james' thoughts
James has been having this nightmare or dream or flash of memory. If you were to ask him, he'd be unable to tell you what exactly it is, just how he had felt.
The same situation every night, well most nights, it had started a few days after that day Peter forced him to go to the club. He doesn't necessarily like it, the feeling of dreaming that dream and not knowing what is going on. It's caused a slight feeling of unease in him at the thought of having that dream again. It had made him feel hopeless at one point, during the dreams, before sleeping, and sometimes like that first night when he had first had it. But now, he's simply trying to understand it, and he's going to keep trying until the picture becomes clearer.
That first night, after the dream, he awoke with a fast beating heart, a haze of confusion in his mind, as he had a glimpse of that dream before it faded away. He took some sips of water as he prepared to go back to sleep but he couldn't quite remember what he had just dreamt, still half asleep, he forgot about it. Until the next night, when he dreamt it again, his dream self recognized that, that had not been the first time he was experiencing that moment. That was when his emotions started to whirl inside of him.
James is currently having that same dream again. It always starts the same, he's by himself until there's people next to him as he's in this crowded room. He can smell coffee and hear people talking around him. At one point he believed it to be a coffee shop, but sometimes the location is different.
In this dream, it is a coffee shop. Sirius always end up joining him, continuing the conversation that he had been having, a conversation Dream James just happens to know but he doesn't actually know. He goes with flow, starts easing into the dream, sips his own coffee.
Until Sirius accidentally moves his coffee cup a bit too harshly that some spills on his shirt and James' glasses. Naturally, James goes to remove them, and wipes his glasses with a napkin. Sirius excuses himself to go to the bathroom and James stands up to see if Sirius wants him to go with him. Sirius responds that he's got it and he'll be right back.
James, who is still standing and wiping his glasses. Starts to feel stared at, he looks around him, but sees blurry faces, until he looks right in front of him. By the entrance of the place, he sees a figure. The bell had just dinged behind the unknown figure, announcing their presence. Light spilling in behind him from the glass windows and door. An ethereal glow to the place, an effect enhanced by the fact that he's in a dream.
James tries to squint at them, to see if they're staring at him too. He had started to feel his heart beat faster, every night that his dream self gets to this part, because he knows that means the dream is going to end soon.
He stares, sometimes, he disrupts the natural dream, but this time he won't, even if he cant quite recall the dream when hes back to his conscious self.
James stares back even if all he can see is a hazy outline of dark clothes and someone a couple feet away. And yet, every time, he is unable to change this part, he looks down, to see that his glasses are clean and goes to put them on. When he looks back in the direction of the person, they're gone. As if they hadn't been there to begin with. Every time James tries to see if he can tell who it was based on who is at the shop, he knows they're not there anymore. Sirius ends up coming back, apologizing and they go back to talking until he wakes up.
That second night, he woke up with his heart beating fast, it might've had something to do with the suspense of realizing he had that dream two nights in a row. As anyone else would be, after having a dream repeat itself most nights in a row, it makes the conscious self a bit terrified in a way and vastly confused. James doesn't know why he is having that dream, and he wants to know what it means.
What confuses him the most is the nights he doesn't have that dream, makes him wonder what makes those days different. Other times he forgets what he has dreamt, making the cycle a bit repetitive and a bit terrifying, the not knowing. He can tell there's a deeper meaning to it all, but when he does remember the dream, he wonders what it could all indicate. Why does he have this dream? Why cant he change the ending? Who is that mysterious figure? Questions he wants answers to that only lie in his subconscious self. He wonders what it would take to lift that feeling of unease that always accompanies his waking self after having that same damn dream. It closes his mind briefly if he should tell one of his best friends, but he shoos that thought away seeing as its just a dream.
Other than his weird dream related nights, James goes by his day fairly normally. He goes to work, where he well works at a coffee shop. Making coffees being a barista. He works in the morning having the morning shift, until Emma, his coworker, works after him and he leaves to do whatever he has planned for the day. James likes working in the morning, gives him a sense of purpose, makes him feel like he isn't wasting his day away. He prefers working in the morning which was why he had asked for the morning shift to start with.
However, lately his mind tends to drift back at random times to that night at the bar, where that stranger made him feel his emotions rather intensely. Just to be clear, that'd never happened to him before, so at times he does find himself thinking about that man. The man with the pretty gems on his canines. Sometimes, his mind drifts to places it shouldn't and he's rather fast at shutting it down along with those thoughts.
James isn't well, he isn't straight, he knows this. He realized this fact a while ago, when he'd think that a guy was a bit too attractive for it to be a straight thought. But, it didnt change him, he accepted the fact, and delve into research instead. Coming across different terms until he landed on “pansexual” he realized that it encompassed how he felt. It made him feel like him, he's comfortable in who he is and he's grateful for it. Many aren't as fortunate to be as accepting of themselves, his friends all know and they love him just the same, same goes with his parents who he makes sure to visit when he can as they're out of the country in the villa they own in France.
Going back to the topic at hand, that beautiful stranger, James doesn't know why but he knows that he shouldn't focus on him, most likely has to do with that breathtaking woman that had been wrapped around his arms. James does not want to sin by falling in love with a taken man, that's just not how he was raised and if Euphemia Potter were to know that the possibility of that thought were to ever cross his mind, he'd be done for, and he'd never see the light of day again. Therefore, James is going to continue on with his life and do his best not to think of that pretty, unashamedly handsome, and who was just too stunning for the eyes stranger again, thank you very much.
Other than thinking of a possibly taken man, there's also been this persistent feeling in him that has felt like a warning, an emotion he can't quite name. He's fleetingly connected its existence to that of his sleepless nights but since he doesn't quite actually know, he's chosen to ignore this unwelcome emotion. James does have other things to think about and do afterall, there simply just isn't enough time in the day to worry about an unknown feeling.