casey

Nobody knows about this particular hiding spot. 

This is the place Regulus goes to think, to breathe, to be alone.

He sits on the roof of Greenhouse Three and looks at the mountains and wonders what it would be like to be someone different–someone with different parents, different expectations, a whole different fucking life.

And lately, he hates the fact that he wants someone there with him. Someone he can never have.

It makes the whole thing more complicated, because Regulus is nothing if not hyperindependent. His decisions, his thoughts, his feelings–they all belong solely to him. Giving them to someone else is a vulnerability so complex that his heart clenches at the thought.

So he decides to continue on this path, because what other options does he have, really?

But fucking James Potter doesn’t get the message.

He appears next to him one evening, just as the sun flashes orange and pink on the horizon, sitting down next to Regulus like he’s been fucking invited there.

All Regulus can think to say is, “Stalking is illegal, you know.” Because Potter keeps showing up. Keeps insisting that somehow, they can make this work.

He’s an idiot, obviously.

Potter just laughs. “Gonna push me off, then?”

Regulus considers it for a moment, but decides being expelled isn’t worth it. 

Neither is the heartache.

“Maybe,” he warns.

“You know, stealing is illegal, too,” the Gryffindor adds conversationally, as if talking is something they do. As if they’ve done more than snog in broom cupboards and exchange heated glances across the Great Hall. As if Regulus hasn’t rejected him fifty times, citing excuses that have become more and more feeble.

“Ten points to Gryffindor,” Regulus drawls, rolling his eyes. “And you’re telling me this because?”

“You stole my heart. So we’re even.”

He shouldn’t be so caught off-guard by the stupid, cheesy line. He should scoff and leave, tell James to find someone else to bother. But for some reason, in his fragile state, he just turns to the older boy and stares, and–oh.

He looks so fucking serious. Like he truly means what he’s saying. Eyes wide, teeth indenting his lower lip, mouth curved in a small, genuine smile, James is being honest.

Regulus kisses him without thinking.

It took everything in him to ignore the instinct to run.

To merely finch and not raise his wand, when James reached out for him, eager after having spent several days waiting to meet again, their evenings taken up with friends, studying, Quidditch practice, life.

As always, the older boy paused, his fingers barely touching Regulus’s cheek, his eyes wide. “Sorry, I–I can–” 

Regulus’s heart cracked in half as James began to take a purposeful step back, leaving him cold.

And six months ago, he might have left it at that. Allowed the older boy to create space between them, even as his chest ached and his skin screamed for the gentle touch that it’d been denied for so long. Feelings were so incredibly hard, so unbelievably vulnerable, and something like touch made it all the more difficult.

But now, he was braver. More secure. He knew what he wanted, even if he couldn’t say it. So as James’s hand slipped from his cheek, Regulus captured it and pressed it back to his blushing skin, breathing in the still strange sensation of being touched with love.

Somewhere in the back of his brain, he registered the fact that he was trembling. He tried to put that thought out of his mind. “Hi,” he murmured, closing his eyes and focusing on the warmth of James’s hand on his skin. “Sorry, I just…sometimes I forget.”

James groaned, fumbling for his glasses. "What is it?"

"My bed is haunted," Sirius whispered. He was standing in the middle of the dorm, clutching his duvet.

"Haunted," James repeated flatly. "We are in Gryffindor Tower. The ghosts don't come up here."

"Poltergeist, then," Sirius insisted. "It's making weird noises. Cold spots. I saw a pair of floating eyes. I can't go back there. It’s unsafe."

"So sleep in Pete's bed, he's still in the Hospital Wing."

"Too far from the door," Sirius said quickly. "In case I need to escape."

"Sleep on the rug."

"Bad for my back."

"Sleep with me?"

"You kick."

Silence stretched in the room.

"Fine," Remus’s voice came from behind the velvet curtains of his four-poster. "Get in here, you big baby."

"If you insist, Moony!" Sirius said, his voice instantly cheerful. He dove through Remus's curtains before the sentence was even finished. There was a scuffle, a squeak of bedsprings, and then a contented sigh.

James lay back down, staring at the canopy. He pointed his wand at Sirius’s empty bed across the room. "Revelio."

Nothing happened. No ghosts. No poltergeists.

He cast a second spell. "Finite Incantatem."

Suddenly, a small, mechanical wind-up chattering teeth toy on Sirius's nightstand stopped clattering, a toy presumably charmed by Sirius himself.

“...and that’s the second floor bathroom,” James continued, gesturing to the bathroom to his left, looking behind himself to make sure Regulus was following along as he went. “Sirius’s room is here, and…mum says you’ll stay there,” he gestured to the guestroom that Sirius had claimed as his own last summer, as well as the guestroom that Regulus would be staying in. “My parents are upstairs, and…my room is through there.”

Regulus nodded at each statement, but he seemed vastly unconcerned about his own bedroom. Instead, he made a beeline for the last door on the right, where James’s room had been since he’d been a small child.

James’s heart leapt and he quickly followed after him. “Erm, I-” he stuttered, frowning nervously. Regulus had decided to come for the summer quite last-minute, and suddenly James realized that he should have asked his mum to clean up some…things.

