Late
Regulus walked through the front door, slipping off his shoes and placing them in the cubby beside James’. He made his way to the kitchen, where a plate of food sat under a stasis charm. He glanced over the oven to read the clock.
12:53
A pang of guilt settled in Regulus’ stomach. He had been working his way out of the hospital when a group of aurors were apparated into the emergency station. Regulus jumped in, helping where he could. He had spent hours testing for broken bones and concussions, helping run potions and relocate patients, unaware of the time passing. When things finally calmed down, Pandora shooed him out the building, assuring him they had it under control. In all the chaos he hadn’t thought to phone James; the poor man had probably been worried.
Regulus sighed and ate a bit of the food, knowing James would want him to eat after a long shift. He then headed to the bathroom and quickly showered, slowly beginning to feel the exhaustion of his day. Regulus then carefully slid into their bedroom, making his way to his wardrobe. He silently rummaged through the mess James called tidiness, pulling out an old pair of his husbands’ joggers that no longer fit the older man and a plain t-shirt. He quietly padded over to the bed, gently sitting on the edge while he pulled on his socks.
As subtly as he could, the younger man slid into bed and under the covers. Regulus thought he had successfully avoided waking his lover when a strong arm curled around his waist and pulled him closer. He felt a pair of soft lips press against the base of his neck and shivered lightly at the touch.
“I didn’t mean to wake you mon chéri. Go back to sleep love,” Regulus whispered, hoping the man was already fast asleep. He placed a hand on the arm circling his torso, idly tracing the tattoo he knew was there out of habit.
“s’okay. I missed you,” James mumbled in return.
“I missed you too darling. I’ll tell you all about what kept me away in the morning,” Regulus replied with a yawn.
James hummed in response, pulling Regulus closer and tangling their legs.
“I love you,” James cooed, and it took Regulus a moment to decipher what his sleepy husband had mumbled.
“I love you too mon chéri,” Regulus sighed contentedly, letting his exhaustion take over. The two men drifted off to sleep, a mess of tangled limbs.
—
When Regulus began to stir the next morning, the first thing he noticed was the bed was empty and cold. He could hear the sizzling of a pan in the distance and the humming of his lover. The younger man smiled to himself, making his way out of bed and towards the kitchen. He leaned against the door frame, taking in the sight before him.
James was facing the stove, slightly dancing while humming a tune Regulus couldn’t quite place. His hair was a mess like usual, and his black t-shirt was pulled tight against his skin. The older man had two plates set up, with pieces of toast and eggs already on them. Regulus smiled, making his way further into the kitchen, stopping behind his husband and snaking his arms around the man.
“Good morning my love” James beamed, and Regulus could picture the grin he knew appeared on his husband’s face.
“Bonjour mon amour” Regulus replied, his voice muffled in the back of James’ shirt.
The older man let out a soft chuckle, and quickly plated the rest of the food. He turned off the stove, and moved the hot pan to the back burners. Regulus reluctantly moved away from James, shuffling to a bench around the kitchen island. James gently placed their plates down on the counter and headed to the shouting tea kettle. He poured the boiling water into two mugs, throwing in tea bags and returning to the island. Regulus enjoyed watching James work around the kitchen. At first he didn’t understand why the other man did everything manually, but slowly became accustomed to it.
“So, what great adventure did you go on yesterday?” James inquired as he sat across from Regulus.
Regulus felt the pang of guilt rush up his throat but quickly dissipate when he saw James’ smile.
“I was heading home, I was basically out the door when a heap of aurors came in. They had a bad accident apparently, it took me a while to piece together what had happened. Something to do with a huge explosion of sorts, I’m sure we’ll see it on the news. I was helping test for broken bones and concussions, and helping the nurses distribute potions. Pandora eventually kicked me out, said it was getting late and I should go see my ‘lover boy.’” Regulus explained, smiling through the last few words.
He finally looked up, not realizing he had been talking with his hands and looking everywhere but his lover. The younger man was met with a dopey grin and a look of complete admiration. He felt blood rush to his cheeks, realizing his husband had been staring at him the whole time.
“I could listen to you talk all day y’know” James cooed, knowing it would only make the younger man blush even more.
Regulus took a bite of his toast to avoid answering. He attempted to hide his face with his hands, eliciting a chuckle from the other man.
“You’re so cute when your flustered”
“James I will literally stab you with a fork”
“That’s fine, as long as you promise to heal me after” the older man quipped with a wink.
Regulus responded by throwing a piece of toast at James, who simply ducked away and barked out a laugh.
Regulus was deeply in love with the other man. He loved these domestic interactions where they could just exist around each other, not fighting or simply tolerating one another. James taught him what real love was. He taught him how to exist in a healthy relationship. Regulus was infatuated with the other man, and his only hope was that the other man felt the same way.
