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James hadn’t expected to fall in love with his roommate. He’d expected awkward schedules and passive-aggressive fridge notes, maybe a few late-night debates about dishwashing etiquette. What he hadn’t expected was Regulus.
Regulus with his quiet elegance, his methodical routines, the way he curled up on the couch with a tattered novel pressed against his knees. Regulus with ink-stained fingers and top surgery scars that peeked out from his loose tanks. Regulus, who didn’t smile often—but when he did, it cracked something wide open inside James.
James was a mess in comparison. A graphic design major with paint under his fingernails and loose sketches scattered everywhere like fallen leaves. He worked best at 2 a.m. and lived on instant noodles and bad coffee. Regulus kept a tidy corner of the apartment and tolerated the creative chaos James brought into the shared space. That, somehow, only made James more obsessed.
It started innocently enough.
A line here, a curve there. The edge of Regulus’s jaw, the slope of his neck. James had drawn people before—models in class, strangers at cafés, lovers in fleeting moments—but none of them stayed in his fingers the way Regulus did.
He didn’t mean to draw him naked. Not at first.
But one day, Regulus walked out of the bathroom, damp hair dripping onto a loose tank, his boxers riding low, the dark ink of his scars visible in the low light of their shared apartment. James was struck dumb by the image. There was nothing performative about it—Regulus wasn’t trying to be seen. He just was.
That night, James picked up his sketchpad and didn’t stop until dawn. He didn’t show anyone that page. Not yet.
He kept drawing him. When Regulus read on the couch, one leg tucked under the other, eyes soft with concentration. When he laughed—rare, bright, unguarded. When he fell asleep in James’s bed after a movie night, his head slumped against James’s shoulder, lips parted just slightly.
And yes—sometimes James drew more than that. The curve of Regulus’s thighs, the gentle dip of his stomach, the sharp beauty of his scars. He drew Regulus the way he saw him: whole and stunning, real and raw.
It felt wrong and right all at once.
---
James knew it would come out eventually. He just didn’t expect it to happen like this.
Regulus had gotten out of the shower. James was in the living room, trying to rearrange his art portfolio for a submission. Sketches and loose pages were everywhere. He hadn’t realized one of the Regulus drawings—the explicit ones—had slipped into the pile.
Regulus walked in, towel around his neck, and froze mid-step.
James followed his gaze and nearly choked.
It was that sketch. The one where Regulus was sprawled on James’s bed, naked, legs open, his cunt glistening between his thighs. There were faint lines indicating James’s hand between Regulus’s legs, their lips pressed together in an imagined kiss. It was intimate. Undeniably so.
“Shit—Reg, wait—” James fumbled forward, but it was too late.
Regulus picked up the sketch, eyes scanning it in silence. His expression didn’t betray anything—no disgust, no fury, no visible reaction at all. That terrified James more than anything.
“I didn’t mean to—I mean, I did, but not like—fuck.” James rubbed a hand through his curls. “It’s not what you think.”
Regulus raised an eyebrow. “You drew me like this. How exactly am I supposed to think?”
James was quiet for a beat. Then: “I love you.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
Regulus blinked. The sketch trembled slightly in his hand.
James stepped closer. “I didn’t mean for you to see that. But I wasn’t ashamed, either. You’re beautiful. You’re real. I wanted to draw you the way I see you.”
“You see me like this?” Regulus’s voice was quiet, almost uncertain.
“Yeah.” James swallowed. “Strong. Gorgeous. Honest. Sometimes soft, sometimes rough, but always you. I’ve been in love with you for months, and I didn’t know what to do with it, so I drew. That’s all I know how to do.”
There was a pause. A long one.
Then Regulus slowly set the sketch down and crossed the room to stand in front of James.
“You’re an idiot,” he murmured.
James’s heart dropped. “I—yeah. Probably.”
Regulus rolled his eyes. “But I love you too.”
James blinked. “You… what?”
“I’ve known,” Regulus said. “Or suspected. You draw like you’re confessing. I thought maybe I was imagining it.”
James laughed, shaky and full of disbelief. “You love me?”
Regulus shrugged one shoulder. “Unfortunately.”
James didn’t wait. He kissed him, soft at first—tentative. Regulus kissed back immediately, like he’d been waiting.
James’s hands found Regulus’s waist, holding him like something precious. Regulus’s fingers curled in his shirt, grounding them both.
They pulled apart only when breath demanded it.
“I still want to draw you,” James whispered, voice rough.
Regulus smirked. “Then maybe next time, I’ll pose for you on purpose.”
---
They didn’t rush anything after that. There were new routines now—shared coffees in the morning, kisses between class, lazy evenings tangled together on the couch.
James kept drawing. But now, Regulus watched him draw.
Sometimes he posed—shirtless in their shared bedroom, the light from the window catching on his scars. Other times, James caught him mid-laughter, sketching him from memory after a night out.
There were still explicit drawings. Regulus encouraged them now.
“Show me how you see me,” he’d whisper, fingers slipping under James’s shirt. “Make me art.”
And James did.
