REGULUS

"I could sleep out here," James murmured after a long bout of silence. I'd honestly started to think that he'd already fallen asleep before spoke and had even considered just laying down and doing the same.

Sirius had taken Remus to bed, supporting him as his knees cracked all the way into the cabin. It had felt wrong to follow after them, and James hadn't gone in, either, so I sat, unsure what I was doing, but not really sure if I needed to be doing anything. It felt rather nice to have nothing demanding my attention.

I had ended up taking a few more sips of the firewhiskey, but not much. Sirius and Remus drained a bottle between them and James had done in about half of the one we shared so there was still a bit sloshing about in the bottle even after he'd given it up.

I hadn't had enough to consider myself drunk by any means, but it was enough to have eased my inhibitions and given me that heady sort of feeling where you feel just brave enough to say and do things that you might not normally, but not enough that you wouldn't remember having said and done them in the morning.

I wondered if this was what it felt like to be Sirius all of the time? It was like being a kid and putting on Father's shoes and clopping around, pretending to be bigger. I was overwhelmed.

Gods, it must be so different to be Sirius than it is to be me.

I laughed at the thought of how completely unalike we were in many of the important ways, despite how everyone always commented on how we were carbon copies of one another.

"What's funny?" James asked. He pulled a second chair over to himself so he stretched over two of them, his legs up on the one closest to me. Somehow, he'd ended up with Remus's oversized sunglasses on his face, despite it being night time, and he lay back over the two chairs, his hands clasped on his chest, head bent back and staring up at the sky.

"I feel like Sirius," I said and I laughed all the harder, suddenly realizing that in my mind I equated feeling like Sirius with feeling like having the freedom to be myself. Myself was something I'd never felt free to be.

James snorted, "You poor bastard."

"No," I said quietly, "It's wonderful to be Sirius."

"That's fucked up," James said, raising the sunglasses up from his eyes to look at me down the length of his nose. "If you think it's wonderful being him, then you haven't got any idea what it's like being him at all."

That sobered me a bit and I stopped laughing.

Silence fell over James and I and after a moment, he let the glasses drop back over his face and drew a deep breath with his nose, shaking his head as he turned his face back up to the sky, rather than looking at me.

The fire flickered and I sat cross-legged on the ground, tilting the bottle of firewhiskey side to side to feel the liquid move in a wave against the glass, mimicking the sounds of the ocean behind me as it roared across the sand and shhhh-ed away back to wherever it came from.

"What is it like?" I asked suddenly.

"What?" James asked.

"Being Sirius's real brother?"

James was silent a moment. Then he suddenly sat up, sliding the sunglasses off his face and leaning forward against his knees, looking at me with an expression somewhere between anger and annoyance. "That's a fucked up question," he accused. "Like, how am I supposed to even respond to that? How do you think that sort of question makes me feel?" he demanded.

I shrugged.

"Shit, Reg," he shook his head and rolled his eyes, sitting upright again.

"I just wanna know," I said. I knew this was one of those things that I shouldn't say outloud, one of those conversations that I would never dare to try at having without the firewhiskey in my veins. I felt sort of possessed, like the alcohol had a bit of an imperius curse on my rational side.

"I know it isn't your fault that your parents treated him like rubbish," James said, "But you can help it that you did, too. And what sucks is that he just drops everything for you every time you ask him. It's not my fault that my family was the only people there for him at the worst time in his life, when your family turned a blind eye when he was starving and cold out on the street. Just because he had the audacity to think that blood purity propaganda was shite." James looked me into the eyes. "I did the job you ought to have done. I was the one who comforted him and listened when he needed to talk. I am the one who would go to dukes to fight for him. I'd fuck up you or your parents or any one else that comes calling trying to hurt him again because I've worked really hard at making him feel worth being fought for. Me and Remus both have poured ourselves out for him... and what have you done for him? So what's it feel like being his real brother? It feels like sometimes I fucking hate you for what you've done for him..." he paused, then added, more quietly and with less explosive passion pushing the words out of him, "...and sometimes it feels like I want to save you the same way."

