Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

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Regulus did not believe in good people.

He had considered the concept often enough to know it bored him. Goodness, as most people meant it, was a lazy category. A place to put someone once you had decided not to look too closely at them. Badness was the same, although people tended to apply it with more righteousness. Both were tidy, both were useless.

People were not tidy.

Good people. Bad people.

Language like that belonged to those who wanted the comfort of conclusion without the effort of attention. Regulus had never found much merit in being conclusive. He preferred accuracy. He liked a thing named properly, even when the proper name was unkind. Especially then, perhaps, because kindness had a habit of making people sentimental about their own perceptions.

It was easier for people to say ‘good’ and mean useful, pleasant, forgiving, obedient, generous. It was easier for them to say ‘bad’ and mean difficult, unashamed, disagreeable, inconveniently honest. The categories collapsed the moment any real scrutiny was applied.

He believed that most virtues had a private cost, and that most vices had a use if one had the courage to examine them properly.

Sirius, for example, was not good, nor was he bad. Sirius was loyal with his whole body until loyalty began to feel like a hand around his throat, and then he would bite. He could be generous, he could also be selfish in a way that made generosity look like a foreign concept to him. He lied when cornered and sometimes when he wasn’t. Sirius loved Regulus fiercely, and Regulus knew that. He also knew Sirius had left him once.

Both things were true. Neither cancelled out the other.

Pandora was kind, and some people were stupid enough to think that made her harmless. Regulus had never made that mistake. Pandora noticed everything she pretended not to. She could soothe a room and still walk out knowing precisely who had mistaken her patience for permission to underestimate her. She was also his best friend. She knew exactly how much of him was unpleasant and had never taken that knowledge for a reason to leave. 

Barty could be cruel for sport, yet still loyal past all reason. Evan knew exactly just how charming he was, and frequently used that to his benefit. Dorcas was honest, sometimes to the point of being hurtful. 

Anyone trying to separate those qualities into neat moral columns would have misunderstood them all before the work had even begun.

Regulus’s mother had been his earliest argument against simplicity. Walburga Black had been able to wound with a sentence spoken softly at breakfast, then asked after his reading in the afternoon with genuine attention. She had fondly recounted anecdotes of his childhood and still made him feel like something incorrectly made. She had made it seem like she wouldn’t have been able to live without him, and also coldly watched from the hall window in silence when he had finally left. Regulus had learned early that love did not absolve harm, but harm did not erase love either. The two could exist in the same house, at the same table, in the same hand resting briefly against the back of your neck.

So, no. He did not believe in good people.

Which made the matter of James Potter inconvenient.

The evening was damp without quite committing to rain. London had settled into that unpleasant state where the air seemed to cling to skin, and the pavements reflected the streetlamps in thin, wavering strips. Regulus walked with his hands in the pockets of his coat, collar turned up against the wind. He could have taken the tube one stop closer to Sirius and Remus’s flat, but he had not. The walk gave him time to arrange himself. 

Dinner at Sirius’s was rarely difficult anymore. Not easy, perhaps, but few things worth keeping were easy. It had taken years for them to become brothers in practice again, which sounded painless only if one had never had to do it. They had found a shape that worked. Not a simple one; nothing between them could be simple without becoming dishonest. But Sirius texted often and Regulus replied enough. Sirius sent articles he thought Regulus might enjoy, complained to him when work at the garage ran late, and asked about Regulus’s life with a persistence Regulus answered in varying degrees of cooperation. Regulus read the articles with no comment, replied when necessary, and occasionally asked after Remus in a way that pretended not to be asking after Sirius as well.

That was love, Regulus supposed. 

Sirius had asked him to dinner two days ago over text.

          dinner at mine friday?

          remus is cooking so you can’t accuse me of trying to poison you

Regulus had read it during his lunch break, sitting alone in the small staff room at work with a coffee that had long since gone cold. He had typed back.

          I have never accused you of that.

The reply had come quickly.

          you are no fun 

          come to dinner

Regulus had agreed.

That had been the arrangement as far as he understood it. Sirius and Remus. Dinner. The sort of evening where Sirius complained too loudly about nothing of significance, Remus pretended to find him irritating while indulging him, and Regulus sat in the armchair near the window with a glass of wine and a reasonable exit time already chosen.

Then, as he had been locking his flat behind him to leave for said dinner, Sirius had texted again.

          pete's coming too btw

And that was fine. Peter was often around Sirius, so Regulus was thoroughly used to his presence. Sirius had met him in sixth form, as Peter had met James in his biology A-level class, which meant Sirius had learned of Peter and promptly folded him into his life with the same lack of restraint he applied to acquiring most things he wanted. Sirius had never tolerated his people having people of their own for long, which Regulus could begrudgingly understand. 

Peter did not bother him. He was loud in a way that usually served a purpose. He knew how to keep a conversation moving, and laughed in a way that tended to pull people along with it. There was a neediness under his ease if one paid close attention, though Regulus rarely gave any sign that he had. 

Regulus turned to walk down the stairs, and reached the pavement before his phone buzzed again. Glancing down, he was met with yet another text from his brother. 

          and james

Regulus had stood outside his building with the key still in his hand and watched a woman across the street attempt to herd a small dog away from a puddle.

James.

He had waited longer than necessary before answering.

          You forgot to mention that.

