"My Beautiful Boy"
Warnings: Slash, references to gay sex. Please note that, though the story involves intimate relations between an adult and a minor, the actual sexual relationship occurs when James is sixteen – the age of consent in the UK, if I'm not mistaken.
Disclaimer: I don't own or derive monetary gains from J.K. Rowling's characters. I just get off on desecrating them.
Note: The age difference between Teddy and James is skewed to fit the story. This is inspired by and dedicated to JamesSirius_ and ColourMeTeddy in the RP Twitterverse.
~T/J~
"My beautiful boy," Teddy uttered softly with adoration as his hand slowly caressed the length of James' back while the two lay on their sides upon the narrow bed in James' room.
James' skin seemed to glow with an inhumanly bluish tone as the moonlight filtered through the curtains and shone upon him. Teddy committed this portrait to memory and likened it to one of those nude paintings of young men of the immortal Fae Folk he'd studied in fine art class at university. In this light, James was a magical creature that would never be touched by the ravages of time, perfectly preserved in all his youthful beauty. All he needed to do was adorn his unlined brow with a crown of ivy, and James would be his faerie lover forever. A breeze blew through the open window and pushed the curtain to the side, letting the full light of the bright moon shine through. And the fantasy disappeared.
In this light, Teddy could see what few flaws James had, none of which were unattractive. There was a long scar on James' shoulder blade that had marred his skin since he fell off his broom at the age of ten. Whenever Teddy saw the scar over the years, like when they'd go swimming in the summer, it gave him a tremendous sense of guilt, for he had caused that flying accident. Teddy had been fifteen, and was already impressed with young James' flying skills. So James, always wanting to please the older boy whom he idolized, performed a showy maneuver that inadvertently landed him in a tangle of thorn bushes, only to emerge with a damaged ego and a gash across his back. The scar had changed over time, fading and stretching as James grew, until it was barely noticeable.
But Teddy had always noticed it and always would, even though it faded with age to a faint, pale line. It had become his mark on James. He gently traced a finger over the scar and could still felt a phantom pang of guilt. More than that, it also gave him a sense of peace – Teddy would always be a part of Jamie's childhood memories, would always share a common history with him. They were brothers that shared everything but blood.
Teddy wondered if James would always hold these memories and fondly and treasure them as jewels, or if he'd look back upon everything that Teddy had done to him and find indelible scars. Would the way Teddy touched his life, touched his body, always be a welcome influence, or would it become irreparable damage?
Teddy felt a cold ache in his heart as his fingers stroked along the delicate curve of James' spine. He often felt this when he admired James' nude form – it was the sort of ache one felt when they longed for something they could not have, or rather, something they should not have.
Touching James was like handling a present before Christmas, wrapped in gorgeous paper, hiding the promise of something wonderful inside. One knows it belongs to them, but must wait to truly own it. But to touch, kiss, caress, and love James was a hundred times more agonizing. Teddy knew that he couldn't have James completely, at least not now. Maybe he'd never have him.
"Not forever," James mumbled sleepily.
"Which part is not forever? Your beauty? Or the fact that you're mine?" Teddy asked as his lips brushed over James' shoulder close to that old scar, though he knew exactly what James meant.
James chuckled softly. "I won't be a boy forever."
"Oh?" Teddy raised an eyebrow and teased, "Do you fancy getting a sex change? This is news to me." He giggled and nipped the gentle ripple of muscle between James' shoulders.
"Shut up; you know what I mean. I'm almost sixteen," said James.
Teddy pointed out with a defeated sigh, "It still won't look right to people."
"In a few years, when I'm older, people won't even care." James turned and hooked an arm behind Teddy's back to pull him down for a firm kiss. Teddy knew James was likely trying to get him to stop talking about their age difference.
But Teddy needed answers, or more likely, reassurance. "Will you still love me when you're all grown up?" There was a little sarcasm to his voice, hiding his painful insecurities.
James grinned softly. "I will always love you. And I'm already grown up."
The ache in Teddy's heart grew sharp. James' last brazenly youthful statement proved he still had some maturing to do.
