one last chance

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at [Link]

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Major Character Death
Category: M/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationships: Regulus Black/James Potter, background James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Characters: James Potter, Regulus Black
Additional Tags: Necrophilia, corpse fucking, Wound Fucking, James kind of loses it, just
a little bit, explicit sexual content with a corpse, First Wizarding War
with Voldemort (Harry Potter), Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dead Dove
December, no top/bottom tags
Language: English
Series: Part 2 of when stars wink out (Jegulus one-shots)
Collections: Dead Dove December 2022
Stats: Published: 2022-12-22 Words: 1,956 Chapters: 1/1
 one last chance
by eleven_eaves

Summary

Regulus is stiff everywhere, except for the one place James needs him to be.

James had never topped Regulus before, but he’s going to have to now.

Notes

a sequel to my previous Jegulus fic, no exit!

In the weeks after Regulus’s disappearance, the rumors and speculations about what had
happened to him had swelled to a fever pitch, and Sirius had completely fallen apart.

But James couldn’t afford to fall apart. Since graduating, not a day went by that he didn't
think about reconciling with Regulus, but then he’d gone and gotten Lily pregnant by
accident, and he needed to step up and be a responsible father.

So instead he held his head high and was a supportive shoulder for Sirius to cry on, even all
the while that he felt like he was falling apart on the inside himself.

He couldn’t get away from the news no matter how much he tried. The scion of the most
prominent family in wizarding Britain going missing—it made headlines for weeks. Sirius
had been disowned and now Regulus was missing, and the question of who would be next in
line as the new head of the Black family was up in the air.

Aurors investigated, Walburga Black hired scrying experts, everyone was questioned.

And yet—no one thought to ask the house elf.

But James knew how close Regulus and Kreacher were. He’s the only one that knows—the
only person who had seen the real Regulus underneath the formal mask that he wore as the
embodiment of aloof Slytherin detachment as the next Black heir.

“Take me to him,” James had begged Kreacher earlier that day.

Which is how he finds himself in the freezing cold and oppressive and damp cave surrounded
by hundreds of Inferi, the stuff of nightmares, locked in their endless mindless shuffle
underneath the black surface of the lake.

He shudders to think that Regulus is one amongst them, but he has to know. He’s never loved
anyone in his life more than his Reg, and he won’t rest until he finds out what happened to
him.

The stagnant air inside the cave reeks of dark magic—it makes him recoil and shiver with
revulsion—it’s thick with it, coating his tongue and the inside of his lungs every time he
takes a breath in.

He needs to know. If this is Regulus’s final resting spot. If this is the watery grave that
Regulus had taken his last breath in.

Without giving it another thought, he impulsively casts a spell to summon Regulus’s body out
of the lake.

To his horror, two separate pieces come floating out of the water—a waterlogged, decapitated
body, sheathed in dripping wet black robes, and then—Regulus’s head, his empty grey eyes
staring out of his roguishly handsome face, black hair swirling artistically about it, even in
death.
Both are well-preserved in the ice-cold water of the cave, and as they settle on the rocky
ground in front of him, James falls to his knees with a sob.

“What happened to you,” James whispers in horror, cradling the cold, dripping wet head in
his lap like it’s the most precious thing he’d ever held.

He never got to say good-bye. He never got to say sorry for freezing Regulus out over the last
2 years, instead of trying to bridge their differences and actually talk, actually listen to his
reasons for joining Voldemort.

Instead, as hotheaded and Gryffindor loyalist as he was, he had simply stormed off in an
angry sanctimonious fit, refusing to see in between the stark blacks and whites of the war.

“I should have done more to listen to you, instead of cutting you out immediately. If I could
do anything to take those two years back...” James murmurs.

The last time they talked, it was in Regulus’s 6th year. They had been each other’s firsts for
everything.

“I’m sorry we never made up, but I’ll see you every time I look up at the stars.”

He can’t return the body to the Blacks. Not at the risk of Voldemort discovering that someone
had found the cave where his Inferi army was stashed. He knows what he should do—but he
won’t—is to tell the rest of the Order what he found and come back here with them to set
Fiendfyre to it.

But then Regulus would be no more. They never even had a proper good-bye.

James runs a tender hand through the wet fringe covering Regulus’s forehead, brushing it
back. The glassy grey eyes stare out with a terrifying blankness.

What he wouldn’t give to have one more moment with Regulus.

Before he knows it, he’s tearing off the inky dripping robes from the stiff, cold body—from
the stump of the neck all the way down to his pale calves, until the front of his body is left
entirely uncovered.

He desperately wants to feel Regulus inside of him one last time. He grasps at Regulus’s
dusky pink cock in his blinding grief, trying to rouse any blood flow, to draw up warmth, to
summon life into it.

But Regulus is stiff everywhere, except for the one place James needs him to be.

“Fuck,” he gasps out a ragged sob, clinging onto Regulus’s cold and wet form. He can’t bear
to let him go, to see him slide back into the pitch blackness of the Inferi lake, without this one
last moment of intimacy and connection.

