I can do it,” Regulus says with an eye roll.

“Yeah because setting Evan on fire is basically a blink away from lighting a joint,” Dorcas says with a laugh, tilting her head back and letting her long braid brush the ground.

“I just mean at least we know I can cast the spell without a wand, just have to work on aim is all,” Regulus says as he adjusts the joint in his hand.

“Everybody get back,” Pandora says, scooting along the ground to sidle up next to Barty and Evan across from Regulus.

Regulus scoffs as his friends fall into what he deems unprovoked puddles of laughter, their bodies bending and folding as they clutch their stomachs and guffaw all over each other. Dorcas joins them and scoots them all as far back as they can get, backing up into the bottom of a large planter which shakes with the impact and drops more leaves on Pandora’s blonde head.

“Piss of, I’m not gonna set you guys on fire,” Regulus says as he holds the joint up to his mouth and concentrates very very hard on it. He locks eyes with the unlit end and holds his spare hand up to it, snapping and thinking incendio rather intensely with his mind.

To everyone’s surprise, and his own admittedly, the end of the joint lights up and small plumes of smoke start to roll out of it before Regulus promptly sucks them back through the tunnel of paper and plant.

“No fucking way right now did you just do that,” Barty says with a wide mouth, eying the lit joint in Regulus’ mouth and slowly raising his eyebrows in surprise.

“That was honestly hot,” Evan says, staring at Regulus as he exhales billows of smoke and winks back at him, “I’m feeling a little but attracted to you right now.”

Regulus catches Barty’s scowl at that, sees a flicker of a frown pull at his lazy lips and a slow blink roll over his puffy eyes. He blinks it away, but he’s high and Regulus knows that means his walls are down. He looks hurt, a little mad, and very very upset that he can’t wipe the frown off his face. He quite literally tries to rub it off with his hands.

“I second Ev,” Dorcas says with a wide smile, her ringed hands moving to clap loudly at Regulus, Pandora joining in with snaps and hollers of praise.

Evan takes Barty’s left hand, which was previously draped on Evan’s laying stomach, and uses it to clap with his own right hand. Barty smiles again, clapping in time with Evan and looking down at their hands. When the clapping dies down Regulus notices that Evan doesn’t let go of Barty, opting instead to pull his hand down in front of his face and start inspecting all of his fingers and calluses. 

After a few more drags and the end of the joint Regulus is feeling rather blissful. He feels oh so warm tucked up in James’ coat, and the smell of him is the most delicious scent Regulus’ nose has ever had the pleasure of smelling. He spends what he assumes is an entire day just sitting there sniffing at the collar of the coat, rubbing his face against the fleece and remarking how lovely the texture is. 

“Regulus,” Evan starts, now sprawled out in the middle of the circle in starfish position, head comfortably in Barty’s lap where he plays with his short blonde hair, “I think I’ve seen someone else wear that jacket before.”

Regulus doesn’t even have it in himself right now to be perturbed by that comment, so cozy, so warm and light. He just nods and hums, running his thumb up and down the zipper to feel the cold metal under his fingers.

“It isn’t mine,” he responds eventually, looking up at Evan as he extends his arms and shows off the red coat adorning his arms.

“Who’s is it?” Evan asks, reaching up to touch the soft fabric dangling from Regulus.

“Someone who is a very good kisser,” Regulus says with his eyes closed, somehow able to feel James on his lips again, able to feel his broad hand on his back and his soft stomach against his chest.

“Woah, what?” Barty pitches in, sitting up from his rather slouched position and tearing his eyes from Evan to look bewildered at Regulus.

Dorcas sits up now too, moving from where she’d been drawing patterns in the dirt with Pandora to say, “you, Regulus Black, kissed someone tonight?”

Regulus’ brain is so fuzzy, and he feels so heavy and so light at the same time, like he’s floating on a sinking boat. He thinks he needs to be kissing James right now. Like right now. In this exact moment.

“Yes, and I think I’m going to go now and do it again,” he says, standing up and feeling the weight of the world sway his body. 

He has to find James. Absolutely needs to be kissing him right now. Needs it. Now.

“Right now?” Pandora asks with a soft curious look on her face, “shouldn’t you wait?”

“No I can’t,” Regulus says rather decisively, already making his unsteady way towards the door, “gotta go now, sorry.”

He hears his friends let out a collective groan before suddenly they’re all standing right next to him, he’s not quite sure when that happened. He’s not quite sure how long he’s been standing up. Time, he’s quite convinced now, does not exist.

“Alright, where does this mystery lover live?” Dorcas asks as she opens the door and motions all of them out.

