James’s first-ever kiss had been with Marlene McKinnon. It had happened on a dare in third year and had been quick and awkward, their teeth knocking together. Then there had been Regulus. That had been different. It had been sweet and full of everything a first real kiss was supposed to have: fireworks and swelling strings, butterflies and breathless smiles. Lily had been different again. Kissing Lily had felt like pulling on a favourite jumper on a cold morning, or sitting down to a hot meal after a long day. It had been comforting—soft lips and gentle touches. There hadn’t been fireworks or butterflies, but it had been sweet, and James had thought that perhaps that was simply the way things were. Perhaps fireworks were reserved for first loves, and losing them was just part of getting older.
If James had been a little braver—and a little more willing to face his own feelings—he might have realised that wasn’t true.
Because between Regulus and Lily, there had been another kiss. One that, for a dizzying minute, had made James forget who he was. If he had allowed himself to think about it afterwards—if he hadn’t done his best to scrub it from his mind—he might have realised just how wrong he’d been about fireworks being reserved for first loves. Kissing Evan then had been good. Hot. Hotter than anything James had experienced up to that point, if truth be told.
Kissing Evan now was pure sex.
It wasn’t sweet or comforting. It wasn’t even fireworks. It felt as though James’s entire body had been set alight. Everywhere Evan touched him, sensation burned beneath his skin. Evan’s mouth was hot against his, his body solid as he pulled James closer. And through it all was the insistent, blazing need for more—more skin, more contact, just more. It was as though every atom in James’s body was fire with the need to eliminate the space between them, until there was no distinction between them at all.
A desire Evan seemed more than willing to indulge as he tugged James closer until James was straddling him, both hands gripping James's arse. But it still wasn’t enough.
“You’re fucking killing me, Tosspot,” said Evan, his voice low and rough.
“Bedroom,” James managed, clambering off him and pulling him to his feet.
They fell onto the bed in a tangle of limbs. James began working his way down Evan’s chest only pausing when he reached the first scar. He dipped his head and traced its line lightly with his tongue. Evan groaned. Encouraged, James moved to the next, following each scar in turn until he reached the waistband of Evan’s jeans. He looked up. Evan had propped himself on one elbow and was watching him, eyes dark and lips slightly parted, his expression a study in desire.
James turned his attention to the button of Evan’s jeans, unfastening it and pulling them off him completely before taking Evan into his mouth. Evan’s sharp intake of breath was loud in the quiet room. It made something primal and raw unfurl in James’s chest: the knowledge that he was responsible for it. Responsible for the way Evan chased the contact, his back arching; for the hand that tangled in James’s hair as the other fisted in the bedsheets. For the first time in his life, James wondered whether it might be possible to come just from giving head. With Evan, he thought it might be. He was fairly sure he was halfway there. Evan tightened his grip on James’s hair and yanked him away, pulling him back up the length of his body.
“Fuck me.” It was as much an order as a request, and punctuated by a hard, bruising kiss. “Now.”
The muscles in Evan’s back rippled as he turned, one arm braced against the bed—the other against the bed frame. James ran his palm down the length of it, tracing the line of his spine. There were scars here too, criss-crossing the smooth golden skin. Although these were older, silvered with time. James bent to press his lips to Evan’s shoulder as he murmured spells he hadn’t used in five years, yet somehow remembered perfectly—as though his mind had locked them away, keeping them safe and ready for this exact moment. Evan made a low sound—something between a groan and an exhale as James worked his fingers inside him.
“Okay?” asked James—pausing.
“Stop again and I’ll kill you,” came the answer—
James didn’t stop again—not until Evan was breathing hard and the knuckles of the hand gripping the bed frame had turned white. Then he stopped, withdrew his fingers, lined himself up and then promptly lost all higher brain function. He was vaguely aware of Evan telling him to move, then demanding harder, faster—which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because the second James pushed inside, he became utterly useless. Completely lost to the feeling of Evan’s body—good because with Evan telling him how to move, James didn’t have to think. He could simply surrender. Bad, because James had been dangerously close to coming from the moment he started, and being told—ordered—to go faster, harder, was pushing him further and further towards the edge.
“Fuck,” James managed. “I don’t know if I can last—”
“Bite me,” Evan said. “Anywhere you can reach. Do it hard.”
James leant forwards, pressing his chest to Evan’s back, and sank his teeth into Evan’s shoulder. James felt his entire body tense, squeezing and contracting around him, and then James was over the edge. His vision went black. For one suspended second, everything else ceased to exist as pleasure tore through him with violent force.
When the room swam back into focus, James realised he had half-collapsed on top of Evan, who was supporting a considerable amount of his weight.
“Shit, sorry.” He pushed himself upright, pulled out and then flopped onto his back beside him.
