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Regulus sits in his cottage and watches the windows and the summer storms whipping through the countryside, wet with electricity, taste like James.
*
“When the night is over
When the moonlight's gone.”
*
James’ eyes pin him in place and Regulus squirms under his close scrutiny.
“What .” He huffs.
Cracking a quiet smile, James laughs softly, and ducks his head to meet Regulus’ gaze. “Nothing.”
Regulus’ nose wrinkles. “It’s not nothing . You’re being awful.”
Humming softly, James reaches out, and pokes him gently in the nose. Regulus recoils back, hissing softly, scowling up at him. “Stop that.”
James grins. “Stop what?” He does it again.
“ That .” Regulus grumbles, batting petulantly at James’ hands whenever they travel too close to his face.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He groans. “Fuck you.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Oh fuck off- ”
James’ mouth curls up, up into a pink-bruised smile and his lips part to show his moon-yellow teeth and then he’s laughing, high and musical.
Regulus’ breath hitches. Because James, in the throes of happiness, is a sight . His head is thrown back, hair suffused silver with the moonlight trickling in through the windows. His eyes are slitted in contentment and he’s letting out all of these soft, delicious little noises that Regulus wants to swallow -
And so he does.
He reaches out, fists his fingers in James’ loose, ratty t-shirt, blue with the night, and he’s pressing forwards.
Their mouths meet in a burst of sweetness. Regulus lets out a quiet, broken little noise and then there’s teeth, nipping at his lips and oh , there’s a wet slide of tongue against tongue and then James is tilting his mouth just right and Regulus is making good on his promise, devouring every single one of James’ fractured moans and God , it’s good. It’s better than good. It’s like defying gravity and eating the stars.
James tastes like a summer’s day. He tastes like the cigarettes he sucks on during the daytime. He tastes like moonlight, cool and swift like springwater.
*
“When the white wild horses
Are laying down to rest”
*
And it’s hard, leaving. It’s hard, putting his things into little boxes and taking apart the house that they built for each other, with each other.
He doesn’t think it will get any easier, as time goes on.
He watches James a lot these days. Wonders what went wrong. What they fucked up, how they fucked up this badly.
And so, for now, he puts his things into his boxes and folds his sweatshirts and pulls his books out from their bookshelf, the one with the J+R written into it at the back that they carved in together the day that they moved in.
He puts his things into the boxes and he watches James and he tries not to think about the way everything went wrong in just a few breaths and a few shots of whiskey.
*
He moves back to France, starts painting again and most of his pictures are of the sun. Yellow and orange and red and blue colours lie spilled at the foot of the easel that he uses.
He travels to the countryside, thinks and thinks but he never quite manages to unpack his boxes.
So-
Everything stays.
Almost in stasis, and it’s like Regulus’ hasn’t taken a breath that he doesn’t choke on since he left.
I miss you. He writes on a letter, one cloudy evening. Soleil, I miss you. The rain drips down outside in sheets and his tea is cold and salt-bitten from his tears.
I'm sorry. He writes in another one, but he doesn’t quite manage to send either.
Everything stays.
So- he travels to the countryside again. Watches the wild white horses gallop and whinny and nudge noses, and he thinks of the sun, of big warm hands, fingers threaded together between them. The distance between them stretching black and yawning. A canyon that they dug with the heels of their own palms.
Everything stays, sometimes. Only sometimes. If you’re lucky. If you’re worthy.
*
“My dear, my dear
Will you walk out ahead?
My dear, my dear, my dear
Or will you stay in bed?”
*
Regulus buys a little cottage in the French farmlands. Wide, golden fields swaying with plump, flowering corn shine under the dusk sun through his windows.
It’s quiet. Peaceful. The evenings are blue with melancholy and dust.
There’s a village, a few miles out, that he drives to every few weeks to get food. The farmer next door is a quiet old man with kind eyes who sells him milk and vegetables, and he sits at the window all day and watches the horses and writes the next draft of his novel, and tries not to think about the boxes still left untouched at the corner of his house.
A year passes, and then two and then maybe he thinks he should have moved on, but he hasn’t , oh he really hasn’t. Every breath of his is heavy , heavy with the weight of the world. Heavy with the press of the sunrise. Every morning he wakes up, and reaches up and touches the dawn sky, the dew-wet grass poking at his bare feet and he feels- heavy .
A year passes, and then two.
Everything stays-
But then, all of a sudden, it’s a Saturday.
The old farmer has let the sheep out to graze, and Regulus can hear them bleating in the field next to the house. There’s a cherry pie cooling in his oven because he’s hosting the book club today and everyone is going to be here in time for dinner.
It’s a Saturday, and when he pushes the door open, his morning cup of sweet tea in hand- there he is. James Potter, walking up the winding dirt pathway to the cottage. His hands are in his pockets, eyes lowered, and he chews on his lips- a nervous habit he’s had for years.
And Regulus remembers. He remembers how he used to press his own mouth over James’ to stop him from biting his lips raw. He remembers the way they would fit together, the way they would move against each other: twin summer storms, coming together to bloom into golden sunlight.
James comes up the road, and Regulus waits for him. Reaches up towards the sky, and he’s touching it.
And when morning comes again, the next day, James makes to climb out of bed and Regulus catches his hand and presses a single word to the knob of his wrist-
Stay .
*
Everything stays.
And eventually, so does James.