quítate ese miedo

"Do you think Icarus regretted the rush of flying as he fell?" James asks, clicking on the bedside lamp with a frown. "Surely he did when he was drowning, don't you think? I imagine he wished he never had wings at all."

"James," Regulus mumbles, "it's after two in the morning."

"Right, no, I know," James says quickly, "but at what point did he regret it? Not the moment of, surely. When the wax wings started to melt, maybe? Or was it until his last breath?"

Regulus sighs. Doesn't open his eyes. "Maybe he didn't regret it at all. Maybe flying that high and feeling the warmth of the sun was worth the fall."

There's silence.

The lamp clicks off.

A kiss brushes Regulus' bare shoulder, and his eyes fly open then, because James' warm fingers splay across his naked back, stroking down his spine like one strokes a cat. Regulus would purr, if he wasn't half-asleep.

"Hey," James whispers.

"Hey," Regulus replies, lips twitching in the dark. "You're not going back to sleep, are you?"

"No," James admits. "I won't keep you up, though. Come here."

Regulus stifles a sleepy laugh and flops over to readjust. James' brain does this sometimes, fills him with races to run and thoughts he can't even dream of escaping. Tomorrow night, he'll be a bit cranky by the time they get in bed, and Regulus will listen to him complain and huff and kick at the covers and toss and turn, trying and trying to get to sleep, but there are so many nights when he simply can't. There's not much either of them can do about it, when he gets like this, so a cuddle generally goes a long way.

James is always more settled when touch is involved, skin-on-skin, heartbeat-to-heartbeat. He likes to listen to Regulus' heartbeat, ear to chest, and sometimes, if they're lucky, it's has enough of a calming effect that he'll drift off.

Regulus holds him, now, and sleepily strokes his hair. This earns him a quiet hum and another kiss bestowed to the dip of his shoulder, by his throat. James sighs, mumbling nonsense under his breath, shifting and settling again.

"It's just," James continues, unprompted, "what if he did regret it, though?"

"He didn't," Regulus replies dreamily. He pats James' head with a limp hand. "Trust me, I know. He told me himself."

"Regulus," James insists, "there's no way he dropped into the ocean and drowned and didn't regret flying too close to the sun. It's impossible."

"Not impossible," Regulus says through a yawn, eyes too heavy to open. "It's like—hm, like me, yeah? If I had the chance to get close to you, then ended up drowning, I wouldn't regret any moment with you, or anything that led me to drown in the first place."

"Okay, yes, sweet," James mutters, "but I'm not the sun, love."

"No?" Regulus asks dryly. "Because you're very warm and, at the moment, keeping me awake."

James pauses, then whispers, "Sorry."

"It's fine. You're fine," Regulus assures him, humming and patting James' head again. He pushes a little and smooshes James' head to his chest. "Shhh, Icarus had no regrets. It's okay."

"Right, right, absolutely," James agrees, muffled, and presses a kiss to his chest this time.

Blissful silence.

For a while.

Regulus is almost asleep, nearly there, and then James raises his head and says, "But what if—"

"Okay," Regulus says, forcing his eyes open with a slow blink, and then another. He fights through one more yawn before propping himself up and kissing the top of James' head. "Right, then. Let's get up, have some tea, and figure this out."

"Sorry," James groans. "Oh, sorry, no, just—just go to sleep. I'll—"

"Mm, no, it's fine, James," Regulus says, and he means it. He clicks on the bedside lamp and smiles when he sees James looking rather pitiful about the whole thing. "Come on, I promise it's fine. It's never too late for a debate, and I need to tea if I'm going to prove I'm right."

"You could be wrong."

"I'm never wrong."

Regulus pushes at James to get him up, and they go stumbling into their kitchen wrapped in blankets, shuffling around to make tea and wasting precious sleeping hours going back and forth on what Icarus felt in his last moments.

The thing is, sleep is precious, but this? Much later, down the line, these are the type of moments they'll look back on and find more precious than anything else. They can catch up on sleep later, but this moment exists here and now, brushing hands and stolen kisses and the great debate of Icarus' fall.

That had no business being as funny as it was to me😭

JAMES IS FOUL 😭 he is constantly making snippy, bitchy comments lmaoooo. there's even a point where he's so stubborn he won't even say regulus' name. in his defense, he's not really seeing the repercussions of his words. like, he's not seeing how it's hurting regulus. it's one thing to think/know it is, but it's something else to actually witness it.

and like, the timeline plays into a lot of this, too. because they're still on day one. they JUST made it into the hallow, there's still the 2 training days and interview day to get through. james has 3 days to pull himself together, and that's not a lot of time in the aftermath of everything. so it's like, you can't really just expect him to snap right back to being okay, not so soon.

“you’re not mine,”

I NEED TO BE SEDATED THIS IS SICK

hm. wanna see something worse?

idk why yall keep doing this to yourselves:

hey, judebug, just for you <3

it's not necessarily a cliffhanger, but it is angsty as fuck, CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK:

barty: it's satire

here, a pallet cleanser for those who need it:

this is gonna be another essay nobody asked for but this time i'm thinking about crimson rivers specifically + fanfiction wips in general and the ways in which they actively preserve forms of storytelling that are slowly being lost to the meat-grinder of capitalism (buckle up this is gonna be a long one)

remus: you could just try flirting with somebody who shows interest in you right away and not get so easily attached

marlene and dorcas were doing their charms homework together, in the dim lighting of the library. they had recently started taking charms from her, as she was the best from their year and dorcas could use some help.

"hm?" marlene asked, not giving the slightest bit of interest in her paper. dorcas found it amusing, how she could care so little about some things and so much about others.

"i said that you're pretty."

"sorry, i didn't catch that." marlene leaned over, her breath hot against dorcas' shoulder. (their breath hitched in their throat, but they'd never admit it to marlene. they'd only boost her already gigantic ego.)

"i said that you're an idiot." dorcas grinned, pushing marlene away with their middle and index fingers. "that's what i said."

"that's better. i thought i had an auditory hallucination of dorcas meadowes being actually, genuinely nice to me, and not just out of studying purposes."

"you're an idiot."

"your idiot, maybe."

dorcas glanced up to marlene, their brows furrowed. they resorted to rolling their eyes and going back to their essay. (that was due tomorrow, so they'd have to finish it that evening.)

"i meant it as in i'm your tutor, don't flatter yourself, meadowes. you'd wish, and you'd wish in your wildest, most amazing dreams, that you could get a piece of me." marlene winked suggestively.

"in my nightmares, maybe," dorcas answered, not looking up from their homework, but with a smile on their face.

she was truly entertaining, marlene. and quite a nice presence, too.