Evan rolled over as well, throwing a forearm across his eyes. For a long moment, he said nothing. The only sound was their breathing as it gradually evened out. Then Evan lowered his arm and turned his head towards James.
“Good talk, Tosspot,” he said, his mouth hitching up at one corner.
James laughed, feeling impossibly light, as though he were floating. He turned onto his side to face Evan.
“I really fucking missed you,” James said, too happy to care whether the admission was sappy.
Evan’s smile widened.
“Come here.”
He slipped an arm beneath James’s head and pulled him closer until James was resting against his shoulder. James curled into his side and pressed a kiss to his chest—half because he wanted to and half to hide the idiotic grin he knew was plastered across his face.
Evan’s fingers skated gently over James’s side, then stilled against his ribs.
“What happened?”
It took James a second to understand the question. Then he looked down at where Evan’s fingers rested, over the fading bruises mottling his skin.
“Oh,” he said. “Er, Moody has me doing combat training. Something about my connection to you making me too important to die now, or something.”
"Moody did that to you?"
"No. Alice."
"Who’s Alice?"
"You’d recognise her if you saw her—she was there at mum and dads with the rest of the Order. Small, dark hair. Couple years above us at school. Married Frank Longbottom—Gryffindor’s captain before me."
Evan made a low hum in the back of his throat.
“She wasn’t thrilled about Moody taking her out the field,” James tilted his chin to look up at Evan. “Think throwing me at the floor makes her feel better—-”
"Moody pulled an Auror out of active duty just to train you?"
"No. She's five and a half months pregnant."
"Tosspot," Evan said after a minute, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement, "are you telling me you’re being beaten up by a pregnant witch who is—if I’m thinking of the right person—what—five foot five at most?"
“In my defence,” James said, “she’s a lot scarier than she looks.”
Evan laughed, the sound reverberating through his chest, low and warm beneath James’s cheek.
“Yeah, all right,” James conceded, unable to keep from smiling. “I’m pretty bad.”
“Knew you weren’t a fighter,” said Evan, his laughter settling into a smile that was unguarded in a way James rarely got to see. “Didn’t realise it was that bad though.”
“Bad doesn’t really cover it,” admitted James. “Don’t think I’ve ever been this terrible at something before.”
Evan considered that for a moment, then asked: “she teaching you to duel or hand-to-hand?”
“Deul,” answered James.
Evan nodded. “I can help with that.”
Evan’s fingers started moving absently against James's ribs, back and forth, which James liked a lot. James set his head back against Evan’s chest and closing his eyes, enjoying the light brush of Evan’s fingers over his skin.
"That'd be great," he said.
“Teach you to fight too if you want," said Evan, "without magic I mean, good skill to have. Most people rely too heavily on magic. Take their wand away and suddenly they are defenceless." Evan paused, and then added more quietly; "should’ve taught you ages ago. Never occurred to me that most of the Order wouldn’t have combat training.”
James didn’t mean to fall asleep—at least, not yet—but the day’s training session, followed by everything that had come after, caught up with him. He was pulled under without really noticing it. He woke sometime later. How much later, he couldn’t have said. Everything was a blur, the confusion of half-sleep and the absence of his glasses making it difficult to separate reality from dreams.
James turned—eached for Evan and found the bed beside him empty. He sat up, suddenly wide awake. After fumbling blindly for the lamp, he found the switch. His glasses were folded neatly on the bedside table. James put them on and threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood, a low, gnawing worry taking hold in his stomach. The hallway beyond was dim. Whatever time it was, it was still dark; the only light came from a golden strip beneath the bathroom door. From behind it, James could hear the unmistakable sound of running water. James stopped. Relief went through him so quickly that he sagged back against the wall. Then he felt rather silly. The bathroom door opened.
“Sorry,” Evan said with a faint smile. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
James didn’t smile back. He was too distracted by the fact that Evan was dressed. Fully dressed, his shirt repaired and his hair swept back from his face as though he had run wet hands through it. He looked decidedly like someone who was going somewhere—someone who was leaving. Something horribly close to hurt rose in James’s chest. The sudden sharpness of it caught in his throat. James looked away, his chest tightening with a discomfort he didn’t know what to do with. It was stupid. James knew it was stupid. But he had only just got Evan back. After two months, he had finally got him back—
“Tosspot,” Evan said, voice quiet—an evident question in it.
James didn’t answer—knew if he did he’d say something he’d regret. Something pathetic. He was half aware of Evan moving into the space in front of him—
“Hey,” said Evan and then there was a gentle touch on his shoulder—almost hesitant as if he wasn’t sure it was welcome.
James looked at him then—very blue eyes looked back at him.
“You alright?” asked Evan.
“Yeah,” said James, feeling even more ridiculous. “Of course.”
