It all started with a racoon || jegulus

Chapter 9

It's 7am and it's way colder than it should.

There aren't that many people outside, the streets are quiet, and Regulus finds comfort in that.

He breathes onto his hands, trying to warm up a bit. How is it still cold even if it's already April?

He's been standing on his doorsteps for a while now, and as time passes, he wonders if maybe he's forgotten about it.

After all, they do have a pretty full day scheduled.

He considers walking alone, and just when he's about to, he sits back down on his doorsteps.

He decides to put aside his worries and trust him.

A few minutes pass by before a familiar red pick-up stops before him, the even more familiar smiling guy at the wheel.

James Potter turns off the engine and reaches out to open the passenger door.

"Hey there sunshine."

Regulus replies with a scoff, standing up from where he was sitting, approaching the truck.

"You're-" he switches on his phone's screen to check the time, "-ten minutes late, Snowhite."

James furrows his brows and look down on his SpongeBob-themed wristwatch, "That's not true, it's only six minutes past 7."

"I approximated."

"That- Sure, okay, whatever you say, Reg." replies James, shaking his head, a smirk on his face.

Regulus smiles inside, knowing he's won yet another battle, as he hops on the passenger seat. The moment he secures the seatbelt, James starts the engine and they're ready to go.

They spend most of the drive in a comfortable silence, rock music at low volume coming from the radio that was now fixed, before one of them talked.

"You know," James starts, briefly looking over to Regulus, "just because you called me James once it doesn't mean you can't call me like that ever again."

Regulus focuses his look on the trees out of the window, trying to avoid the conversation.

Because, well, it's embarrassing.

He had started calling him Snowhite as a joke, because of all the animals he had brought to the shelter, but now he liked how James reacted to it.

Regulus didn't exactly know why or how, but James had power over him. He could put him at comfort, in a way nobody could ever do. He could make him feel relaxed, not a worry in
his thoughts anymore. Which was weird, and Regulus definitely wasn't used to this. Not with someone he barely knew.

After what had happened when him and Sirius were little, Regulus had sworn to himself to always be the one in control of his life. Everything that had happened since then had happened because he had wanted it to.

But James wasn't planned, he had decided to enter his life without a warning. Which, okay, Regulus wasn't the one to complain for this. He actually kind of liked the guy, not that he would ever admit it to himself. But he made him feel things he wasn't used to feel. Feel things he didn't want to feel.

So, yes, his spiteful self wanted to keep calling him the wrong way, just to make him see who really was in charge.

The fact that calling him James made him feel butterflies in his stomach definitely wasn't the reason.

Not at all.

After what felt hours, but probably was minutes, he turns back to James.

He's focused on the street, as he should, but Regulus can see the wrinkle he has between his eyebrows. The one that only comes out when he thinks too much. The overthinker.

He sighs.

"I know," at his reply James looks at him briefly before pulling over in the shelter's parking lot, "but it's way too much fun calling you like this, "

As he says so, Regulus frees himself of the seatbelt and opens the passenger's door.

But before leaving the vehicle and entering the building, he turns back to face the other.