June 12 - Challenge | @jegulus-microfic | Word Count: 898

June 12 - Challenge | @jegulus-microfic | word count: 898

Regulus doesn’t notice him at first. He rarely ever notices what goes on in his train car when he has his earbuds in and the music blends with the scenery outside the window. But his airpods make their familiar noise of despondent beeping, warning him of their inevitable death, and pull him away from his usual daydreaming.

While rummaging through his bag and placing the earbuds in their case, he gets this odd feeling in his stomach, and then, he hears him.

With his heartbeat in sudden uptick, he follows the voice that’s slightly obscured by the din of the car and sees him. And oh, that odd feeling is familiarity. Familiarity like he hasn’t known for the past two years.

James.

He’s in the middle of a phone call, tucked into the corner of a four-seater, and the person on the other line must be funny because James throws his head back, molars on display and his hand comes up to cover his mouth in a futile attempt to stifle his laughter. It booms all the same.

For a second there, he’s the boy Regulus once knew, and Regulus can’t help the instinctive pull of his lips into a smile.

Hello there, you.

He could easily walk up to him on stiff legs and say hello. James would remove the bag he’s put beside himself and make room, not because it’s Regulus, but because James is accommodating like that.

Regulus would ask James about his mother and casually mention the time he ran into her at the supermarket eight months ago. He’d conveniently leave out the part where he ducked behind a stack of discount soup. Or how he sprinted out of the building and got caught running out with a pack of toothpaste he didn’t pay for.

James would ask about his job and Regulus would give a noncommittal shrug and say “You know how it is,” and of course James would know.

James would probably lean back against his seat, bottom lip between his teeth, a smile pulling at the ends. He’d look at Regulus contemplatively before something in his mind goes ‘fuck it’ and he’d ask Regulus if he wants to go grab a drink. Regulus, with prior engagements he cannot break under any circumstances, would probably say yes.

They’d find themselves at a nondescript café nursing respective drinks and letting the ambiance cut away at some of the awkward gaps in their conversation. James would pick at the sugar sachets and create his famous sugar mountains, he’s sure of it; that’s the one thing he can bet on James still doing.

He’d hold himself back from mentioning how he still makes his tea the way James taught him, how he uses the same obscure phrases James picked up from his favorite cult tv shows – except nobody ever gets it, and it always comes out too stilted.

He has shaken most other habits; he no longer reaches for James’ favorite brand of juice while grocery shopping and he no longer looks to his side when somebody does something particularly stupid to share a look with James. The thing with James, for all his sunshine exterior, is that he could be a little mean when he thought he could get away with it, and he could always get away with it when in Regulus’ presence.

At some point Regulus would remember how much he loved James. He’d have to bite his lips to stop himself from asking if James had taken the chunky, knitted blanket with him when he left because he couldn't find it last winter, and he’d always wondered. It was his after all.

James would huff, pause his fiddling with the sachets, and look up at him in challenge. The familiar argument of who bought what would arise, and it’d be as if two years never passed. Like they still had their little apartment downtown, Friday night movie marathons, and late nights under the glow-in-the-dark star stickers they put up on their bedroom ceiling. If the nights were long enough, James would spiral into an existential crisis and land on the topic of past lives.

“Do you think we’ve met before?” He’d ask. “Will we meet again?”

Now all they’ve got is a collection of seats between them. That, and ten tentative, awkward steps to break the distance of two years’ worth of nothingness.

Regulus would concede the challenge, because easy bickering with James would feel like turning a rusty cog, and he doesn’t want James to discover the awkward tone he’s developed during their time apart.

Their meeting would probably end not long after that. They’d go their separate ways with fragile reassurance from both parties to meet again sometime soon– soon being between next week and never.

And that would be it.

He’s had his fair share of breakups. They always leave something behind. But James, oh, James, he took something. Regulus is more than convinced now that he has James in front of him again.

He looks back at James, who is now preoccupied with his phone, smiling stupidly at the screen.

Yeah, he took something, alright.

He could. Walk up to him, that is. It’d be so easy.

So, so easy because it’s James.

Instead, he grabs his bag, adjusts his scarf, nuzzling into it to fight off the oncoming cold, and gets off at the next stop.