Sirius began typing. Stopped. Started again.

          it wasn’t planned really 

          they were both off today so

Regulus looked at that for a while, then returned:

          Right.

Sirius replied with a string of messages that Regulus did not open until he reached the corner.

          don’t start

          he’s my best mate

          try not to be a prick

Regulus had no intention of saying anything horrible. That would have divulged James’s presence mattered enough to object to. 

He crossed at the lights and turned into the next street, shoulders angled against the damp air. A cyclist shot past too close to the curb. Somewhere ahead, a siren wailed before it was absorbed back into the general noise of the city. London was never silent. Regulus liked that about it.

He unlocked his phone as he walked, typing with his thumb. 

          I’m not starting. 

He pocketed his phone, exhaling slowly through his nose. 

Regulus did not dislike James in any uncomplicated way, which was unfortunate, because uncomplicated dislike was one of life’s simpler pleasures. James had been part of Sirius’s life for so long that resenting him felt almost impractical, and entirely petty. Regulus had done so regardless, when he had been younger and the shape of the grievance seemed cleaner: James had taken Sirius. Or Sirius had gone to James. The wording changed according to Regulus’s mood, but still, Regulus did not mistake that for objectivity.

Objectively, James had helped Sirius. He had done the right thing.

James had done something good. 

That word, again. Good.

James tripped the system because Regulus, to his endless frustration, could not figure him out. Other people had seams, and with enough attention, Regulus could usually find the line where the performance frayed. He did not need to expose it. Often, he did not want to. It was enough to know it existed.

James gave him less to work with.

He was warm in a way that should have become embarrassing by now. He listened as if listening were a skill rather than a social delay before speaking again. He helped because help was needed. He asked questions and then waited for real answers, which was a habit Regulus found socially aggressive. He worked in A&E and still smiled like seeing the horrors of the world had not managed to make him regret caring about it. He laughed at Sirius when Sirius was trying to make him laugh, stayed by Sirius when he became sharp, and seemed to find no particular glory in either act. He laughed too easily, perhaps. That could have been a flaw if it seemed false. It did not. 

James would have been easier to understand if he had been arrogant in the expected fashion, or simply stupid, or smug about being adored, or cocky in a way that seemed genuine. 

Regulus had spent years waiting to one day find him intolerable, and had been forced, repeatedly, to contend with the fact that James Potter was quite difficult to hate.

Still, people thought Regulus managed to.

That was useful.

A disliked thing could be studied at length without inviting suspicion. People accepted scrutiny when it came from dislike, expected it, even. Regulus could look at James too long and have it mistaken for contempt, which was convenient enough to feel almost like grace.

The trouble was that James sometimes looked back.

Regulus did not know what James saw when he did, and that alone had occupied more thought than Regulus cared to admit.

He imagined James saw what everyone saw at first: Sirius’s brother. Pale face, sharp mouth. Unpleasant when provoked and often also when unprovoked. A man with a talent for making warmth feel wholly unwelcome.

Except James did not look at him as if warmth had been wasted; he looked as if Regulus was refusing something James had already decided he could give.

That, more than anything, made Regulus want to find the place where James became cold.

The impulse was old by now. Not constant, not dramatic enough to deserve any particular concern. It arrived with James and lingered after, tucked into the corners of ordinary days. Regulus had first mistaken it for irritation, then for resentment, then plainly for an attraction, which he could bear. James was annoyingly beautiful, and wanting beautiful people was hardly a moral crisis. It was mundane, if worth putting a name to at all. 

But the wanting had not stayed where beauty lived.

It had slipped, gradually and without permission, into curiosity. From there it had become something less civilised.

He wanted to know whether James was as kind when there was no one to witness it. He wanted to know if there was anger beneath all that careful warmth, and whether James feared it, or merely kept it trained.

He wanted, more than was wise, to be the reason it surfaced.

Regulus turned onto Sirius’s street. The flats rose in a familiar block of warm windows and tired brick, the front steps darkened with rain that had fallen earlier. Through one of the lower windows, a television flickered blue against someone’s curtains. A man in a dark coat smoked beside the bins and glanced at Regulus, nodding in awkward acknowledgment before shifting his gaze back to the road.

Regulus approached the door of Sirius’s flat block and pressed the buzzer.

The speaker crackled and Sirius’s voice came distorted through static. “Yeah?” 

Regulus leaned close enough to be heard. “Let me in.”

A pause followed, short and entirely deliberate. “Hello to you too, Reg.”

“Hello.” Regulus said flatly. “Let me in.” 

“A ‘please’ really wouldn’t kill you, y’know.” 

“I could just go home, if you’d prefer.” Regulus said mildly.

The intercom clicked off after a crackly sigh had echoed through the speaker, the door buzzed open near instantly after, and Regulus pushed into the building. The stairwell smelled of general dampness and the takeaway containers someone on the ground floor had left too long by their door. Regulus walked past them without looking and started up the stairs as the lift had been unreliable for as long as Sirius had lived there. 

He heard the flat before he reached it. Sirius’s voice carried through the door, followed by Peter saying something too quickly to catch. The sound cut off a second later, then footsteps came down the hall inside.

Sirius opened the door before Regulus had knocked, a wooden spoon in one hand, his hair tied back, a loose curl falling against his cheek. He looked comfortable, which still caught Regulus sometimes, though less often than it used to.

“Hey again,” Sirius stepped back to let him in, turning his head over his shoulder to call towards the kitchen. “He’s here!”

