Rosewater makes me dizzy and I fear we're sleeping on them as a fandom - I want more??
(cw pseudo-incest, cousins by marriage)
Evan and Regulus, cousins by marriage, who spent every childhood summer tangled up in each other's orbit - left to their own devices, unsupervised and unsocialised, in the sprawling, overgrown grounds of a half-forgotten family estate in France.
Regulus was always an unpalatable little freak, moving through the world like he was already haunting it. He cycled through obsessive, all-consuming phases: pressing flowers between pages, cataloguing fungi, collecting the brittle bones of dead animals. He carried a notebook everywhere, full of spidery handwriting and frantic, meticulous sketches. He always wanted someone to ask what he was writing about - to let him talk about his latest fixation - but no one was all that interested in the youngest Black. Regulus was seriously fucking creepy, prone to sulking when the universe didnβt fall into line, and he dressed like a Victorian ghost even in the height of summer - it was incredibly off-putting.
Evan was quieter still - all blank stares and bruised knees, sleeves forever rolled up, a perpetual scab on one elbow that never healed because he kept picking at it. He didn't speak unless spoken to, and even then, his words came out flat and clipped, like each one cost him something. He was taller than the other kids, and blunt like a bat. If he'd been small and sweet, they might've called him shy, but tall and silent meant trouble. He always got the blame when someone cried, even if he hadnβt touched them - and he never wasted breath defending himself.
Somehow - even though Regulus looked like the kind of kid Evan wouldβve beat senseless for sport in another life - they were inseparable.
Of course, everyone was a little on edge the first time they vanished into the woods together. One of the staff even made a quiet note of it, muttering about how Evan had followed Regulus in, looming behind him like a shadow.
When they finally emerged, hours later, Sirius looked ready to hex Evan straight back into the treeline - all righteous fury and big brother instinct, demanding to know where theyβd been. He didnβt seem the least bit concerned that Evan had half a foot on him and shoulders broad enough to block out the sun.
Evan didnβt flinch - just raised an eyebrow, cool and unreadable. He never raised a hand unless cornered, and Regulus knew that, even if Sirius didnβt.
It was Regulus who stepped between them, flushed and indignant, voice cracking with conviction as he insisted that Ev was cool, actually, and that everyone had better leave him alone - or⦠or else.
That had been enough to shut everyone up. More or less.
After that, Regulus showed Evan every page in his stupid little notebook. And Evan looked - not with wide-eyed curiosity, but with steady, silent focus, tracking each turn of the page. Heβd give a small jerk of his chin when Regulus paused, never flinching at the stranger entries. Never bored. Never dismissive. Just there, fully - in a way no one else had ever managed to be.
Evan never said he liked Regulus - and Regulus was the kind of person who usually needed to hear things like that. But Evan showed him, in his own quiet way. He always showed up. Sat beside him on the bottom step while he read. Stood over him like a silent guard while he sorted bones and feathers into neat, reverent piles. Stepped on sharp branches first so Regulus wouldnβt scratch his ankles.
Regulus let him hold the bones - because Evan, for all his dirt-streaked fingers and ripped trouser legs, was careful with delicate things. He wiped his hands before touching anything fragile, and he never held on too tight. Regulus knew that - because whenever Evanβs hands started curling and uncurling, the way they did when something felt unfair, too loud, too much, Regulus offered his own. No questions, no fuss. Just something solid to squeeze.
When they got to school, and the world got louder, they only got quieter.
Regulus had always been weird with crowds - twitchy, uneasy - and Evan could take or leave them. By eleven, Regulus was whippet-fast, all lean limbs and nervous energy, darting through corridors at Seeker speed. Heβd vanish into the blur if not for Evan, who kept a steady hand on him - a grip at the elbow, a firm press to the shoulder - enough to keep him close. Evan was too proud to chase, and too attached to let go. He moved slowly, deliberately, like he knew the crowd would part for him in time.
They didnβt talk much in public - not even to each other - but they stared. Regulus knew what every flicker on Evanβs face meant: the twitch of his jaw, the dart of his eyes, the subtle curl of his lip when someone said something beneath contempt. Everyone else thought Evan was unreadable. Regulus just thought they werenβt paying attention. Evan communicated perfectly - quietly, precisely - and if you were looking, really looking, youβd understand him just fine.
Regulus grew into his cheekbones first. Got prettier before he got taller - the kind of sharp, ethereal beauty that made people look twice. The attention started in third year. Girls smiled at him in corridors. Boys teased him in ways that felt different now. And Evan - Evan started hauling him away. By the wrist. By the collar. By the belt loop, once.
Not out of jealousy, exactly. Evan didnβt exactly have a name for it. And he wasnβt worried Regulus would leave. He just didnβt see the point in letting him entertain it - why pretend he was meant for anyone else?
Evan got his turn the next summer. Fourth year, and he shot up nearly a foot - carved out of sharp lines and quiet intensity. The brooding thing started working for him. Girls stopped looking nervous when he walked into a room. They started giggling instead. And Regulus hated it. Hated the way they touched his arm. Hated sitting through breakfast while someone leaned across the table to ask if Evan liked Quidditch, of all things.
But Regulus did like the way Evan pulled his arm back - slow and deliberate, never a flinch. He liked the curl of his lip, as if the strange touch had repulsed him. He liked the clipped, deadpan βI like it when Reg playsβ that shut the conversation down like a slammed door. He liked the way Evan would drop an arm around his shoulders instead - casual and certain, like a full stop at the end of a sentence.
By fifth year, Regulus had taken to sitting on Evanβs lap in the common room - like it was the most natural thing in the world. Evan never discouraged him, just rested his hands wherever he pleased: the small of Regulusβs back, the curve of his thigh, his thumb drifting lazily along the sensitive inner seam, slow, certain, without a hint of hesitation. Evan had never known shame, and Regulus hadnβt yet realised he was supposed to feel it. He never would, if Evan got his way.
Regulus - even then - proudly referred to Evan as 'my cousin' in front of strangers, always with sharp gleam in his eye, thrilled to watch people recoil when he turned back and kissed him. It was the only thing that made Evan smile in public. He liked that mean, needling streak Regulus had. Liked that it was his.
They never talked about it - never discussed dating, or what they were, or when exactly they stopped being just friends. But then again, theyβd never needed many words to begin with.
