KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU ⇒ jegulus one shots

OF BATHTUBS, BLOODLINES AND BURDENS

James quietly creeps into the apartment at about six in the morning. It's been a particularly gruelling night. He wants to sleep for the next two weeks straight and he doesn't feel at all like that's an exaggeration.

He and Remus had essentially been on a wild goose case, the Death Eaters managing to coax them into trailing their scent for hours on end only to be produced with no result of finding their location.

James slowly manages to make it to the bedroom, although he seriously debates just passing out on the couch, and he's grimy and sweaty and dirty but something strikes him that makes his heart skip a beat.

Regulus is not in their bed.

Jamss blinks a few times, processing this. A scenario pops into his head: their relationship is already public knowledge anyway, their baby known to the wizarding world.

The only conclusion his mind will screech at him is that Regulus has been kidnapped by some crazed Death Eater and is being held over a vat of acid potion as he stands in their bedroom.

The idea is enough to keep him from dropping into the sleep coma he so desperately desires.

James keeps himself perfectly still and listens for anything, any indication of Regulus presence within their small apartment. It becomes hard for him to tell if the little noises in the apartment are normal or if they're supposed to be telling him something.

With a beating heart, James wanders into the kitchen with suspicious eyes. The sight makes his heart drop altogether.

There's blood in the kitchen and bloody footprints staggering out.

James' heart in his throat. He follows the trail. "Reg?" he calls finally, and hears a groan and the sloshing of water as he approaches the bathroom. He feels his heart drop back to where it's supposed to be at the soft groan.

The door is ajar, a smear of red on the frame. Jamss is doing his best to remain calm, but coming home to find blood with the kind of life he lives is generally a very, very bad sign. James pushes the door open and finds Regulus in the bathtub, the water swirled with red.

James has to swallow to speak. "Regulus...Reg, what happened? Are you okay? Please be okay." He whispers softly.

Regulus eyes are closed against his pale cheeks and James is two seconds from checking his pulse when Regulus nods slowlu.

"Yeah," He replies. "Just peachy." His voice is low and scratchy. James wonders if he's been crying.

"But the-" James suddenly, extremely distinctly remembers Regukus threatening to remove their baby one night in a tired, frustrated panic.

He hadn't meant it, James swears he hadn't, Regulus promised he hadn't. But Remus had warned James that babies seem to throw the Black brothers for a loop, they tend to spiral and seemingly go berserk, Remus and James had briefly theorized that their hazy, cruel upbringing made their thoughts overpower their love for their husbands.

Sirius had all but lost his mind while Remus carried their first born but now, three babies in, he seemed to cope better, significantly better, with the idea of three smaller humans attached to him for the rest of his life.

James understands. He knows how hard his best friend and his husband's lives must've been growing up. He's talked to Regulus about it before, he had managed to coax a reply about it all. Regulus had simply murmured with a hoarse voice that it's hard for him to separate family from abuse.

Regulus had so quietly uttered that he finds it difficult to associate James and their baby as his family because when the idea of a family enters his pretty head, he sees flying hexes and cold screams and inferiority.