Regulus grimaced slightly at his brother’s loudness as he started to unbutton his coat.  

“Hi, Regulus!” Remus called back, followed by the sound of something sizzling, then he swore under his breath. “Sirius, you’ve walked off with my spoon.”

Sirius looked down at his hand. “Right. Yeah.”

“Bring it back, maybe?” Remus continued. “The sauce is going to burn.”

“Sorry, sorry. Coming.”

He turned down the hall before Regulus had finished taking off his coat, already speaking over his shoulder about the wine being open and Remus making far too much food again. Regulus hung his coat on the hook by the door. It was the same one he had used when he lived here when he was seventeen with nowhere else to go after leaving that house, back when he had still slept on the sofa and pretended not to wake whenever Sirius had leaned in the doorway watching him breathe in the early hours of the morning.

No one else ever used that hook.

Sirius had never said anything about it. Neither had Regulus.

The flat sounded lived in. A low spill of music from the sitting room, something warm and unobtrusive. Peter’s laugh came from the kitchen, followed by James saying something Regulus could not quite make out. His voice pulled, annoyingly, like hearing one's name said from another room.

Regulus followed Sirius down the hall.

The kitchen was not particularly large, and was housing more people than the room was built to hold. Remus stood at the stove, hair falling into his eyes as he frowned down at the sauce, jostling the pan in an attempt to prevent the contents from burning. Peter was leaning against the kitchen island with a bottle of beer in hand, speaking animatedly to James, who stood by the sink with a tea towel over one shoulder, sleeves pushed up as he rinsed a knife under the tap. 

He looked over when Regulus came in. 

Of course he did. 

James Potter looking at a person had a way of becoming a greeting before he said anything. His face opened first, then his mouth. Another annoyance, really. 

“Hi,” Remus said from the stove, glancing up just long enough to catch his eye. “Wine’s open.”

“Thank you,” Regulus said as he entered the room fully, resting a hand on the countertop. 

Peter lifted his beer slightly. “Hi, mate.”

“Peter.” He nodded.

“Hi, Regulus,” James greeted, turning the tap off with his wrist and lowering the knife onto the drying rack. “Alright?”

Regulus let the pause sit a beat longer than politeness required. “Hello.”

James smiled as if Regulus had given him more than a single word. That was another one of the problems with him. He had never seemed particularly discouraged by scarcity.

Sirius pushed past Regulus towards Remus, handed the spoon over, then let his hand drop to Remus’s waist. “Here. Crisis averted.” 

Remus took it without looking at him, turning the gas off on the hob with his other hand. “Mhm.”

“You’re welcome.” 

“I didn’t say thank you.” 

Sirius considered that. “You’re welcome anyway.”

Remus’s mouth twitched up at the corner, stirring the sauce one handedly, the other coming up to lightly shove at Sirius’s shoulder. “Make yourself useful and get some plates out.”

Sirius sighed, letting his hand fall away from Remus. “You lot hear the way he speaks to me?”

Peter lifted his beer. “I’m staying out of it.”

James leaned beside the sink, head bent slightly, his glasses slipping lower on his nose before he pushed them back with the side of his wrist. “I can get the plates, if it helps.”

“James, don’t be stupid,” Remus said lightly, tapping the spoon against the rim of the saucepan. “He’s done nothing all day, he can set the table.”

Sirius looked offended enough that Regulus assumed most of it was a performance for the room. “I did things.”

“You watched me cook,” Remus said. 

Sirius made a small hum of objection. “I also stirred for a bit.”

“Then walked off with the spoon.”

James glanced between them, amused. “I really can just do it.”

“No,” Remus said, unbothered. “Sirius can manage plates.”

Regulus watched James; the brief hesitation as his attention flicked from Remus to Sirius, an insistence caught in his mouth. He seemed to weigh it, whether help would be useful or just a way of making himself the point, and then let it go. Not out of indifference. James rarely seemed indifferent to anything, which was also interesting.

Regulus looked for something else in it anyway, some quieter vanity or need to be seen doing well, because there had to be something. He found nothing worth examining before James laughed softly and stepped back from the counter.

Sirius turned his head slowly towards James in mock betrayal, sighing as he reached up and grabbed a stack of plates off of the bottom shelf of the cupboard. “Really?”

James only smiled as he grabbed the teatowel off of his shoulder and started to dry his hands. “I’m just going to stay out of it.”

“Smart man,” Remus said, still focused on the pan.

Peter tipped his beer towards James. “That’s why he’s got a degree.”

James glanced at him, eyebrow raised. “You’ve got the same degree.”

Regulus let the conversation move without him. He was vaguely aware of Peter saying something in response to that, but his attention had caught, briefly and irritatingly, on the strip of skin between James’s pushed-up sleeve and the tea towel in his hand. The flex of his forearm as he rubbed water from his fingers. A clean, practical motion. Nothing worth thinking about.

So Regulus stopped thinking about it.

He instead took a step forward and reached past James for the wine bottle sitting near the end of the counter. James shifted at once, making room without fuss.

“Sorry,” James said. 

“You do that a lot.” Regulus said lightly as he picked up the bottle and pretended to examine the label with more focus than was necessary, trying to ignore the fact that he could still see James out of the corner of his eye. 

James glanced at him, face pinched slightly in confusion. “Move?”

“Apologise.” He answered, working the stopper out of the mouth of the already uncorked bottle and placing it on the counter. 

