It can’t be later than three in the morning when James wakes up.
Stay the night, Barty had murmured into James’s neck just hours ago, his breath warm against James’s skin, close enough that James could feel the brush of his lashes as he struggled to keep his eyes open.
He hadn’t stayed the night at Barty’s apartment before—really, in the few months they’ve been seeing each other, if they have gone to each other’s places, it’s been at James’s, which tends to end with hurried kisses but always a goodbye.
Barty’s bed is remarkably empty is the first thing James notices. It’s a little impressive, he thinks, that he hadn’t noticed Barty getting out of it, more so out of the arms James was rather certain he had kept wrapped around him when they’d fallen asleep.
He frowns, however, as he realizes the significant lack of warmth from Barty’s side of the bed; has Barty been gone long?
Obviously, he hasn’t left, James rationalizes. It is his apartment, after all.
Nonetheless, he gets up anyway, stumbling around for his sweatpants in the dark and truly hoping Barty doesn’t choose that moment to walk back into the room.
His worry that Barty has somehow found some way to leave is relieved as he walks down the hall to see the kitchen light on, the muted sound of cabinets openning and shutting only mildly interrupting what he realizes with a fond smile is the sound of soft humming.
He takes a moment to watch Barty once he’s in his line of sight again—and ah, that’s where James’s shirt had gone. Barty isn’t one for being quiet, James knows, but he puts effort nonetheless into unloading the dishes as gently as possible, presumably to keep James from waking up.
James raps his knuckles against the side of the wall to make his presence known, feeling strangely touched by the extra effort.
Barty glances up at him in suprise, pulling his headphones away from his ears to rest around his neck. James tilts his head in greeting.
“You’re up early,” Barty muses, putting the glass he’s holding into the cupboard before he approaches James.
“I could say the same,” James challenges. “Ever responsible, it seems. Didn’t take you as the type to wake up solely to do your chores.” To be fair, he supposes he may have distracted Barty from remembering to unload the dishwasher last night, but he doesn’t feel the need to take the blame for that.
Barty grins at that. “Really? I wasn’t that spoiled growing up.”
“Could have fooled me,” James mutters, letting Barty reach up to rest his hands around his shoulders. “Maybe it’s my fault, then. Let you get away with too much.”
“Maybe so,” Barty says, tone amused enough to confirm James’s assumption as he tugs James into the kitchen, twisting his head to the side when James leans closer to kiss him. “You’re just so sweet to me, aren’t you?” he teases, looking positively delighted at James’s irritated huff.
“Come back to bed,” James insists, moving his own hands to Barty’s sides, walking him backward until his back hits the countertop. Even as he says it, he feels all of a sudden more awake; the widening of Barty’s eyes showing that he does too does nothing but fuel James’s sudden restlessness.
“Wrong direction,” Barty murmurs, his chin lifting instinctively as James kisses down his neck. “Why’d you get—oh—up?” he asks, squirming away as James nips particularly hard at the underside of his jaw. If anything, it’s a taste of his own medicine, James thinks, considering the amount of times Sirius has made the ‘did you run into a vampire, mate?’ joke to him.
“Had a lot to think about,” he says, meeting Barty’s eyes. Barty raises an eyebrow. “You, specifically. Couldn’t find you there when I woke up.”
James notices the split-second of pleasant surprise flash across Barty’s face before that same cocky grin splits his lips.
“Attached, aren’t we?” He hooks a finger under James’s chin, tutting. “Don’t worry, darling. I got the message enough from last night.”
“Missed you,” James says truthfully, despite the lack of necessity in doing so; he’s sure his impromptu call of “I’m right outside your door, not that you have to answer, but if—oh, hello,” was enough to prove the point.
Barty snorts, finger moving to trace a line up James’s ear. “Well,” he presses a soft kiss to the side of his jaw, “if you’re here already, I’ll brew you a cup too,” he says, suddenly slipping out of James’s hold before he has time to process the suggestion.
“A cup. Of coffee,” James repeats, slightly confused by the switch-up. “How domestic.”
“Shove it, Potter. I can’t stay awake without one.”
James follows him properly into the kitchen, blinking. “I wasn’t aware we were staying awake. Is three in the morning a usual wake-up time for you?” he asks, slightly bewildered.
Barty hums, reaching up to grab mugs from the shelf. James is momentarily distracted by Barty’s shirt—well, his shirt—riding up at the motion, revealing a tan expanse of skin between his waistband and the hem that he makes a note of looks at the moment much too unblemished for his liking.
“I don’t want to yet,” he answers quietly, snapping James out of his thoughts. His eyes don’t meet James’s, but James can’t help but feel a sense of pride at the admission nonetheless.
“I’m not leaving,” James assures. Barty looks over his shoulder with a frown, but the tension leaves his shoulders regardless. “Not until you want me to.”
He’s vaguely aware of the fact that he sounds like he’s talking about much more than just staying at or leaving Barty’s apartment—really, maybe he is.
“That could be a very long time, James,” Barty says, back to focusing on the coffee machine in front of him. In the while they’ve been—well, not together—James has learned Barty avoiding his eyes more often than not means he’s succeeded in flustering him. An achievement, indeed, when it comes to Barty, who prefers to be on the administering end of saying things that make James need to catch his breath.
