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"Good Morning, my love, I- You smoke?!" James had barely even closed the door behind himself before Regulus could hear his boyfriend shouting while gaping at the cigarette in his hand. He had a somewhat angry expression on him, at least as angry as James Potter ever gets.
Regulus takes another drag from it and slowly breathes out the smoke while leaning a little further into the pillow on his bed that's propped up against the headboard. He smiles as he sees James following the smoke with his eyes, before settling on his lips, his expression softening slightly. Regulus knows how to handle James' drama, he loves it.
"Stop distracting me, this is serious." James' mutters under his breath once he finally pulled his gaze from the younger boy's mouth.
"No, it's really not. My brother is, though." Resisting a Sirius-joke was never Regulus' strength. Maybe it's because of some trauma from when he was desperately trying to get his brother's attention, by copying his silly joke. At that time the boy only had eyes for James, back in his second, and Regulus' first year. It kind of worked, since Sirius saw it as a peace offering, which it was, but Regulus wouldn't admit it, not even at gunpoint. Whatever it was, they're fine now but the Sirius-joke just seemed to stick.
A smirk curls at the corner of James' lips, as he mutters, ".. should've seen that coming."
"Yeah, it was pretty predictable." Regulus takes another long drag, before James remembers what they were originally talking about.
"Reggie, stop doing that! That's so bad for your lungs." He complains, letting his shoulder slump forward while pouting at Regulus. "You know, it's not really convincing when you pretend to be mad at me, but still call me Reggie." The boy tilts his head to the side.
James straightens his back again and marches over to his boyfriend, until he's sitting on the edge of the bed, next to him. "No, stop it. Where'd you even get that from?"
"Remus." "Remus smokes?!" For a second Regulus considers telling him, that Sirius smokes as well, but that would probably be too much for him to handle. Surprisingly enough, his brother didn't tell his best friend immediately after, so there's probably a reason he's hiding it. Maybe because of his dramatic reaction, which Regulus now has to deal with. Although Sirius can't be the one to complain, he's even more dramatic usually. That's why his and James' relationship is a secret, that's a whole other thing, though. Right now he has to deal with a moping James.
"It's really not that bad. Neither Remus nor I", nor Sirius "do this regularly. ... You wanna try?" James jumps to his feet. "Me?! Try one of those devil-made sticks of eternal damnation?! How could you-"
"James, sit." The boy basically falls back down into his original seat. "Yes, sir." He sing-songs with a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.
Regulus holds the cigarette out for James to take. "Do you want to take a drag?" "No, didn't I just-" Regulus once again interrupts him. "Pretty please?" James crumbles immediately.
"Okay."
When James finally accepts the cigarette from his boyfriend's hand, Regulus sits up, cross-legged. James doesn't hold the cigarette nearly as cool as the Slytherin did, between his index and middle finger, but between his thumb and index finger. "Just inhale." He lightly nudges him, as if inhaling isn't the obvious thing to do here.
James rolls his shoulders back and lets out a kinda anxious-sounding laugh. "I'm kinda nervous." Before Regulus can assure him that it's fine and that he doesn't have to do this, the cigarette is already between James' lips and the boy inhales. Not even a second later, the smoke flows back out. James exhales without coughing. Regulus raises an eyebrow. James flashes him a proud grin.
"Hold it longer, idiot.", and James, apparently on some kind of ego trip, immediately goes for it. He draws on the cigarette again, which is slowly coming to an end. James doesn't inhale like a normal person, though. Why would he? He's James Fleamont Potter. Instead he puffs up his cheeks, looking like a stupid puffer fish.
Regulus chuckles. James beams–and immediately starts coughing only a little. "Like this?"
Regulus gently punches James' arm. "Was it even in your lungs?" He asks, as he takes the cigarette from his boyfriend's hand and puts it out on the ashtray on his bedside table.
"I guess?" James answers, his gaze following the cigarette over to the ashtray, before falling back to Regulus' eyes.
Regulus scoffs, while already reaching for a new cigarette to light. "No it wasn't. When it's in your mouth, open your lips a little and inhale into your lungs." Once it's lit he takes a drag, before handing it to James. He can't help, but add with a smirk, "Try not to throw up."