Peter made a quiet noise into his beer. Remus had lowered the pan back onto the heat, leaving it at a simmer, glancing briefly at Sirius, who had stopped with one plate still in his hand, eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly at Regulus. 

James did not seem offended. That was annoying. He only leaned back against the counter and gave Regulus an easy, thoughtful sort of look, as if the comment had been offered in better faith than it had. “Do I?”

“Yes.” 

“I’ll try to keep it under control.” James said, moving to the stove and reaching awkwardly around Remus to hand the tea towel over the handle of the oven door. 

Regulus hummed skeptically, moving to the cupboard and pulling out a wine glass, setting it on the counter while keeping one hand on the stem. “You do that.”

Sirius turned properly then, plate forgotten. “Reg.”

Regulus glanced up at him briefly, reaching for the bottle again. “What?”

James laughed, low and surprised enough to be genuine. It irritated Regulus far more than offence would have. Offence was understandable. Offence placed the other person exactly where Regulus intended them.

James only looked amused, and perhaps a little interested. 

“That bad, am I?” James asked, a slight teasing lilt to his words.

Regulus poured a measure of wine into his glass, one shoulder lifting in a shrug. “It’s unnecessary, that’s all.”

James tilted his head, still looking at him. “Noted.”

“Good,” Regulus said, and set the bottle down calmly. 

James looked down, but was still smiling. Warmly, because he seemed to do everything warmly unless prevented by force. It was difficult to look at directly. Regulus took a drink of wine, more to occupy himself than because he wanted any.

The kitchen carried on around him, Remus cracked the oven open and declared dinner would be done in around five minutes. Sirius gathered cutlery too loudly, dropping them in messy piles on the countertop while talking to Peter. James, lacking anything obvious to do, began clearing discarded packaging from the counter.

James made being helpful look as easy as breathing, like he just couldn’t help himself from assisting wherever possible, and expected nobody to even notice. It was simply another good thing about him. 

“You don’t have to tidy,” Remus said to James, though he already sounded half-resigned. “I can get it later.”

“May as well,” He shrugged dismissively, moving towards the bin with his hands full of various rubbish from the tabletop. “I’m just standing here otherwise.” 

“See?” Sirius said, gesturing at James with a spoon. “That’s the problem. He makes the rest of us look bad.”

“You do just fine at that without his help,” Regulus said, swirling the wine in his glass idly. 

Sirius looked at him, a flicker of sharpness in his eyes despite the easy inflection of his voice. “Reg, come help me set the table.”

“A please really wouldn’t kill you, you know.” Regulus responded dryly, echoing Sirius's own words from the intercom back to him with a faint smile. 

Sirius’s mouth twitched, but the set of his shoulders did not quite match it.

Regulus knew him well enough to notice. He took another sip of wine, let the pause stretch just long enough to be irritating, then pushed himself away from the counter. “Fine.”

Sirius started towards the dining area, carrying a pile of plates against his chest, a few knives rattling on top of them, then jerked his chin for Regulus to follow. Regulus did, scooping up a pile of forks in the hand that wasn’t around his wine.

The dining table sat in the small amount of empty space in the sitting room, pushed out from the wall for the extra chairs to fit around it. The table was too small for five people. Regulus set the forks down on it as Sirius placed a plate with unnecessary force then leaned closer to him without looking.

“I told you not to start,” Sirius muttered quietly, voice low enough that nobody from the kitchen would be able to hear. “And to not be a prick. Literally just those two things. You’ve managed both within minutes.”

Regulus set his wine down on the placemat of the setting closest to the wall by way of claiming the space. “I’m not starting.”

“Fine. Sure.” Sirius allowed as he put another plate down. “But you were being a prick.” 

Regulus absently shifted the plate to the centre of the mat. “Was I?”

“You told him to stop apologising.”

“No,” Regulus corrected mildly as he lined up a fotk with the edge of a plate. "I just said that he does it too often.”

Sirius turned his head, eyes narrowed.

Regulus held his gaze. “He does.”

Sirius’s face changed, just slightly. Regulus had seen that look before, whenever he had made a comment about James that Sirius could find any trace of a negative connotation in. Not because Sirius could not bear criticism of him. Sirius criticised James enough himself, loudly, often flippantly. From Regulus, it landed differently, apparently. Sirius heard a threat in it, even when Regulus had not bothered to make one.

Peter came in with a bowl of salad before Sirius could reply, holding it away from his shirt. “Where am I putting this?”

“Middle,” Sirius said, tearing his eyes away from Regulus and schooling his face back into something light. It was near impressive how quickly he was able to do so. 

Peter looked down at the table. “It’s a tiny table. Everything’s the middle.”

“Then anywhere’s fine.”

Peter set it down precariously close to the edge. “Done.”

James followed soon after Peter, with cups in one hand and a jug of water in the other. “Remus said I need to make sure there's space on the table for the food.”

Sirius took the glasses from him, setting them out. “There is.”

Regulus lowered himself into the chair before the place he had selected, lifting his wine and taking a sip. 

“Barely,” James tutted, placing the jug next to the salad bowl before reaching to shift the placemats closer to the edges of the table. “You know plates aren’t the only part of dinner, yeah?”

Sirius laughed under his breath, sitting at the head of the table. “Fuck off.”

James smiled at him pertly as he settled into the seat directly across from Regulus. “Love you too, mate.”