It’s cold and Regulus is very aware of his bones.

“Gryffindor tower,” Regulus says with a smile, already well on his way to the main entrance of the school, tripping every now and then on rather rude rocks that seem to be moving just to get in his way.

He hears murmurs from his friends behind him but can’t really hear a thing they’re actually saying, just aware of the sounds and shapes of their voices as they linger in the air. He wonders how long he’s been outside for.

James, he thinks, the name spurring him on as he reaches the doors, James, James, James.

The door is absurdly heavy. Like insanely heavy. Regulus is pretty sure it’s actually getting bigger every time he tries to tug it open.

“Guys,” he shouts to his approaching group of rather slow friends, “guys it’s locked.”

“Oh stop pouting,” Barty says as he opens the door with a single hand, “you’re just high.”

“So are you,” Regulus says with a firm frown set on his chin, walking through the door as Barty holds it open for him and the other three that follow.

“Not as much as you,” Barty says, “I’m coming down, just need to get you to your forbidden Gryffindor lover and then pass teh fuck out.”

“You gonna pass out with your lover?” Regulus asks, rather distracted by the somehow moving portraits on the wall. 

How? He wonders as he watches two painted men talk, what the fuck.

“I’m so depressingly single, Reg, whatever do you mean?” Barty asks, drawing Regulus’ half shut eyes away from the portrait and back to him. Regulus is rather confused as to where the rest of his friends went but that worry is quickly abandoned when he sees them waiting for them up on the stairs.

How did they get ahead of us? He wonders as he stares at the stone steps his friends are sitting on. What time is it?

“I mean Evan,” Regulus says, gesturing at the blonde boy staring at Barty from the bottom step, “duh.”

Barty stops dead in his tracks to look at Regulus, “no. Not duh. That’s my best mate.”

Regulus just keeps walking and rolls his eyes, “okay mr. frowny jealous pants.”

“I hate you when you’re high,” Barty says, shaking his head and grabbing a hold of Regulus’ hand when he starts up the stairs.

“Wonderful of you two to catch up,” Evan says, looking only at Barty.

Regulus raises an eyebrow at Barty after he smiles back at Evan, Barty just rolls his eyes and tugs Regulus up the stairs.

Regulus is quite sure it’s past curfew, and rather convinced they’ll get caught for this, but he can’t help himself from falling up almost every step he takes. His legs are just so heavy, like he’s carrying anvils in his shoes.

“Would you please try to be quiet,” Barty whispers into his ear as he picks him up off the ground, Regulus can’t remember falling down.

Dorcas and Pandora are leading the group, scoping out each hall with a lumos and whatever Pandora says she’s feeling. They make it to the tower so fast Regulus can hardly even recall coming inside. 

“Merlin that took forever,” Barty sighs as they reach the fat lady portrait, and Regulus raises his eyebrows at him in confusion, rather sure that it took all of 5 minutes.

“What? That was so fast,” Regulus mumbles moreso to himself than his friends, but Evan must hear him because he turns around to show Regulus his watch, revealing that it’s currently 3:15 and then informing Regulus that they entered the castle at 2:45.

Regulus decides not to think about that, wondering how in Salazar’s name all his friends are acting so normal now. 

He then remembers he was an hour late to the greenhouse, so he’s an hour behind in his high, so they’re all probably in the mood to lay down and sleep while he’s rather still feeling the need to snog James Potter.

“Does anyone know the password?” Dorcas asks the group as they stand in front of a rather quizzical looking fat lady.

“I think they changed it this week,” Pandora says with a tilt of her head, clearly rummaging through her memories as she stares at the door, “they were going to have a party tonight before Peter called it off, not sure why, but I think he told me the password when he invited me.”

Regulus is rather intrigued, now, by cobblestone. He wonders what’s holding it up, here on the higher floors, what keeps it together and keeps him from falling through. He’s shaken out of his thoughts when Barty quite literally shoves him through the now somehow open portrait and salutes him as it closes.

“Good luck!” He hears Pandora shout through the cracked portrait.

“Use protection!” Dorcas follows in a soft whisper, “and make sure whoever it is gets you home safe.”

Regulus just nods, rather stupidly since none of them can see him, and then closes the protrait the rest of the way. 

The common room is empty, but the fire is still burning at the hearth, the heat permeating through the whole room and making all the reds feel redder and all the oranges oranger. Regulus is rather pleased by the feeling of the carpet under his feet and happily slides his shoes off to feel it under his socks. It’s so lovely, cushioned and plush as he steps towards the stairs up to James’ dorm.