I looked up in surprise at this last bit.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you." James sighed and his shoulders slumped like he had the weight of the whole world balanced up there. His eyes met mine and he searched me. "You've been through a lot of the same things as Siri has... you just handle it differently. He used his past like fuel to ignite himself and explode outward like a firework... but you... when something hurts you, you pull it in like a black hole... and instead of exploding... you implode slowly."

I felt like my heart was pounding in my throat instead of my chest and my airway constricted with emotion.

"Right?" James asked.

I nodded.

"See, that's what Sirius and Remus don't understand about you," he murmured. "But I do."

"How?" I asked.

James lay back, putting his feet up on the second chair again and returned Remus's sunglasses to his face - right over the top of his regular glasses. He folded his arms up behind his head. "Because I do the same thing."

I diverted my eyes to the fire.

We sat in utter silence for a long time again, then, and it's possible he really had fallen asleep for a time.

I let my mind wander, roaming over thoughts of things that were imploding inside of me, thinking of things I'd pulled into myself, as James had said. I'd never thought about it before; the idea that the past could still be carried inside me, coddled and allowed to fester and grow... it was disturbing. I pictured every horrible thing in my life all stacked up like boxes that teetered and threatened to topple on top of me, to crush me.

"Gods damn, it's hot," James suddenly said, sitting up and dropping his feet to the sand. He tossed the sunglasses and his actual glasses on the chair his feet had been on and reached for the hem of his shirt, pulling the fabric up over his head.

He did it quickly, like a normal person, but I saw it in slow motion:

The fabric moved up over his torso, slowly revealing his obliques and abdomen. The muscles formed a V from his hips that disappeared down into the waist band of his swim trunks. His chest was firm and well cut, though softened after a year of not working out as vigorously as he'd been doing as Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. But honestly, the softness to him was the best part - he was real where models were not, and he had a blurred, dreamlike effect to him that made my heart skip a beat. As I watched, he stretched, first one way and then the other, and the muscles in his back and shoulders rippled as he moved. There were a few small moles that dotted the smooth span of his back, freckles that added color and texture to him that was completely unique. And a couple scars, too, which ran at funny angles across his skin. I wondered what had caused them... I didn't know, but I found myself longing to run the tips of my fingers along the invisible lines that connected them.

He looked over at me and a smirk played on his face that made me realize I had stared too long, and with a heat that blazed across my cheek bones, I looked away.

"Alright, Regulus?" he asked.

I nodded, keeping my eyes diverted.

My palms were sweating.

"Fancy a swim?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Alright," he said, a chuckle to his tone.

I listened as he walked away, the sand shifting under his feet.

The fire crackled and popped and although I wasn't looking, I could sense him behind me on the shore, could feel him stealing glances back at me.

I waited until I was sure he wouldn't be looking, and then turned around myself, peering through the moonlit dark to see he was waist-deep in the water. He was lifting palmfuls of water and rubbing it over his arms and chest, rivulets running across his skin which glistened in the lavender light.

The first time I dreamed of James Potter had been two years ago.

It was an odd situation - there hadn't really been much of a catalyst to bring James to mind, honestly. It was a Summer day and Mother had family over for a tea. She had insisted that I join them, and wear my best clothes, including a tie about my neck. She'd fussed over my unruly hair, and told me to sit up straight. I didn't know why - it was only the cousins coming, not anybody of any real importance, even. At least that is what I'd thought until Mother and Auntie Cassiopeia had settled me and Cassiopeia's daughter, Lyra, down at the table across from one another and announced that we were to be betrothed.

"Betrothed?" Lyra had repeated, her slightly protrudent eyes looking me over. I had flushed. I knew Lyra from school, of course, and she knew me. We were in the same year and the same house and she always came to quidditch matches, though she showed little interest in discussing or playing the sport any time off the pitch. We'd had the minimum basic conversation any house mate might have with another. Nothing had ever struck me as particularly intriguing about her, however. Certainly nothing that would have motivated me wanting to marry her.

Mother and Cassiopeia assured us it would be some time, but encouraged us to talk and promised we could have a weekly tea when we were home from school. They suggested we talk more at school, that we work on becoming potions lab partners and table mates in Herbology. Learning to work together early on would make our lives easier later, Mother said.

