Tiny Tumblr Trash

It’s July now, but it’s been happening for at least three months.

Every evening at half past seven an ice cream van comes hurtling down the street, blearing out its tune. It stops on the corner. No one ever comes out to it. After five minutes of silence, it starts up again, the sound somehow even louder for the reprieve.

James Potter is sick and tired of it - because every evening at seven, five-month-old Harry falls asleep only to be woken up by the noise.

It’s been a bad week. Teething. Crying. James hadn’t had longer than forty minutes of sleep at a stretch in days and it’s starting to get to him. Every single smile Harry gives him makes it worth it, every kicked off sock makes him laugh and every little cuddle leaves him in awe – but.

(He hates the but. Hates adding it. There shouldn’t be one, he thinks, he should be endlessly grateful for every moment, take it all in stride. Because Harry – because his son - isn’t a but. Isn’t a burden.)

But.

Harry falls asleep, little arms stretched out to the sides. James puts him in the crib and the little thing turns himself onto his belly (a brand-new trick, that). Deep breathing, sleepy little sighs.

James is burning and burnt out. Eyes filled with sand. Back half numb from carrying a heavier-by-the-day infant for days with little break.

I’ll have a cup of tea, he thinks, and drink it while it’s still hot. Then sleep.

The kettle boils. James picks out his favourite tea, adds in the sugar. Just finishes pouring in the water when the music starts.

A precarious moment between sleep and waking but Harry tips into consciousness, little face scrunched up with dissatisfaction and cries mounting, building, louder by the second.

James Potter is a patient man, a kind man. But he’s had enough.

He picks up Harry, shushes him. It’s a quick thing, for him to stop crying once he’s in his daddy’s arms, but his brilliant eyes are wide open now, sleep all but forgotten.

It’s the thought of his nice hot cup of tea that does it. He’s barefoot, when he leaves the house, Harry hoisted up on one hip. Babbling happily now because it’s a great adventure, every time they leave the house.

The music stops and there it is, the thrice-blasted ice cream van. James stomps up to it in a manner certainly not dignified. There is no one at the open window.

“Excuse me?” James shouts into the interior.

A head pops up from below the counter and James thinks oh, fuck me, because:

1.        He’s ready and rearing to have a go, furious and fuelled by exhaustion, but the man is the most beautiful creature James had ever had the misfortune of seeing, and

2.        Literally just fuck me, but

3.        He has Harry on his arm and pieces of mashed up carrot in his hair, some unknown substance on his shirt, and the man is stunning, and

4.        James is just so, so tired.

“Yes?” The beautiful man asks, looking a bit confused and that’s fair enough actually because James is the first customer on that spot in the last three months.

“Err…,” he stutters, “a flake, please?”

“I don’t sell ice cream,” says the beautiful, stunned man driving an ice cream van.

James takes a look at the menu on the back wall, and on the decal on the side of the van that says a .99 flake is £2.50.

“No?”

“No,” and somehow the beautiful man is the one who sounds confused, and he won’t stop staring between James and Harry, big round eyes striking underneath black curls, “I sell drugs.”

“Huh. Like… pharmaceuticals?”

“No. Like weed.”

“Huh.”

Harry takes that as a queue to start babbling at a new person he’s never seen before and the man in the van visibly melts. “Hi there little one,” he says, and James knows he should be walking off right this fucking moment, because a self-confessed drug dealer is speaking to his son and that’s just, categorically, not on…

 But.

“Can I get some of that?” He blurts out because it’s been so long since he got high and he’s so so tired, and maybe tomorrow he’ll take his mum up on the offer to babysit, sit in his garden and just smoke.

“Absolutely the fuck not,” the beautiful man says like it’s the biggest affront and isn’t he the one selling?

”But… why?”it sounds weak and petulant even to his own ears.

Harry makes a few giggling sounds and stuffs his little fist into his mouth. James switches him onto the other hip. The man points to the baby, like it answers the question, and actually, fair enough, it does.

(His hand is also rather slender and fragile looking, and there are pretty silver rings on his fingers and James’ sleep deprived brain says bite.)

“I wasn’t… I wouldn’t…” James tries to explain himself, but it all comes out wrong and awkward. “Anyway, no,” he gathers himself and remembers he had a reason to storm out of his house and just because the man was pretty it wouldn’t change that, “you wake him up every day.”

Somehow, he manages to sound stern and he’s pretty proud of himself for that, actually.

The man’s face falls. Just… collapses. Like it’s the worst news he’s ever heard.

“I do?”

“Yeah. You come by just after his bedtime and the music is really loud, don’t know if you noticed. And it’s been months.”

It’s something akin to pure devastation that spreads through the man’s features like a sun burn. “I’m very sorry, little one,” he tells Harry, seriously. “I won’t play it anymore.”

There, job done, James thinks, and finds he doesn’t actually like that, not at all. Still, “thank you,” he tells the man because that’s what polite people do when their requests are granted, and his mum raised a polite man.

They stare at each other, him and the man, and James knows that this is when he should turn around go home, put Harry back down and then maybe have a shower, but…

“Can I have your number?”

And the most surprising thing? It’s not James who asks.