The words, even said playfully, seemed to hit some private place in Sirius. Regulus saw it in the way the last of the tension loosened from his shoulders, in the faint pull at the corner of his mouth before he looked away. Most people would have missed it. Sirius made an art of being obvious about the harmless things so nobody thought to look too closely at anything else. 

Regulus had spent too long knowing him to be fooled by that. 

He knew the versions of Sirius his brother had tried to starve out of himself. He knew the boy who had taken what he loved into both hands and held too tightly, as though force might prevent loss. James moved around him as if he had known all of that for years and had made peace with it. 

Remus came in with a shallow serving dish of chicken in the sauce he’d been making, sleeves pushed up, face still slightly flushed from the stove. “Shift those glasses back a bit.” 

James did so before anyone else moved. 

“Thanks,” Remus said, setting the dish down between the salad and the bread. Sirius shifted the wine bottle out of the way before Remus had to ask.

Remus sat down in the chair on Sirius’s left, who shifted his own chair, making space with the distracted familiarity of someone who had done it too often to think about. Sirius’s arm came to rest on the back of Remus’s chair.

The table was too full. Bread near the edge, the salad wedged beside the jug. The wine sat too close to Sirius’s elbow since he moved it. Peter’s beer left a wet ring on the wood within thirty seconds of him sitting down. There were too many people reaching to serve themselves food and passing dishes that Regulus was honestly quite surprised that nothing ended up on the floor. He waited until everyone but Remus had finished plating their meals before reaching for the serving spoon. 

James reached across Peter for the water jug, murmuring a quick apology as he did. His sleeve pulled up at the wrist as he filled his glass. Regulus kept his attention fixed on his plate.

“Oh, also been meaning to ask,” Remus began, half-rising from his chair as he reached for the salad bowl, looking at James and Peter. “When are you two off next?”

“I’m working Sunday. Only an eight hour shift though, so not too bad, really.” Peter said with a shrug, picking up his beer and tilting it pointedly at James. “He’s been an idiot though.”

James set the jug down, glancing at Peter. “Really?”

“You picked up nights, James.” Peter stated, face creased in disgust. “By choice.”

Sirius glanced at James incredulously and removed his arm from the back of Remus’s chair as he leaned forward. “Why would you do that?”

“Honestly, night shifts aren’t that bad.” James huffed, shaking his head with a suppressed smile. “Alice asked me to cover. She can’t do them, because of, like, something with her son, I think? It’s really not a big deal. It’s only three shifts.”

Regulus glanced at him over the rim of his glass. James looked genuinely unconcerned, which Regulus found either admirable or irritating. It was difficult to tell which.

“Can’t believe you’re leaving me to do days all alone.” Peter mumbled into the mouth of his beer bottle. “You should’ve just told her you couldn’t cover.” 

“But I can, though, and I’m sure you’ll survive.” James shrugged, cutting into his food, turning his attention back to Remus. “What made you ask?”

Remus placed the salad tongs back into the bowl. “Oh, I was just wondering if you’d want to go to that new bar near Soho at some point next week.”

“Hm,” James hummed in thought, looking slightly guilty. “Probably not next week, honestly, sorry. I’m working Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, so doesn’t really leave much time for, well, anything.”

Peter stared at him, taking a bite of his food. “Are all three shifts twelves then?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s vile.”

James shrugged, taking a drink of water. “It’s fine. I can do the week after, though. Would be fun. Or maybe next Sunday?”

“Nah, you’re going to be dead by Sunday, mate,” Peter said. “And probably awful to speak to. We’ll do week after.”

James gaped in mock-offense, a hand pressed over his chest. “I’m never awful to speak to.”  

Sirius made a small, amused noise at that. “Steady on, Prongs.”

Regulus lowered his eyes to his plate at the nickname.

He had heard them for years. Moony. Padfoot. Prongs. Wormtail. Regulus had never asked where they came from, and he was not going to ask now. Still, the question had remained there, small and undignified, because surely no reasonable man allowed himself to be called Wormtail without some sort of story behind it.

"What?" James glanced at Sirius, smiling jovially. “You love speaking to me.”

“Full of yourself, aren’t you?” Sirius jabbed back without any heat, taking a bite of salad.

James only grinned and turned his attention back to Remus. “Week after next, then. I’m off Monday and Wednesday, I think. Might be off on the weekend as well, but don’t hold me to that. I’ll have to check.”

“Okay, great,” Remus acknowledged. “We’ll go with Friday for now?" 

"Friday works," Peter said eagerly. "Think I'm mostly working the same shifts as James that week, so should be good if he is." 

Sirius hummed around a mouthful of food, nodding.

"Friday, then.” James said. “Actually, wait, let me check the rota first, just to make sure before we start actually planning stuff." He reached to pull out his phone from his pocket, and in doing so, had to shift his leg in a way that made his knee knock against Regulus's under the table.

It was an accident. Obviously.

The table was too small for five people, and James was too tall to fit anywhere unobtrusively. His knees had already been angled awkwardly beneath the table with one of his shoulders slightly turned to avoid Peter’s elbow, his glass tucked close to his plate because there was nowhere else for it to go. So, clearly, the contact meant nothing.

Still, it lasted a second longer than it needed to.

James was looking down at his phone, thumb moving across the screen, brows drawn in concentration. His knee remained against Regulus’s, warm through the fabric, steady enough that Regulus became aware of the exact point of contact in a way that was utterly impossible to ignore.

