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James sees him in his dreams.
Alabaster skin, curls as dark as a night sky in the countryside. Eyes, gray and big, shining as if the moonlight was created solely to be painted in their reflection. Thin lips, soft and pink, a distinguished curvature to his Cupid's bow. A lithe frame, elegant and graceful and so very fragile.
James remembers him in flashes. Distorted memories, or perhaps oneiric delusions, that are clear as he sleeps but slip through his fingers like grains of sand as soon as he wakes. He's a mirage, an illusion, and still he feels real.
James doesn't know him, but it feels like he should. Like he has, before. Learned every inch of his body, deep dived into the furthest parts of his mind. He is an enigma, but he's also familiar. He is the air in his lungs and galaxies undiscovered, warm rays of sun upon his skin and the untouched abyss of the ocean.
James knows this isn't his first life. He doesn't know if he's lived once before, or a million times, but he knows that in every one, the man in his dreams was there.
He was there, and James loved him.
In this one he doesn't know him, not yet, but he loves him still.
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An enclosed space, like a train compartment. Echoes of voices, of friends new and old. James is young. He's a child of the sun and all that it shines upon, and he illuminates his surroundings and draws people like moths to a flame.
There's another child, one that came with his favourite echo, but he's not the sun’s. He doesn't shine, his edges cloaked in darkness, and he dulls under James' brightness. He is his opposite, his sworn enemy and his only constant, the origin of his creation and the place where he ceases to exist.
He is a child of shadows.
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James is five when he dreams of him for the first time, and he doesn't like him.
He is mean, walls crafted in stone and always lurking in the distance. He is not like the other children he knows, like the friends he’s made in the playground. Those kids are smiles, playdates and roughhousing.
The kid in his dreams doesn't smile.
It's a shame, James thinks. He would be so pretty if he just smiled.
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He knows his favourite echo like he knows himself. He's embedded in his core, the cement from which he was built. He loves him because he is his best friend, and he is his best friend because he loves him.
For him, he would do anything. Even befriending the kid in his dreams. He tries every trick in his book, every strategy to turn eyes made of ice into something warmer. He wants to melt that ice.
He doesn't succeed. There's still frost in his eyes, and it makes their gray starker.
James gives up, and he fades from his mind. From time to time, flashes of gray still linger just beneath his conscience.
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When James is twelve, he sees the eyes of his dreams when he's awake.
He is twelve, too, and his hair is the same shade black, his skin just as pale. He thinks he's found him, even if he wasn't searching, but he hasn't. This kid is exuberant, full of life. He’s motion personified. He is thunder, boisterous and rich. There are shadows in him, too, but he fights them. Viciously, relentlessly, he doesn't allow himself to succumb.
He's similar, yes, but he's different too.
His name is Sirius, and in due time he’ll become his other half, but he's not him. He loves him, but he's not him.
James still isn't sure he likes the kid in his dreams, but from then on, he looks for him in every person he meets.
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There's fire raging in his belly. He's angry, so full of it that it overflows, and he doesn't know what to do with it. He needs to let it out. He needs to tame it, but he doesn't know how.
What he knows, though, is four names. One is his best friend's, and there's no anger linked to it. There's only protectiveness, affection, and loyalty. A memory of things no child should live through, of shattered pieces and pools of blood, and the three remaining names are to blame.
Two of them are out of reach, but one isn't, so James seeks him out.
He finds him in the night, where he belongs, and there's stars all over them. It's a tower, one made to gaze at the sky, but it feels like a fortress.
There's no dragon guarding it, only a teenage boy.
The boy haunches on himself, clutching leather clothing to his chest, and his eyes are glued to the stars. A constellation, one that resembles a dog, seems to shine upon him.
The boy is crying.
Suddenly, James isn't angry anymore.
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When James is sixteen, there's two things he's absolutely certain of.
One, Sirius is his brother, even if they didn't come from the same womb.
And two, he doesn't hate the boy in his dreams anymore. For some reason, he just can't.
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He sees him again, under the cover of night.
In the dark, he's another person. They both are.
The hours after midnight have a spell to them, and though James knows magic, uses it like an extension of his body, this one's different. Ambient, unspoken, unsolicited. It pries away defences, tears walls down, and strips them of adornments until their real selves are bare for the other to see.
James is never quiet, but right now he is.
