InsaneJournal

With A Slight Adjustment to Fate (Remus/Regulus, R)
Title: With A Slight Adjustment to Fate
Pairing: Remus/Regulus
Rating: R
Word Count: 1234
Warnings: Probably Regulus is underage here.
Disclaimer: Not mine. JKR's.
Summary: Remus wonders for a moment if, with a slight adjustment to fate, they might've been friends.
Notes: Originally posted for pervy_werewolf on LJ on 2/24/07 for the prompt "dirty talk".


"Your brother keeps looking at me."

Sirius looks up from his essay and squints at Remus. "My brother?"

"Yes," says Remus, whispering, gesturing for Sirius to keep his voice down as well. "Look—not now—look at him in a moment."

After the requisite moment, Sirius does, and Remus watches his eyes as they flick up and over to where Regulus sits alone at a table behind them.

"Well?" Remus whispers when Sirius's eyes return to him.

Sirius only shakes his head. "You're off your nut, mate. That little twat is so wrapped up in himself that he probably doesn't even know you exist. No offence," he adds, standing and stretching in that way he always does, the way that shows just a sliver of skin under the hem of his untucked shirt, the way that Remus thinks Sirius probably thinks drives all the girls mad. Sirius collects his books and his slapped-together essay. "No offence," he repeats, and he's gone, and a moment later two Hufflepuff girls get up from their table near the door and follow him out of the library, giggling.

Remus rolls his eyes.

It gets late before Remus realises, and all too soon, Madame Pince is shooing him from his seat, glaring at him over the tops of her dusty spectacles.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, gathering his things and shoving them hastily into his bag. She still glares, but gives him a curt nod and moves off into the stacks. He knows she knows he'll leave, and he does.

Regulus is waiting just outside the library doors.

Remus stops short, frowning at the boy.

"Shouldn't you be in your dormitory?" he asks, but Regulus only smiles, his lazy grin so reminiscent of the one Sirius wears whenever he is up to no good, but there's something else behind Regulus's smile, something nervous and sickly and not quite right.

"What do you want?" asks Remus, squaring his shoulders. The Slytherin smiles again and takes a step forward, into the light, and Remus furrows his brow at the weird, slightly unhealthy grin, the little lines around Regulus's eyes that shouldn't be there on a boy so young.

Regulus looks him over appraisingly and Remus bites his lower lip, and suddenly Regulus looks into his eyes and grabs his wrist and says "Come on", and his voice is so young and so full of mischief and so like Sirius's when he's got a brilliant plan that Remus follows without hesitation, wondering. Maybe Regulus isn't a little twat, as Sirius always says. He's not scary, he's small, and sort of frail, and Remus wonders for a moment if, with a slight adjustment to fate, they might've been friends.

But then there's no time to wonder anything because Regulus is shoving him into a disused classroom and glancing over his shoulder as he shuts the door. Moonlight fills the dusty room, and Regulus stares.

"What do you want, Regulus?" Remus asks again, his voice coming out curious when he meant it to sound annoyed.

Regulus's face drains of blood, as if he's suddenly reconsidering his plan, but he swallows and crosses his arms over his chest and stares at Remus, and Remus is fairly sure that Regulus said You, but still he asks him to repeat himself, and then Remus knows Regulus said You, and he's speechless.

"You're a poofter, aren’t you?" asks Regulus then, smirking, and Remus knows the boy is smirking at him and his discomfort.

"What are you, then?" asks Remus, and he knows he's unsettled the boy from the way Regulus shifts his gaze to somewhere beyond Remus's shoulder and rocks back a little on his heels.

They're both silent for a long moment, the only sound in the room the squeaking of the soles of Regulus's new shoes as he rocks back and forth, back and forth, and finally Remus can't stand it anymore; he drops his bag on the floor and advances on Regulus, who lets out an undignified squeak and holds his hands up in front of him.

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" asks Remus, grabbing Regulus's wrists, and Regulus exhales a little too sharply, and Remus presses him to the wall.

"Don't go messing about where you have no business," says Remus then, his voice lower and more threatening than he'd intended, but Regulus's lower lip trembles a little, and Remus thinks maybe that voice is okay.

"I'm not the school poof, to be used by any little Slytherin who takes a fancy to experiment," he says, shaking Regulus by his too-thin wrists, and Remus can just feel the blood moving through Regulus's veins under his fingertips, and he can't help it; he wonders what it might be like to kiss the boy there, and bite down, and lick.

"I'm not—" says Regulus, all cockiness gone, his breath coming in short hot spurts, "Not—experimenting—'m not—" And he thrusts his hips forward and he's hard, and Remus tightens his grip on the boy's wrists.

"You want this?" Remus asks, and Regulus nods. "You want me to, what, suck your cock?" Regulus's eyes go wide, and he nods again. "You want me to fuck you? You want my cock inside you, all wet and tight and like nothing you've ever felt before? Maybe I'd put my fingers in you first, maybe my wand, maybe I'd lick you all over after I was done with your cock and put my tongue in your arse, is that what you want?"

Regulus says something unintelligible.

"Or maybe you want to fuck me, is that it? You want to slick me, take me, fuck me hard over a desk, come inside me as I pull myself off, scratch your fingers down my back and mark me all over? Is that what you want to do, Regulus?"

Regulus only whimpers and goes limp, and suddenly his face is too young and too terrified and too wanting in the moonlight, and Remus shakes him again.

"You have no idea, Regulus. None." Regulus turns his face away and closes his eyes, baring his neck, straining, and god Remus wants to lickbitesuck, after all, Regulus is not entirely unattractive, and willing besides, a rare combination in this school, but no—

"It's—it's Valentine's Day," Regulus pants, thrusting, writhing, and Remus curls his lip and pushes back.

"So you think that means I want to fuck you?"

Regulus doesn't answer, only continues his hips' insistence, his wrists' weak protestations against Remus's imprisoning fingers.

Remus regards the boy, dark fringe falling over his bruise-hollow eyes, his chin too sharp, his lips too pale and trembling, and he wonders if it would be effective to slam the boy against the wall and scare the curiosity out of him, but, Remus reflects, he's probably used to that—that's what Sirius would do, or his father.

And so Remus simply backs away, drops the boy's wrists, picks up his bag, stares.

"Leave me alone," he says plainly, and Regulus slumps against the wall and slides down and doesn’t look back up.

***

Remus can't remember if he ever spoke to Regulus after that, and he hates himself if he didn't, and he hates himself if he did and just forgot.

And Remus wonders. He'll always wonder. About the slight adjustments to fate that never happened—maybe they could have been friends.

And maybe Regulus could have been saved.