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“NO, Sirius! I am not going to have a fucking threesome with you and James! What the hell is wrong with you?!”
The first thing he heard clearly over the music – what is this Taylor Swift shit anyway? – was a sweet voice yelling at his brother.
It was like music to his ears.
Regulus’ head turned slowly to peer in the voice’s direction, all a bit blurrily because fuck if he wasn’t already well on his way to wasted despite only getting to the party about twenty minutes ago.
As soon as they’d walked in the door, Sirius had pressed a double shot of something clear into his hand and James had passed him a beer into the other, just before they had disappeared into another room down the hallway. It was only a few more steps and three minutes ‘til he found the stack of Jell-O shots – on trays obviously stolen from the caf what with the giant school shield emblazoned on the things – and turned his tongue blue with an entire row of shots.
Some plump redhead woman passed him the end of a joint – gross, who even uses fucking Dutch Masters blunts anymore? – as he walked by and he just kept going with it until he could a nice expanse of wall to slump against while he smoked it down to nothing.
He knew no one at this fuck all excuse of a party. A bunch of jocks and their girlfriends, almost all of them covered in head to toe with the tacky burgundy and gold of the frat’s favored colors.
Regulus definitely wouldn’t be there if Sirius hadn’t’ve dragged him along for some stupid reason.
You need to come, Rex. You should get out more, Rex. You spend all your time with those Delta assholes, Rex. You can’t get laid if you don’t leave your room, Rex.
He really fucking hated it when Sirius called him Rex.
And it was definitely not Sirius’s business on when or where or how or by whom Regulus was getting laid. Nor was he going to be aware of the fact that none of those things mattered because none of them were happening. At all.
Anyway.
Focusing his eyes on the tall redhead who was still glaring daggers at his brother’s grinning annoying face and looked to be about to punch him right in the nose – Mother really should look into a frequent user program with her plastic surgeon for when he gets punched again – Regulus pushed away from his corner, passed through a cloud of smoke, and around a pair of twins holding a lanky redheaded guy upside down over a keg.
“Sirius, didn’t our mother teach you better manners? You shouldn’t harass such pretty young ladies. Or have you been hanging around Uncle Cygnus?” Regulus smirked at his brother, who has turned to glare at his younger brother.
“Fuck off, Rex.” Sirius rolled his eyes before looking at the redhead again. “Evans, you change your mind, we’ll be upstairs.” He winked broadly before sauntering off, a bottle of Absolut in one hand half-filled with something pink.
“Where the fuck did he find grapefruit juice to put in that shit?” Regulus huffed before looking over to the redhead, who was standing about a foot away from him with a pinched look on her face. “Sorry, my brother is a fucked up idiot.”
“Oh, I know. I used to date James before he realized he and Sirius were soul mates.” Brilliant, clear (not drunk) green eyes roll before focusing on him again. “You’re Sirius’s brother? So that makes you Rex.”
“No, no. Regulus. Like the star? Not Rex. I fucking hate that name.” He coughed harshly into his arm, before tilting his head back to stare up at the ceiling as the lights swirl around him. “What’s your name, then, love? I didn’t catch it… Evans?”
There was a long moment of silence, long enough that he turned his head over, it was too heavy to actually pick back up, in order to focus on her again. She was staring at him with a slight, but smug, grin. It kind of reminded him of Sirius’s “I know something you don’t and there’s no way I’m telling you shit” grin.
It was the grin he had given him after getting home, only to later discover that Sirius, a junior at their ridiculously expensive prep school, had convinced everyone to call him Rex, that he preferred it over Regulus, on the first day of his freshman year.
He really hated his brother, but especially when he called him Rex.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” Regulus reached up and rubbed his face, head lolling back on his shoulders.
The redhead laughed, stepping a little closer to him, all the while still smirking. “No, you’re good. Well, not really. You’re really fucked up, but your face is clean. Too clean to be here with these Sigma assholes. Why are you here again?”
Regulus shrugged then made a kind of snorting sound when the shrug made his head fall down to his chest, so he was now staring down at the floor and his brand new grey suede John Lobb plimsolls. It was their first night out and they were pretty damn comfortable.