But not all of the sketches were sexual.
Some were soft—Regulus asleep, his face pressed into James’s pillow. Regulus sitting cross-legged on the floor, feeding their cat. Regulus reading with his glasses slipping down his nose.
In one drawing, he was smiling—truly smiling—at James, eyes lit with something warm and infinite.
James titled that one “Muse.”
He didn’t need to hide his work anymore.
He had everything he needed in front of him. A pencil, a page, and the boy who made him believe in beauty every time he looked up.
---
James had been in a strange sort of haze all day.
Maybe it was the way Regulus kissed him that morning—sleep-warm and slow—or how he’d stood in the kitchen, shirtless in those low-hanging shorts, sipping his coffee with a tired sort of grace. Or maybe it was that sketch James had started and abandoned at least six times now, unable to capture what he felt when he looked at him.
Regulus. Sharp and soft, gentle and unknowable. A contradiction that James never wanted to solve.
He sat cross-legged on his bed, sketchpad in his lap, chewing the end of a pencil while the late afternoon sun spilled across the hardwood floor. The window was open. Somewhere down the hall, the shower hissed on, steady and familiar.
James sighed and flipped another page.
He didn’t hear the bathroom door open. But he felt the shift in the air—cool steam rolling out, the faint thud of bare feet on wood. Then—
“Draw me.”
The pencil dropped from James’s mouth. He straightened his glasses, he didn't think it was real.
Regulus stood in the doorway, completely naked, wet hair dripping onto his collarbones, water tracking down the dip of his chest. His scars gleamed faintly in the light. His thighs were damp and flushed, and he wasn’t covering anything—not his cunt, not his chest, not his expression.
James blinked. Swallowed.
Regulus walked in slowly, his eyes fixed on James. There was something calm in his gaze, something daring, but not cocky. More like—certain. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Without saying another word, he climbed onto James’s bed and sat back on his elbows. Legs spread.
James felt like his brain short-circuited.
“You…” His voice came out hoarse. “You sure?”
Regulus tilted his head. “You’ve drawn me like this before. Secretly. Honestly. I want you to do it now—on purpose.”
James’s fingers shook as he picked up the pencil again. “Okay.”
Regulus smirked slightly, then shifted—arching his back, spreading his legs just a little wider. He wasn’t performing. He wasn’t pretending to be something he wasn’t. He was just—there. Whole. Stunning. Unapologetic.
James had never seen anything so raw in his life.
He started to sketch.
At first, his strokes were careful. Measured. He tried to map out the angle of Regulus’s hips, the soft curve of his stomach, the slope of his scars. The way his cunt nestled naturally between his thighs—no shame, no hiding.
But the longer he drew, the more he forgot about precision.
Regulus was looking at him.
Not at the sketch. At him.
James’s hand moved faster, looser, chasing the way water clung to Regulus’s skin. He sketched the relaxed tension in his legs, the small smirk on his mouth, the quiet pride in his posture. The way he took up space—not demanding it, but inhabiting it.
“You’re staring,” Regulus said, voice low.
“I’m drawing.”
“You’re looking at me like you’re starving.”
James’s breath caught. “I kind of am.”
Regulus hummed and shifted again, leaning back further, his arms propping him up. A bead of water slid down his sternum, across the thick line of his top surgery scars, down to his navel.
James had to stop and press the heel of his hand to his mouth.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
“Too much?” Regulus asked, though his voice was amused.
“No. Not enough.”
Regulus’s expression softened at that. “Then keep going.”
James did.
The sketch took shape quickly now—less a technical rendering, more a kind of worship. The page filled with lines of desire and reverence. His strokes curved gently around Regulus’s softness, marked the strength in his thighs, the relaxed openness in his body. He added shading along his collarbones, a hint of wet hair stuck to his cheek. The way his chest rose and fell, steady and alive.
When he finally stopped, it wasn’t because he was done.
It was because he couldn’t take his eyes off Regulus anymore.
“I—fuck.” James dropped the pencil. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
Regulus sat up slowly. “Show me.”
James blinked. “What?”
“Show me the sketch.”
James turned the pad around, heart thudding in his chest.
Regulus took it, eyes scanning over the lines in silence. A long pause followed.
Then: “You drew me like I’m everything.”
James swallowed. “You are.”
Regulus looked up. His eyes were glassy, but steady.
“No one’s ever seen me like this,” he said. “Not like that. Not without filters or edits or—whatever people expect trans bodies to be.”
James moved forward, carefully. “What I see is you. All of you. Not just your body. But the way you hold it. The way you let me see you. That’s everything to me.”
Regulus let out a quiet breath, then set the sketch aside and reached for James’s shirt.
He didn’t kiss him at first—just pressed his forehead to James’s chest, breathing him in. James held him close, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other splayed across the bare skin of his back.
“I want to be yours,” Regulus whispered.
“You already are,” James said. “Always.”
They kissed then—slow, deep, reverent. James didn’t rush. He let his hands map Regulus’s skin the way his pencil had. He traced his scars with his fingertips. He kissed the corners of his mouth, the hollow of his throat. Regulus let him.
