You Look So Cool

It’s December and James Potter is sweating in the back of a stuffy green room somewhere on the East coast of America. His buttons are undone on the crisp white shirt that adorns his frame and he’s laying with his head upside down over the back of a small couch he and his bandmates are pressed into for photos. The venue always wants photos, photos of the band getting ready, photos of the band arriving, photos of the band doing just about anything they might do as they grace their space. 

James is sweating and swearing as the cameras click, reaching across Remus, who’s currently perched on his lap, to grab a pack of cigarettes from Sirius' jacket. The press likes to make an aesthetic out of the habit he can’t seem to kick, so he lights one up and lets the flash trap the smoke in a haze above his head.

It’s the second half of their American tour and James spends the hour before each show, as the opener riles up the crowd, smoking a cigarette and watching his friends. The guys, as he called them in that song the fans loved last year. Remus is on his lap, legs in Sirius’, laying across them like a bony sort of cat. Sirius is playing with the frays in Remus’ black jeans, pulling on threads as he distractedly watches the way James’ smoke dances in Remus’ eyes. Peter is down at the end pretending to tune a guitar which he has perched half on his knee and half on the arm of the couch.

Cameras click, the cigarette burns, and James feels that soft sort of beating in his chest as he blows out the last of his smoke and smiles at his friends. 

“James,” Sirius says from behind Remus’ head, “you planning on calling someone up tonight?”

“Maybe I’ll just kiss Remus again,” James says with a wink, “what was it you captioned that picture?”

Remus huffs out a laugh as he recounts the caption he put on the image their photographer had taken of James kissing him at their last show, “luckiest girl in the world.”

They all laugh at that and Remus rolls off their laps to kiss James teasingly on the cheek. Sirius hides a blush, but he’s pale and James isn’t blind so he catches it with a teasing raise of his eyebrows. 

“I think it should be my turn,” Peter says, standing as well and setting the guitar back in its place across the room, “tired of seeing all those girls in leather pants kiss my best mate.”

James hides a smile as he leans back into the couch and reaches for his pack of cigarettes, taking them out of Sirius’ pocket and sliding them into his own, “maybe it’ll just have to be a boy this time.”

“Oh, they’d love that wouldn’t they,” Sirius says from beside him, smile wide with adrenaline and pre-show euphoria, “maybe they’d stop trying to guess if you’re gay.”

James’ smile falters ever so slightly, but he regains composure as he stands and buttons up his shirt, “I like to be one of the great mysteries of life, Sirius, let them speculate it just makes me all the more sexy.”

“How does it make you sexy if people are just trying to figure out if you like cock?” Peter asks, leaning against the door that will lead them to the stage. 

“I’m mysterious,” James says, “I’m like a sexy enigma.”

“Whatever you say, mate,” Peter says, though the smile on his thin lips betrays his pitying tone.

Remus appears by Peter’s side as he shakes his head at James, and all of a sudden it’s time to go.

James loves this part. He loves the way the crowd sounds like an ocean of crashing cheers and shouts. He loves his name on their lips and his words on their tongues as they sing with him. He loves the way they run, Remus always going first, like there’s something chasing them onto the stage. His body shakes, his mind goes silent, and he starts to exist there in the loud silence of the show. He starts to feel real as he steps onto the stage, as people cheer and lights flash and Remus is tousling his hair as he crosses in front of the piano. 

There are signs he can’t read in the light and a churning sea full of kids with boxes on their arms and girls hoping they’ll be the lucky ones tonight. He sits at the piano and pulls a cigarette from his pocket, lights it with the heat of the crowd and smiles as they cheer impossibly louder. 

“This will get bigger, if you know what I mean

And I’m sorry if you’re living and you’re seventeen”

He can feel it in the very essence of his being, deep past just the way the piano keys feel on his finger tips or how the crowd beats against his ears. He can feel it. Like diving to the bottom of the ocean and realizing you can breathe, like a heart attack or dying. Like he stops and starts existing all at once with the music and the cheers and his best mates next to him. He feels the music he wrote vibrate off the mouths of a thousand people, he tastes it in the smoke and sees it in the too-bright lights above his head. He lets it drown him for the next two hours, lets that be all there is for just two hours every other night.