When Mother and Auntie Cassiopeia had stepped out of the library for a moment to look at some old family portrait that Mother had hung in Father's office, it was Lyra's idea that we practice a kiss. I'd never had a kiss before but I did fancy finding out if they were all they were cracked up to be, so I agreed. "Alright then," Lyra had said, very pragmatic about the business of it, and she'd turned in her seat to face me. She drew a deep breath, then puckered her lips and closed her eyes, waiting.

I licked my lips and leaned into her.

It was a wholly boring moment, dull as a circle, and though she hummed her approval, I wasn't so sure I knew what was so great about kissing. When I drew back, it seemed it had been ages - but Lyra lingered, as though she were expecting me to kiss her more. When I didn't go in for a second round, she opened her eyes and smiled up at me.

"That was..." she said. She looked about as unhappy about it as I did.

"Yeah," I agreed awkwardly.

That night, I lay in bed thinking about the kiss, reviewing it in my mind. Was it my technique that had made it such a terrible one or something else? And I started thinking about what might've made it better, or more appealing.

I'd imagined a whole other scenario, for starts.

Instead of Mother and Auntie Cassiopeia throwing us together for tea in that dusty old library with the cruciatus-curse-scented curtains, I pictured it had been more organic, like maybe Lyra came to a match and I'd won and she was cheering me on and happy I'd done well. I imagined landing my broom stick and her running over and clapping me into a hug...

But the hug was squashy and odd - Lyra's chest pressing against me was far softer than I'd like, so I imagined maybe she was shaped a bit differently. Not that she was too fat or skinny or anything - it wasn't an aesthetic thing, I didn't think, it was that I'd rather like it if her shoulders were broader, her chest flatter, more defined... I wished her hair was shorter, darker, windswept... that her lips were shaped a bit straighter, less plump and certainly less glossy. Her lip gloss had been just a sticky barrier between us. And maybe she was a little taller, too, and then I could be safe, enveloped in her arms except she smelled like flowers I didn't care for. If only she smelled warmer and more like - more like -

In my mind, I was kissing my mystery perfect lover and it was everything, everything, everything... My hands were wandering, I was biting my lips, my head was spinning with the lust and yearning... and then the face I was imagining came into clear focus and I gasped, my heart nearly stopping altogether.

It was James Potter.

I'd turned Lyra Greengrass into James Potter in my head.

I was laying there like a sick little bastard, wanking to the mere thought of kissing James Potter.

And I'd never been more turned on in my life.

I couldn't just sit there in the sand and wait for James to come back from the water all wet and drippy and glistening and -- and whatever. For one, I had enough problems in my life without adding the complications of all that coming to life, and, my second and more pressing (literally) problem was that there would be no hiding what the mere thought of him had done to me.

I got up and grabbed my towel and wand from the ground, hurrying. I could see James coming across the beach, loping along, a dark silhouette with silver linings moving closer. I knew if he got one look at me, he'd know I'd been thinking things of impure nature. My swim trunks were suddenly too small and my face was certainly flushed.

I bounded into the cabin, leaving the fire for him to take care of.

I thought I'd made it as I closed the door behind me, leaning against it like I'd outrun a wild beast. But then I looked up and my eyes met Remus Lupin's through the low light of a lamp in the living room. He was sitting in a chair, one leg crossed over the other, tea at his elbow and a book on his lap. The bedroom door to the left of the fire place was open a jar and through it I could see Sirius draped over the bed, sheets wrapped around him.

Remus looked at me and several beats of silence passed between us as his eyes moved from my flushed face to my shorts and back up again. He looked back down at his book without speaking, and I took it as my cue to run for the room the lads had alotted to me.

I shut it quickly, waving my wand to lock it, and stood there, gasping, catching up with myself. I heard the front door open and the low rumble of James and Remus exchanging words. I heard James laugh, and my cheeks burned all the more.

Oh gods. What had Remus said to him?

Got a rise out of Regulus, did you?  I pictured him murmuring.