running wild
James Potter could have told you what he would do in life since he turned five and his dad had taught him how to kick a soccer ball. He could have told you when he played in his first Little League game. He could have told you when he joined his high school’s soccer team. You could have chosen any moment in his life, and he would have been able to tell you then that he would be on the United States national soccer team.
The thing was, he had done it. He had played on America’s national team for years. He had never doubted that he would make it there. Not when his teachers told him he should have considered college. Not when his immigrant parents had wanted him to choose a more “realistic” career path. He had scored game-winning goals. He had helped his team reach the finals of the last World Cup. If you asked anyone, they would have said he was incredibly good at soccer. He had reached his only dream of being a soccer star. He hadn’t gone to college. He had more than enough money to live comfortably for the next few lives.
Then his entire life had gone to shit. He had torn his ACL not more than a month before the games for the World Cup started. In a few seconds, and landing on his leg the wrong way, his dream was crushed. Sure, he had reached it. He had lived it. Now there was a very small chance he would ever play soccer the way he wanted.
After he had gotten home from the hospital where his reconstructive surgery had been done, he had stayed in bed, as instructed. But even after the allotted time of rest his doctor had prescribed, he stayed in bed. He didn’t move. His life was over. Where was the point in doing anything? Really, if he wanted to, he could have spent the rest of his life in bed without trouble.
However, that statement didn’t account for one very large thing, or unit, his parents. Monty and Effie would never have let him rot in bed, no matter how much he insisted that they should. His dad had forced him on small walks to keep his blood flowing a day after he was allowed to, and his mom had forced him to eat whatever traditional Indian meal she had made because she swore they helped. Then they both dragged him to physical therapy. They kept him physically well, but he had no purpose. He wasn’t sure he could look at soccer again without bursting into tears.
He sat on the couch with his parents, watching a movie about the first son of America and a British prince falling in love. So he watched romcoms. He had never hidden the fact that he was a hopeless romantic. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it. He loved grand gestures, and he had often been told that he had so much love to give. He supposed it lined up with the fact that he had genuinely thought that everyone liked everyone. It hadn’t occurred to his eleven-year-old mind that when people had crushes, sometimes they only liked one gender.
James had had his fair share of girlfriends and boyfriends in his high school years. Once he had begun to pursue soccer professionally, dating fell out of his mind. Besides, once he stepped into the public eye, everyone was suddenly interested in who he loved. He had a casual relationship or two every couple of years, but they were never anything serious. They were also always girls. It wasn’t that he was hiding his identity from anyone; he just hadn’t liked a guy in a while, and the default expectation of society was that everyone was straight until proven otherwise, so when the media got pictures of him with whatever girl he was out with, they assumed he was straight. It didn’t seem to him like his sexuality was anyone’s business, so he had never outright corrected anyone.
The television showed a New Year’s Eve party, and his mom turned to him thoughtfully. “I always thought you could be an actor,” she mused, taping the remote against her chin as he talked to her.
He laughed carefreely. “You also thought I could be a lawyer, a doctor, and an engineer,” he joked because those were the three options his parents had wanted for him.
Sure, they supported him in whatever passion he chose, but they wanted him to make a good living. He understood that now, but when they had pushed him to go to college, it had seemed like they were trying to force him into a future he didn’t want. Now, they didn’t care what he did because he had the money to do whatever he wanted. They had been worried about his survival and his happiness before; now they cared solely about his happiness.
His dad placed a hand on his shoulder, a kind smile on his face. “I stand by it, beta. But we know you don’t want to do those jobs,” Monty spoke slowly, as he usually did.
“You did love being in the theatre as a child. You were very good at it, too. Perhaps now that you have the free time…” Effie trailed off. “I worry about you, you know?”
He smiled gently, trying to ease her concern. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine.” It was true for the better part. He had gone to physical therapy—not willingly, but he had. He still had many months to go, but he could walk normally for a certain amount of time.
“Physically, yes, but I miss the spark in your eyes. The only other time I recall it being there was when you were on the stage,” she said, and he remembered it. James had loved the thrill that came with all eyes being on him. He liked acting, but he loved soccer. He always would, but now it hurt to even think about it. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but your life isn’t over.”
James didn’t have the energy to fight with his mother, but his life was over. He had peaked at twenty-two, and it was all downhill after that. He simply nodded and returned to watching the movie once more, but he couldn’t keep his mind on it. The more he thought about Effie's suggestion, the more he remembered how much he had enjoyed playing pretend.
It was that night, as he lay in bed, that he truly considered the idea that he could become an actor. He had already gotten requests to come in for auditions for many movies or shows, but he had always turned them down because he focused on soccer. They hadn’t been small roles, either. His name brought a fan base, and people wanted that.
He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and saw that it was a little after one in the morning. He only hesitated for a second before opening his messages app and calling Sirius. He would know what to do, or he would at least show James what the right answer for him was. Sirius had a way of leading James to the right answer, even if he fully endorsed the wrong answer.
The phone rang two times before Sirius answered. “Is something wrong?” Sirius asked immediately. James had always had a good sleep schedule. With his practices being so early in the morning and wanting to do well on his schoolwork, he needed one.
