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You're All Talk ( Jegulus🍋)

You're All Talk
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When Regulus got to school on the very first day, he didn't have a roommate. He'd waited a little too long to pick one of his own, neglecting to join the online group and find someone he shared interests with; neglecting to fill out the roommate application form that had shown up in his email not long after.

He'd wound up with another email in his inbox that told him he'd be stuck with whoever the university decided to put him with. Which, really, was just whoever else didn't bother to pick a roommate of their own; and at first, Regulus didn't mind. He figured that whoever else hadn't bothered to pick a roommate was off similarly to him: apathetic, couldn't be bothered, mellow, and didn't care for people much.

It couldn't be that bad, right? His roommate would just be another near-silent academic who didn't care much for parties or social interaction, someone who would sit on their side of the room and mind their business all year. It could be a perfectly symbiotic relationship; silence in exchange for silence, space in exchange for space. Neither of them would say much of anything to the other because they didn't need to be friends, they only shared space out of obligation, nothing more.

This could be easy. Regulus had his hopes set in the middle ground when he was jogging up the stairs to the room he'd been told was his, perhaps letting himself get a little too lost in the image he'd created in his own head.

Then, Regulus met James.

It was the moment he opened the door to his room. After fiddling rather pathetically with a key in his shaky hand, he swung the too-heavy door open to find one of the beds already half-lofted and made and a desk with far too much stuff on it.

There was a certain tan-skinned, dark-haired menace sitting on the floor between their beds, legs extended and crossed while he fiddled on his phone. Regulus stood in the doorway unmoving, watching as the boy who he could only assume was his roommate turned to look at him with arrogance in his eyes.

"I assume you're my roommate?"

Calling his voice nails on a chalkboard would be cruel. But it was safe to say that Regulus didn't like it.

"Yes," he said with a huff, sighed and already spent. "I'm Regulus."

The still nameless boy rose to his feet, dropping his phone down onto the bed that was clearly his. And he approached Regulus with an outstretched hand, bright white teeth on full display when he grinned.

"James," his voice curled so abrasive over his own fucking name, "but you can call me whatever you want, pretty boy."

He winked at Regulus. Winked. The brunette couldn't keep himself from scowling, shaking his head with the harsh slam of the door behind him.

"Call me that again," he warned, dropping his bags on the floor, "and I knock the teeth out of your fucking head."

James only laughed, dropping his hand back to his side when Regulus never took it. He didn't seem phased by the refused handshake, retreating back to what had been proclaimed his side of the room and crawling up onto his bed.

And he managed to be quiet while Regulus went about moving in. James sat on his bed and kept his mouth shut, earbuds in listening to god knows what—Regulus couldn't bring himself to care—and was wonderfully ignorable. For a moment, Regulus wondered if they'd only suffered from a bad first impression; maybe James was only too much the first time, and he'd only get better as time went on.