The stairs are dark, only a few candles lit to light his path, but he manages to make it to the top with a mantra of James’ name playing in his head. James’ room is the first one to the left, Regulus remembers vividly from the night they wound up in Honeydukes. The memory makes his nose tickle. 

He almost knocks, almost, before he remembers James does not live alone. He lowers his posed hand to the brass door knob, wrapping his palm around it and twisting ever so carefully. 

The door creaks open quietly, and unfortunately for Regulus every bed in the room has its curtains closed. There is one bed open, but nobody is in it, and Regulus rather quickly identifies it as Sirius’ from the trunk at the end embossed with a silver S.O.B.

The bed to it’s right has a smaller trunk in front of it and a rather crammed bookshelf adorned with what Regulus assumes is at least a million novels. He deducts this one belongs to the tall one.

The one to the left of his brothers is rather plain, the walls nearby covered with some quidditch posters and a few random text books. The one beside it is similar, but Regulus spots a framed picture of who he can only assume are James’ parents on the dresser beside it. The two older people are in a rather quaint kitchen, feeding each other pieces of that cake James had made him for breakfast once. 

He shuffles towards that bed as quietly as he can, rather confused as to where his shoes went but grateful for the quietness of his steps in his wool socks.

He opens the curtains slowly, peeking in to see a sleeping James draped across his bed. He sleeps like a toddler in a crib, flat on his chest with his limbs sprawled out in every direction, face turned to the side and smushed rather hilariously into his pillow. His glasses are resting beside his pillow with his wand, which Regulus thinks is rather stupid since they seem rather close to falling off or being crushed, but he quickly forgets about it and returns his gaze to James.

James looks so young, very soft and small like this. He’s drooling onto his pillow and Regulus should be disgusted but he really just really needs to kiss him.

Something in his mind stops him from just planting one on him, but his body moves of its own accord and rather unceremoniously clambers into James’ bed with him. The sleeping boy wakes with a start, gasping and swinging at Regulus as he just stifles a laugh into the sleeve of his far-too-big coat.

“What the fuck?! Who’s there?!” James exclaims, reaching for his glasses as Regulus shushes him quietly, laughing against his index finger as he presses it to his lips. He can feel every muscle in his face when he smiles.

“Regulus?!” James whisper screams at him with a look of blatant confusion on his face as he slides his glasses on to his nose and blinks at Regulus.

Regulu just laughs and nods and feels fuzzy all over.

“Hi,” he says through a giggling smile, feeling how his lips stretch and his teeth meet the air.

James raises his eyebrows at him before sitting all the way up, criss crossed opposite of Regulus.

“Uhm, hi?” He says, the end of his sentence raising up with inquisition.

“Hello!” Regulus says, genuinely incapable of removing the wide smile from his face. His eyes are a little hard to open all the way, and he struggles with this as James tries to wake himself up with the shake of his head. 

Regulus is blinking his eyes rather aggressively when he hears James cast a silencing spell under his breath and feels something warm and brilliant dance on his skin. It’s James’ magic. It falls over him like the sun on snow, glistening and warm and so blindingly lovely. Regulus breathes it in gratefully. 

“What are you doing here?” James asks, and he’s just so cute and so hot and so confused and Regulus can’t help the laughter that erupts from him.

“I need to kiss you,” he says through his laughter, coughing a little into his sleeve after he speaks and smiling up at James after it passes.

“Regulus,” James asks with a raised eyebrow, “are you high?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Regulus responds, “I’m about medium height I’d say, sitting on the bed actually makes me a bit lower than normal.”

Regulus can’t help but laugh at his own comedy, stifling his fit of giggles into James’ sleeve on his arm and smiling widely at James’ amused grin.

“How did you even get here?” James asks, looking at Regulus with something a little bit too close to concern for Regulus to like. 

“My friends brought me, I just really need to kiss you.” Regulus responds with a small smile, so aware of how his knees almost touch James’ and how James’ hands look so warm in his lap.

“Regulus you can’t be here, your brother is literally sleeping in the bed across from us and you’re high,” James says, but he’s smiling so Regulus assumes it can’t be all that serious.

“It’s okay,” he says with a smile, “just kiss me, you said it was good, remember?”

James smiles with a shake of his head, “I do remember yes, and it was, but I can’t do that with you right now, Reg.”

Regulus feels himself pout, feels the way his muscles downturn his lips and his chin creases, “why not?” He sniffles a little.

“Because you’re high and you can’t be sure you really want to,” James says, ever so chivalrous.

“I need to, James, please,” Regulus says, looking up at James through his curtains of lashes, eye lids heavy and drooping as he pleads with James’ concerned looking figure.

