James's 16th Birthday Present: an excerpt from Between the Lines on ao3, which just updated with a 16k Reg POV chapter
“I brought your present today,” Regulus says. “In case you were too busy tomorrow.”
James grins.
“Oh yeah?”
Regulus raises an eyebrow. “Don’t get too excited.”
James wraps his arms around Regulus’s waist, and Regulus feels himself being pulled bodily into James’s lap, lets his hands fall on James’s shoulders.
“Salazar, Potter, do you manhandle all your conquests like this?”
James slips his hands up under Regulus’s jumper, tugs his shirt out from his trousers so he can access skin, and Regulus feels himself let out a low hiss as James’s palms slide up his back, his thumbs pressing lightly into his sides.
“‘Conquests’?” James says, eyes laughing.
“Oh, be quiet.”
“Make me.”
Regulus leans down and kisses him, feeling the heat rise in him as he straddles James’s hips. Lets himself gently bite James’s lower lip, tugging at it, the low moan James makes causing him to throb against James’s abdomen.
He tries not to feel embarrassed; can feel the effect he’s having on James just as evident. It just… it makes him feel dizzy, it’s too much.
Regulus breaks the kiss, says, “Here.”
Still sitting in James’s lap, he leans his torso backward, reaching out to pull his satchel with him as he sits back up. The movement against the other boy’s lap causes James to emit a strangled sort of a noise that Regulus enjoys far more than he probably should.
He reaches into an inside pocket of the satchel, feels his fingers close around it.
“Close your eyes,” he says.
James is looking at him, his eyes somehow desperate, but he closes them, dark lashes curling against his cheeks.
Regulus looks at him a moment, letting himself breathe it in: the eyelashes behind glass, the slight creases at the corners of his eyes from sixteen years of laughter. The tiny pale freckles barely darker than the rest of his skin. He tugs one of James’s hands off his hip, presses the gift into it.
“Happy early birthday.”
James blinks down at his hand, lets out a sudden laugh. He lets it go, its wings unfurling, and it flits between them, a darting flash of gold. Then it’s shot up past James’s head, his hand not quick enough to grab it, and Regulus reaches up instantly, snatching it out of the air.
“Your reflexes could use some work, apparently,” he says warmly.
James slips the snitch out of Regulus’s hand again, holding onto it this time.
“Your devotion to my personal improvement is touching, Reg.”
“I’ve got to make sure the size of your ego is justified.”
James laughs, his thumb rubbing the skin of Regulus’s hip affectionately.
“Thank you, Regulus.”
“You’re welcome.” He looks down at it in James’s hand, wings protruding from between elegant knuckles. “It’s the one from the match where I almost beat you,” he says, the words tumbling forward, looking at James in that way that he knows makes the other boy desperate for him, enjoying watching him go somewhat slack-jawed. “So you know you need to stay on your toes.”
James grins, leans up to press a warm kiss against Regulus’s lips, his affection overflowing. He shifts their bodies awkwardly, slipping the Snitch into his pocket to free up both hands again, as if he can’t stand not being able to touch Regulus’s skin with as much of him as is allowed and possible.
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Full Fic: Between the Lines on ao3
A Big Gorgeous Romantic Tragedy
Multi POV Long Fic (Slow Burnish)
Years 4/5 Hogwarts to End of First War
Jegulus with Endgame Jily (No Cheating, Lily Positivity)
Background Fluff Wolfstar
LOTS of Black Brothers Angst and lots of Evan Rosier, apparently
Mostly Canon Compliant, CCMCD Only
WIP at 145k, updating with 10kish chapters every 1-2 weeks depending on the author's fragile mental health ✌🏻✨️
An excerpt from Between the Lines on ao3 (by me), new 14k Remus POV chapter just posted 💜
They lie there for a minute, Sirius’s fingers tracing softly against the skin of Remus’s back. Remus shifts an arm, tentatively brings it up to stroke Sirus’s cheek again, and Sirius closes his eyes.
Says, quietly, “I did ask him to leave with me, you know.”
Remus’s chest feels tight, his heart pounding so much that he’s sure Sirius will be able to feel it as they’re pressed against one another.
“Oh?”
He keeps his eyes closed. Says, “He wouldn’t come.”
Remus watches as a tingle tear escapes from under Sirius’s dark lashes, trails over his temple into his hair.
He leans forwards, kisses it softly away, salt on his lips.
Sirius rolls them, and Remus lets him, feels himself pushed over onto his side and then onto his back as Sirius shifts over the top of him, feels Sirius’s lips clash desperately into his own.
He slips his arms under Sirius’s as he braces his body above him, dark hair falling forward, feels the bones of his hips under his palms. Knows that this is just a distraction from what Sirius is feeling; that he’s not so much a person to Sirius right now as much as he’s Anything Else To Distract Me, but Remus doesn’t care. Sirius’s kiss is all pressure and heat, Remus yielding under him, opening his mouth for Sirius’s tongue, letting his bottom lip be tugged between his teeth, arching his back to push up into it.
