Chapter Text
James' life was currently going to shit. He was living with his two best friends who were constantly shagging each other, so, for self preservation reasons he was never in the flat. Which meant he never slept more than four hours at a time. His university course was getting too much, why did no one warn him that a Masters degree was actually going to be difficult? He was dragging himself through this fucking degree tooth and nail, all whilst Sirius and Remus shagged themselves silly, and James was bored. Most of all, he was lonely.
Now James didn’t mind being on his own, he spoke so much to himself that he hardly noticed when someone was or wasn’t in the conversation with him, but after years of Sirius always just being there, it was a gruelling adjustment. Sirius and Remus deserved each other and by god did they deserve to fuck for hours on end but James felt… out of sorts. For once he wasn’t needed and he wasn’t good at not being needed.
He was considering running head on into traffic for something to spice his life back up or perhaps going to get some tea and knuckling down on his thesis which unfortunately wasn’t going anywhere. The thesis had been left alone for a month with the excuse that James was letting the information marinate into his skull before he had to regurgitate it back onto the page – unsurprisingly that hadn't worked and he was now a month behind the rest of his class. It wasn’t his fault alright, it was Sirus’. Well, and Remus’, he supposed he couldn’t blame one for the fuckfest taking over his flat and not the other. He was a liberal man and everyone could do with a decent amount of gay sex in their life, it keeps them from going insane after all, but if they could do their continuous sex far far away from him, that would be ideal.
He let his forehead hit the café table at an alarming rate and stayed there for a second to see If he’d been fortune enough to lose the remainder of his brain cells – he hadn’t been.
He stared at the separation of melted ice and lemon tea long enough to lose focus and considered whether it would be quicker to stop mulling over his thesis and actually start writing or whether he needed a fresh tea for that torture.
And then his phone vibrated. See, not his fault that he couldn't start work now, it could be a very important message. He was hoping it was from Sirius telling him it was safe to come back and sleep but alas, it wasn’t. He furrowed his eyebrows and tried to guess the lore behind the unknown number that was throwing a bitchfit at him.
{16:09}
Unknown: This is the reason I cant ever do more than just fuck you.
James: ???
Unknown: fuck off with your acting clueless shit. I cant believe you told your family that we were getting engaged, we weren’t even dating you fucking narcissist.
James: Uh? As much as I'd love to comment, you’ve got the wrong number, love.
Unknown: Don’t call me love, you fucking weirdo
The first smile of the week broke out across James face. He was, after all, nothing if not a masochist. Perfect, some excitement was filtering back into his life. He would find time to write the first chapter of his thesis later, this was clearly much more important.
James: feisty much?
Unknown: feisty? What are you, a fifty year old man?
James: fifty? Nope, but I can be whatever age you are
Unknown:… as if that isn't the fucking creepiest thing a stranger has ever messaged me. Seriously, fuck off.
James: Wait. Wait no, are you a minor then? I just figured from your ‘engagement’ that you were a little older?
Unknown: Older than what? Your fifty year old self?
James: Older than a minor, you tosser.
Unknown: Go away.
*Not* that its any of your business but I'm 24.
James: im 26!!!!!
Unknown: right and I care because?
James: we should be friends (:
Unknown: No.
James sighed and stared at his phone screen. God, it’s not as if he wants a best friend, he already has two, he just wanted some entertainment for a few minutes. Frowning, he opened his beat up old MacBook that Remus took the piss out of him for buying when they started university together, something about him being the perfect outline of a capitalist, which was rude because James will have him know that he's sucked enough cock in his twenty six years to be anything other than a conservative, thank you very much. And anyways, Remus was too busy shagging on their kitchen table to study so who’s really the loser here? Fuck. It was still James wasn’t it?
He miserably started typing words. James figured if he could type enough about this one topic, currently being, the fearmongering tactics of modern American political figures in the run up to the 2003 Iraq war, then at some point he would gather enough words to string together some kind of sentence. After he meticulously typed the sixth word, he sat back and took a sip of tea, this was useless. He was useless.