James gasps at Regulus, not taking the cigarette yet. "Did you throw up when you first did it??" He questions, now sounding a little more nervous.
"No, I'm exaggerating, don't worry." Regulus assures him. James huffs out a breath, now taking the cigarette, always trusting Regulus blindly. He brings the cigarette up to his lips, not before mumbling "You better be."
James inhales smoke from the cigarette once again, glaring down at it as though it requires his full attention. A slight frown appears between his brow, making Regulus' expression soften slightly at how cute his boyfriend is. His boyfriend. Merlin, he loves the way that sounds. Just his, no one else's.
He barely even paid attention to how James inhales and exhales shakily, trying not to cough. Regulus can't resist leaning over to press a soft kiss against the other boy's lips.
"What was that for?" The boy in question asks, still not able to resist the smile slowly sneaking onto his face. Although he does put a hand on his head for a second, dealing with the momentary dizziness from the nicotine.
"I don't know, you looked cute." Regulus leans back against his pillow while the Gryffindor gasps at him. "Cute?? Don't you mean super hot and cool and sexy and the fittest man you've ever seen?" He asks, straightening his back, sticking his chest out with his fists on his hips.
Regulus studies him, as if considering for a second and then shakes his head. "Nope, just cute." He says, popping the 'p'.
James gives him a once-over for a second, then leans over to put out the cigarette on the ashtray. Regulus gasps, "Hey, why would you waste my cigs like that? They cost money, you're aware of that, right? I should let you know that Remus doesn't just go dancing around, throwing packs of cigarettes at whoever blinks at him twice."
James snorts a laugh at the idea of Remus dancing. "You're funny but please shut up, Reg." Regulus, on the other hand, now seems even more offended. "Don't tell me to shut up, Potter, you shut up." James pouts at Regulus once again, as if that ever worked before. "Sorry, love. I just feel so bad for smoking now. My lungs feel so dirty, I think I'm gonna die." He dramatically throws himself backwards onto Regulus' legs, a hand draped over his forehead like a damsel in distress. Always so dramatic.
"Death is coming for me, I can feel it. Ah, Reggie, I see the light!" James reaches his hands up, as if grasping for something and then suddenly goes limp with an exaggerated "ugh", sticking his tongue out of his mouth.
Regulus huffs out a laugh that quickly dissolves into quiet giggles and then to a full blown laugh, as James keeps making dying noises. The boy quickly sits up, beaming at Regulus like he always does when he manages to make him laugh. It fills him with so much love to see the people around him happy, especially if he's the one that caused it. Most of all, he loves seeing Regulus happy. In fact, he loves a lot of things about Regulus. It's not like he hasn't told him over and over, but he just felt like pointing it out again. "I love when you laugh like that. I love when you laugh in general. I love you in general."
Once Regulus finally calmed down, his hand now resting on his stomach, he answers, "I love you too, baby.", still giggling under his breath. He quickly adds afterwards, "Still hate you because you wasted my cigarette."
"Can't you just light it again?" James raises an eyebrow, which is a skill he's very proud of. Took him a while to achieve it but once he saw Remus in their first year do it, he knew he'd have to learn it as well. He can still remember Sirius laughing at him for hours straight while he made all kinds of funny faces, trying to raise just one brow.
"Don't come at me with logic, Potter." Regulus rolls his eyes and grabs the tie of James to pull him closer by it and on top of him. James rests his weight on his forearms, that are on either side of the younger boy's head. "Reggie, love, why-"
Regulus cuts him off mid-sentence and pulls him even closer by his tie again, pressing a slow, familiar kiss to James' lips. Said boy smiles into it as one of Regulus' hands finds its way beneath James' button-up, fingertips idly tracing across his abs. James' shoulders relax beneath the touch, and he goes to hold onto his waist. When they eventually draw back, he stays exactly where he is, close enough that their noses almost brush. "You were saying?" Regulus murmurs.