The show is amazing, there are people dressed as him in the crowd dancing to the music he wrote when he was sixteen. There are songs they share and lyrics they shout, and when it gets to that familiar beat of his personal favorite song, he searches the crowd.

Originally he didn’t plan on doing this every night, he’d only ever really done it once before on a tour back in 2016. Sometimes, he hates that it’s expected now, and maybe he is a little afraid of getting mono or something worse, but it’s fun. And he likes kissing. He liked kissing Remus too, when he didn’t want to call someone from the crowd. He liked kissing that one security guard the other night when the signs were a bit too much for him. 

He likes kissing and he likes the cheers and he likes the way a human being feels during that song. The way a heart beat feels under a wrist when he sings it, and the way a mouth tastes as the crowd choruses the lyrics up at them. That song has always felt like that, like strangers and tongue and a little bit of insanity.

So, as the beat starts and the crowd becomes an array of “love it if we made out” signs, he searches for the person he wants to taste tonight. There are a few girls towards the front who seem to be trying to get him to direct his attention towards their friend, who is currently staring up at him with her phone screen displaying the words, “wanna makeout?”. She looks about seventeen so he keeps scanning as the beat speeds up. 

He finds himself looking at a head of dark curls about midway into the pit. A pale boy who looks eerily familiar standing straight faced in a crowd of too-big smiles. He’s just standing there, hands seemingly in his pockets, though James can’t actually tell because of the person in front of him. His eyes, pale blue and gray like stone slashing water, are what catch James. They reflect the light like a dagger in the sun and look at him with something James hates to admit might be boredom.

The boy looks to be about the same age as James, maybe a little younger, and he’s wearing a plain black turtleneck James has the sudden desire to tug at. He wants to see his neck, wants to see more of that perfect porcelain skin that surrounds his pretty pink lips.

So, James thinks he has his guy, and as he walks towards the microphone he signals at security to get closer so he can lean down and whisper to them, “the boy in the black turtleneck, curly black hair about the middle of the pit, go get him for me.”

The security guards nod and start to walk out from behind the barricade to locate the boy as James stands back up just in time to start the song.

“She had a face straight out a magazine, God only knows but you’ll never leave her,”

He finds the pretty boy immediately as he looks out at the crowd, rather enamored by how his lips move around the words of his song. It’s like watching someone chew you up and taste you, watching someone sing your song. They taste you in their tongues, roll you around in their saliva and savor every last syllable of who you are. James wants to do the same, wants to slip into the boy's mouth and feel himself inside the words and warmth within.

James may get a little riled up on stage, he’ll admit, but the crowd doesn’t seem to mind as he starts unbuttoning his shirt while refusing to look anywhere but those pale stormy eyes. 

“I’ll give you one more time, we’ll get in one more fight, said one more line, will I know you?”

He points at the curly headed boy with that line, raising an eyebrow and making sure he knows he’s looking at him. The boy doesn’t seem too invested in him, or really all that interested, but he does look a little flustered and James can work with that. He’s used to people tripping over their own feet just to get a glance at him, this boy seems perfectly content to stand in his place. It’s a challenge, James thinks, to get this boy to want him like the other people in the audience do. He loves a challenge.

So, as he points at the boy he curls his finger and motions him towards him. The security guards have made their way to be about lined up with him on either side of the pit, and the front barricade. 

“You’ve got a pretty kind of dirty face, and when she’s leaving your home she’s begging you to stay, stay, stay”

The crowd figures out pretty quickly what James is trying to do and starts parting to form a path from the boy to the barricade. He’s probably about 10 rows back, and despite the clear path ahead of him, doesn’t move.

James is looking right at him, and he’s looking back with what James thinks must be a surprise. Though the boy looks calm, he still looks bored, and James starts to worry he may embarrass himself tonight when this boy doesn’t come on stage.