It lasted perhaps five seconds.

It felt longer.

Then James’s knee pressed more firmly against his before he immediately shifted his leg back, gaze snapping from his phone to Regulus. “Sorry.”

“And again with the apologising,” Regulus said coolly, his expression carefully blank. The contact had already vanished and left him more aware of its absence than he cared for. Across the table, Sirius’s attention cut to him at once, sharp enough to be felt despite the fact Regulus was not looking at him. “There’s not a lot of room. It’s fine.”

James blinked at him, then smiled. “Right, yeah. Sorry.”

Regulus’s eyebrow raised. 

James huffed a quiet laugh and shook his head, dropping his gaze back to his phone. “I heard it. I’ll work on that.”

“You won’t,” Sirius said to James, though his eyes flickered over Regulus once, quickly, annoyance flashing in his eyes before he looked away. 

“Probably not,” James agreed absentmindedly, squinting at his screen. “Okay, wait, yeah. That Friday works. I’m off. So you probably are too, Pete. Still check, though.”

“I’ll look in the morning,” Peter said, waving a hand dismissively. 

James glanced up. “You’ll definitely forget.”

“I definitely won’t,” Peter retorted, spearing a piece of chicken with his fork. “I remember important things. Like, I’m working tomorrow, and I can remember that, just off-dome. That reassure you?”

“It really doesn’t, actually.” James replied. 

Peter opened his mouth, presumably to defend himself, then seemed to think better of it and returned to his food. James put his phone face down beside his plate and reached for his glass, the matter settled as far as he seemed concerned.

The conversation carried on easily after the plans seemed to be solidified, shifting from one topic to another without much effort or reason. It filled the space between them, and Regulus let it wash past him, sitting back and thinking.

His attention, annoyingly, kept returning beneath the table.

There had been no reason to think of it. No reason at all. James’s knee had touched his because there was no space, then had stayed because James had been distracted and possibly hadn’t even realised, then moved away when he had. It had not been charged with intention. It was scarcely an event. 

Still, Regulus could recall the exact warmth of him.

That was pathetic.

He took a slow drink of wine and made himself tune into what Peter was saying about a new medical student who recently started his rotation in A&E, who had apparently started making life incredibly difficult for the nurses as he thinks he outranks them all. James leaned into the conversation, an amused smile played at his lips as he occasionally chimed in with his own additions to the story. Sirius listened intently and laughed far too hard after hearing the student had cried after the charge nurse, Mcgonagall, had told him to stop patronising her staff. Remus was half-listening as he began stacking empty serving spoons into one dish and then, as if aware of himself, stopped trying to tidy the table before anyone had finished eating.

Regulus found his concentration drifting again after Peter repeated his point for the third time, simply phrased differently. 

James’s hand rested near his glass. Large, warm-brown littered with small, silvery scars running along some of his fingers. His fingers drummed against the table softly as Peter spoke. 

Regulus looked away, discontented with his inability to keep his attention off of James tonight.

He truly had more self-respect than this. Presumably.

He forced his attention back to his plate. 

The rest of dinner passed without asking much of him. Peter’s story exhausted itself eventually, somewhere between the medical student calling McGonagall ‘love’ and James adding that she had made him leave the department for the day after the fact. Sirius enjoyed that more than was strictly necessary. Remus told him he was too pleased by other people’s suffering, and Sirius laughed it off.

Regulus ate the rest of his food between sips of wine and let the conversation move around him.

Eventually, plates emptied. Peter leaned back first, making a low, satisfied sound, Sirius reached for the last of the bread, and Remus pushed the plate closer for him. James laughed at something Remus said, already gathering his plate and Peter’s.

“I can get that,” Remus said, putting down his now-empty wine glass.

“Yeah, so can I.” James stood, stacking the plates against his forearm. “You cooked, Moony. Just sit down for thirty seconds.”

Remus gave him a look. “James.”

“You cooked, it’s just some plates,” James shrugged, scooping up Peter's unused spoon from the table. “And thank you for cooking, by the way, it was lovely.”

Remus looked to Sirius imploringly, but he simply shrugged, his mouth full of bread. Remus shook his head fondly, focusing back on James. “It’s no problem, Prongs.”

James smiled, continuing to collect and stack dishes, piling cutlery into the empty serving dish.

Regulus looked down at his own plate. Staying seated suddenly felt too still. He picked up his plate and glass, standing up.

Sirius glanced at him, almost surprised. “You don’t have to.”

“I’m aware.” Regulus replied, walking through to the kitchen.

The room was empty when Regulus entered, which was good. He set his plate beside the sink and reached for the tap. The water ran too hard at first, hitting the basin with a noise that drowned out the voices from the dining room. Regulus rinsed his plate, then found the sponge and began washing properly.

He was rinsing his glass when James came in with the rest of the plates balanced in both hands.

Of course.

James paused at the doorway. “Oh. I can do that, if you want.”

Regulus glanced at him. “I can manage.”

James’s mouth twitched. “I’m sure.”

He came further in, setting the plates down on the side. The kitchen was narrow enough that even with both of them keeping a reasonable distance, the space had to account for James. He stood close to the counter, sleeves still pushed up, hair a little messier than it was before dinner. He was close enough that Regulus smelled the faint traces of his aftershave.