“Let me take you back to your dorm, okay? Maybe I’ll give you a goodnight kiss when I drop you off,” James says, shifting to grab Regulus’ hands and hold them in his lap as he searches his face.

“Can’t I just sleep here?” Regulus asks, watching as James’ face heats up beautifully, “we don’t have to kiss, I just want to be with you.”

James smiles, soft and subtle, looking down at their hands in his lap.

“What do we do in the morning?” James asks, raising his eyebrows at Regulus as he fiddles with Regulus’ fingers.

Regulus is melting again. He feels like he’s sinking into the bed, falling through the plush layers of blankets and mattress and wood. He feels so cozy here.

“Wake up,” Regulus supplies as an answer with the tilt of his head.

James laughs at that, shakes it out of his mouth and lets it fall onto Regulus’ hands and bubble up through his veins. Regulus can feel his laughter, he can see it and taste it in the air.

“Reg, we gotta get you back to your dorm, love,” James says with a small smile, starting to get up and tug on Regulus.

Regulus is rather stuck on that last word. Swimming in the waves of it as it crashes out of James’ mouth and washes over his skin. Love. 

“No,” Regulus pouts, crossing his arms over his chest and laughing for no reason at all.

“Yes,” James says with a laugh of his own, “come on, I promise I’ll kiss you if you let me take you.”

Regulus perks up at this, quickly bounding to his feet and rushing for the door.

“Hold on, love, where are your shoes?” James asks, and Regulus hardly processes any words after love.

He feels it heating him up from the inside out. Feels it settle in his skin and bones and burrow into his mind, fighting all the darkness within and setting up camp with joy and rainbows in his head.

“Reg?” James asks again, waving a large hand in front of Regulus’ face, “where are your shoes?”

Regulus glances down at his shoeless feet and shrugs back up at James. James just huffs and grabs a blank piece of parchment off his dresser before motioning Regulus out of the room. They go down the stairs side by side, James holding Regulus by his waist as he wobbles and sways with his absurdly heavy feet. Regulus feels warm all over.

“Oh,” James says as they enter the common room, “there they are.”

He leaves Regulus standing at the bottom of the stairs and scurries off quickly to grab his shoes from in front of the portrait. He carries them back, untying them as he approaches, and hands them over to Regulus who dutifully slides them on but can’t seem to bend the right way to tie them.

James drops to his knees then, and Regulus feels his entire body flush. He’s on both knees, face level with Regulus’ thighs as he leans down to lace up Regulus’ shoes for him. Regulus is probably drooling. Regulus is thinking many, many things. So many thoughts.

“There ya go,” James says as he starts to stand up, patting Regulus’ shoes before lifting himself and grabbing Regulus’ hand.

This is the best day of Regulus’ life.

James leads him through the castle silently, holding his hand the whole way and checking every corner and bend first. Regulus is rather content at this moment, though he really does wish he was kissing him. What a let down.

They end up at the slytherin common room entrance somehow, and Regulus struggles to recall ever even really walking down any stairs.

“Here we are, love,” James says, that name falling from his lips like sweet wine and staining Regulus’ cheeks pink. Regulus smiles up at him softly.

“Kiss?” Regulus requests, stepping closer to James and lifting himself up on his tiptoes to be level with the taller boy’s face. 

James just nods and leans down slowly, pressing his lips ever so sweetly against Regulus’. Regulus thinks he’s dreaming. Thinks he must be dead and this is that muggle after life he read about in Sirius’ old weird leather bound book. Kissing James is lovely, that’s the best word for it. It’s so, so lovely. He feels light like air, like he’d float away if it wasn’t for James’ lips on him to ground him.

He internally remarks on how amazing it is James Potter is kissing him right now. The same bright boy who said hi on the train and who asked him about the stars. Regulus Black figures he’s the luckiest boy in the world.

When James pulls away he does it with a soft kiss to Regulus’ forehead Regulus almost likes better than the ones on his lips. Almost.

“Goodnight, my little prince,” James says with the softest smile Regulus has ever had the pleasure of causing.

“Goodnight,” Regulus says back, kissing James indulgently on the cheek before turning to the wall and whispering the password to get it to open.

As he steps through James smiles at him, offering him a small wave and a blown kiss as he says, “sweet dreams, love.”

Regulus watches the wall close with a wide smile and hot cheeks. He stumbles back to his room as quietly as he can, and collapses into his bed quickly, sparing the two other sleeping boys a quick glance to see them both in Evan’s bed. His brain coos.

He feels himself sink into sleep slowly, falling into his bed over and over like a ship on rocky waters. He feels so warm though, so lovely. 

Love.