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Regulus felt objectively ridiculous, but Sirius wanted to have a party so here he was.
Dressed up.
Like a god? Or maybe a star? He honestly wasn’t completely sure. All he knew was that Sirius had given him a toga to wear and Pandora had shown up with a giant case of makeup.
Now he had fabric wrapped around him, and body glitter almost everywhere.
Sirius had decided to throw a masquerade party, and at the university they attended, people tended to go all out for things like this. It helped that their school was mostly rich kids with too much time on their hands, but most of Sirius’s friends were in the arts or liberal arts department so the result wasn’t half bad.
Regulus was lurking in the corner watching everyone make their way inside. Sirius had somehow gotten an old Victorian house a little ways off campus for this party. He and Remus, and reluctantly Regulus, had spent the day decorating it.
The front doors opened into a foyer that expanded into vaulted ceilings to show off two dramatic staircases on either side. Sirius had set up a drink table where both staircases emptied onto the first floor so that no one could get on them to fall when inevitably someone was overserved.
Sirius was greeting people at the door, wearing a skin tight black dress, red lipstick, and a raven themed black mask. Remus stood beside him in a pinstripe suit and Regulus was resolutely not going to find the Gomez-Morticia thing cute.
He was happy his brother was happy.
And he was fine on his own, really.
He had his classes, he had finally gotten a single suite on campus, and he had Sirius and to an extent Remus for companions. He was enjoying the freedom life was finally giving him, it had been a long road.
Between abusive parents, a missing brother, and a gender crisis, he hadn’t had the slightest idea that this was how it would all turn out for him at 12.
His brother back in his life, autonomy, and transitioning. But it was good, and Regulus was fine. He definitely didn’t feel like there was something missing.
He packed all those thoughts away as soon as he felt them tugging the amused smile off his face. Now wasn’t the time, and if there wasn’t ever a time , all the better.
He was pasting a slightly more fake smile on his face when he walked in.
Regulus felt his knees buckle.
And okay, no, fucking no. He’s not some fucking school girl, his knees didn’t buckle, he just lost his balance a bit.
It was just some boy, albeit a very pretty boy, wearing a halo crown, and makeup, and oh dear god their costumes match. What. the. Actual. Fuck .
Regulus freezes like a deer in headlights, he suddenly feels like he’s watching everything play out from above his own body. He watches pretty boy come in and smile at Sirius and Remus, holy hell, that smile , and hugs the both of them before Sirius directs him to the drink table.
The same table where if you stand at it and turn to face the doors, Regulus’s hiding spot is visible.
And of course, because the universe hates him, that’s exactly what pretty boy does, his gaze seemingly stuck on Regulus.
— — — — —
James thinks that somewhere in his head he’s screaming.
That might be his inner teenager.
That would track though, because the man he’s currently looking at looks like teenaged James’s wildest fantasy.
Said man is dressed in a toga similar to James’s but where his is a warm cream color, this man’s is a navy blue so dark it almost looks black. The way he’s leaning against the pillar behind him makes the fabric drape in a way that is practically sinful.
Instead of wearing a crown like James, the man wears cuffs on his ears that catch the light. James can’t see the design from here, but he can see the dark makeup that brings out his eyes and the glitter pressed into his skin. When he sees it on his collarbones, James thinks he could die like this. Just trying to take this man in.
But then, for some untold reason, the man straightens and walks over to James.
“So, I’m guessing Sirius gave you the costume.” James has to focus on the actual words he says, and not the way his voice sounds which is– heady to say the least.
“I– What? Yeah, he did.” James feels his cheeks heat with embarrassment. “How did you know?”
He watches the stranger look over to where his two best friends are still standing at the door, his eyes narrowing. “He’s always pulling some shit like this.”
“I don’t follow.” James really doesn’t, and he was 75% sure that was because what he said didn’t make sense, not that James just wasn’t paying attention.
“Matchmaking.” James feels his brain shut down. Because the implications of that? Yeah. Shutting down.
“Matchmaking?” James asks hoarsely, wishing he had made himself a drink before he got distracted.
“Yeah, he made me wear this too.” the man says distractedly.
“Oh, well, you look very good,” James says, because he feels it should be said, but that he’s still understating. Really, this man looks like he could end James’s world and James would thank him. All the same, his gaze snaps back to James’s own and he has time to think ‘ his eyes are really pretty ’ before something flashes in them.
“Good?”
“Well, I mean, the color and the makeup, with your face it looks good.” James sounds like a fucking idiot and he’d like very much for the ground to swallow him up now. Then the man is snorting and James thinks that he could hurry the process up by becoming a puddle on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Regulus waved a hand dismissively, “That was just… really cute,” he finishes.
“I– sorry what?” James cannot handle much more blood rushing to his head, he’s going to pass out eventually.
“You’re cute.” The man says bluntly.
“Thanks, I think,” James mumbles, trying to regain his footing in the conversation.
