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“James, who are you when you’re alone?”
James frowned, looking at Regulus as though he was suddenly quite concerned for his well being.
“What?” He asked. “Same as I am the rest of the time, Reg. James Fleamont Potter, the one and only.”
(Of course, this wasn’t quite true. There was another James Fleamont Potter who worked as a butcher in muggle Edinburgh but he was entirely unrelated to the story.)
Regulus didn’t even bother rolling his eyes. He did that so often around James that he’d started to get headaches so he was trying to restrict eyerolls to situations that really warranted them.
“I mean, what do you do when you’re alone? What do you think about?” Regulus said.
James’s frown lessened. “Lots of things. You. My friends. My parents. Quidditch strategies. When the next full moon is.”
None of these were surprising. Unfortunately, they also did nothing to dissuade Regulus’s concern.
“What about you, Starboy? What do you think about?”
Regulus thought carefully about what he wanted to say. James, as usual, said nothing. This was one of the many things about James that had bugged Regulus at first which he had now come to appreciate. James always gave him time to think of a response to his questions, only prompting when things were serious or time-sensitive. Before he really knew James, Regulus had found the silence expectant and suffocating. Now, he understood it for the gift it really was.
“I think about the books I’m reading and about when the next Hogsmeade weekend is. I think about what will happen after Hogwarts. And you. I think about you too.”
James smiled gently.
“But you think about other people a lot more than you think about yourself,” Regulus continued, wishing he could have phrased his concerns more elegantly. “Everything you mentioned involves other people.”
“I’m a people person,” James laughed.
“I know. But don’t you ever think about yourself?”
James was quiet again but this time the silence had a different feel to it. This silence was contemplative. Regulus hoped this was a good thing.
“Not really,” James said at last with a shrug. “I mean, I do. But usually there’s other people involved too.”
“Right,” Regulus said, unsure where to go from here. He picked a blade of grass from next to his knee and began carefully shredding it into thin strips. It was much easier to think when he wasn’t looking at James. “So, who are you when you’re alone if all your thoughts are about other people?”
There was another silence - a third kind. Regulus didn’t like this one nearly as much as the others. This silence felt uncomfortable and awkward, two things Regulus no longer associated with being in James Potter’s company. He didn’t like that he was the one who brought that feeling back to their relationship. It felt like he’d made a colossal mistake, like maybe this was the moment he’d finally asked for too much. And wouldn’t it be ironic if, after everything they’d overcome, this question was what finally destroyed them.
Eventually, James glanced up to meet Regulus’s eye and offered a small smile which didn’t seem quite whole.
“I don’t know.”