James' Plan

“No, James! Just drop it!” Scorpius yelled, putting his badly folded t-shirt into his bag. 

“Come on, mate! I’m just tryna help” James opened his arms, and put on his best smile to try to convince the blonde boy, who was hurrying up to finish packing. They were the last two in the changing room and James wouldn’t drop the subject of his stupid party. It had been more than a week.

“I don’t need help”

“But you do need to get out ” James said, as if every god damned person who stepped on earth was a fucking extrover who was constantly fishing for friends.

“I do get out!” Okay, he did not get out. But that was because he didn’t need to. He had his college classes thrice a week, two short shifts every week at the coffee shop near his house and then hockey practice. He had friends- acquaintances in all of those aspects of his life and it was enough just like that. He didn’t need Mr. Extroverted Popular Guy’s party to have fun.

“Do you? Because I haven’t seen you anywhere besides at college and at Lavanda’s Coffee. You need more friends, Scorpius. Come on! The team will be there, no more than five friends from college will be there… my brother will be there”. Oh for fuck’s sake. What was it with straight guys and their obsession to pair every single gay person they knew together. Scorpius had been fairly aware of James’ intentions since he first showed him pictures of his brother, carefully and covertly zooming on the bi pride pin the shorter boy wore. Fine. James’ brother was hot. But not hot enough to drive Scorpius into extroverted hell, a.k.a, a party. James noticed his attempts weren’t working, so he sighed. “Listen, if you say yes, and you go, and you don’t have fun, I’ll drop it. Forever. No more insisting on getting you to come over to a party, not anything. Butfor that you have to go”.

“Fucking fine, James,” he smiled slighly as James made his celebration dance. “God you are insufferable” they walked together to the bus station, where they parted ways. 

When Scorpius got home, he checked the phone. Barely two hours before the party. Great. Shit. Great shit.

He managed to throw some presentable clothes over himself. The impulse to just wear the blackest sweater and the most boring pants to go unnoticed had to be put away several times. He knew James was going to have him socialize. He might as well look like he wanted to be there. So a simple t-shirt and some jeans did the job instead. God he already regretted the idea.

The Potter’s house was huge. It was truly, huge. It wasn’t as if Scorpius wasn’t used to visiting big houses. He had grown up in a more than good monetary situation, always being driven to some posh party or other. And James also had a younger sister, apart from Albus, his younger bisexual brother. Plus his parents. So maybe it made sense that a family of five had a big home . Still, he was surprised. 

He was not surprised to know, though, that the five college friends James mentioned turned out to be something closer to twenty five. Okay well, it was still less than fifty people in the house. Scorpius could handle it. He hadn’t even had a beer yet but he was feeling dizzy. I don’t go out much, do I? he thought to himself.

“Hey, Scopr!” James approached, with a glass of beer in his hand and his arm around a very pretty brunette girl Scorpius had never seen before. The music was very loud but since he was yelling and close he made himself heard. “Glad you made it. This is Lan, one of my best friends, the team is in the back of the garden, and the bathroom is under the stairs”. The blond nodded and directed himself to the garden.

Before he even got close enough to be seen by his teammates, he realized he was having a headache. Between the music, the yelling, the lights… fuck. He ran to the bathroom to refresh himself with some water, only to find it was occupied. He decided to go upstairs, where he assumed there would be less people. God he hoped so. 

The boy was glad to see he was right. The upstairs was composed of a somewhat thin hallway, and four doors, two on each side. None of them were hinted to be the bathroom. Two of the doors were marked with a “Do not enter” sign, one of them said “JAMES’ ROOM, DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PERMISSION”, leaving only the second door on the left side as an option. Scorpius didn’t even think about it twice before opening it and bursting into the room.

“Holy shit!” a masculine voice yelled. The hockey player was embarrassed to realize that the door he had just opened, did not in fact, lead to a bathroom. Great. 

“Sorry, I thought this was the bathroom!” He explained himself, shyly.

“It 's fine. My stupid brother didn’t mention the fact that the only bathroom that cannot be only accesed from a room is downstairs. But most people know it, anyway, since they have already been here.” The owner of the voice stood up, as he got closer to Scorpius, who suddenly stopped feeling sick and started feeling a little bit warm in the cheeks. It was James’ brother. “Hey!” the other boy smiled. He was wearing a baggy green t-shirt and some jogging pants. His skin was considerably darker than his brother’s, but his hair, even if shorter, was just as messy. He was also shorter. Not only shorter. Just. Short. Scorpius couldn’t help but realize he could easily place his chin in his head and stand there comfortably. Great. “You are the gay one, right? S ...Scorpius?” Scorpius was put out of his thoughts with those words, said by Albus while wearing a nice wide smile.

“I’m sorry?”

“Shit that was too blunt uh…” he covered his face with his hands. “I mean, my brother being as unsufferably straight as he is keeps mentioning there’s a cool dude in the team that’s cool and gay…”

“Yes! Yeah, he does that with you too.” They both laughed, and somehow they ended up sitting in Al’s bed, shoes off. 

“So… uh, what brings you here? James says you don’t get out much.” Albus asked and the taller one snorted.

“Of course he says that… He insisted so much I decided to come. But he said there would be less people. If I knew this place would be so full I would have stayed at home. Crowded places give me headaches. What about you?”

“I… I live here” Albus said, containing his laughter. Right.

“Yeah I know I mean… why didn’t you leave before the party?” Albus blushed and looked away.

“I uh… So what are you studying again?” Scorpius smiled somewhat cockily at the sudden change of subject. Okay, so maybe the concept that straight peope trying to set up their gay friends together was awkard and sort of annoying and the concept that Albus was extremly adorable could co-exist.

“I am doing a sort of nursery course. Not yet the career, I wanna prepare myself so I can get into a better college, but you know, this does it for now. What about you?”

“I’m starting psychology next term. Exciting… You don’t look like someone who is into hockey,” Albus said. “Not for anything in particular just… I don’t know, I associate sport with extroverts. Maybe because I come from a family of sporty extroverts”. They both laughed at that.

“I thought I wouldn't like it either, to be honest. My dad just wanted me to have something to do after… after my mum died, when I was like twelve. So I started at this local club close to my house, turned out to be crazy good, and well. We have the National Finals in a week. Exciting.” Scorpius doubted mentioning his mum in front of Albus, but he made him feel kind of confident when he was speaking. Maybe because he wasn’t constantly interrupting him, and maybe because the atmosphere was quiet, allowing them both to take their time and listen to what the other had to say. It was nice, really. 

“Sorry about your mum. But glad you found something you like,” Albus answered, with a sort of childish-sorry smile. Scorpius thanked when people didn’t make a big deal when he mentioned his deceased mother. He missed her tons, but having people tell him over and over how sorry they were, when they hadn’t even met her drove him mad. Albus, on the other hand, made him feel calm.

“Yeah, I’m glad as well…”

They stood in silence for a while, until the dark skinned boy broke it.

“I stayed because you looked good as fuck in the pictures James showed me and I was curious. But then I chickened out and didn’t want to come down.” Albus looked at him, as if he was looking for a response, and Scorpius couldn’t help himself from blushing and looking away. But then, he turned back to Albus again and kissed him. Shit. YES shit. 

Around two or three hours later (honestly, they both stopped counting), when everyone started leaving, they decided Scorpius should leave as well. He made his way home cherishing the words “hey, call me later” in his heart.