The fans help, though, and start nudging him or speaking to him with words James can’t hear but hopes are encouraging. Eventually, the boy raises an eyebrow at James and takes a step forward. He looks like he’s challenging him. He takes more steps, and more and suddenly he’s being hoisted over the barricade by a broad bald man in a blue vest and led to the stage. 

James almost sighs in relief, though he’s still not sure how to approach this boy. He steps onto the stage quietly, like he’s afraid to take up too much space or get in anybody’s way. James watches him glance furtively up at Sirius as he pounds on the drums like some sort of majestic beast. James doesn’t think anything of it, of course, Sirius is widely loved by the male population of their fan base.

“You find out, everything’s gone wrong,” James sings as he watches the boy toddle awkwardly by the leather couch on stage left. He lets the fans sing the next line as he approaches him, unabashedly grabbing his waist and pulling him to center stage with a smile and a small wildfire starting from where his pinky lightly grazes a bit of exposed waist beneath his sweater. 

“Can I kiss you?” James asks, whispered into his ear as he pulls him closer to center stage.

“And he’s got his gun, and he’s got his suit on,” James sings, moving his hand from the boy's waist to tilt his chin up to look at him. He’s so beautiful. He’s the type of pretty that people only really are in paintings. He’s soft and pale and his lips are a dark shade of pink that makes James’ heart falter. 

He tries to ignore it, tries to look at this boy like he does the other girls he kisses. Like a fan, like  a person in a crowd whose name he’ll probably never know. But he wants to know this boy’s name. It hits him suddenly that he wants to touch this boy more, wants to hold his waist again and say his name over and over again like a prayer to some God he doesn’t believe in. He blinks it away as he watches the boy nod in response to his question and sing the next line with him.

“She says, babe, you look so cool,” the boy takes his hands out of his pockets, “you look so cool,” James feels his hands on his waist, slipping through the unbuttoned front of the shirt and resting on the exposed skin of his hips, “you look so cool,” James kisses him.

James keeps one hand on the left side of his face, the other holding the microphone around the back of his head. He plans to kiss him the way he does everybody else, short and close lipped and harder than falling. What he doesn’t account for is that this boy doesn’t lag like the others do, there’s no moment of pure shocked straight lipped kissing. This boy is kissing him back.

This boy has a cold hand gripping James’ side and a tongue in his mouth in half a second and James knows he should feel a little violated but he only feels good. Because, God, this is good. He tastes it, the song, in the softness of the boy’s tongue and the minty flavor of his saliva. He feels the beat in the boy’s body as he vibrates to the bass against him, and he kisses, kisses, kisses him. It’s sexy, that's the only word that James can use, he’s aware of how elementary that description is but it is downright sexy. 

The crowd screams the rest of the, “you look so cool’’’s and James kisses this perfect beautiful boy like he could love him. He kisses him like he could marry him, or maybe just like he could fuck the living daylights out of him backstage. James isn’t sure if he’s falling in love right now or if he’s just really turned on. This is how the boy is supposed to feel, this is how those girls feel when he kisses them for five seconds and they think about it every night after, this is not how he’s supposed to feel. He’s supposed to be the tempting one, the mysterious and sexy one. He’s supposed to slip a bit of tongue and hear a giggle, he’s not supposed to breathe out a mildly pornographic sound when this boy bites his bottom lip. He’s not supposed to reach for him after, but he does.

The song ends and the music decrescendos and James knows he has to let go of this boy but he wants to breathe him in like smoke and cough as he swallows him down. He wants to feel him get stuck in his lungs and sit heavy in his chest. His hands linger on the boy's face, his fingers catch in his curls and his nails scratch ever so lightly at his scalp. The boy’s hands linger only briefly, nails tracking against James’ skin as he pulls his hands back and into the pockets of his loose black slacks. 

“The next song is Sex,” the boy says, and James thinks he should be the one up on this stage singing songs if that’s what he sounds like. His voice is soft, and James can hear the way his vocal cords vibrate as the words form. It’s like snow falling, pretty and new and covering everything in a layer of potential destruction.