The boy is never soft, but he speaks in gentle murmurs that he feels more than he hears.
There's another side to him, a world uncharted.
That night, something shifts.
The boy becomes a constant.
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James' first kiss is underwhelming.
The girl is lovely, someone from his highschool, and they sit together in science. James has had a crush on her for two months, and they talk in class until their teacher chastises them. She's fun, she's beautiful, and he's elated when she accepts when he asks her out.
They go on a date, and it goes fine. He drops her off and, right before saying goodbye, he kisses her.
It's nice. Intimate. She's tender, hands cupping his face and soft lips pressed to his.
It feels wrong.
James has nothing to compare it to, but there's something missing. He yearns for it, feels his existence burning, demanding. He can't love right until he finds it.
They never go on a second date.
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The boy is beautiful. There are countless stars above them, whole galaxies of unbridled beauty, a collage of constellations painted in the most gorgeous hues of navy, and yet they hold no candle to him.
James can't stop staring at him, thinking about him. His mind, his body, his very soul, they're all his. But he does nothing about it.
Then, the boy smiles. A small, barely there quirk of his lips, but it's genuine. It makes him look beatific, an angel that's fallen to the earth and decided to grace him with his majesty.
And what can James do after that, if not kissing him? How could he say he's lived, if he hasn't felt the shape of his mouth against his? It's unfathomable. Ridiculous. It defies his nature.
The boy kisses him back, and the rest of the world vanishes.
It's perfect.
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James is sixteen, and he doesn't go on dates. He doesn't think anyone could ever compared.
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He loves the boy, but only in secret.
There's a boogeyman waiting around the corner, ready to catch them and bring them to their demise. He's terrified. He's stressed. He feels like he's tearing himself apart, holding onto this secret.
The boy glues him together.
With him, he can be himself. Fully, wholeheartedly, without fearing judgement. He wears his heart in his sleeve, confident that it won't be broken when it's held in the boy’s hands.
He lives for his touch, fo the routine they've crafted. He lays in the ground, cold and hard on his back, but as long of the weight of another's body rests on top of his, safely nestled between his arms, it's worth it.
Life is not simple, but it's worth it.
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Sirius doesn't understand why James doesn't date. He tries to set him up, find him a girlfriend, but James always says no. Sirius pushes, and pushes, and pushes, until James tells him about his dreams.
Sirius doesn't judge him, like he feared he would. He's enamoured by the idea, calls it fate. His efforts change direction, and suddenly, he's trying to find the boy.
James doesn't know if he's out there. He might not be. He might be a creation of his subconscious, a figure that resides only in his mind.
James doesn't think so, though.
A world where only one of them lives is inimaginable.
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There's a break, and they both go home.
Out there, the world is violence. It's fear, desperation, closed doors and paranoia.
It's war.
James is young, but he already knows he's going to fight it. He’ll take that violence, and turn it into peace.
When they come back, the boy has a marked tattoed onto his forearm, and he's going to fight too.
The war becomes them, and so they fight.
They scream, cry, and tear each other apart. Broken hearts lead to thoughtless lies, and James drowns in them.
He drowns, drowns, drowns, drowns.
In the aftermath, there is no them anymore. Just the boy and his mark, and James and his shattered pieces.
Fitting, how their love was born under their stars. In the end, they were nothing more than star crossed lovers.
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James is seventeen, he's eighteen, and he doesn't dream about the boy.
Instead, he dreams about a woman.
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She's warm. Soft and kind, a hurricane involved in flames that don't burn when they lick skin. They heal. She pieces him together, and he knows he loves her. Not like him, never like him, but he loves her. She's a blanket over his shoulders in a cold, dready day. A well needed respite.
With her, things are easy. He hears wedding bells and knows her companionship, and he's happy, or as much as he can be.
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James graduates highschool, and he goes to college. It's been two years since he's dreamed about the boy.
He starts dating again. It still feels wrong, but he ignores it. He tries to forget him, move on with his life.
He didn't know him, not really. He can't base his life around dreams.
And still, he wishes he could dream of him again. The story’s unfinished, and he needs resolution.
When he turns nineteen, his wish is granted.
He wishes it hadn't.
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There's a newspaper in his hands, but he can't see it. He can't see anything.