James was good at this – spiralling. Sometimes he thought it might be the only thing he was actually good at, apart from flirting to get free drinks at the bar, he was really good at that. But could he even take credit for that? When he really examined it, his parents gave him his looks therefore, they were responsible for getting James free drinks at bars. So, he was back to square one, he was only good at being useless.
Who the fuck even chooses to study Political History as their masters degree? James did, that’s who. He was beginning to feel as if he should quit. Drop everything and run off to… France maybe? Seems ideal, not too far if he decided running wasn’t for him and plus, if Sirius ever stopped fucking Remus for more than half a second, he might realise James was missing and come and find him. Sirius was French, he would know where to find James. Or maybe not and James would die alone, rightfully so, he thought.
He bit down on his bottom lip and dramatically shut his laptop which left him staring at the few other university students that were studying in this cramped little coffee shop. It was the type of shop that a tourist might describe as a 'mysterious little hole in the wall', in reality it was ridiculously small and almost functionally stunted but the tea was cheap and the waiter was really nice. Fine. Maybe James thought the waiter was incredibly sexy and good enough to devour. And fine. Perhaps that’s why James walked forty seven minutes out of campus and past nine perfectly good cafes to end up here. But that’s beside the point, he hardly even looked at the man that was oozing pure sex, he had a thesis to write after all. The waiter caught James eye as they both glanced at who was in the café, James wanted to lick this man from the thigh up to the side of his throat. He shifted in his seat and tore his gaze away, he would not get fucking hard at the sight of an attractive man. What was wrong with him? Maybe phone person was right, maybe he was creepy.
His phone buzzed and he dropped it screen down on the wooden floor, he was flustered and would desperately like to try an avoid a very awkward hard-on while a literal sex god was mere metres away. He turned his head to see if the hot waiter was watching but by some heavenly intervention he was looking at his own phone instead. Wincing, James lifted it slowly off the floor, back into his harder-than-necessary grip, and glanced at the screen.
{16:43}
Unknown: I can feel you overthinking that interaction. Shut up
James: I didn’t even say anything!!!
But hi, Im so glad you’ve come back!
Unknown: You didn’t have to. If this is what you're like over the phone, I dread to think what you're like in person. I feel sorry for your friends.
James: ):
Unknown: For fucksake, I'm sorry.
I am not in the best of moods today, it isn't your fault.
James: Apology accepted! :D
Do you want to talk about the engagement situ
Unknown: Not really – Someone important to me fucked up.
James: Sounds a bit of a prick to me.
Unknown: He isn’t. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.
James: I was just trying to help
Unknown: Fuck off.
James: …
A loud noise sounded behind him and James jumped, turning his head to look at the what had happened, he saw hot waiter had slammed his phone down next to the till. Their eyes met and he narrowed his at James, James didn’t mind, he was just glad that he was being looked at. He smiled at hot waiters’ very pretty face, and turned back to his shut laptop.
Fuck it, he thought and crammed his laptop into the rucksack that he hadn't been emptied all year and so was full of miscellaneous paperwork, a pot of chewing gum, probably a mouldy apple, and he thinks, one rouge air pod. He doesn’t know for certain and he sure as hell isn't putting his hand that far into his bag.
As he drunk the remaining dregs of his tea, he waved at the hot waiter and let his eyes linger perhaps a minute too long, before popping the glass into the glass cleaner tray round the side of the coffee machine; where the public weren't really suppose to be but, look, James is just trying to be helpful and his hot waiter hadn't told him off yet. Not that he'd mind, being told off that is. He groaned internally, he really needed to get fucked, hard. He marched out of the café, and stepped out into the street with a determination to go home. He was going to put his over-ear headphones on and get some much needed sleep. Who cares if he would wake up with a stiff neck. He just needed some bloody sleep.
{19:51}
James: If I get home and my door is locked from the inside with the keys still in again, so that my housemates can fuck until the brink of death, I will stab a bitch.
