BEGINNING | SLYTHERINMICROFIC PROMPT 2
Nothing even slightly mature tumblr this time (back off plz) just my first ever jegulus fic!! slightly tender and a little bit slowburny. Dutifully, for @slytherinmicrofics
AO3
“Black, you serious?”
James Potter’s handsome face plumed around a rocketing grin, but it wasn’t entirely confident. James was never sure if the threats Sirius handed out were serious, especially when they revolved around his brother, who was the daily object of such uttered malifications and jibes.
How should he know? James didn’t have to delve in the complicated world of sibling dynamics. It seemed horrid.
Sirius, in response, shrugged, his eyes rolling to the ceiling, watching the aged remembrall he was tossing over and over again at the ceiling of the common room.
“Whatever.” he said.
As usual when mentioning another member of the Black family, he wore an insolent thin-lipped grimace. It occurred to James that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t know if Sirius was being serious when it came to Reg.
After another couple of throws, Sirius turned his head to James, his upright straining wrist grappling the caught remembrall for a second. “Yeah, why not.” Struggling to keep eye contact with James from his position on the couch, he looked away. “Maybe it’ll do him some good.”
In the slip of Sirius’ sleeve, James has spotted the red mark on the boy’s skin - the remainder of the Black tattoo Siris had burned out his skin just months prior. James sighed, but for all their sakes, returned a joke.
“That, and keep you in bed an hour longer.”
“Yeah.” Sirius said lacklusterely.
Then, “Nah, seriously Prongs,” he said, turning upright with a shake of his head, “I’m getting proper worried about the company Reg is hanging around here with. And-thing is,” Sirius went on, warming, “no one–no one knows if he believes any of their crap”, he hissed, glaring at James, “because he never–bleeding says anything.”
Sirius’ eyes flashed before he seemed to realise his outburst. He sat back, almost apologetically and affirmed quietly, “I want an eye kept on him.”
“But not your own.” James replied, hoping he wasn’t tripping the wire here.
“Can’t be arsed admitting to him I care, James.” Sirius said flatly.
“And he’d know I was parenting him if I went anywhere near him.”
“Maybe you should parent him.”
Sirius was off again like a cracker, and James had to bite down a smile.
He understood being related to a renowned pack of pure-blooded Slytherins was a commendable sore point for Sirius, one that would possibly never fade, but he’d never seen the quiet, industrious Regulus act in any such way that demanded Sirius to react like this. James had often found the younger brother to be resemblant of Sirius in an admiring, quippy sort of way, even if he was a bit socially awkward.
“He’s not my bastard child James, I didn’t fuck anyone to get fucking dumped on with an idjit like him, that was my fucking mother-”
“Alright, calm down Pads, blimey,” bemused James, eyes shifting around the lazy common room, fairly aware of at least four hangovers today.
He deflected, murmuring, “It’s not your job to rectify your entire bloodline’s future.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Sirius sounded disheartened.
“It’s your job to fuck it up individually.” James added, winking as Sirius grinned back at him.
“I knew you’d say something helpful eventually.”
To their natter and Sirius’ echoing uproar, Lupin padded through in his too-long mustard socks, treasured Madam Pomphrey presents. He graced them with a rare, pleasant smile. “What’s Sirius moaning and squealing about now?”
“Shut it Moony.” Said Sirius, but he looked embarrassed. “That’s your thing.”
Remus blushed slightly as Sirius rapped on, “James is just going to be looking after my poisoned genetic tumour of a brother for a while.”
Right. The punishment. James wasn’t actually sure what for: Regulus was going to be spending the cold weekday mornings helping James record his swim reps, a job dutifully and enthusiastically, carried out by Sirius in recent weeks. Speed swimming across the black lake was an increasingly popular hobby amongst the more athletic mavericks of Hogwarts in the warmer months, and James had never been one to back down from something slightly illegal.
He’d been getting up before the sun since the start of the year, Sirius along with him. He was slightly objecting of prospect that for Sirius, this challenge was like rearing a prize-winning swine, but was grateful for the accountability all the same.
“Oh.” Remus’ lips twitched, his stare beguiling, unrevealing.
“How becoming of you, James.”
Sirius looked between them.
The remembrall, out of sight-out of mind, turned red to nobody’s noticing.
James avoided both of their stares, suddenly irritated.
“Yep, can’t wait.”
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
In dawn light, the cold grey eyes of Regulus Black were dark enough James swore he could see the still-out moon in them.
It was laughable, James thought - how much Sirius hated this walking reflection of his same, recognisable features. The amused, but haughty, stare. The narrow, bolstering jaw. The same indignant brow, though broodier than Sirius’.