James processes the boy’s words embarrassingly slowly, glancing down at the set list taped to the ground beside his mic stand before he becomes suddenly aware of the crowd again. He would have sworn they were silent, just watching, but they’re louder than they ever have been. Phones point cameras at him as he blinks back into himself. 

People cheer as he finally steps back from the boy in front of him, back towards his mic stand as security steps onto the stage to escort the boy off. James watches as he goes, and he makes it about halfway off before James is walking towards him.

He grabs his red guitar from its holder and hoists it over his head quickly as he approaches the boy, security notices him and pauses as he makes his approach. James motions with his hand for the band to start the next song and strums out the first few chords on his guitar before his lips are back on those perfect pink plush ones in front of him and it all goes silent again.

This kiss is shorter, it’s gentle in a way James has never been and the boy does seem surprised this time. There's a moment where he doesn’t move, his lips stay flat and closed as James kisses them, before he seems to process everything and kisses him back. He has the same confidence he did the first time, taking over as soon as he reciprocates, biting at James lip and tugging before he walks himself right off the stage with James’ kiss wet lips still chasing him.

James is leaning, ridiculously, towards him as he walks down the stairs and back into the roaring crowd. He’s on Remus’ side of the stage so the lanky bassist comes over and leans against him to make it seem purposeful and the crowd has already moved on. James tastes the boy on his tongue for the rest of the night.

“And this is how it starts, take your shoes off in the back of my van, you share my shirt, looks so good when it’s just hanging off your back,” James is moving back to center stage, “and she said, ‘use your hands in my spare time, we’ve got one thing in common, it’s this tongue of mine’ she said,” James is looking for a pale boy in a ocean of black leather and tattoos, “there’s only minutes before I drop you off, all we seem to do is talk about sex,” James is watching the mouth he just kissed sing those words back at him with a confidence James can still taste on his tongue. 

He looks less bored the rest of the show, but James still catches him watching Sirius more than him. He does his best not to focus on it, or him, knowing he should be interacting with the rest of the crowd too. He only has a few more songs on the set, and he has to consciously look everywhere but the center of the crowd about 10 rows back the whole time to avoid ignoring the rest of the fans.

He does notice that the boy is alone, standing in a crowd of cliques and friends with just himself and a small smile James wants to take and bite and lick. 

The show ends with an uproar and one of the best riffs James has ever heard Peter produce, and as he tosses a pick into the crowd he finds that boy and tosses him a casual smile and a wink and revels in the way the people around the boy melt. The boy just smiles back. James almost goes down there and kisses him again, somehow enamored and intrigued by the boy's confident indifference. He just hopes he comes to another show, or that he has an instagram and the fans will do their thing. He walks off the stage with something new burning in his chest, something he’s never felt on the come down. It feels like adrenaline, like fire and passion and screaming. He bathes in it as the guys and him dart to their bus.

“James,” Remus calls as soon as they’re all in the tour bus, leaning on the now closed door with a raised eyebrow, “should we discuss tonight's kiss?”

Suddenly everyone is interested, distracted from their processes of undressing or cooling down by the topic as James tries to shrug in the most casual way he can manage. 

“It was like every other one,” James says as he steps through the bus towards his bunk, reaching for his suitcase, “what would we discuss? Wish it was you again?”

Remus shakes his head with a laugh and opens his mouth to speak when Sirius cuts in, “mate, you kissed for basically the entire second half of the song and then sang sex to him like you wanted to literally suck his cock on the stage.”

James tries to just shake his head but he can feel the color seep into his cheeks as Peter adds, “and you would hardly let him leave the stage, Remus had to go lean on you so you didn't look like a mourning widow after he left.”

“First of all, shut up and fuck all of you, second of all, it was just a really good night, okay?” James says with a sigh as he finally identifies the sweatshirt he’s been digging in his bag for.

“First of all, you wish you could fuck all of us, and second of all I can already tell you’re going to try to look him up later,” Remus says as he lets James slide past him towards the small bus bathroom.

“So if I rewatch concert videos of tonight and some of them happen to be the kiss so be it, I don’t want to find him or anything it was literally just a kiss, you guys never questioned me about the other ones,” James says as he unbuttons his shirt and leans against the bathroom door with a scowl.

