@jegulus-microfic // january 22 // prompt: cry // words: 1184 // cw: explicit sexual content
James Potter is loud. Unbearably so. He’s also talkative, which makes for a particularly frustrating combination. He’s always blabbering on about one thing or the other. His professors or the reading materials or the RA of his dorm, whose name is Frank Longbottom, by the way. This is something Regulus knows because James is —say it with me— loud.
James is either louder than usual today, or Regulus’ fuse is shorter than usual, but it is bordering on unbearable. Regulus is trying his best to focus on the economics of inequality, really, he is. But James Potter’s aggravating voice is cutting through his concentration at an alarming rate.
With a sharp exhale he slams the palms of his hands against the table and shoves his chair backward, causing Evan and Barty to look up. At the sight of Regulus fuming, they simply raise an eyebrow at each other and turn back to their assignments.
Regulus rolls his shoulders and steels himself for what is undoubtedly going to be a frustrating interaction.
He weaves his way through the library, surprised that no one else seems as bothered as he is about the noise, because it is fairly packed. Exam week is coming up and Hogwarts University is known for its rigorous program and harsh grading. This may or may not be the cause for Regulus’ short fuse today — he really needs to pass the econ exam if he wants to take an elective next semester.
Before he knows it, he is standing in front of James Potter’s table. Regulus clears his throat once to get James’ attention, but he seems so captivated by his own story that he doesn’t notice Regulus, standing there with a frown on his face.
It isn’t until James’ friend, Peter? Preston? Patrick? No, Peter sounds right, nudges him under the table that James looks up.
Regulus is met with a blinding smile. “Hi, Reg! What can I do for you?”
“Shut up.”
“Excuse me?” James asks, affronted. “You came and talked to me.”
“No, I mean what you can do for me is shutting up. You’re being loud and I can’t focus.”
The confused expression on James’ face morphs into a smug one almost instantaneously. “So what I’m hearing is that you find me distracting?” He asks with a wag of his eyebrows. Peter snorts out a laugh, but Regulus ignores him.
He rolls his eyes. God, this man is infuriating. “That’s absolutely not what I said. I simply can’t hear myself think over the sound of your voice.”
“Shame,” James tells him. “Although, I must admit I’m rather interested to hear what you’re thinking. Maybe you could tell me on Friday? Over dinner?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Dinner. Friday,” James repeats. Then he gestures between the two of them. “You and me.”
Regulus feels like a fish out of water, gaping stupidly at James Potter in the middle of the library.
Regulus is about to say something cutting and devastating like In your wildest dreams or Is this a prank or Absolutely the fuck not, but what comes out of his mouth is a hesitant, “Sure.”
James’ beaming smile is back. “Alright. I best get back to studying, then. Apparently I have plans on Friday, so I gotta clear my schedule.”
Regulus makes his way back to his table in a daze. Barty and Evan are waiting, gazes expectant.
“Well?” Evan prompts when Regulus doesn’t say anything. “How’d you get him to shut up?”
“By agreeing to go on a date with him,” Regulus says, still somewhat confused. He isn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t a prank and he also isn’t entirely convinced he’s awake right now. The interaction was so absurd, he's sure he dreamed it.
“What the fuck?” Barty asks. Yeah, that’s what Regulus is also thinking.
————————————————————————
“C’mon, James,” Regulus murmurs, “let me hear you.” He reaches up to tug James’ bottom lip out from between his teeth. With a particularly harsh thrust, he pushes James up the mattress a couple of inches, slamming the headboard against the wall.
James moans —loudly— and Regulus relishes in the sound. He chases it, covering James’ mouth with his own and licking into it as if he could taste the sound, somehow. He pulls back and attaches his lips to James’ neck, sucking a bruise into the flushed skin.
James moans again, and again, and again. The sound bursts out of him in breathy gasps every time Regulus pushes in.
“Love it when you get loud for me,” Regulus tells him.
“Used to—” James starts, but he is interrupted by yet another moan, “used to hate it.”
“That was before I knew better,” Regulus acquiesces, slightly breathless. “Now it’s my favorite thing in the world.”
The sound of the headboard hitting the wall fills the room, interspersed with the sound of James moaning. It doesn’t take long for James’ moans to rise in pitch, signaling that he’s close.