“Do you want help, though?” James asked, shifting the stack of dirty plates a bit closer. “I can dry things.”

Regulus handed him the wet glass rather than answering. James took it, found the tea towel, and began drying.

They worked like that for a little while. Regulus washing. James drying. It should have felt ridiculous, but it didn’t. Or perhaps it did and Regulus was too aware of the line of James beside him to properly resent the situation. Their shoulders did not touch. Their hands occasionally came close and then did not. Each avoided contact with such unremarkable precision that Regulus noticed it more than he would have noticed any actual touch.

The voices from the other room grew softer as the conversation shifted away from them. Peter said something indistinct. Sirius laughed. Remus replied, lower than the others.

James set a dried plate on the counter. “You really don’t like me, do you?”

Regulus looked at him, startled despite himself at the blatantness of the question.

James’s tone was easy. He was smiling a little, enough to make the question be passed as a joke if Regulus chose to treat it that way, yet there was a quality beneath it that stopped Regulus from answering too quickly. He did not sound as though he wanted to be reassured.

Regulus turned off the tap.

The sudden absence of water made the kitchen feel smaller.

“You’ve known me for years,” Regulus said carefully. “Why bother asking now?”

James held his gaze for a beat, then looked down at the glass in his hand and dried the rim with careful attention. “I don’t know.”

Regulus did not believe him.

That was the problem. Or part of it. With almost anyone else, he would have known where to place the answer. Deflection, honesty. James offered him none of the usual handles. His face remained open enough to appear harmless, his voice still mild, but there was something withheld in him. Something not concealed exactly, because concealment usually left more obvious tells. James was not easy to catch in the act of hiding.

He simply became unreadable at the exact moments Regulus most wanted to read him.

“You don’t know,” Regulus repeated.

James looked back at him, the smile still there, lighter now. “Maybe I was curious.”

“Curious.” Regulus repeated again, lost for how to navigate this. “You were curious.”

“Yeah,” James shrugged, placing the glass on the drying rack. “It’s fine if you don’t, y’know, like me. I’m not for everyone.”

It was a very James answer. But still, just short of yielding anything meaningful.

Regulus hated it.

He hated more that, in the last few years, James had become the only person in most rooms he particularly wanted to understand. His brother was difficult to read on occasion, but Sirius was someone Regulus knew innately. His friends were more unpredictable for the most part, but Regulus’s friends were all relatively honest people when it mattered, so there wasn’t often a lot of reading between the lines to be done, apart from with Barty. His brother’s people were easy to read, as most of them were very set on amicability around Regulus, and that gave away more than he suspected they knew. 

James however, was perhaps the only person Regulus has ever been completely unable to grasp. His warmth gave the impression of access while offering very little certainty at all. He felt like a door no one but Regulus had noticed was locked. 

He wondered if anybody really knew James. 

Regulus turned the tap back on and reached for another plate. “Curiosity doesn’t suit you.”

James laughed softly. “What does that mean?”

“It isn’t a compliment.”

“I gathered.”

“Good.”

James accepted the next plate from him. Their fingers brushed then, very lightly. Barely enough to count. James did not react beyond shifting his grip on the plate, and Regulus found himself irritated by the restraint of that too.

“Does it bother you?” James asked as he dried the plate and set it down.

Regulus glanced at him. “What?”

“That I ask.”

“No.”

James nodded once. “Alright then.”

Again, that sense of him taking something from the answer without revealing what it was. It sat in the slight dip of his chin, the way his smile faded and returned, not in full force but near enough. Regulus had the unpleasant certainty that James had understood… something. 

It was intolerable to be interpreted and not told the result. Regulus was used to studying other people, and was starting to rapidly realise he did not like being on the receiving end of perception.

Before Regulus could decide whether to say anything else, Sirius appeared in the doorway, an empty wine bottle hanging loosely from one hand.

“Nearly done?” He asked, walking further into the room and placing the bottle on the counter beside the bin instead of in it. 

James turned, still drying a knife. “Yeah, want us to put it away or just leave it?”

“Just leave it,” Sirius hummed, leaning his back against the countertop. “I’ll sort it later.”

“You sure?” James asked.

Sirius gave him a weary look, and James laughed, putting the knife with the rest of the clean cutlery. 

“Thanks for doing that though, you two.” Sirius said, pushing away from the counter. 

“No worries,” James said, wringing the teatowel in his hands while waiting for Regulus to pass him the last piece to dry. “Wouldn’t get done if it was left to you, would it?”

Sirius huffed, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

Regulus passed James the last fork to dry. “You’re welcome.”

Sirius’s eyes flicked to him. “You won’t usually wash up here.”

“No.” Regulus agreed, walking passed the two of them towards the living room before Sirius could follow that up with anything.

James laughed under his breath as he did, and Regulus looked down before he could watch the expression properly. 

He did not stay much longer after that. James and Sirius followed him into the living room, where the evening had reached the stage where everyone was completely relaxed, everyone sprawled across furniture, content to just exist in one anothers’ company. The other four easily orbited one another, as usual. James held himself easily, the kitchen apparently folded away behind him, no trace of the question left on his face.

Regulus listened from the edge of the room and disliked the fact that his mind was lingering on what James had said.

He left before another bottle of wine could be opened and he would find himself staying later than intended.

Sirius stood when Regulus did, following him. “I’ll walk you down.”

Regulus walked towards the hook where his coat was hung. “I know where the door is.”