“The others were college age girls who hardly ever even had enough brain power to process anything and kiss you back,” Sirius says as he starts untying his perfectly shined doc martens, “I was watching from above like God, he kissed you better than you’ve ever kissed anyone.”

“So, he was a good kisser, so was Remus and you guys didn’t interview me about that one afterwards.”

Remus smirks just a little and Sirius is quick to respond, “we’ve all kissed Remus, James.”

Which, well, James supposes that’s true. He definitely had before he did it on stage, but he doesn’t really have any other outs he can use to avoid this conversation so he just shuts himself in the bathroom and takes his sweet sweet time changing his clothes.

“You’ll have to come out at some point, and don’t think you’re off the hook about this, mate,” Remus says from the other side of the thin bathroom door with three short knocks against its plasticky wood before James hears the rest of them resume their after-show routines. 

As soon as James gets into his sweatshirt he savors his solitude a while longer and pulls his phone out of the deep pockets of his sweats. He puts it in do not disturb when he’s performing and leaves it backstage, or even on the bus, never a big fan of technology. Though, this tour he has been known for the rather random things he likes to post on his stories, but that's just silly indulgence really.

The band has a tik tok page which he, unfortunately, has been deemed control of. Really, he just lets their manager and team post whatever they want but every now and then he’ll post a video of him and his guitar and a well known song. 

Tonight as he opens the app the first video he sees is of himself, on stage, kissing Remus. Honestly, it was a good kiss. Short and soft and sweet and really more for the fans than for them. The comments on the video make him stifle a laugh into his sleeve as he scrolls through posts of, “they don’t have a single song where they need to be doing this” and “he’s crazy, i want him so bad”. 

He, embarrassingly, does look himself up after he scrolls through the comments. He presses the small magnifying glass icon in the top right and types in, “James Potter kiss NYC.” He’s not quite sure how keyword searches work on social media but luckily the fans work fast and the first thing he sees is a video of him and that beautiful boy on stage tonight. 

The video is ten minutes old and only has a hundred or so likes so James doesn’t like it, but he does indulge in the full three minutes of himself on stage.

He looks different from fan’s perspectives, he thinks. Slightly taller, but that’s just the angle, and somehow he seems happier from their eyes than his own. Especially when the boy gets on stage. He watches himself look at the boy, touch him, talk to him, sing with him. He misses him, absurdly. He longs for him, just a kiss. Just another kiss.

They have two more shows in New York, and they’re all sold out, so James sits there and watches this video and hopes, to all the deities he writes songs about not believing in, that this boy is at one of them. 

The kiss looks just as hot as it felt, you can see the slip of tongue and the shape of the boy’s hands under James’ pale white shirt in the light, a slender shadow against his bronzed skin. James can almost feel it again, that cold heat from the fingers that dug into his hips, the flavor of his breath like he keeps mints on him somewhere in a pocket. James watches himself kiss him, watches how he tugged at his hair without even meaning to and how that sound he made was, embarrassingly enough, picked up by the microphone. 

He’s taller than the boy, but only by an inch or two, which doesn’t bode well for his fight to be known as 6’. At least he’s taller than Sirius still. 

The video cuts off after the second kiss, and James is surprised Remus actually did do a pretty good job of covering up James’ pining. He was standing ever so slightly in front of the boy from the crowd's point of view, so he made it look like James was leaning on him on purpose, even moved his bass so it lined up perfectly with James’ guitar and James admits it makes a pretty picture. 

The video has gone up exponentially in likes just in the time James has been rewatching it, already reading over ten thousand likes in about fifteen minutes. The comment count goes up and James realizes that maybe one of them will be the boy, or maybe one of them will know who he is. He opens the section to words of jealousy and more sexuality speculation and promptly closes the app.

He goes to instagram next, which he opens to much less content of himself and instead to a post by a close friend of the bands, Marlene. She plays bass and guitar on a few of their songs actually, but she’s a stand alone artist under their management too. The post is her new tour announcement, and James reposts it on his story before going to explore his tagged posts.