James had never topped Regulus before, but he’s going to have to now.
Hands shaking, he slowly spreads Regulus’s legs and slides a hand under his bum.
Everywhere he touches is wet and cold, but he soldiers on, conjuring lube on his hand and
trying to feel for Regulus’s hole.

He forces a slick finger in, trying to warm up his insides with a whispered warming charm.

The flesh does not relax and part easily as it would in life, but James pretends Regulus is
simply tense and nervous because it’s their first time together with James topping.

“Hey, it’s alright,” James croons, stroking Regulus’s damp black hair away from his unseeing
eyes. “It’s alright, just relax, love, it’ll start feeling good soon...”

He tries to force a second finger in, the cold flesh painfully tight around his fingers, but he
can’t quite push it in. Unless he can somehow make more space, it’s going to really hurt his
cock, he thinks.

But he doesn’t care. He needs to have this one last moment with Regulus, the love of his life.

The thought spurs him to unbuckle his trousers and take his cock out with his other hand,
stroking it to hardness.

He retrieves Regulus’s head from where it’s now rolled to the side of his body, and sets it on
the ground right on top of the stump of a neck. Through James’ blurry tears, it almost looks
like Regulus’s body was all in 1 piece again, as long as he doesn’t squint too closely.

Taking a deep breath, he drapes himself over Regulus’s still form, and tries to push in.

The flesh is so unwelcoming and cold that he nearly loses his erection, but he casts another
warming charm at the body beneath him, which helps him pretend that this is all real.

Even so, he’s unable to breach Regulus’s entrance with the full girth of his cock—it feels like
he’s trying to push against a solid wall, the ring of muscles completely firm and unyielding in
rigor mortis.

“Oh, come on!” James exclaims, after the tenth or twelfth attempt of trying to force his way
through, his cock instead slipping away and sliding up Regulus’s groin against his balls and
soft cock. “Fuck, fuck!”

He sits back on his heels, frantically running a hand through his messy hair, trying to think of
what he could do.

“I missed you so much,” he sniffles, scooting up to kneel next to Regulus’ head. “I messed
up, I really fucked up real bad, Reg.”

James feels a mounting desperation clawing its way out of his chest to relive one last moment
with Regulus, to close his eyes for a moment and pretend like everything’s okay.

Through his tears, he looks down at the seam on Regulus’s neck between his separated head
and his body.
Oh no, he thinks, at the same moment that his cock gives an interested twitch and a bead of
clear fluid forms at the tip, registering the morbid tableau in front of him.

“Ahh fuck, Reg, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he murmurs, as he watches himself, as if in a trance,
lean forward over Regulus’s still form, and then slot his fully hard cock into the split-open
space at the front of his neck.

The flesh feels cold and slippery and firm, and he’s surprised by how smoothly his cock
glides in between the passage he’s created. He grips Regulus’s head down and tries to hold it
tight to his body, creating a tighter channel for him to fuck into.

“I shouldn’t have walked away in your sixth year, instead of being there for you.”

His thrusts quicken as he becomes more accustomed to addressing Regulus as though he was
there.

“I should have trusted you, instead of turning my back. And I know Sirius would have come
around eventually.”

He blindly grabs for one of Regulus’s hands and peppers it with soft kisses. Regulus always
teased him about his habit of babbling about anything and everything during sex, but James
knew he secretly liked it.

“Speaking of, Sirius finally moved in with Snivellus, you should see them, they’re actually
happy together,” he says in a tone of mixed awe and disbelief.

James feel himself getting close, his spirits lifting as he gets more swept up in the pretend
fantasy. “Oh! And you’ll never believe it. Guess who’s going to be a dad this year! Me!” He
grins down at Regulus’s frozen face, still boyishly charming, even in death.

James feels himself reaching the crest, and then—and then—all the pent-up feelings of grief
and loss crash into him all at once—he comes with a loud moan deep inside of Regulus’s still
form.

He at least has the presence of mind to pull out and collapse next to Regulus, rather than on
top of him, cuddling up next to the cold chest, still holding his head tight against the bottom
of his neck.

“We’re going to name Sirius the godfather,” he murmurs, stroking the smooth, firm skin
above Regulus’s heart, “But if you were here—well, I mean, I wouldn’t be having this baby if
we were together, but if somehow you were here, then I’d definitely name you the other
godfather.”

James doesn’t know how long he stays there, clinging onto Regulus’s ice-cold form, but
eventually the chill settles into his bones, and he starts shivering violently. He knows he
ought to head back, before Lily starts getting worried and asking other Order members about
whatever mission James had claimed to have gone on.
With one last sob, James lets go of Regulus’s body and lets it slide back into the ink-black
lake water.

He tries to spell away any evidence of his dishevelment. Clears his expression and locks the
memories of Regulus away in a small, tightly closed box buried at the bottom of his
memories.

When he’s composed himself, he straightens up and gets ready to apparate away.

He tells himself it’s time to let go of this chapter of his life and focus on what really matters
—his unborn child, his soon-to-be wife, and fighting the good fight on the right side of the
war.

With thoughts of his unborn son warming him from the inside out like a talisman of hope, he
calls Kreacher back to apparate him out of the cave, returning him to the life and stalwart role
that everyone expects of him.
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