James seemed to sense his lover’s shift in mood and reached a hand across the counter.
“I love you Regulus. I am in love with you my Darling. I’m glad you got to spend the night doing what you love, even if it meant you got home a bit late. All I care about is that you eventually do come home, as long as you’re happy,” he affirmed, squeezing the hand of his lover once he had accepted it.
“I love you too mon chéri. I’d give it all up for you if you asked. I love you more than my work” Regulus admitted, holding onto James’ hand like a lifeline.
“I know you would darling, but I don’t want that. I’m happy if you’re happy. Let’s go watch the news, yeah? See if we can figure out what happened last night.”
The pair finished their breakfast and grabbed their mugs, settling down in their living room. They spent the day curled into each other on the sofa, switching through channels every now and then but barely paying attention to what was on the screen. The two men were preoccupied with each other, and wouldn’t have it any other way.
—
Thank you for reading!
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cw: Bakugou dies but comes back to life, “comes back wrong” trope, implied fighting, angst
When Bakugou died, you’re not sure how you went on living. Grief had taken over your life, sat you in the passenger side while it cruised off the highway into icy waters. And even then, you couldn’t find the energy to drown.
It’s why there’s a sudden uptick of energy when you’re promised to have him back. Some top scientists contact you months after his death, tell you to hurry down to the headquarters labs, come and rejoice for what you’re about to witness. And you’re horrified, to say the least.
“This isn’t my husband.” Are your first words when you walk in, watch the figure on the other side of the glass examine its own hands. It looks like your husband but—but his hair isn’t the right shade of blond all over. His nose bridge had a slight bump after a scuffle with a villain. He had a scar on his hand but—but it never looked like it was to sew a pinky beside the other fingers.
“Is that really my husband?” You ask next in disbelief, slowly entering the room. Bakugou’s head snaps up, his eyes a little brighter than you remember but—they hold so much emotion. So much memory, so much panic, so much guilt.
“I left you.” He mutters, his voice raspy and ragged, and you wonder if it’ll always be like this now. It makes you cry a little harder than it should, but you only embrace each other. He’s cold and his shoulders don’t hold the same mass and his back doesn’t carry the same scars. There’s one, jagged and rough, running down his back, and you think, you think that’s where they slipped a new spine in.
“Welcome back home.” You tell him, weeks after meeting him again, new and not totally—Katsuki. He’s stiff and he doesn’t immediately take off his boots when he enters, and it worries you. Makes you think if you’ve just let a stranger into your home, one that has stolen your dead husbands face. Makes you wonder if he’ll be as loving as Katsuki once was, or if he’ll become your monster looming over you with the guilt of not being able to rest anymore.
“I’ve missed you so much.” You whisper against his mouth one night, a little while after he’s moved back. You don’t know why you lay under him, why you let him nestle himself inside of you, why you let him hold you against his chest. Katsuki always ran his hands over your cheeks and neck whenever he held you like this, but this…man, only holds himself up with his hands resting beside your head. It’s alien, how he looks at you, how his hips are methodically measured with every thrust, how he kisses you every 8 seconds. You wonder if he’s more robot than Frankenstein monster.
“Why did you come back to me like this?” You ask him one night, barricaded in the bathroom away from him. You can hear his sobs on the other side, his pleading to be let in. He tells you he never wanted to come back if he had to be like this, that he’s sorry, please let him in, he misses the warmth of your skin, he’s never been so cold before, he’s never liked the cold.
“Is this considered cheating?” You ask yourself aloud one night, when Bakugou is forced back to the lab when he becomes too…un-Bakugou. To sleep with a man that is your husband in every way but? Your husband has been dead for a year now, and yet you stroke the chin of the man that tries so hard to be him everyday, but fails so miserably at it every time.
“I’ll come back to you right this time.” Bakugou promises to you when he’s strapped down to leave for the lab and before he’s sedated. But you don’t believe him—you never did. Your husband is dead, and this animated corpse has been nothing but a cheap mockery of everything you’ve lost and something you will never truly get back.
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“I am so in love with you.”
The words rush out of him, all in one breath, and he can no more hold them back than he can stop a star from going supernova. Than he can stop the Earth from spinning. The sun from rising. His love for Lance has taken over slowly, pricking it’s way under his skin — much like the man himself, he thinks wryly — until it became all-encompassing, until it ran in tandem with the blood through his veins.
A flush lights up Lance’s face, and his expression goes mushy even as he tries to look scolding.
“I’m — I’m not even doing anything, Keith. Where did that come from?”
Keith shrugs helplessly, because the answer to that is that it doesn’t come from anywhere and Keith just loves him so much, all the time, but if he says that now Lance might explode.