“So you think you’re cute as well,” the man teases, a smile tugging at his lips.
“That’s not what I meant!” James says too loudly.
“I’m just messing with you,” the man says and actually smiles. His eyes crinkle at the corners and his eyes shine. James is done for.
“Oh, uh, I’m James,” he says a little dazed, and holds his hand out.
“Regulus,” and the man in question shakes James’s hand while James tries to reconcile that he’s talking to Sirius’s brother. The brother who dropped out of engineering at MIT to study literature. The brother who crashed their bigoted parents’ annual Christmas party last year with Sirius who wore a ballgown. The brother that James might very well be in love with. Holy fuck. Holy fucking fuck.
“Nice to meet you,” James says belatedly, and then he realizes that he’d been shaking Regulus’s hand the whole time and promptly stops. James opens his mouth to say something else that is inevitably going to be extremely dumb and embarrassing when loud music suddenly starts playing from another room.
Regulus’s eyes light up, “Do you want to dance?”
“I don’t really know how to,” James hesitates.
“Doesn’t matter,” Regulus says quickly, grabbing James’s hand, and dragging him into the room where the music is coming from.
— — — — —
Regulus is well and truly just winging it.
He hopes it doesn’t show.
It probably does.
He just couldn’t stand there in the corner he claimed while the pretty boy– James. Stared at him like he was… Well, Regulus didn’t know what, but something. Something big and unnameable.
So he walked over to where James was standing, where he seemed to have completely forgotten about a drink, and momentarily been startled by all that James is close up.
He looked like everything good in the world, every happiness, had gone into making him. His skin was a warm brown that was made all the sweeter by the simple gold makeup he was wearing and the jewelry in his ears. Studs and small stars decorating them, and a thin septum piercing in his nose.
He looked like the sun.
He looked holy.
Regulus being blindsided by this was the only explanation for the truly idiotic opening line he said. He thought he had more charm than that. Evidently not, but in all fairness, neither did James.
When Regulus put two and two together that his pretty boy– and he would be Regulus’s– was the James that Sirius took any opportunity to joke about or compliment, he thought he might just as well walk away and quit because what are the chances?
Then he was briefly irritated with Sirius because, of course, Sirius would set him up with the friend who volunteers at animal shelters, the friend who wants to be a nurse and serve in the Peace Corps, the friend that helped Sirius prank a homophobic professor with sticky notes and silly string.
He dragged James into the room they had set the dance floor up in because when faced with their conversation ending or just jumping him, this was the middle ground it seemed.
Sirius hadn’t let Regulus have anything to do with the music because he said that Regulus had the music taste of a dead philosopher. Regulus wasn’t sure what that meant, but hearing Sirius’s rotation of indie music with slightly concerning lyrics wasn’t all that surprising. His brother had dragged him and Remus to both nights of the Arctic Monkeys two months ago.
But, Regulus probably should’ve realized that dancing to said indie music is different than dancing to the music he had been taught to. So. He was definitely winging it.
Making the executive decision to stop thinking so much helped. He was able to fall into a rhythm and touch James without second guessing himself. The not thinking really helped when a song came on that James apparently recognized and he took charge of the dancing. Regulus thought he died for a second there when he watched James do the thing with his hips.
More and more people had poured into the room as more guests arrived, James had been unfashionably on time, and Regulus didn’t pay any of them much attention. He was solely focused on James, but after a while, something seemed like it was off.
“Do you want to step out for a minute?” Regulus asks after he watches James grimace and fidget for the second time when the music gets particularly loud.
“Oh, you don’t have–” James says quickly.
“I want to,” Regulus cuts him off. “Besides, it looks like a nice night.” He spots a set of French doors with sheer curtains a little ways away from them and makes a beeline for them, tugging James behind him. He felt just a little smug when they were rewarded with a balcony that wasn’t visible from the walk you had to take up to the house.
Their school was already a bit out in the middle of nowhere, which Regulus liked, but this house was removed from the town and campus itself. You could see the stars with so much less light pollution. It was beautiful, but Regulus turned his face away from it to look at James. “Better?” he asks.
“Yeah, sorry,” James lets out a breath, “It was just a bit too much.”
“I don’t mind,” Regulus says, glancing back at the stars and adding, “This is much better.” He hears James take another steadying breath in and out, not really paying attention all that much until a finger hooks his chin and turns his face back towards James.
Regulus looks into James’s eyes and he knows then and there that he’s completely and utterly done for.
What happens next seems to come in slow motion.
They both move closer to the point that their noses brush every now and then.
James looks at Regulus’s mouth intently and Regulus takes it for what it is, James asking for permission, and presses forward. Their mouths connect and Regulus swears he can feel electricity racing up and down his spine.
He thinks that he heard something once about the sun closing in on a star– his star, but he thinks idly as he slides his tongue over the seal of James’s lips which open for him, that he wouldn’t mind colliding with James. The end would be magnificent.