Immediately his screen is flooded with videos of tonight, and other nights on tour. Videos of him on that leather couch unbuttoning his shirt, videos of him kissing Remus or moonwalking just because he can. 

He hardly has to scroll before he sees it again, a new angle this time, more straight on from the center of the barricade. You can see it even better here, the way their mouths meet. It’s far more intense than any of his other stag kisses have been and the fans have very much picked up on that. 

The other kisses last five seconds and are pressed hard to closed lips with a smile and a wink. This one is long, and he even finds a video that zooms in on the moment James slipped his tongue against the boys and James has to fight the urge to save that for later. 

“James,” a voice suddenly calls from the other side of the door, accompanied by a bit of rushed banging on the door, “seriously I need to shit can you please stop wanking?”

James rolls his eyes but opens the door for Peter nonetheless with a groan and a huff as he responds, “when will you lot ever learn any respect?”

“Okay mr. kisses strangers on a stage,” Peter says as he squeezes past James and closes the door in his face.

“It’s not disrespectful,” James says as he sits on a short couch like cushion with Sirius, who is currently facing off against Remus in a rather heated game of battleship, “I always ask for consent first.”

“Doing the most there, mate,” Sirius says as he ponders over a target, “the bare minimum looks good on you.”

“Oh, piss off, you know they love it,” James responds as he leans into his friend to help him plot which coordinate to hit on his next round.

Remus has sunk three of Sirius’ ships and Sirius has hit quite literally none of Remus’, he just has random misses across the board in absolutely no pattern whatsoever. James points to a spot, and Sirius calls it out with all the confidence of a blind archer.

“Holy shit,” Remus says, “you hit it.”

Sirius promptly kisses James’ forehead with a loud “MWAH” sort of sound and exclaims with a  fist bump, “we did it!”

“You hit one spot on one ship,” Remus says with a small smile he tries to hide beneath the sleeve of hsi sweater, “don’t go celebrating yet.”

“You should be proud of me, Remus,” Sirius says with a wide smile as he places a red pin on his board where he just hit Remus’ ship.

“I should be proud of James, actually,” Remus says, unable to shake that smile James pretends he doesn’t see.

“Anyway,” Sirius says with an eye roll as Remus starts analyzing his next move, “James, let’s get back on topic.”

“What topic might that be,” James asks as he reaches for a cigarette from the table in front of them, Sirius’ pack open on the wood.

“That you made out with a boy on stage tonight and then watched videos of it in the bathroom,” Remus supplies nonchalantly as he leans away from scrutinizing his board, “also C3.”

He lights the fag as Sirius groans and frowns through his response, “fuck off, how do you do that?”

“Did I hit it?”

“You cheat.”

James takes a lazy drag and blows the smoke out the cracked bus window behind Sirius’ black hair.

“I do not cheat, I just use strategy.”

“Cheater.”

“Did I sink the ship?”

He takes another pull and lets the smoke dance in the air around them.

“Maybe, but you cheated so it’s void.”

“I did not cheat, Sirius, it’s your turn.”

James watches them go back and forth, happily forgotten just as soon as he was remembered. Sirius gets thoroughly distracted by Remus’ victory and steams about it for far longer than would be necessary if he were anyone other than Sirius Black. Remus teases him with a not so subtle smile as James attempts to sneak off to his bunked bed further down the bus.

“Woah, not so fast,” Sirius says as he follows James up and towards their beds, “we really should talk about it.”

James just runs a broad hand over his face and through his hair, feeling one of his rings catch and tangle on a rather unruly lock, “there is nothing to talk about.”

“You want to find him,” Sirius says with a knowing look in those signature blue eyes of his, “you don’t kiss people like that and just let them disappear again.”

“Maybe I do,” James says with what he hopes is a nonchalant shrug, “maybe that’s what’s so beautiful about it.”

“Oh don't get all poetic on me now, James, you think I can’t recognize what you look like when you want to hit? I’m not saying find him and marry him but what bad did sleeping with a fan ever do? If anything we get more popular just from people hoping they get to bang a rock star,” Sirius responds as he parts the curtains shielding his bed and grabs his charger from the outlet by his pillow.