Teddy worried almost every day about James growing up. If James were anything like him, he'd change a lot in five years. He worried whether or not James would outgrow him. He worried that James would want to explore other people when he was older – he was perfectly entitled to that. Teddy had dated and messed around with many people in those five years, as most people do, especially away at university. Teddy didn't want to take that experience away from James.
But really, Teddy wanted James all to himself. It wasn't a selfish desire, but a deep feeling in his soul that they belonged together.
As James fell asleep in Teddy's arms, Teddy watched for nearly a half hour before sleep threatened to overtake him. The ache in his heart was becoming excruciating. He knew it would probably all end too soon. And all he'd have were memories – portraits of his beautiful boy ingrained into his mind and his heart forever.
On the night of James' sixteenth birthday, they made love for the first time. It was as beautiful, unhurried, and perfect. They giggled like giddy children and blushed virginal shades of pink as they explored new territories of one another's bodies. They moaned like feral creatures as they discovered novel sensations and perfected how to elicit them. They sighed and wept with pain and love and rapturous emotion, whispering each other's names like adulation to the gods.
As Teddy rocked slowly against his young lover, nestled deep inside him, their limbs entwined, he became starkly aware of two things.
First, Teddy now knew, without a doubt, he wanted to be with James and only James forever – quite an Earth-shaking realization for a young man of twenty years. Being inside James, delving deeper into him than any scar, allowed Teddy to realize that James was absolutely the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He wanted James to be a part of him as much as he was a part of James.
Second, being so intimately close to James, Teddy recognized that he really was still just a boy. When their hips connected like precisely cut puzzle pieces, Teddy noticed there was a significant narrowness to James' frame. Teddy appreciated a remarkable softness to his curves, a sharpness about his bone structure, when he mapped the outline of James' body with his searching hands. And when his greedy mouth savored every delicious bit of skin James had so graciously offered, Teddy felt a suppleness to his flesh that embodied youth and whispered a latent masculinity that still hadn't emerged.
Teddy felt a dull pang of guilt that he was somehow stealing something from James a little too soon. It further demonstrated how James still had some physical and personal growing to do. It was another reminder that James could easily outgrow Teddy. Just as James' body would develop and change, so would the rest of Jamie change, and probably not in favor of his relationship with Teddy.
After they had both finished, and spectacularly so, Teddy remained inside his beautiful boy, panting, and gasping softly, as silent tears rolled down his flushed cheeks. He whimpered softly as he held James a little too tightly, "I don't want you to grow up, Jamie."
He knew it was inappropriate and kind of sick to feel this way. Wanting James to remain like this, to stunt his growth, to cease his development, was not fair. But he felt it so strongly that it forced tears from his eyes and it tumbled from his parted lips despite himself.
He mumbled it again, holding James' face in his hands. "Never grow up, Jamie. I want us to always be like this."
When James replied, there was wisdom in his eyes that Teddy had never seen before. Either the sage sparkle in his eyes had always been there and Teddy hadn't noticed it until now, or it was something new that had emerged. "I'm going to grow up no matter what. But I know you'll still love me."
There was something so reassuring and endearing about James' cockiness.
"How do you know?" asked Teddy, sincerely asking rather than challenging James' confidence.
James brushed a rivulet of tears from Teddy's cheek with his thumb and answered, "Because we're growing up together. We're shaping each other's personalities. Yeah, we'll change. But we will change for the better. For each other."
Teddy smiled brightly through his tears, still flowing in earnest, but now with an immense joy. "My gods, Jamie. Is it possible that I love you even more than ever?" With that he kissed his lover before he could answer.
Teddy had been so worried about James changing that he failed to recognize that, at a mere twenty-years-old, he also still had a lot of growing to do.
"When I grow up, do you know what I'm going to do?" asked Teddy.
"You're going to be an illustrious professor of Transfiguration, or something," James declared proudly.
"Yeah, maybe. But I also know that when I grow up, I'm going to marry you, James Sirius Potter."
James joked, "In that case, I'm growing up tomorrow. You'd better catch up fast, boy."