She was wearing some kind of sandals that showed off her painted toes; teal with white chevrons on her big toes, and a little gold toe ring on her left foot. “Ah, Sirius convinced me to come? And I saw your letters, Ms. Evans. You’re a sister, you can’t tell me that you think the whole fraternity hierarchy is complete bullshit.”
“Lily.”
“Wha’?” His head popped up and he stared at her.
“My name is Lily, Lily Evans. I’m a Kappa. And you look like you might want to sit down, Regulus. I think you’re about to hurl.”
It took another moment for him to realize that yes, he was about to hurl, and without another word, he turned and did so, right into a vase with some kind of scented decorative sticks poking out of it.
When he picked his head up a few minutes later, wiped his mouth and rinsed it with some vodka from a random nearby bottle, Lily “the redhead” Evans was gone.
But the keg stand twins were eyeing him with identical grins that screamed “GET AWAY WHILE YOU CAN”, so he did.
After another hour, and no further sightings of Lily, Regulus pounded on Sirius’s door and yelled through it. “Hey, asshole! I’m leaving! You’re a dick!”
A muffled thump and crash later, the door flew open, Sirius standing there without a shirt and Potter – ah, fuck, no, I don’t need to see this; I have no plausible deniability now – sitting on the bed, also without a shirt, with a sheet pulled up just enough to cover his junk and hair sticking up at all angles.
“Whoa, whoa there, Rex! Why are you leaving? The party just started!” Sirius was just as rumpled and the scent of sex was rapidly overpowering even Regulus’s totally baked senses.
“Fuck you, Sirius. I’ve been here for almost two hours! You and your asshole boyfriend abandoned me downstairs, and I threw up in some vase, and now I’m going back to my own house.” Regulus huffed, running a hand over his hair. “And stop calling me Rex, goddamnit.”
Sirius shrugged again, before leaning against the door frame. “Whatever, Rex. Go on, then. Don’t get caught by the campus rent-a-cops; you smell like weed and vomit.”
“Yeah, well, if you hadn’t abandoned me then maybe that wouldn’t have happened. And like you can talk, you smell like pot and sex.” He stomped away from the door, and just as Sirius had begun to close it, Regulus shoves it back open. “Wait. The redhead. Do you have her number?”
Potter’s head popped up from where he’s looking at his phone and he blinked at the brothers. “Wait, you are the ‘hot Delta U’!”
Two sets of grey eyes darted over to the naked man, before Sirius scrambled over and snatched Potter’s phone from his hands. “Wait wait wait! Lily texted you about my brother?!”
Regulus’s jaw drops as he reached out, attempting to grab the phone from Sirius, who jabbed him in the chest and held it out of his reach. “Gerroff me! Fuck, Sirius! Let me see the text!”
“No way, little brother! Lily Evans! She’s older than you, and way too good for you!” Sirius lets out a laugh as Regulus kicked his leg, before letting out a grunt when he punched him in the side, as hard as possible. “Fuck!”
Making another grab for the phone, Regulus seized it and jumped out of Sirius’s reach as he flicks open the text.
Lil-E: I assume you’re upstairs, holed up with Sirius.
Lil-E: I can’t believe you didn’t even say hi. And Sirius tried to get me into a threesome with you again.
Lil-E: Also, there’s a really hot guy here from DU.
Lil-E: Apparently Sirius’s brother? But way hotter.
Lil-E: Too bad he just puked in that ugly vase with the potpourri sticks.
Lil-E: And you’re probably doing who knows what unmentionable things, so I’m leaving. Tuney is coming over at a ridiculous time in the morning for church and I have to look presentable.
Lil-E: Tell hot Delta U to text me, if he’s actually Sirius’s brother and not some creepy stalker dude.
Regulus stared at the screen for a moment longer… just long enough, distracted long enough, for Sirius’s hand to reach in, pluck it from his fingers and toss it back to Potter.
“So, little brother! What, exactly, are you willing to exchange for Lily Evans’ number?” Sirius had that grin again, that fucking smug grin back from Regulus’s first day of high school, and it was all he could do to keep down the yelp of pain when he punched his brother right in the nose.