“I do not need to sleep with him,” James says, despite the nagging image in his head now of him doing just that. He shakes it out of his mind as Sirius raises a questioning eyebrow at him.

“You want to, though, and when was the last time you got any anyway? I mean outside of kissing random people on a whim,” Sirius asks with a genuine sort of tilt to his smile that reveals more than James thinks he realizes, “it’d be good for you, mate, and honestly we could use some more rock and roll publicity.”

“How would anybody find out if I did?” James asks as he leans against the edge of his bed.

“Oh, they always find out,” Sirius says, “but really, it would just be a bit of fun for you, wouldn’t it? And you deserve a bit of fun.”

“Well, maybe you’re right and maybe I looked a little bit for him,” James pauses to roll his eyes at the grin that puts on Sirius’ face, “but he isn’t tagged in any of the photos or videos and nobody knows his name.”

“Hmm,” Sirius hums as he starts to scroll through his own phone at James’ words, “okay, so you’re not wrong, but someone did say they’ve seen him at a couple of our other shows, typically in seats but since the NYC shows are all pit, if he goes to the next two maybe you can find him again.”

“This feels creepy,” James says with a glance down at the tweet Sirius is pointing at him, “what if it’s too far, even for me.”

“You’re not stalking him, mate, you’re just looking for him in a crowd,” Sirius says, switching his phone off and pocketing it as he smiles up at James, “hurts nobody if you find him.”

“Maybe,” James responds quietly with an uncertain smile on his lips, “don’t tell the other boys I did actually look for him, can’t have it ruining my reputation.”

“Mate we literally all heard it through the bathroom door, you watched the same video for like fifteen minutes,” Sirius says with a quiet laugh he directs at James’ heating cheeks.

“Fucking Christ,” James swears, running a hand through his hair yet again, feeling the sweat still on his scalp from the show and looking very much forward to the hotel shower he has waiting for him once they get upstate, “I’m an embarrassment.”

“You’re horny,” Sirius corrects with a wink, “we won’t make fun.”

“You literally already have,” James replies flatly, “you all already have.”

“Okay, so we won’t from here on out,” Sirius vows, already stepping back to head back to Remus and the game he is bound to lose, “I’ll even manifest he’s at the next show for you.”

“Right, because that will work,” James says with a roll of his eyes as he starts to climb into his bunk.

“Yes, you sad atheist man, it will,” Sirius says, flipping James the finger before adding, “and goodnight, hope you dream hot sexy dreams about that kiss.”

James watches him leave as he responds too quietly for Sirius to hear, “me too, honestly.”

Sirius disappears back to his game and James closes himself behind the curtains of his bed and stares blankly at the ceiling for far too long for him to keep acting like nothing is affecting him. 

He tastes the boy every time he swallows. A hint of sweetness leftover in his mouth and a tinge of something maddening on his tongue as he rolls it around his mouth. He traces the back of his teeth, the teeth that had sunk into the boy’s perfect lips, that had snagged on his bottom lip and traced the retreating outline of his hot tongue.

He sees him when he closes his eyes, the image of him in the crowd, soft black curls dancing in front of ship wrecking eyes. The way he chewed on his bottom lip as he stared back at James, the way his mouth moved around the words James had written about someone half as beautiful as him. James can’t even remember what the rest of the crowd looked like, can’t recall the signs held up or words chanted. All he can think about is black curls and cold hands and sharp stabbing eyes.

He can feel it as the bus rocks him to sleep. Feel that thing he writes songs about. Desire. Passion. 

It’s hot on his skin and burning against the roof of his mouth. He swallows it down and feels it boil his insides, feels it bubble up and scorch the cells that make him up from the inside out. He wants to kiss him again. He wants to only ever feel that song alongside cold skin and soft hair. 

Their next show is the very next night, in upper New York, right by the Canadian border. James Potter falls asleep now, anticipating that night more than almost any other show before. He drifts off to visions of a pretty boy in a crowd, and a dark tongue in his mouth.