James blinks, clearly having forgotten. "Oh. Right. Why do you keep calling me by my last name, I thought we were over that?" He asks, cuddling closer to his boyfriend, leaning his head on his chest while keeping a firm grip on the Slytherin's waist. Regulus doesn't pull his hands away either, only moving them to his back, gently caressing it all over with his fingertips.
"It suits you." Regulus answers, a smirk already forming on his face. James grumbles into his chest, "How so?" "Sounds just as stupid."
James lifts his head, to look at the Slytherin. Seeing the smirk on the boy's face, makes a similar smile grow on his. "Well, better get used to it, you'll be a Potter one day." He wiggles his eyebrows.
Regulus snorts and decides to tease his boyfriend a bit. "Who says I want to marry you?" James once again pouts at him. "Don't you want me to keep annoying you once we're old and grey?"
Regulus leans down, whispering into James' ear, "I've seen Fleamont so I guess it's fine." James immediately sits up on the other boy's legs, still keeping his hands on his waist, though. The other boy's hands fall to the sheets next to him. James' yaw dropped at Regulus' statement and he still hasn't picked it up yet.
"What do you mean by that?" He asks carefully. Regulus gently puts his left hand on James' chin to shut his mouth. "Your dad's hot, James."
The Gryffindor feels all his blood rush to his face from embarrassment. He whines dramatically. "You can't say stuff like that!"
"Yes, I can. Take it as a compliment." Regulus keeps smiling at him, clearly satisfied with how flustered James gets. His expression now gets mixed with a little confusion. "Why would I take that as a compliment?"
"You look pretty much exactly like him, just younger." Regulus explains, raising his hands to rest them on James' thighs, gently squeezing. The Gryffindor chockes on his breath. "But-" he starts, but once again doesn't get to finish his sentence.
"No buts, Jamie. Just accept it. Your dad's hot and I'd be dating him if he wasn't married. He is though, so I'm settling for the next best option." James groans and flops back down onto his boyfriend's chest, who starts playing with his hair, as soon as it's back in reach.
"You're mean, Reggie." James' mutter is muffled, since he's talking into Regulus' shirt, he can still hear him, though. He, who never really stopped grinning, replies, "You love it."
James props his head up, just as before, and presses a kiss to his boyfriend's cheek. "I do. Now give me another cigarette." Regulus' smirk wavers a little and a small frown appears. "Really?"
"Yes, I need one. You drive me crazy." James says. Although it's obvious he's not serious, Regulus plays into it a little, even if he doesn't plan feeding James to an addiction. "Please don't make me the reason you become a nicotine addict. It really doesn't suit you, don't you want to blow bubbles or something?"
The Gryffindor narrows his eyes, glaring at the boy under him. "I'm not 5." He points out, even though that doesn't answer the question. Regulus appears to think so as well. "Do you want to blow bubbles, though?" He asks.
After a few seconds of James enjoying the head massage in silence, he carefully asks back "Do you have some?" Regulus starts laughing. Straight up laughing into his boyfriend's face. Rude.
"No," he says through another fit of laughter. James levels him with an unimpressed stare, patiently waiting for Regulus to finish bullying his own boyfriend. His perfectly lovely boyfriend, thank you very much.
Once the laughter dies down, James hides his face against Regulus' chest. "Oh," he mumbles miserably. "Okay. That's so sad."
All of a sudden, the door to the dorm room blasts open, which startles James so much, he almost tumbles off the bed. He quickly saves himself and sits next to Regulus, who has also sat up now. "Did somebody say blowing bubbles?" It chants unnecessarily loud from the doorway. Barty. He throws the door shut behind himself and happily skips over to the other boys, inviting himself into the bed with them.
"How the fuck did you hear that?" Regulus asks, clearly pissed off at him interrupting their moment. Barty wiggles his eyebrows at him, making a rainbow-shaped motion with his hands while whispering "It's magic, Reggie."
"Don't call me that." Regulus grumbles, as if he's already said it a million times, which he probably has. Barry looks offended as if it's the first time he hears that. Since he can't remember shit, it probably is. "But Potter is allowed to!" He throws open his arms as if it's the biggest scandal in history since it turned out that Salazar Slytherin was gay for Godrick Gryffindor.