There are arms hooking around his shoulders, and he's pulled into a soft chest. She soothes him, cares for him, lets him fall apart on top of her. She knows. He hasn't told her, but she knows. She's smart, always three steps ahead, and she's figured him out.
He doesn't know what her face looks like, doesn't know how she's taking it, but he’ll worry about it later. Right now, he can't.
All he can think about, all his world is reduced to, is the title of the newspaper.
The boy is dead, and James isn't. He isn't sure he is alive, either. He can't feel the beating of his heart.
Perhaps he took it with him, and James has lost it.
He doesn't care about that, either.
The boy is dead, and James never told him he loved him.
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When he wakes up, James is numb. For a long time, he's numb. He lives, or perhaps he survives. He goes through the motions, goes on with his life.
He thinks of the boy with curls tinted by the night and eyes made of moonlight, and how he never grew up to be a man.
Grief is a stranger to him. He doesn't know how to feel it, how to mourn the loss of something he never had. The boy was a constant, a companion throughout his whole life. For as long as James can remember, he's been there.
And now, he isn't.
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The best friend is distraught. Destroyed. James holds him as he breaks down, and tries to keep himself from falling along with him.
When the best friend picks himself up, he never speaks of the boy again.
James doesn't either.
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Sirius has a brother. It's as much a part of him as James is, but he only talks about him in the quiet of the night.
Sirius hasn't seen him in years, but he misses him. He also hates him. It's a mess of feelings, so knotted up that he doesn't know where to begin disentangling it.
The first step, in the end, is his brother.
They're twenty, and they're out clubbing. Between the mass of people, James gets a glimpse of the boy from his dreams. He doesn't follow after him. He's drunk, and it's not the first time he's seen his ghost in the corner of his vision. It's never him, and he's given up searching.
Sirius sees a ghost of his past, too, but he does follow after him. He's gone for the rest of the night, and in the morning, he tells James he found his brother.
It's fragile, still. Four years of estrangement. But they're willing to try.
Sometimes, that will is all it takes.
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She is a beacon of light in a tumultuous night. A fresh breath of air after inhaling soot for a millennia. James worships the ground she walks on, for from her body she creates wonders.
James is a father.
He holds his child to his chest, a tiny bundle of blankets and shining emeralds, and his life has meaning again.
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James is twenty one, and he's hosting a Halloween party. It feels monumentous, a date to be marked upon the anals of history, but he doesn't know why.
Sirius is bringing his brother. He wants James to meet him, to have the people he holds dearest close to his chest.
James doesn't know him yet, but he knows he’ll love him.
For Sirius, he will.
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There's danger looming ahead, and so they hide.
Then comes betrayal.
A far cry, urging to run. An enemy, baring his teeth. A flash of green light, and the thought that, if he doesn't get to live, at least they will.
Juxtaposed, mixed with adrenaline, there's the thought that he will see him again soon.
Then, there's nothing.
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James drifts through his twenty-first Halloween. He knows what dying feels like, and it's surprisingly gentle.
It feels like closure.
The party begins, and James doesn't drink. For some reason, he needs to be sober.
Sirius is jittery, flurry of motion, and his eyes stray around the room every five minutes. When they finally lock on something and he runs away, James knows he's about to meet his brother.
He sees Sirius first, and hears the introduction.
“James, this is Regulus. Regulus, this is James.”
“I know,” the brother says, and it's familiar. It's a voice that's been engraved on him, a part of himself that he's never met and yet, he knows.
He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows.
James looks at him.
Alabaster skin, curls as dark as a night sky in the countryside. Eyes, gray and big, shining as if the moonlight was created solely to be painted in their reflection. Thin lips, soft and pink, a distinguished curvature to his Cupid's bow. A lithe frame, elegant and graceful and so very fragile.
The world vanishes, just like it did when they first kissed.
Universes collide, galaxies shatter, stars die and turn into black holes, and in the middle of the chaos, there's them.
Regulus and James, James and Regulus. In every lifetime, in every universe, it's them.
James cries. He feels his tears slide down his cheeks, fall from his chin. And yet, he smiles.
“I love you,” he says, because he needs to. Because it's gnawing at his chest and threatening to rip his ribs open if it doesn't get to come out.
And the boy, Regulus, smiles like he’s done a thousand times before, a thousand lightyears away. He smiles, and he knows, and so he says, “I love you, too.”
In another life, they never got to say it. In this one, they will never stop.