Regulus cuts off a lock of James’ hair and ties it with a ribbon so he can keep a piece of him forever. James laughs. He asks him if he’s making a potion, or a clone, or a doll to stick pins in when he's angry.
He says, “I’m right here. You could just keep me.”
Regulus presses a finger to his lips.
“I am keeping you.” He holds James in both of his hands and tries to memorize the human details. Unbeautiful things. The whisper of dark hair on his upper lip, the softness under his chin, the acne on the edge of his jaw... the way he looks at him. Like he loves him, like he always will. That’s ugly too. “Right here.” James kisses him. Regulus stares at James until he gets nervous. His dark eyes wander away then back again, any long silence and stillness is unbearable to James. Unwelcome thoughts seem to creep into him. Regulus can feel his heartbeat. He wants to keep his heart more than anything, even if he loses the rest of him. “Forever.”
He puts it in a locket and takes it out at night when he’s alone. He presses it to his lips.
When the inevitable happens, and James is gone, not all of him is missing. His eyes are fading from his memory like pictures bleached by sunlight. Memories of James glow too brightly for him to make out any details when he looks back. It’s all a faded, dreamlike blur.
But he has the colour of his hair.
It’s the only bit of darkness left to him in the shadowy end notes before the music finally stops. The shape of his smile, the curl of his eyelash, the scar inside his arm… all of these things he knows he remembered once, but now he has to strain to see them. It’s consoling, for Regulus, to think that he won’t live long enough to forget him completely.
(james is staring at the ceiling in the dark because the pieces he has of regulus only belong to him in dreams.
each day he mends a little, he smiles when he’s meant to smile and laughs when he’s meant to laugh, but the dreams are so vivid he wakes up with his heart in a thousand pieces again every morning. the pain is always brand new. sometimes when he moves too quickly he can hear a rattling behind his ribs, something sharp cutting him from the inside, but he doesn’t want the dreams to stop. to sleep is to have him and lose him all over again, sisyphean, but how else could he keep him? he looks at the ghostly silhouette of a living boy, dead in all the ways that matter, and turns toward the green light creeping over his bedspread. birds sing, impossibly, under the lake.
he feels his hair between his fingers, and a kiss in the palm of his hand. everything is washed in light. regulus leans into him, as solemn as a sculpture of an angel in a graveyard, and james realizes the daylight is coming from him instead of the sun.)
unspeakable: James is swept up in machinations beyond his comprehension, and before his eighteenth birthday he has a Dark Mark on his arm and an innocent death on his conscience. (death eater james potter / spy au / fake dating) [current wc: 568k, ongoing]
bitten: Regulus is a bored, sullen vampire. James is in the wrong place at the wrong time. (vampire regulus x human james / muggle au) [current wc: 71k, ongoing]
helter-skelter: Sometimes James felt like picking a direction and walking until his legs gave out, then getting up the next day to keep walking, and never turning around. (american marauders / small town / partners in crime / cannibalism / horror au) [current wc: 47k, ongoing]
oneshots:
burning: He wanted to break James. To warp him until he was unrecognizable... and his. That was part of it. He knew Lily had never seen this James. No one had. Beautiful and hungry, red with rage and desire like a wrathful angel. [wc: 3,704]
jegulily:
icarian: "Look at her, and look at me." Regulus held the picture up beside his face, like Lily was looking right past James, right at him. She saw him everyday in the corridors. Did she suspect? Would she ever know about this? "You can't just have one, can you? You want both." James stared at him, silent as a stone. He wanted this conversation to be over. Too bad. "This is the kind of greed they say is sinful in the bible." [wc: 14k, ongoing]
boreo:
living while starving: Boris goes with Theo to New York. Boris POV. [current wc: 5.5k, ongoing]
stamp collecting: Boris and Pippa are paired together for a pen pal project at school, they have no idea who they’re writing to. [current wc: 11k, ongoing]
if you read my fics i'd love to talk with you about them <3 feel free to message me, but be warned: the response times you get will be as if we are corresponding by letter.
some of my interests: the marauders era, jegulus, tomarry, the goldfinch by donna tartt, vampires, hannibal, killing eve, iwtv, asoiaf, the corrupting power of love, the violence of desire, love as consumption, blood drinking, heart eating, forbidden and doomed romance, the nature of evil, unhealthy and deeply toxic relationships, “monsters”, moral decay, very bad and irredeemable characters. also wuthering heights by emily brontë.
i'm transgender and bisexual, btw. i do not support jkr.
free palestine 🇵🇸 daily click
if you use generative ai, i will be blocking you <3