“Tosspot,” Evan said again.
He was watching James with a carefully neutral expression, the unguarded openness of the night before gone. James hated it. Hated how suddenly it felt as though there were miles of distance between them.
James kissed him.
It perhaps wasn’t the most eloquent answer, particularly since he had only just woken up and hadn’t brushed his teeth—a fact he became acutely aware of when he tasted mint on Evan’s mouth. Even so, Evan responded immediately, pressing his body against James’s and pushing him back into the wall. James slipped his hands beneath Evan’s shirt, his fingers searching out warm skin. As though, if he held on tightly enough and kissed him hard enough, he could stop Evan from ever leaving. Somehow, it worked.
The next time James woke, several hours later, the room was washed in soft orange, morning light filtering through the curtains. He was warm. A little too warm, actually. An arm was wrapped firmly around his waist, holding him close—warm breath tickled his neck and a lot of very warm chest was currently pressed to his back. He tried to pull back the covers without waking Evan—but he stirred the moment James moved—pulled him closer and threw a heavy leg over James’s. So much for that idea. James was now firmly pinned to the bed.
A memory stirred somewhere in the depths of his mind. Evan sitting across from him in the Queen’s Arms, back before they had become them in any meaningful capacity. Right at the beginning, when James had demanded answers and Evan had told him exactly what he hadn’t wanted to hear that he'd chosen his path, had looked James right in the eye and told him no one had forced him to take the mark, that he'd chosen it—and then, somehow, he'd made James laugh immediately afterwards. The way Evan had grinned at him, a wicked glint in his eye, as he told him quite unapologetically that the reason he’d disappeared before James woke up that first night at the bed and breakfast was because he was a sleep-snuggler and thought James might not appreciate waking up to find a Death Eater spooning him.
James had thought it was a joke, of course. Thought Evan was taking the piss. The idea of Evan Rosier snuggling anyonehad seemed absurd back then. Everything about him had appeared entirely at odds with softness. He was sharp and sardonic, wry and dangerous, perpetually in control. And yet now, with Evan folded around him, James wondered if perhaps he hadn’t been joking. Perhaps that had been the joke. Evan had been telling him the truth, knowing James wouldn’t believe a word of it. Now that he knew Evan. Really knew him: it seemed exactly like the sort of thing Evan would find funny.
James thought, with a slow kind of wonder, about how much difference a year could make. How someone could go from being a relative stranger to the most important person in his life. Except Evan had never really been a stranger. He had existed at the fringes of James’s life for the better part of a decade. Always there, tucked away in the periphery: through school, through Regulus, through all the years when James had barely thought about him at all. James let his eyes drift closed. Surrendering to the body heat pouring from the human shaped radiator aggressively snuggling into his back—let it draw him into that hazy place between sleep and wakefulness. Time slipped past. Whether it was minutes or hours, James couldn’t have said. He only knew that he was happy to let it drift around him.
When Evan did wake, he did it the way he did most things: quietly, controlled. There were no sudden movements or half-waking confusion, only a subtle change in his breathing. Then the arm around James shifted, fingers trailing slowly back and forth across his stomach in a way that sent heat pooling at the base of his spine.
“Hi,” James said, turning to look at Evan—or, rather, at the blurry outline of him.
“Hey,” Evan said, and then James was being kissed.
The hand on his stomach moved lower, tracing the curve of one hip and sliding down to his thigh before slowly travelling back up. The touch was light, teasing, and it seemed to James like a torturously long time before Evan finally wrapped his hand around him. James’s back arched at the contact, the kiss turning messy. He reached for Evan, not caring about the awkward angle. Not caring about anything except making Evan feel what he was feeling—feeling him gasp against James’s mouth, feeling him come beneath James’s hand as James came with him.
James pushed himself upright and reached for his glasses on the bedside table. He slid them on, blinked once as the room sharpened around him—and promptly forgot what he’d been about to do. Because Evan came into focus too. He was still half tangled in the sheets, blond hair thoroughly mussed from sleep, bare skin golden in the morning light. James had always known Evan was in good shape, even back in school. It wasn’t exactly something his clothes concealed particularly well. But there was a considerable difference between knowing and having the evidence laid out in front of him: the hard planes of his stomach, the breadth of his chest, the muscles of his arms shifting as he stretched.
James stared for longer than was probably reasonable.
“You hungry?” he asked finally when he'd managed to force his thoughts back into the direction they'd been headed when he'd put his glasses on.
“I could eat.” Evan glanced up at him. “Wouldn’t mind a shower first, though.”
“You shower. I’ll make us something.”