James paused for a second, and he could practically hear the concern through the phone. “Sirius, I think I want to be an actor,” he confessed, his voice quiet.
There was a ring on his phone, and he saw that Sirius had requested to turn the phone call into a FaceTime. He accepted, and light immediately erupted in front of his face. Sirius was in a room that wasn’t in his penthouse. James knew every inch of Sirius’ penthouse, and with all the time he spent there, he had involuntarily learned where every light switch was.
“Where are you?” James asked, forgetting his little confession from before.
Sirius looked around like he needed a reminder. “Oh, just in the recording studio. Say hi to Peter.” He turned the phone to show Peter Pettigrew, who sat on a chair with a guitar in his hands.
“Hey, Pete,” he said, and once Peter had waved, Sirius shifted the camera back to show his face.
“So what did you say? You want to be an actor?”
James ran a hand through his hair. “Mom was going on about how I used to like theatre and how I was good at it, so she thinks I could be an actor. And then I got to thinking about it, and I like the idea,” he admitted like it was some dirty secret.
Peter settled on the couch next to Sirius, who set the phone down somewhere in front of them to show both of their faces. “So why aren’t you happy? I thought you were looking for something new to do,” Peter said.
“I am, but, well, it feels a bit like I’m cheating on soccer,” James disclosed, and it sounded a bit foolish, but it did feel that way. He had stayed loyal to soccer all of his life, and to do otherwise felt instinctively wrong.
“It’s not cheating, James; you’re just finding something else to love, which is good. You don’t have to forget soccer, but you can do other things,” Peter advised, and James could have kissed him for the weight Peter’s words lifted off his chest.
James let out a sigh of relief. He supposed he had just needed someone else to tell him it was okay. “What about you, Sirius? You think I could do it?”
Sirius laughed, and at that moment, James really wished he could have hugged him. “You’re James Potter; you can do anything.”
He smiled. “I love you guys, you know?”
Sirius sighed because James loved to say those words. “Tell it to us in person. Get your ass to New York if you really love us,” Sirius deadpanned.
James laughed, and nothing sounded better than doing just that. “I might just, but I’ll let you guys get back to work. I can’t wait to hear the new song.”
They hung up, and James couldn’t help but reminisce, as he often did on late nights when he couldn’t sleep. He had met Sirius when he was fifteen and in London, visiting his grandparents. He had left the house for a walk after another fight with his parents about becoming a lawyer, engineer, or whatever it was. As he passed the park, he saw a boy with long, wavy, black hair sitting on a bench with his head ducked low.
James had always been kind, and he had been raised right, so, of course, he walked toward the boy and sat down next to him. “Are you alright?” he had asked, waiting for the boy to look up at him.
The boy wiped his eyes quickly. “Yeah, fine,” he had responded with an accent, not looking at James.
James rummaged through his pockets until he found the Twix bar that he had been saving. He offered it to the boy silently.
The boy looked at James finally with light grey eyes with rims of red around them. “Thanks, I’m Sirius,” he said, extending his hand and taking the Twix bar from him.
“James,” he responded. “Where are you from?”
Sirius laughed humorlessly like it was the question of the century. “France, but I recently… ah… moved away,” he explained, and James got the sense that he wasn’t telling the entire truth.
“Well, Sirius, do you have somewhere to be for dinner or will you come with me? My mom’s making her famous chicken curry, and you have to try it,” he offered, taking notice of the small duffle bag next to Sirius’ feet and the dark rings under his eyes. This boy hadn’t been home in a long time, he assumed.
“I couldn’t–” he began to refuse, but James wouldn’t allow it.
“You’re coming with me.” He paused, realizing how creepy his words sounded. “I don’t mean in a kidnapping way, but I insist.”
In the end, Sirius had begrudgingly gone along with him. On the way to James’ grandparents’ house, Sirius had made him promise not to tell his parents about France. James hadn’t understood why at the time; after all, they would know from his accent. Looking back on it, he realized it was the first time Sirius had hidden his past. James had heard a lot about how his parents had treated him, but he had never gotten a location or even a name.
Effie and Monty had allowed Sirius to stay, and they helped him find a job and a place to live during the few weeks of that winter that they stayed in London. Sirius and James had grown close and exchanged phone numbers when James had to go back home. When Sirius had come to New York a few years later, he had stayed with James for years before getting his own apartment nearby.
James and Sirius were used to being long-distance best friends because of how often James traveled for games and Sirius traveled for his tours. They always called, and they always remained close, but they had rarely gone this long without seeing each other. Sirius had come to the hospital and stayed with James while he was getting better, but James had forced him to stay in New York when he left for his childhood home in Virginia. He didn’t want to be alone, but he didn’t want to be a burden either. His parents had taken this fear and crushed it under their shoes the moment he reached their doorstep with crutches.
But it was time for James to go and do something else with his life. The truth was, he had always been a very happy person, and he missed being happy. So, even though it was the middle of the night, James made some calls. Everyone answered. And within a day, he had an audition for a movie and a plane ticket back to New York. But he had more than that. He had a purpose again, and the teenager in him couldn’t believe it wasn’t soccer, but the kid in him was overjoyed that it was acting. The ache that soccer left in his heart wasn’t gone, not by a long shot, but he forgot about it for a moment because of his excitement. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time.