You Shouldn’t Have Done It
James spent a few minutes lying on his back with his arms thrown over his face, trying to refrain from screaming at himself as he worked himself up over everything.
Barty walked in unannounced whilst he was kicking the air and mumbling angrily to himself.
“You alright, there, little kangaroo?”
James sat up, feeling somewhat humiliated as he avoided making eye contact. “I’m fine. Why are you even here?“
“Evan said you were crying so I wanted to check that you were okay, I don’t want to force you to stay here if you don’t want to, that’s all. If you’ve changed your mind, that’s okay.”
James shook his head and lifted himself onto his knees, shuffling forward, closer to where Barty stood in the doorway.
“No! I’m not regretting agreeing to help!”
Barty didn’t look any happier at that answer. “He also said you were muttering about me. About saying you were dumb for letting me kiss you and that you need to talk to me about it because it’s ruining all of my relationships.”
James felt his heart drop. Nobody was supposed to hear that, it really wasn’t as bad as it sounded. “Oh.”
“Can we talk about it, please? You said you missed us and wanted to talk about it, I promised Reg that I would talk to you and Evan literally just overheard you saying you wanted to talk about it, so I think we probably should.”
“I don’t-“
“James.” He said as he sat on the edge of the bed. “We really should, you know?”
James crawled back to the top of the bed and patted the space in front of him, watching Barty sit down before him and take James’ hands in his own, gently stroking the backs of his hands with his thumbs and resting them on top of his knees. He looked up at James and smiled.
“So. Where do we start?”
“Probably with the fact that you shouldn’t have done it.”
He tilted his head in curiosity. “Why not? Did you not want me to?”
“What? No! I did, I did want you to. Why would I ever not want you to kiss me? That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean? You are making a good effort at being really vague, Jamie, you know that, right?”
“I thought it was obvious what I meant. You’re dating Evan and Reg.”
He only laughed. “Well spotted, love.”
“Don’t- can you not call me that please? This just seems like the worst possible conversation to say it in.”
“Okay, I won’t. Go on, you were saying that I am dating Evan and Reg, which is technically wrong but okay.”
“What do you mean it’s wrong?”
He grinned at James and pulled back his left hand, showing it to James. Oh. James felt stupid for not noticing it before. He couldn’t exactly be surprised, it would make sense that he had missed a lot in the past few months. What made him feel stupid was the fact that he had been around them for almost three days and had not noticed such an important detail on any of them. It was likely because he had been avoiding looking at their arms, knowing the marks were there, which led him to block out their hands as well. But he still felt stupid when he realised that the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Good for them. Good for them.
“You’re engaged?”
“Yup, we all agreed to it a month back and got the rings after so we could have three matching ones, we couldn’t exactly do it normally because there was more to navigate so it was easier to ask them both together and get a ring each when we had all come to an agreement. Obviously, we can’t actually get married but you never know. Maybe one day.”
“Yeah, well. Congratulations…that makes it worse, doesn’t it? The fact you’re engaged to them.”
“Does it? I don’t think a ring makes my relationships any more real, it’s just a promise to spend our lives together, not a new rule that I can’t do anything I want. Besides, I wouldn’t have done it if they hadn't both agreed first, I spoke to them both before you arrived and again when you went home yesterday. They say it’s fine. They don’t care.”
“What?”
Barty moved closer and put his hand back in James’ excitement filling his eyes. “They don’t care, Jamie. Regulus doesn’t mind what we do and I can tell Evan wants you just as much as I do.”
“Evan doesn’t want me.”
“That was a joke, wasn’t it? Please say it was a joke. It would be really embarrassing if it wasn’t.”
James closed his eyes and shook his head. “Stop being patronising. It’s the truth.”
“Whatever you say. So, seeing as we are allowed to do wherever we want…do you want to figure out where we stand?”
“Well that all depends on how you mean.” He dragged himself closer, still leaving enough space for them to speak. He had missed this, he really had. He was just worried about how it could backfire on them. It could all go so wrong in so many different ways.
But his mind stopped working the second he felt Barty’s warm hands on his face, holding him still so he could admire him the same way he had done back at school. He moved slowly so James had enough time to tell him to stop and leave. But he didn’t didn’t. He stayed perfectly still until the last minute, letting Barty show him how much time and care he was willing to put into every movement. It was something they used to do when they first started seeing each other. When they were still worried it was all a cruel joke Reg or Evan had set them up to and wanted to show that they were putting their entire heart into it. They used it to highlight their patience with the other person and show them that every second together was treasured. It was different to the kiss the day before, that one has been impulsive and casual. This one has the amount of meticulous care only somebody as dramatic as Barty would put into something so mundane.
When James got fed up of waiting and moved forward, grabbing Barty’s shoulders and pressing their lips together gently, he felt a strange rush of something familiar flowing through him. He smiled into the kiss as he recalled so many times before they had done this, before everything fell apart.
They were two young men stealing kisses in an alcove between classes, careful not to get caught by any others as they tore themselves away so nobody would notice their absence.
They were two teens savouring the moments they had in a bedroom in the summer, the window open to make for a quick escape. Desperately clinging together while they could.
They were two boys sat by a lake at lunch, talking and trying something new, with no idea how many twists life would give them if they wanted to keep this beautiful thing.
They were two men falling back into old habits, vowing to never let life tear them apart again. Seeing if they were brave enough to chase what they wanted after everything that had happened.
“James? Hey, are you okay? Jem? Come on, what’s wrong? Hey, don’t cry. What happened? Did you change your mind? Do you want me to go? I can go-” Barty had moved away and leaned back slightly, getting out of James’ face the second he felt him tremble and heard him sob.
James reached out and grabbed his arm almost desperately. “No! I don’t want you to go! I’m sorry, I’m acting like a child but I really…please don’t go.”
“Are you sure? It’s just that I kissed you and you started crying so asking me to stay is kinda giving mixed signals.”
“Of course I want you to stay! Did you not hear what I said before? I was only crying because…”
“Because?”
He paused, looking down at his hands and frowning in frustration. “I don’t know.”
Barty placed a hand on his cheek and tilted his head up. “You don’t know why you started crying when I kissed you?”
James wasn’t sad anymore, he was angry. “No! No, Barty, I don’t fucking know! Okay? I have no idea why I started bawling like a baby when you- I mean you did it before and I was fine but why now-“ He cut himself off with another loud sob and tears began to fill his eyes again. He put one hand over his face and Barty quickly moved forwards, guiding James’ head down to his shoulder so he could muffle his crying. Cautiously, he wrapped his arms around James and sighed, moving his head to whisper in his ear.
“If you’re okay for me to say so, I think I know why you’re crying.”
James went quiet. “So do I. How do you know?”
“Because I’ve missed you too.”
James started crying again.
“I love you.”
“I know. I think you need a bit of sleep so we can talk tomorrow, you need to be well-rested enough to plan your little trip with Ev and we still need to talk about how this is working between us because it’s going to be a little more complicated than before. Okay?”
James moved back groggily and nodded. “Okay.”
“Perfect.”