But Regulus was already inside, looking around slowly before plopping down on James’s Quidditch-sheet-covered bed and sending him a smirk. “This is where the magic happens, hm?”

He swallowed thickly, seeing the Quidditch posters on his walls and the pile of stuffies in the corner in a whole new light. “Erm…you should know. I haven’t gone through my things in a while, so…yeah. I know it seems…childish, or whatever, but I’m much more…”

Regulus just laughed, amusement like music. “James, if you think I expected anything less than this, then you’re sorely mistaken. This is the most James room to ever exist.” He eyed the huge lion mural on the wall, then the stack of old magazines on the desk that looked like it’d never been used for actual work. 

Relief flooded through James. “Oh, good,” he grinned, walking to sit next to him on the bed and picking up the sole stuffie there, a lamb named ‘Bear’ that he’d acquired when he was two. “Because I think I would’ve cried if I had to put Bear away for the whole summer.”

Again, Regulus laughed, nearly making James pass out with happiness. “I would never ask for such a thing,” he replied seriously, lips quivering in amusement. “But…do you think Bear can go over there a bit?” He pointed towards the desk chair, which was covered in a pile of clothing that hadn’t fit James in a year.

James frowned. “Why? You don’t like my son?” he joked, holding the lamb up for Regulus to see his tattered fur and missing eye.

The Slytherin rolled his eyes. “He’s got you good looks, yes. But I quite want to snog you right now, and I don’t want such a young child to see something so…inappropriate.” He grinned suggestively, cheeks turning a bit pink.

Regulus could handle himself. He’d been telling overly-confident, macho men to fuck off for years, thanks, and he was very capable of doing so on his own. 

But he couldn’t deny that he was a bit relieved when, after five-or-so minutes of trying to let down Mister Let-Me-Treat-You-Right that evening, James Potter walked up to them, stony-faced and determined.

“Reg!” James called, immediately putting an arm around his waist, pulling him tighter to him than they’d ever been before, causing him to shiver. “Hi, baby! Sorry I’m late! You know how Fridays are at work.”

Regulus knew what James was doing. Clearly, he’d been out with some friends and picked up on Regulus’s obvious signs of annoyance and distress from across the bar, so he’d decided to help. This wasn’t real–this wasn’t real.

The man who had been trying to pick him up glared. “You have a boyfriend?” he demanded, like Regulus had personally offended him.

He tried to stay calm. “I’ve been trying to tell you I’m not interested,” he said flatly, leaning into James like it was something he did every day.

“Liar,” the man spat.

Regulus was tempted to tell him exactly where he could shove his dick but instead, James just chuckled lowly. “C’mon, love. Let’s leave him to sulk and go dance.”

And so he found himself dragged onto the dancefloor, pulled close to James’s body.

“Is this okay?” the taller man murmured into his ear as he turned Regulus away from him and pressed his back to his chest, making Regulus inhale sharply. “I just saw you over there and–”

“Yes.” He wasn’t sure if he was answering James’s question or reacting to the lips ghosting over his earlobe, but either way, he was so good. Allowing James to guide his hips to the music, he quickly forgot about the man at the bar, focused only on the man behind him.

Until James muttered. “He’s still looking. Can I–”

“Whatever you want,” he answered, dazed head full of ideas of what James could be doing.

A hand turned Regulus’s face, James leaned slowly over, and…their lips connected. 

And yes, maybe it had started for show. But as their tongues tangled and their hips swayed, Regulus’s mind went hazy and his fingers moved to tangle with James’s hands that were splayed over his ribs. He melted, completely forgetting everything but the other man behind him.

James Potter had kissed many girls in his lifetime.

Innocent, childish pecks behind slides on the playground, fumbling presses of lips to a gloss-covered mouth as he hid with a Hogsmeade date in a broom cupboard at age fourteen. He’d snogged girls, too: during parties on dares and during more meaningful moments that turned out to be less-than-lifechanging. Moments he expected fireworks and instead found soft warmth and disappointment.

But he had never, ever craved someone’s lips like this. It had to be that now…it was a boy.

Standing here, past midnight, at the top of the Astronomy Tower, crowded close enough to Regulus Black to see every fleck of color in the younger boy’s eyes, he felt his hands tremble with the urge to cup the Slytherin’s pale cheek, to grab at his waist, to pull him close. He was completely lost in Regulus’s unreadable expression, in the reflection of stars in the gray of his irises. 

The words came out with shaky breath; he had never been good about holding back the truth: “I think I’ll die if I don’t kiss you right now,” he murmured, words almost lost in the wind of the night.

Regulus smirked, the smile nearly masking the hesitancy in his eyes. “I have been telling you to fuck off and die for a while,” he murmured. But he also stepped closer, winding his arms around the back of James’s neck, rendering him completely speechless. “But I guess I wouldn’t want to be responsible for your untimely demise, hm?”

It took him a full five seconds to process the permission Regulus had given him; another two to gather his courage and dip his chin downward. But once their lips touched, James nearly exploded. Breath expelling from him in a soft groan, he forgot reality, forgot anything that wasn’t Regulus. And he realized: it wasn’t that he had been kissing girls before, and this was a boy. 

It was that before, it wasn’t Regulus.