“Reg, Reg, I’m—” James tries to warn, but he cuts himself off with a cry of pleasure.
“I know, James,” Regulus replies. He furrows his brow in concentration, his fist tight around James' cock as he pushes him toward his release. “It’s okay, come for me.”
James spills all over Regulus’ hand and his own stomach with a particularly loud moan and Regulus follows close behind, tumbling into pleasure headfirst until he comes back down to earth.
He pulls out of James gently, discards the condom, and moves to grab a cloth. He wipes down James’ stomach and reaches between his legs to get rid of the excess lube. Regulus is just about to get comfortable again when there is a sharp knock on the door. With a sigh, he tosses James a pair of underwear and tugs on his own.
“What,” Regulus says sharply when he yanks the door open. James pads up to him and places a hand on his shoulder.
“Hi, Frank,” James says somewhat sheepishly.
“Hi, James. Regulus,” Frank says. His eyes get stuck on the blooming hickey Regulus left on James’ neck a few minutes ago. Regulus coughs pointedly, snapping Frank out of his daze. “Got another noise complaint. Would it kill you guys to be quiet?”
Frank definitely looks like he doesn’t want to be here. Regulus agrees. He would much rather be back in bed with James.
“Sorry, we’ll try to keep it down,” James says. The hand that is not resting on Regulus’ shoulder goes to his hair, running through it self-consciously. Even if they hadn’t gotten a noise complaint it would have been obvious what they were doing. The hickeys, the hair, the distinct lack of clothes.
“Anything else?” Regulus asks when no one speaks.
“Uh, no, that’s all. Thank—” but Regulus has already closed the door before Frank can even finish his sentence.
“Regulus,” James says, exasperated, “this is the third time we’ve gotten a noise complaint. They’re gonna kick me out, I swear.”
“Don’t worry,” Regulus tells him. “You can get up to five complaints before they consider eviction.”
With a loud laugh, James tackles him to the bed.
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behold: my second least favorite string of words in the entirety of Tears of the Kingdom.
(it's a little less transparent why this time so I'll explain my thoughts under the cut)
So why do I not like this?
In so many words: because if you remove it, the scene still works, but you lose the moral certainty of what is going on.
This single sentence does so much legwork for the entire game (the kind I dislike), to the point where I'm about 60% sure it's the product of a rework that realized how ambiguous Rauru's position was as the Good Rightful King and needed to nervously reassure the players that Ganondorf Is and Always Was the Invader, Actually.
(no matter that it leaves the gerudos in this awkward in-between state of both invaders and victims, while never dwelling in the specifics of their history and their own agency in the entire thing; brushed off as a sin they have to expiate through loyalty to the winners of that particular strife, but without explicitely blaming them either to avoid the implications of what that would have looked like)
If you remove it, not only do you lose a pretty clunky line that detracts from Ganondorf's intimidating presence (who is he even speaking to? who needs to hear this right now?) that honestly speaks for itself when it comes to his experience with warfare, but also you lose any tension and any mystery regarding why he is attacking in the first place.
You also... kind of rob Ganondorf's motivations of their meaning. "Hyrule will bow down before me" leads to asking... why? What does he want? What does he see in those lands? And what little we get with Rauru and then Link during the final fight begs more questions; why do you prefer hardship to peace? Why do you value strength? What leads you to want to rule a land devoid of survivors, become a king without a kingdom? I don't think we ever get satisfactory answers. If you remove this sentence, on the other hand... Subtextually, it becomes pretty clear that his motivations is that he felt threatened by Rauru's power, which is ripe with subtext and questions about whether this is a legitimate reaction, whether his "no survivor" stance is due to a feeling of betrayal when his own people turned against him post the Demon King shenanigans... I'm not saying it would fix the entire game's writing, far from it, but it would already do *so much more*.
(genuinely, I think he could have stayed completely silent during the Molduga Assault, speaking only in the Show of Fealty before going completely nuts after Sonia's murder, and it would have worked MUCH better in terms of characterization but anyway anyway
EDIT: ALSO!!! that way he wouldn't speak hylian to fellow gerudos, which is weird inherently)
Without this line, the core of the tension between the gerudos and Hyrule comes front in his conversation with Rauru; it allows the cause of his hostility to be Rauru's invitations, that he would have taken as a threat, and would have still made him warlike and domineering without making him cartoonishly flat, because, once again, Rauru is not acting in a particularly more legitimate way when Zelda arrives in Ancient Hyrule; and it would have been... fair to point that out. And make for better characterization for Rauru, and Sonia, and Mineru, and everybody. But the priority was for Hyrule to be pictured as unquestionably holy; always legitimate, always truthful, always beautiful, always just.