Then Sirius breaks away, pulling the t-shirt he’s wearing up over his head, then fumbling for the bottom of Remus’s t-shirt, tugging it up to get at skin, and Remus shifts to let him pull it up over his head and throw it to the floor. Lets Sirius crash into him, a hand at his throat, lips on his neck, on his collarbone, trailing down his chest to where his other hand is frantic at the buttons of Remus’s jeans, and he lets him.
An excerpt from Between the Lines on ao3 💜 updating tomorrow with a 14k Remus POV chapter
James reaches out, brushes the curl off his forehead. Presses his lips into Regulus’s lips in the fading light.
“I couldn’t stay away from you,” James breathes, barely breaking the kiss to do so.
Regulus sighs, his eyes staying closed, a tightness in his posture.
“I’m sorry, James. I just… it’s difficult.”
James reaches up a hand, cups Regulus’s cheek, and he presses into it, his skin soft and warm on James’s palm.
“I know. I just missed you.”
Regulus opens his eyes, all heavy-lidded in that way he does when he’s kiss-drunk, and James wants him more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life.
“Our parents used to make us learn French, you know,” he says.
James lets it settle in his veins: first Regulus using his brother’s name, now this, this reference to ‘our’ parents instead of ‘my’. Regulus puts the Map down, James letting his hand drop as he leans over to the nearest desk and places it there with his wand, the movement effortlessly gracefully as he bends back toward James.
“I used to try and read in it, to get a better grasp of it. To try and please our mother, not that anything has ever pleased her.”
He lets his hands rest on James’s forearms, caressing the fabric like he so often does, his eyes finding James’s, something reticent but determined in them.
He says, “In French, instead of saying ‘I miss you’, it’s ‘you are missing from me’.” He blinks. “It’s not so much that the meaning actually changes, just that things don’t always translate directly. Don’t come out right, when you’re speaking different languages.”
James lets him talk, his voice soft, the room rapidly darkening as the sky turns indigo, a smattering of stars strewing themselves across it.
“Still, I always liked that,” Regulus says. “That turn of phrase.” He swallows, James watching his throat move, watching his lips, watching the soft sadness of his eyes. “It’s how I feel, whenever you’re not there. ‘You are missing from me’.”
James could die, right then, in that moment, and he’d be happy for it if it wasn’t for the fact that he wants more: more of this endlessly, forever, always. He places his thumb lightly on Regulus’s bottom lip, strokes it softly.
He says, “Say it for me.”
“Tu me manques,” Regulus breathes.
James lets his eyes flutter closed, kisses him soft in the encroaching dark.
“Again,” he says, barely more than a whisper.
“Tu me manques.”
They sit there as the room goes black, lost in one another’s lips, in each other’s breaths; in the smell and the taste and the ache, the sky blooming stars above them.
“Don’t tell me you’re that engrossed in your schoolwork, Potter? I may have to call Madam Pomfrey.”
James smiles across at him, slides the parchment and quill to the floor. Feels the warmth of relief.
Regulus looks about a thousand times better than yesterday.
He still looks tired - dark circles like that aren’t going to disappear overnight - but there’s some colour to his face. He’s left his hair natural, today, and it’s all soft and wavy and lovely-looking. He's smiling softly, like he's trying to tell James he's okay without having to say it, and it's reassuring but also he just looks…
Gorgeous.
James feels a blush creeping up his face.
“I have an image to maintain, Reg,” he says carefully, still feeling out Regulus’s mood. “Good looks will only get you so far.”
Regulus laughs, trying not to smile too wide, all traces of the sadness of yesterday gone. James might be talking to the same version of Regulus from that last Friday before Christmas.
“I don’t know, Lockhart seems to be doing okay for himself.”
James grimaces, fakes a gag. “Did you just call Lockhart good-looking, Regulus? I’m horrified!”
Regulus, gratifyingly, goes scarlet, his eyes wide. “Not like that, just all the girls seem to–”
“Relax, Reg, I’m kidding,” James says. As an experiment, he reaches a foot across the gap between them, gently prods Regulus with the toe of his shoes. “I know you have better taste than that.”
He can feel his heart rate increase with what he’s doing, with the danger of it. He doesn’t want to push Regulus away, to scare him off. He’s about ninety-nine percent sure that Regulus has been feeling exactly the same way he is - if all the blushes and staring at James's lips whenever he thinks he’s not looking are anything to go by - but, still.
He leaves his leg alongside Regulus’s leg, feels the warmth of it through two pairs of school trousers.
Regulus doesn’t move away.
“You bloody rotter.”
It feels like that first night back, that sharing of something unspeakable, has brought them closer; like it’s unlocked something more between them, even though they’ve not talked about it.
Like the last of the barriers have dropped.
Regulus’s eyes are fixed on James’s, amused and warm and…
Wanting.
James’s body is screaming at him, every cell within him wanting to move, to touch, to—
“So, are you ready for the match next week?” he says.
Regulus’s eyes narrow, then, into something mischievous and cunning that makes James’s whole body thrum.
“I think we both know that the real question is are you ready, Potter?”
James grins at him. “I was born ready, Black.”
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New Chapter of Between the Lines just dropped!
mostly canon compliant LONG fic, multi POV, jegulus leading to jily (no cheating, lily positivity), background fluff!wolfstar, lots of evan rosier apparently