That night, they didn’t have sex—not exactly. But they touched each other like they were creating something. Like they were sketching something permanent in muscle and memory.
Afterward, Regulus lay curled against James, one leg thrown over his thigh, breath evening out.
James stared at the sketch still resting on the nightstand.
“You were right,” he whispered.
Regulus blinked sleepily. “About what?”
“You are everything.”
Regulus smiled, soft and true. “Then keep drawing.”
And James would. Always.
---
It started the way things often did between them—quietly.
They were in James’s bed, limbs tangled under a heap of mismatched blankets. The room was warm, soft-lit by the yellow glow of his desk lamp, the sketchpad discarded nearby. Regulus was half-asleep, his face tucked into the crook of James’s neck, smelling faintly of soap and sleep.
James was awake.
He was always most awake in these moments, when Regulus let himself be still, unguarded. There was a certain kind of sacredness in it—watching the boy he loved breathe slow and steady, his fingers curled loosely in James’s shirt.
James brushed a knuckle down Regulus’s jaw, the back of his fingers feather-light.
“You’re so pretty,” he whispered.
Regulus tensed slightly.
A beat.
Then: “James—” Half sigh, half warning.
“I’m serious.”
Regulus pulled back enough to look at him. His hair was a mess from sleep, and one side of his cheek was still pink from where it had been pressed against James’s chest. He looked annoyed. But only a little.
“You say that like it means something.”
“It does mean something.”
Regulus scoffed softly, but James didn’t let him deflect. He reached up, cupped his face gently, and met his eyes with startling sincerity.
“Let me tell you what I see,” he said.
Regulus blinked, the sarcasm on his tongue dying before it could form.
James kissed his cheek. Then pointed just above his eyebrow. “Here. This little scar. I love it. I love the way it breaks the symmetry of your face, like a brushstroke that changed the whole painting.”
Regulus stared at him, caught between confusion and disbelief.
“Your eyebrows,” James went on, “they arch like you’re always judging me, and it’s so fucking hot. Your eyes—dark, sharp. Not just pretty, but expressive. I’ve drawn them a hundred times, and I’m still trying to get it right.”
Regulus tried to speak. James stopped him with a finger to his lips.
“Your nose,” James murmured, tracing it. “Straight, but soft at the bridge. Your cheekbones—fucking sculptural. Your lips—don’t get me started. They're made for trouble.”
Regulus rolled his eyes, but James caught the faint twitch of a smile.
“Your jaw is sharp, but not mean,” James continued. “Your neck—God. You stretch it when you’re reading, and I swear I lose my mind every time. I want to trace it in ink. I have traced it in ink.”
He let his hand fall to Regulus’s chest.
“And your scars.” He didn’t rush this part. “They’re not just beautiful. They’re yours. They tell your story. And I know you don’t always love them, but I do. I love what they mean. I love what they don’t mean. I love that they’re just part of you.”
Regulus was frozen now. Not stiff—just still. Listening.
James moved his fingers lower, to the soft curve of Regulus’s belly, just under his ribs.
“This,” he said. “I love how soft you are here, almost non existent in specific poses. And your hips—God, Reg. The way you move, the way you hold yourself. Confident even when you think you're not. Like your body’s always known it belongs to you.”
Regulus swallowed.
James touched the inside of his thigh, gently, reverently.
“Here, too. I’ve drawn you like this, I’ve wanted you like this, but it’s never just about sex. It’s how open you are with me. How safe you let me feel when you’re vulnerable. You’re not just pretty, Regulus. You’re fucking luminous.”
“James—” Regulus’s voice broke a little. “Stop.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll make me believe you.”
“You should believe me.”
James sat up slightly, brushing a strand of hair from Regulus’s face.
“Because it’s not just your body I love. It’s everything.”
He kissed the corner of his mouth. “Your sarcasm.”
Then the tip of his nose. “Your intelligence.”
His temple. “The way you pretend you’re annoyed but still make me tea when I’m having a bad day.”
His throat. “The way you speak—like every word costs something.”
His collarbone. “How fiercely you love, even when you don’t say it.”
Regulus had gone quiet again. His hand came up, ghosting over James James's chest, gripping the fabric.
"I see you," James whispered. "I see all of
you. And you're so, so pretty."
Regulus took a shaky breath.
Then he kissed him.
Not desperate. Not frenzied.
Just. present
When they parted, Regulus looked down between them. “I don’t always know how to believe people when they say things like that.”
James nodded. “I know.”
“But I believe you,” Regulus said. “I don’t know why, but I do.”
James smiled and pulled him close again. “Good. Because I’ll keep saying it until you never doubt it again.”
Regulus buried his face in James’s neck. “You’re annoyingly good at this.”
“Loving you?”
Regulus laughed, muffled. “Yeah.”
James grinned and rubbed slow circles into his back. “Get used to it, pretty boy.”
They lay there like that, wrapped around each other, quiet in the way only people in love can be.
And James thought how did he get so lucky.