"You're not Potter." Regulus points out while James nods frantically.
Once again, Barty wiggles his eyebrows at his best friend, sing-songing "I could be." James' eyes wide and he looks at Barty downright scandalized. "I'm right here, Crouch! Don't you have your own boyfriend to bother?"
Barty slumps back into himself, pouting. Merlin, Barty and James have way too much in common for Regulus' liking. The lesser one of Regulus' roommates (as James likes to call him), now grumbles "No, he's pissed off because a threw a book at him.", crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Why would you throw a book at him?" Regulus asks, genuinely concerned for his friend's mental health. Barty shrugs, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "He took too long to study."
Regulus huffs and teases "More that 2 minutes?"
"It was 10, actually." Barty nods seriously.
Regulus rolls his eyes and James, apparently dealing with the same thing as Barty regularly, just nods understandingly at the boy.
"You're so stupid." Regulus points out.
A smile forms on Barty's face, just as quick as it went away a few seconds ago. "And sexy." He feels to need to add to Regulus' statement while winking at him. Regulus looks at him flatly. "Wouldn't say that."
"Evan would." Barty states, matter-of-factly. "I know. I heard. Silence charms exist, you know?" The sounds Regulus hears sometimes simply won't go out of his head. With Barty it's fine, he'd been in a relationship with him before, but with Evan? Just no, that's like a brother to him. Thinking of Evan as his brother makes him think of his actual brother and the image of him swapping spit with Remus a few months ago at their Gryffindor party. Sometimes he wishes he was as intellectual inconveniently equipped as Barty so he could just forget stuff like this.
"It's more fun this way. Kinda sad you and Potter always use one." Barty squints his eyes, thinking about it with a smirk at the corner of is lips.
"You're so weird, Crouch." James gives him the fattest side eye in history and Regulus has to try his best not to laugh at the sight of that. Barty, however, beams at the opportunity to finally tease James about the information he has just recently gained. "Says the one with the praise kink."
James freezes and stares at Regulus. "What- Reggie, did you tell him?!" His voice is high pitched in panic and embarrassment. His boyfriend just shakes his head while hiding his smirk gets exponentially harder. "I would never."
"Then how does he know?" A confused frown grows over James' face. He squints his eyes at Regulus, trying to figure out how Barty found out about it. Regulus shrugs, "No idea." The sarcasm in his voice is even more clearly audible this time, but James still doesn't pick up on it.
Barty now feels the need to chime in. "Are you really that autistic?" He asks towards James, who stared back in more confusion. "What the fuck is autistic?" Barty nods, proud to know something that someone else doesn't. "It's a muggle thing."
Regulus raises an eyebrow at his friend, crossing his arms over his chest. "How do you know about muggle things?"
Barty only shrugs as though the answer should be obvious. "Peter told me."
James' brows knit together almost instantly. "How does Peter know about muggle things?"
"Lily told him." Barty pauses for a moment. "And me too. I honestly don't know why I mentioned Peter." James' eyes narrow immediately. "What have you got going on with Lily?"
A grin stretches across Barty's face as he shoots James an exaggerated wink. "Wouldn't you like to know."
"I really wouldn't."
"Then be a good boy and shut up."
"Barty," Regulus says with a warning look, though he's already fighting back another smile. James turns back to Regulus, his eyes squint with renewed suspicion. "Are you sure you didn't tell him?"
Regulus looks downright offended. He presses a hand against his chest and gasps dramatically. "Jamie, I would never." James studies him for another second, clearly trying to decide whether he believes him. "Then why does he—"
"You really are autistic!" Barty blurts out again, sounding almost impressed now. James blinks at him. "I can't be," he says matter-of-factly. "I don't even know what it means."
Barty blinks at him tries and snorts a laugh at him.
"Potter," he says slowly, "he was being sarcastic." Understanding flashes across James' face. "Oh." Silence falls over the group.
James nods once, seemingly satisfied with that explanation.
Another few seconds pass. Then his head snaps toward Regulus so quickly it almost startles him. "Wait," James says, eyes widening in betrayal. "You did tell him?!"