“I dunno. Sometimes I look at you and I — I just have to say it. It’s everywhere, y’know? I love you so much I can’t think. You’re distracting.”
Lance is a little embarrassed, Keith knows he is. He gets overwhelmed easy. But his lips quirk up anyway, and his brown eyes soften. (Beautiful brown eyes, warm and kind and strong and God, the soul really is reflected in the eyes, and he thinks of Lance every time he sees the colour on the cover of a book or the endless height of the trees of the heady power of the earth or the heat of his coffee, Lance Lance Lance everywhere all the time.)
“I love you too, you know. You’re — you’re important to me, too.”
“I know.” Keith says it quietly. Quickly, matching the rapid beat of his heart: I-know, I-know, I-know. Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.
Do you know, he whispers in his head, the lengths I would go for you? The mountains I would move? Do you know how I look at you and I see the future glimmering before us?
Lance had once looked at him, in front of their friends and family and an omnipresent sociopath, determined and nervous all the same and said with a steady voice I choose Keith. He’s the future. And Keith felt his heart pound in his fingertips and his toes and the very hairs in his head and he’d said with his whole body trembling I choose Lance because I followed him across the universe and I know everyone else will too.
It’s the most honest he’s ever been. The truest truth he’s ever spoken aloud. The biggest part of himself he’s every shared, terrified but determine to follow Lance’s example, to stand by him, because when Keith thinks of who he is he thinks he’s the person who will stand next to Lance, always, every time, until the end of the Earth and the universe and beyond.
Lance smiles at him, now, before glancing away, twinkling of the stars reflecting in the whites of his eyes, earrings shining gold to mirror the fire he coaxes to life between them. Keith clenches his fists in his lap and forces himself to be patient, to wait until Lance is ready. He can wait. He can wait as long as it takes.
He knows it won’t be long, anyway, although he would wait if it was. He would wait for Lance for the rest of their lives, sustained only by the quiet affection always bubbling between them. (Sometimes he thinks of how angry and miserable and hopeless he was, for so many years of his life, and imagines how he would tell that kid that he grows up to love so many people unconditionally and be loved unconditionally in return, and how one man will be the beat of his heart and the surge of life that runs through his body.)
“You make me excited to keep going,” Lance whispers, after what feels like years have passed, time stretched thin around them, and it sounds like a confession. “It’s, um. It’s been a long time since I was excited for my future. But I think of you and it’s — joyous, I guess. You made me feel joy again.”
Keith’s next inhale shudders, lungs trying to accommodate the sudden growth of his heart — I think of you and it’s joyous. You make me feel joy again — because he was right, before; it is a confession.
“Lance.”
Lance keeps his face trained on the dancing flames of the campfire he’s brought to life.
“Lance, look at me. Please.” He’s begging, he knows, but he can’t bring himself to care.
Lance, he thinks, can’t deny him anymore than Keith can deny Lance.
He knows he’s right when Lance swallows, waits a beat, and looks up at him.
“Yes?”
Keith doesn’t bother with words again. He’s said everything he needs to say. Instead he reaches over — slowly, so Lance can pull away if he’s not ready, but Keith feels the buzzing in the air and knows he is — and cups rough, calloused hands on either side of Lance’s face.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, thumbs stroking carefully over Lance’s cheekbones. Lance’s hands come up to rest on top of Keith’s long fingers wrapping carefully around his wrists.
“Please,” Lance says, and Keith doesn’t waste another second.
(He sighs, when their lips finally touch, because it feels like peace. Relief. Like the moment your sorrows melt away, like the moment you realize you’ve been holding your breath and you can let go, like the moment you’ve dreaded passes and you came out just fine, like the moment you realize everything is going to be okay. He taps his fingers where they rest on Lance’s temples, three times in succession over an over again: I-love-you I-love-you I-love-you.)
(Lance sighs, too, and squeezes his wrists gently, twice in a row, over an over again: I-know I-know I-know.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.)
———
based on this art by @intrepid-class
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Special Announcement❤️
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for supporting me and enjoying my work. It had been so long since I wrote fan fiction that I was very surprised by the positive reception I got.
November is my birthday month and as a thank you to everyone who supported me, I will be uploading 4 items this month! This means that there will be 1 update each week, I cannot give a specific day sadly.
Since Thanksgiving and family gatherings are coming up, I know that AO3 and fanfiction become a safe haven for many. I hope my work may warm your heart and soothe your soul during this month.
If you have any types of fics you’d like to see, please feel free to message me or comment on the post. They can either be ideas, themes, or just requesting a continuation of a current fic (completed or incomplete). Any requests I do not take for November will be considered for December. I will also be answering asks at a quicker rate.
This is my gift as thanks for everyone’s support!
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