“So–I just, watch you swim?” The younger boy volunteered, after the two had peppered a silent trudge down to the lake.
“Not if you can help it.” James mused, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth at Regulus, who look unequivocally unimpressed.
“I just need your fingers-” he interjected, pushing his hand against the boy’s pale and cold hand, forcing his fingers round the stopwatch gently. “Right-there.” Regulus stared at him. “For when I come out.”
“God this is an uncreative punishment from Sirius.” He scoffed, taking a step back, rolling his eyes, just like him.
James looked at the eye bags cresting the top of his swallow cheeks and sighed.
“If he catches you saying that you’ve got a worse one coming. This one’s pretty painful as it is.”
Regulus tsked, clicking the top of the stopwatch. The mechanical beep sounded, dismissing James almost reproachfully from their warming conversation.
“I can deal with this, thank you.” he sniffed.
“Suits me. See you at eight, Reg.”
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Regulus Black was at the lake again.
It had become a quiet spot of sanctity for him ever since his godforsaken brother had tasked him with the trial of babysitting James Potter. Not that the elder Gryffindor was much of a challenge to look after.
Their arrangement hadn’t advanced much since that first conversation, and usually involved minimal jovial ‘good mornings' and ‘see you laters’ instead of extended chat, contributed to by factors such as the cold and the time, and the fact they had nothing much to say to each other. But still, Regulus had come to favour the routine. He cast his eyes over the still surface of the water now as he always did, partial to admiring it in its state of stillness; before the lean rocket of James Potter sent ripples east and west, and thrashed stripes all over it, almost continually for sixty minutes. He liked to watch James go in, disrupt it like a punch into wallpaper, or blood out a wound.
“Hey, chap.”
The soft, slightly hoarse tone of James came up behind him, edged always with that encumbering surprise that Reg was there before him. He supposed to James, it must seem like eagerness—which, to Sirius, would be mortifying, but in front of James, he found he didn’t really care. James was always happy to see him, and he admittedly, felt the same.
He wasn’t sure what Sirius’ objective with this so-called punishment had been—he hadn’t cared to ask in the beginning, and now not sure he wanted to watch James recall any previous impression of him directly. It hadn’t changed anything about his life, other than the fact that he now sometimes compared James Potters’ physique to that of the arrogant boys who loudly cajoled the corridors with their opinions.
His month of involuntary observation made him confident that not one of the boys he slept near to, even slightly compared. Not that that meant anything.
But as he watched James Potter strip his slept-in Beatles shirt off him, exposing the now-familiar rungs of his spine, Regulus decided that Sirius had fucked up. This had never been - and would never be punishment.
James was down to his boxer shorts, his wand, eliciting a quick waterproof sheen to them.
Regulus liked to notice the tan-lines on the older boy’s thighs; result of his lounging all over the grounds; now that winter was gone, James seemed to drink all the vitamin D from the sky. Regulus was still pale as ever. It gladdened him that Sirius also haunted his sunny best friend’s side.
With a splash, Regulus’ golden five minutes were over. James would disappear beyond the realms of entertainment for the next hour - like always - too fast and too submerged to reveal anything other than the fast scuttle of toned arms across the water.
And so Regulus collapsed against the bark of the tree, stopwatch teasing him mercifully.
He had sometimes invited the idea of joining James in the water, or at least supposed a reality where he might one day pick up a similar pursuit as the Gryffindor. But, he reasoned, James Potter was the only one stupid enough to do this at this hour for a reason.
Every time he fully stared at the depth of the black lake, his stomach tightened. The giant squid had seemed unbothered every time James had been swimming up until now, but Regulus supposed that was because it was still in hibernation. He feared for the day, soon, now that it was warmer, when it would wake up and see the tiny, pink, prey of Potter callousing its waters.
He thought about the other things in there too, and felt slightly nauseous, eyes searching the surface for Jame’s graceful butterfly strokes.
Ah, there, arching towards the bank he’d departed from with slower, tired arms.
Regulus relaxed. James would be out soon. And he could stop feeling any responsibility towards the boy sooner, the punishment was almost over.
The visual feast would return to the defiantly less-hungry, undeserving, eyes of his brother, he thought with bitterness.
James padded towards him, a mythical sight of bristling silver water drops and shining, rippling muscles.
His mouth panted in a pink purse, the noises echoing across the quiet grounds. Regulus swallowed, picking up James’ towel and holding it out for him. The slender steps of James arrived at last and Regulus was engulfed in a strange inebriated happiness as the boy reached for it with a grateful, genuine smile.
“Good swim? You’re getting faster.”
James nodded, shaking his head against the towel so that the mesmerising crown of lake droplets dissipated.
Oh dear. Regulus was indeed beginning to care.