{read}
James sighed and stuffed his phone into his pocket, which he did have to admit, had an incredible amount of space. His trousers were dark coloured loose corduroys with, what he can now confirm to be, pockets for days. He may be useless but he knows fashion.
Realistically he knew he should call his mum back. He’d been dodging her calls for weeks and he hadn't a good enough excuse, he loved his mum, really he did, they were like best friends – or as best friend like as you can get with someone that is also the rule enforcer. He was feeling useless and his mum would know and she would tell Sirius and then James would get everyone worrying for no reason, see? Useless. So he put it on his mental ‘to do when feeling normal’ list and shoved it into the deep dark depths of his mind.
The walk back to his flat was always too long. It didn’t help that he’d walked almost an hour out of the city to see his hot waiter. Walking there was okay because he had the motivation of eye candy but walking home was long and it was boring. Alright fine. He could admit it, he missed Sirius. He was incredibly happy for Remus and Sirius but he missed laying in Sirius’s bed while Sirius braided what he could of James hair and he missed sitting with his legs across Remus on the balcony talking about the mysterious inner workings of Sirius Black. He was happy for them, of course he was, but he missed being actively loved too and he knew he was being dramatic, that once they’d fucked all the missed years out of their systems, they’d love him back again. But for some reason, that didn’t make him feel any better.
When his bright red front door came into view, something Sirius had begged him to do when they first moved in, he’d said it would ‘give them originality’ to which James had rolled his eyes hard but then gotten up early to surprise Sirius with paint the next morning, he left out a breath of stagnant air. Thinking about getting a decent sleep motivated him enough to extract his house keys from his bag. Praying to a god he didn’t even believe in, he pushed his key into the door and twisted it, it jammed. James rested his head on the door, exhausted tears stung the corners of his eyes, and he kicked at the bottom of it hard enough to bruise his toes. Then a sleep induced anxiety wrapped its hands around James throat and squeezed, squeezed, squeezed. He lifted his hands and slammed his fists on the door much like, he imagined, an axe wielding manic would.
The door flew open and a dishevelled Sirius stood on the other side, “Fucking hell James, what's going on?”
“Let me in! Let me in. Oh god. Please I need to sleep. Stop touching Remus, please, let me sleep” James begged, and okay, so maybe James was losing his sanity slightly.
Eyes widening half with amusement and half with concern, Sirius pulled open the door further so that James could fit inside. James noted that Sirius was wearing one of Remus’ shirts and it was buttoned at an angle that was very precarious. He reached out to gently touch James and James stepped sideways to avoid it. Sirius looked at him hard for a minute,
“James, what is going on? Are you upset with me?” Sirius worried his bottom lip between his teeth and looked James up and down, as if he was fully seeing him for the first time in months.
“No. I told you. I’m really fucking tired” James twisted his upped body slightly so he could talk to Sirius whilst still walking to his room, “I'll put my big headphones on, just, please be a little quiet”
Sirius looked like he wanted to say more but James walked into his room and pushed the door shut with his foot. He just needed peace and fucking quiet okay? Sinking to the floor, he put both hands palm down on the carpet, see, he was real. He knew this because he could feel the texture of the carpet between his fingers. He lent his head back against the wall and inhaled deeply, see, he could breathe on his own, he wasn’t really dying, not physically anyways.
His phone buzzed
{22:12}
Unknown: So? Are you a murderer now?
James huffed out a laugh and closed his eyes tightly for a second as relief ran down his spine. A distraction, just what he needed.
James: Almost.
No, luckily they opened the door with mere seconds of their life to spare.
Unknown: Aw. You were almost hot in my mind then. That’s a shame. You’re back to being a fifty year old man with rotted teeth.
James rolled his eyes and grinned. He could work with this, mean flirting. Perfect, it was after all, James’ preferred method of being flirted with. Suddenly the useless panic didn’t feel quite so pressure-cooking-his-skull-until-he-died. He didn’t want to say that he was attracted to a stranger who he didn’t even know the name of but… well he was nothing if not a stupid man.