“I’ll clear up my schedule, then.”
Barty curses loudly, and James is by his side in a second, helping him turn on the faucet to put his hand under. “Sorry,” he mutters, looking thoroughly embarrassed by the fact that he’d let his finger slip into the heat while brewing coffee. “Don’t let it get to your head,” he adds quickly, as soon as he spots the amusement James is desperately trying to hide.
James laughs softly. “I already have, I’m afraid. I’d kiss you if I didn’t feel so bad.”
“Liar,” Barty accuses. “You would anyway.”
He gives him a chaste kiss on the cheek in response—he knows how much Barty likes to be right—earning a rather ungrateful eye roll back.
“You know you can tell me what you want without acting like you don’t want it,” he says, as Barty reaches for a towel.
“You make too many assumptions, Potter. Maybe I just don’t want anything.”
James raises his brows in disbelief. “Nothing at all?” He snakes an arm around Barty’s torso to keep him from the fridge. “Shame.”
Barty allows James to come closer and rest his chin atop Barty’s shoulder. He turns his head to look at him, feigning confusion. “Why? Is there something you want, James?”
There’s something about the way Barty says his name that James just loves—the way he seperates it from his words, like James is a thought on its own, like he makes room for him even in his dialect. It’s sweet, somehow, though Barty might resort to calling him Potter for the rest of his life if he admitted as much.
“Just you,” he says, close enough to the ticklish part of his neck that Barty squirms away. James likes that he knows it, knows the sensitive parts of him, knows him.
He wants to be the only one to know him like this.
“Shame,” Barty says, repeating James’s words back to him. “You can’t get everything you want, can you? It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Well, I only asked for one.”
Barty is silent for a moment before pulling away from James, who blinks at him in sudden worry that he’s gone over the line.
“Just me?” The caution in his voice, as if he can’t quite believe him, makes James’s heart feel a little pang.
“Just you,” he promises.
Just him. James doesn’t even know when it had become just him. He and Barty had never claimed to be exclusive; they’d just—happened once, and somehow happened again and again. In between one again and another, he’d suddenly realized he didn’t care much for seeing other people to begin with.
He supposes Barty has that effect on people.
(Well, not anymore, he hopes. Thinking of anyone else’s hands on his skin is enough to make James want to throw a punch.)
“Hm, my point still stands,” Barty tells him finally, retrieving the creamer from the fridge. Avoiding eye contact. James is succeeding, currently.
“Is it just me, too?” James blurts out, his previous thoughts creeping in once more. “You’re not—you’re not seeing anybody else, are you?”
Barty’s gaze is softer when he turns to pour his creamer into his coffee. “Not right now, no.” He swallows. “Not in quite a bit.”
“Right.” It feels a bit like a weight has been lifted off his chest as Barty pushes James’s mug towards him—black, half a spoon of sugar, the way James likes it. “Observant.”
“I have seen you drink coffee that way at least five different times,” Barty says defensively. “It’s so bland it’s hard to forget.”
“Right.” James smiles at him sweetly as he takes a sip. “I think about you too. You look nice today, did I tell you?”
Barty scoffs at him. “I look like I just woke up in the middle of the night.”
“In my shirt, might I add. Brings it all together,” James agrees.
It’s strangely domestic seeing Barty like this—the bedhead and the boxers under one of James’s ratty old t-shirts. If they lived together, James thinks, this would be the morning view James would get every morning.
“Ridiculous,” Barty mutters. “Drink up. Your brain is lacking in nutrients.”
“Nutrients that are found in coffee?” James asks incredulously.
“Right, of course, I put them there,” Barty deadpans.
James snorts. “Snarky,” he points out. “I reckon you’re cute enough to get away with it, though.”
Barty shakes his head. “You are the strangest man I have ever had the displeasure of meeting, by the way. Cute. I can’t believe it.”
“I can think of many more words. Would you rather me use—”
“James.”
The sound of his name is enough to get James to listen, still smiling gently towards where Barty gives him an unimpressed look.
“I like you, you know,” James says impulsively, blaming the caffeine for the sudden loss of filter.
Barty pauses before clearing his throat. “I would hope so. I would appreciate you not hating me after sleeping with me,” he deadpans.
James would laugh if he wasn’t determined to get his point across.
”Be my boyfriend.”
He surprises himself almost as much as he surprises Barty, who goes silent, staring at him with wide eyes.
A million different ways Barty could say no flash through his head—he has put this off for long enough for a reason. But Barty surprises him too:
”Okay.”
He’s backing away before James can even register his answer. He frowns and wraps a hand around Barty’s wrist before he can dart off.
”You said yes,” he accuses, pulling Barty back around to face him.
”I said okay, actu—okay, fine, I did say yes,” Barty says, his face growing warmer by the second. James puts his hands on Barty’s cheeks to confirm—warm, indeed. “I need to lock myself in my room while you reconsider, so if you would—“
James cuts him off with a peck to the bridge of his nose, unable to contain his grin. He did say yes. He pulls back enough to lean their foreheads together. “I don’t think I will. Good morning,” he whispers.
”Pretty good, I think,” Barty mumbles, still looking mildly dazed. “Your coffee’s going to get cold.”