Also, and this is more of a nitpick but: why would Ganondorf want Hyrule, specifically, to bow down before him also? Was he at war with the rest of the disparate tribes before, and just carried on his ambitions to the very very newly-founded kingdom as they allied under a new banner? (though it seems to be implies the lands were crawling under monsters in a generic sense, and not Ganondorf's attacks in particular) Why would he even consider Hyrule a legitimate entity worth taking over then, if it is so new, born from the will of a powerful rival, founded by what is basically a stranger to these lands? Why would he covet something so young instead of destroying it and just calling the lands Gerudo Lands II or Grooseland or something?
I don't think any of that was even accounted for, because, beyond everything else: to me, this sentence is so clearly and painfully crammed in here to shield Hyrule from any potential blame and immediately characterize Ganondorf as Bad without having to remove any of the causes that could lead one to side-eye Rauru's little pet project as equally questionable.
Beyond the clumsiness, it is cowardly --and, I think, a little damning.
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to be fair, I don't think qroier not trusting qbad is particularly new haha. i think it's been going on for a while even before purgatory. the only thing purgatory did with that particularly relationship is it gave qroier an excuse to be more vocal in his annoyance
( @lucienff the themes of these are similar so I’m answering the ask and responding in one post instead of the comments, hope you don’t mind :3 )
I agree with the read that Roier didn’t particularly trust Bad before, but I think that at a baseline, Roier doesn’t have much trust with most anyone to begin with. I think everything that had happened with Spreen back in the beginning of the server is something that is a large cause in that, because its still something he is suffering from months later - it’s just in true Roier fashion, it’s something he doesn’t really talk about to others. He’s only recently shared it and talked about it with Cellbit.
But even then, he had a respect for Bad. When the eggs first went missing, and they were both visibly affected by the stress, they had moments of somewhat acknowledging the other, but sticking to the script of “oh I’m fine” yknow what I mean? And before purgatory, yeah, there was no doubt that Bad cared for the eggs, and could be trusted in that regard.
But post Purgatory, I think that baseline trust has been shaken. He doesn’t let Bad see Pepito when he visited the castle, makes excuses for him to leave, and then afterwards talks to himself about how he’s angry that everyone seems to have forgotten Purgatory (both in the context that he also doesn’t trust Pepito, and he doesn’t want Bad coming up to him as if the past two weeks didn’t happen). When Leo wakes up, and Bad is around trying to talk with them, he makes a point of pulling her away. Of putting himself between Leo and Bad. And it’s in the subtle, usual jesting way he’s done before with Bad (“you can only drink lava once yknow. sure, try it, I’m not going though!” and “stranger danger Leo, stranger danger!” etc etc. said with enough dramatics it keeps it lighthearted, because that’s what Roier does).
I don’t think Roier is actively thinking he should mistrust Bad with the eggs specifically. I don’t think that he thinks Bad doesn’t care about the eggs. I just think he hasn’t fully trusted Bad before, and now since Purgatory he doesn’t trust him at all, for good reason - Bad was very much an instigator and a cause for both his own torment and his family’s (Jaiden namely, what with the spawn killing, and Cellbit, Foolish). It’s no longer a ‘this guy is a thorn in my side and I don’t trust him’ kinda petty drama between islanders. It’s a ‘this guy went back on the deal to keep the score 50/50 and did so under the impression we as the losing team could die’ kind of situation. A ‘we spent the past few weeks in hell and this guy repeatedly not only killed, but went over the top in tormenting my family and myself, I don’t trust him’ kind of situation. It’s not an excuse to be petty or properly annoyed, it’s a result of how Bad burned all his bridges in purgatory. It’s in large part a trauma response.
It doesn’t matter that Bad has never once been a threat to Leo, that he’s taken care of her multiple times, that he has always checked in with the eggs and cared for them - it matters that Leo is his sister, that Pepito is under his care, and he Does Not Trust Bad.
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