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Now the thing is – James is great at flirting. He’s great at appearing confident and cocky and making the people around him blush with genuine compliments and well-placed flirtations. What he is not great at, he recently had to learn, is being flirted with.
“You’re standing in my sun,” Regulus huffs, looking up at him from where he is sitting with his back against a tree, book in hand.
“I know,” James replies with an easy grin.
Regulus glares at him. “Would it hurt you to live one single day without going out of your way to annoy me?”
James pretends to think, moving his head from one side to the other. “I don’t know,” he hums finally. “I’m not willing to find out the answer though. Just in case. Don’t want to risk getting hurt, you know?” Really, he just likes getting Regulus’ attention. And annoying him simply is the easiest way to do that.
“If you want to be a nuisance please at least do so sitting down.”
“Why?” James asks, making no move to comply. “Don’t you like this gorgeous me-shaped shadow around you?”
“No.”
James pouts. “I’m only trying to help you out here. You should probably spend more time in the shade with your pale skin. Wouldn’t want your pretty face to get burned.”
“I’m fine,” Regulus retorts, completely bypassing James’ compliment. He had worked so hard on the conversational build-up to make it come naturally, and Regulus just ignores it... “I like the sun.”
“You know, people keep telling me I’m like the sun, so I think me standing here is a win-win for you.”
“You’re not,” Regulus disagrees and James is already opening his mouth to express his hurt at that comment when Regulus continues. “As opposed to the sun, I actually really enjoy looking at you.”
James shuts his mouth again, his cheeks heating up ever so slightly. He tries again, but with those few simple words Regulus has perfectly managed to wipe any witty counterremarks from his mind.
“Now, if you could please move...”
Defeated in his attempt at flirting he sighs. To this day, however, James is undefeated in his attempts at being annoying, and he’s not planning on changing that now. He sits down next to Regulus with his back to the sun so he can look at the other boy, shuffling close enough that their legs touch. Regulus turns back to his book and resumes reading.
For a while James is satisfied enough just watching Regulus. For all his talk earlier, he really does like looking at Regulus doused in sunlight. There’s a silver shine to his dark hair and the freckles across his nose stand out more prominently. He’s absolutely beautiful. He’s also absolutely ignoring James once again, and that will simply not do.
James starts by repeatedly poking Regulus’ knee. At first this only earns him a glare over the edge of the book. But when James returns that glare with a blinding smile and continues, Regulus reaches over to swat his hand away.
James sighs dramatically and falls backwards onto the grass, spreading his arms out around him. He busies himself with cloud watching for a good minute before getting bored again, so he decides the next best step to getting Regulus’ attention is picking daisies and placing them one by one along Regulus’ leg.
“James,” Regulus says with a sigh, but he doesn’t even look up from his book.
“Regulus,” James replies, and when Regulus doesn’t react to that either, he adds on, “What are you reading?”
Regulus lifts his book a little higher so James can read the title off the cover, which is not the reply he had been hoping for.
James groans in frustration, throwing his hands up in the air. This at least seems to gain Regulus’ attention, as he glances over at him. With a desirous glint that doesn’t escape James’ notice he lets his eyes travel across James’ arms down to the sliver of skin beneath the hem of his shirt that got lifted in the process.
Even though it only lasts a moment, Regulus turning back to his book almost instantly, James smirks and decides it is time to be more of a menace. If this is what gets Regulus’ attention he can work with it. He grabs the back of his shirt and in one swift motion pulls it over his head, tossing it aside. He stretches, more than necessary, and at the pull in the muscles of his back lets out another groan.
Unfortunately, Regulus’ determination to keep his attention off of James is apparently higher than James had expected, but it’s still no match for his own determination to counteract that. One by one James picks up the daisies from Regulus’ legs and starts twisting them into a thin flower crown. Once he’s done he reaches over and places it gingerly on top Regulus’ head. “Beautiful,” he assesses the picture before him.
“I’m sure you are,” Regulus replies without missing a beat despite still only looking at his book.
“Are you?” James asks critically. “You’re not even looking at me. I might have very well lost all my beauty in the last couple minutes.”
Regulus looks up in annoyance, but that annoyance quickly dissipates when he realises James is sitting very much shirtless in front of him. With a loud snap he shuts his book in frustration. “Fucking stop distracting me, I’m trying to read.”
“Oh, so you think I’m distracting?” James says, wiggling his eyebrows at Regulus and flexing his abs, just because he can and also because apparently it’s distracting. He likes being distracting. A lot.
“Oh, fuck you,” Regulus huffs, but there’s a pink tint to his cheeks so the words lose some of their bite.
“Sure,” James says, conspiratorially leaning forward with a mischievous grin, “If you ask nicely.”
Regulus glares at him defiantly for several seconds, before dropping his gaze. A beat later he is looking up at James again, his eyes half lidded, gazing up at him through his long dark lashes. “Please, James, will you fuck me?” he asks sweetly.
James chokes. His face is burning red and he’s coughing and blinking away tears as he splutters, “What?”
“I nicely asked you to please fuck me,” Regulus repeats, as if James hasn’t perfectly heard him the first time. As if James isn’t currently close to death because of it.
“You can’t just say that,” James says once he’s remembered how to breathe normally again. “This is not what’s supposed to happen. You’re the one that’s supposed to be flustered. This isn’t– What the fuck, Reg, you’re not supposed to actually ask?”
“And yet I did,” Regulus says, a smirk hiding rather visibly in the corners of his lips, “And you have yet to reply. Or do you want to take back your promise?”
James doesn’t have to think about his answer this time, which is a blessing, because all the blood needed to restart his brain is currently on its way to a different part of his body. “No,” he says, “I don’t.”
The smile Regulus gives him before getting up and pulling James to his feet alongside him is enough to nearly bring him back down to his knees.