“Yeah, well, so do I.” Sirius said casually, grinning. “We’ll make a trip of it.”

Regulus exhaled softly, but did not argue further. It tended to be redundant with Sirius. 

Remus looked over from the sofa. “Bye, Regulus.”

Peter lifted a hand without moving his head from the back of the armchair. “Night, mate.”

Regulus nodded to both, pulling on his coat. “Goodnight.”

James was standing near the doorway, hands in his pockets, expression easy. “Night.”

Regulus looked at him. James looked back, and for one brief, infuriating moment, Regulus was desperate to see something more in his expression than the usual friendliness. He couldn’t.

“Goodnight.” 

James’s mouth curved slightly. “See you.”

Sirius stepped into the hall, and Regulus followed, the door to the apartment closed behind them as they started down the stairs. For half a flight, neither spoke.

Then Sirius said, “You were a bit of a twat tonight.”

“Really?” Regulus glanced at him.

“Yeah,” Sirius hummed, reaching up to card a hand through his hair distractedly. “Not as bad as I thought you’d be, all things considered.” 

Regulus almost smiled. Almost.

Sirius shoved his hands into his pockets as they turned onto the next flight. His hair had come loose from its tie in several places, and without the flat around him, without James or Remus or Peter to throw himself against, he looked less… assembled. Sirius, without a further audience to perform for, tended to be more recognisable to Regulus as the boy he grew up with. 

“It was nice that you came,” Sirius said.

Regulus looked ahead. “You invited me.”

“Still.” Sirius shrugged.

“It was dinner.” Regulus stated, glancing at his brother once. “There’s no need to make it a big deal.”

“Maybe it is.”

“Sirius.”

“What?” Sirius’s voice stayed light. “I like you being there. Sue me.”

Regulus did not answer immediately.

The stairwell light hummed above them. Somewhere on the ground floor, a television played behind a closed door. Regulus watched his own feet move down another step.

“It was fine,” he said.

Sirius gave him a sidelong look. “Careful. You’ll overwhelm me.”

They reached the next landing. Sirius slowed rather than continuing straight down.

“Would you think about coming?” He asked, elaborating when Regulus looked at him blankly. “The week after next, to the bar with us?”

Regulus considered him.

Sirius leaned one shoulder against the wall in a way that seemed casual, but there was a hopefulness to him he had not quite managed to bury. Muted beneath the indifference, but still there. Sirius had always been poor at wanting quietly when Regulus knew where to look.

“You don’t usually invite me to places like that,” Regulus said.

“I know.”

“And I don’t usually like going to them.”

“I know that too.”

Regulus frowned slightly. “Then why ask?”

Sirius’s mouth twisted. “Because I’m annoying.”

Regulus could have refused plainly. It would have been simpler. He did not want to go to the bar. He did not want to stand in a loud room with Sirius’s friends, where there would be James’s hands and James’s questions and James’s irritating, unreadable face. He did not want Sirius watching him watch anyone.

But Sirius was standing there trying to look as though the answer did not matter.

“I’ll think about it.” Regulus said, knowing he likely would not go, but not particularly having the energy right now to disappoint him. 

Sirius blinked. “Yeah?”

“I said I’ll think about it.” 

“Not a no,” Sirius noted. “So, better than I thought I’d get.

“It’s not not a no either, don’t forget.”

Sirius smiled, small and badly hidden. “I won’t.”

“I probably won’t go.”

“Probably,” Sirius admitted, and started down again. “Not definitely, though.”

At the front door, he stopped with one hand on the frame while Regulus stepped beneath the shallow overhang. The rain had thickened, turning the streetlamps soft around the edges.

“See you later.” Sirius said, clapping his shoulder softly before withdrawing his hand. Then, quieter, “I meant it, what I said. It was nice that you came.”

Regulus looked at him.

There were old things between them that made gratitude difficult. Love too, though neither of them would have used the word casually. Still, Sirius stood there with his hair loose and his face open by degrees, waiting.

Regulus said, “Goodnight, Sirius.”

Sirius accepted that. “Night, Reg.”

The door shut behind him.

Regulus had intended to walk, but the rain was steady now, and the tube station at the end of the road glowed, so he turned towards it. By the time he reached the entrance, his coat was damp and the ends of his hair clung coldly near his face. He paused only long enough to let a woman with an umbrella pass, then descended with the small crowd, lost in thought once again.

Good people. Bad people.

The categories remained useless. Sirius had called him ‘a bit of a twat’, and was also pleased he had come. Sirius had gotten annoyed with him quietly every time Regulus so much as looked at James sideways, yet still invited him out with them. None of it sat neatly, but yet again, nothing real ever did. 

Then there was James.

James, who gave so little away by seeming to give so much, whose warmth appeared effortless enough to be believed. James, who had asked a simple question in a quiet kitchen and made Regulus feel, for one suspended moment, as though the observed had looked back at the observer. 

Perhaps there was a seam after all.

Not coldness, but the smallest break in the surface, enough to suggest there was something underneath worth finding.

Regulus reached the platform as the train pulled in, wind pushing damp hair back from his face. The doors opened. He stepped inside with the rest of the crowd and found a place near the glass.

You really don’t like me, do you?

Regulus looked at his reflection in the dark window. His mouth curved before he could stop it.

No, he thought, as the doors slid shut.

That was not the problem at all.

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