Evan made a quiet sound of agreement and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. His back was to James now, which posed its own danger to the direction of James's thoughts. He watched Evan rolled his neck, watched the muscles across his shoulders shifted beneath his skin. A bruise was blooming high on Evan’s shoulder. A very distinctly bite-shaped bruise. His bite-shaped bruise. Something hot and embarrassingly pleased flickered through James. He’d never thought of himself as particularly territorial. Certainly not the sort of person who got some primitive little thrill from leaving marks on someone. And yet there it was: undeniable evidence of the night before, written across Evan’s skin, and James felt an absurd stab of satisfaction at the sight of it.
His eyes lingered before wandering lower.
Scars.
James had noticed them last night, but he'd been too distracted at the time to look properly. He did now. Fine, silvery lines crossed Evan’s shoulders and back, some so faded they nearly disappeared into his skin, others thicker and more obvious. There were more than James had realised. The scars on Evan’s chest hadn’t surprised him. James had known about those, or at least known enough to expect them. These were different. James hadn't been expecting these: nor had he been expecting how many scars Evan would have. His gaze moved over the lines crossing Evan’s back and then, when Evan reached down for his jeans, to the neat scars lining the inside of his right forearm. They stacked in thin lines from his wrist up to the inside of his elbow. James found himself wanting to look closer. He wanted to know where they had come from. He wanted to ask. More than that, he had the sudden, startling urge to touch them. To run his fingers over each one, then his mouth, tracing them until he knew the map of Evan’s skin well enough to recognise every mark in the dark. But Evan was already standing, dragging his jeans on, and whatever questions James had could wait.
James pulled on his own clothes and headed for the kitchen. By the time Evan emerged from the shower fifteen minutes later, James had coffee brewing and was contemplating the contents of his cupboards when he happened to glance over. And stopped. Evan was wearing his T-shirt. A grey Ballycastle Bats one James had owned for years, the fabric stretched considerably more tightly across Evan’s shoulders and chest than it ever had across his.
James stared.
Again.
Evan’s Dark Mark stood stark against the golden skin of his left arm, black and unmistakable. The scars were visible too, most of them pale against his skin, although some were newer. One near his wrist was still pink, barely healed. They should have made the picture harsher somehow. The garish black ink, the scars, all that visual evidence written across Evan’s body that spoke of violence and war and everything about him that was anything but soft. And yet, somehow, the image was soft. Softer than it had any right to be. Damp blond hair curling slightly at the ends. Bare feet on James’s floor. Broad shoulders filling out James’s shirt.
James really, really liked seeing Evan in his clothes.
The realisation brought with it the same strange little thrill he’d felt at the sight of the bruise on Evan’s shoulder. It wasn’t merely that Evan looked good in the shirt—although Merlin, he did. It was that the shirt was James’s. That Evan had showered in James’s bathroom and then put on James’s clothes. That he was standing there now, in James’s flat, like he belonged there.The bite mark wasn’t visible anymore, hidden beneath the grey fabric, but James knew it was there. His mark, his shirt, his, just like the man bearing them. The thought surfaced so naturally that it took James a second to realise he’d had it.
Which was—
Well.
That was something he probably ought to examine.
Later.
Because Evan had apparently noticed the staring.
He glanced down at himself, then back at James, his brows pulling into a faint frown.
“Couldn’t find mine,” he offered by way of explanation.
James bit his lip against a grin. Of everything currently going on inside his head, wondering why Evan was wearing his clothes hadn’t even registered. He’d been far too occupied enjoying the fact that he was. He didn't say anything, just handed Evan a mug of coffee.
They ate at the coffee table: scrambled eggs with butter, onion, tomato, green chilli, cumin and coriander; potatoes fried with mustard seeds, turmeric and chilli; thick slices of toast and the remains of a coriander chutney James found in the fridge. It wasn’t anything elaborate, but as James dished it up, he realised it was the first time he’d enjoyed cooking since moving into the flat. The first time he’d put any real thought into it rather than treating feeding himself as another chore to be completed.
“This,” Evan said around a mouthful of eggs, “is the real reason I fancy you, by the way. The sex, betraying the Dark Lord, joining the Order—all just a ploy to get you to cook for me.”
James laughed.
He was about to tell Evan that he would cook for him whenever he wanted when the air around them shimmered and the room seemed to shudder. Evan was on his feet in an instant, his wand appearing in his hand as though from nowhere.
“What—” James began.
“Someone’s coming” Evan said, all trace of humour gone from his voice.
The doorbell sounded. It was followed immediately by a scream—raw and terrible—James surged to his feet, but before he could take more than a step, Evan was in front of him, blocking his path.
“Stay.”
The single word was low and commanding. Then Evan swept past him into the hall. James heard the front door being wrenched open, followed by Evan swearing. James reached the hall to find Evan dragging Remus through the front door. He was death white—his head lolled, his hands were bound by thick black chords— and Evan seemed to be holding him up around the middle.