When the Sun and Stars Unite (Jegulus Oneshots)

The Star, Reversed

Regulus Black had never felt insecure about his hidden feelings for his brother's best friend. He had achieved something of mastery in pretending his problems simply did not exist, that was, until the night everything turned upside down.

Until the night Regulus Black crawled into bed with James Potter.

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I.

Regulus padded around the worn hallway runner, freezing like an animal illuminated in a sudden light at the soft creak that issued from beneath his foot. Sucking in his breath, he eased off the floorboard and tested the others, leaving a sizable gap between the wood that had betrayed him.

It had only been a few nights at the Potter's, and Regulus had yet to learn all the old-age secrets filling the crevices of the home. Not to say that he wasn't a remarkably fast learner, though. For example, he had found that you may find your shoelaces inconveniently untied after passing too close to the credenza near the kitchen, and that the fourth stair creaked in the middle, but not to the left.

The cool night air of the sleeping house nipped at his shoulders that were left exposed by the loose tank he wore. A faded outline of some glam rock band Sirius probably knew better than he did decorated the front. Listening to his pulse throbbing through his ears—only amplified by the heavy silence—he widened his eyes to take in more of his dark surroundings.
He stepped over the soft carpeted floor near the banister he knew would bow beneath his weight. For the most part, it had taken him less than a night to learn the inner workings of the upstairs.

It was a second nature to him, to behave so. An impulse that had been long ingrained by the necessity to disappear, to slip from crowded rooms without a trace, to pass as a spectre without stirring the walls that spat his name back out at him.

In front of a tall white door, he stilled.

It had been left barely ajar, as though the occupant welcomed all even in sleep. The shadowed entryway enticed his gaze, and he found himself inching closer toward the darkness. Regulus placed one socked-foot closer before becoming incapacitated with the sudden inability to move, think, or breathe as one ought to. A sudden wave of distilled fear washed over at the nape of his neck. Turn back, he breathed, in spite of the hand that had jolted forward to ease the door open further before he could put a stop to it.

The gentle groan the hinges gave awoke him from his trace with a jolt, and he snapped his hand back as though the door had been red-hot moments before. He retracted his final pace, before turning tail to leave. Almost as soon as he had relented eye-contact with the door, a murmur pierced the unnerving quiet of the hall.

"Reg?"

He waited, one beat, two beats.

"Reggie?"

Fuck.

He paced back, sliding his fingers gingerly around the now half-opened door, and peered into the dark room from where he was still half hidden.

"Hey you," James' voice, still laced with sleep, was low and cracked. "What're you hiding for?"

Regulus staggered into the room, unfamiliar with the layout.

James frowned and leant over to the nightstand, tossing his hair from his face. He pushed on his glasses before shoving down the blankets from where they tangled around his plaid pajama pants.

"Don't." Regulus crossed the room swiftly to stop the other boy from getting out of bed. "It's alright, I just," the moonlight streamed in from the window, pooling in the lines between James' bare stomach and exposed hip bones, "couldn't sleep."