“Mm,” Jamie hums absently, allowing himself to think about it for a moment. He misses living in a quiet place, where there’s nothing and no-one. The house he grew up in was surrounded by a dense forest and vast fields, with the Firth of Tay rushing by only minutes from their front door, keeping the rest of civilisation at bay. It had been a practical purchase, a place with lots of land that would allow generations of Woods to practice quidditch unseen and undisturbed, but for Jamie… it had given him somewhere to escape to. How many hours had he spent roaming the countryside, putting off going home because he knew what would be waiting for him when he did? Too many. Far too many. “S’bullshit there’s no Scottish Ministry. If there was, I’d go back tomorrow.”
What Peter says about his life in Kent is surprising, and Jamie glances over at him, frowning slightly as he tries to understand. “Why?” From what little he knows about Peter’s home situation, it doesn’t seem all that bad. If nothing else, it’s clear that his family loves him, and to Jamie it feels like that should be enough. They’ve lived such different lives.
He wants to argue, to tell Peter that he’s wrong and he doesn’t feel anything of the sort, but he can’t. There’s a dull, familiar pain radiating in the hollow of his chest, filling him up, constricting his throat and making his head throb, but there’s nowhere for it to go. He can’t cry. He hasn’t cried in years, and that’s part of the problem - he tries pretend otherwise, but Jamie does care about what other people think of him. He cares so much that he’s broken himself at a fundamental level, trying to be something he isn’t. He swallows, trying to force the feeling away, knowing he has no choice but to let it pass.
Jamie watches Peter’s progress towards him out of the corner of his eye, and though his body tightens instinctively, defensively, he does nothing to stop him. He can’t blame his inaction on the champagne - he hasn’t drunk nearly enough for that - which leaves only the terrifying truth. This time when Peter touches his hand, Jamie’s fingers clench into a white-knuckled fist, but he doesn’t pull away. It’s taking everything he has, but he doesn’t pull away.
The passage of Peter’s hand up his arm is excruciating. It feels like every nerve-ending in his body is on fire, and his breathing grows unsteady as he finally feels the weight of the other man’s palm pressed against his cheek. It’s hard not to think about the last time they were together, assaulted by memories of the warm skin of Peter’s stomach, the soft of his hair, even the way he’d smelled as Jamie had buried his face against his neck. He could have this. Peter is offering it to him, and he could take it - if only he could shake the feeling that it would cost him everything to do so. “Don’t,” Jamie whispers suddenly, catching his fingers in the sleeve of Peter’s jacket, where its safe, and using it to pry himself free.“Don’t. I can’t.” He makes to stand up, to leave, because if he doesn’t… Jamie knows there’s only so many times this can happen before he’s unable to go back.
maybe peter didn’t have the big kind of land to grow up on, the streets was his playground, the river and the many bridges by his house had been his sanctuary, but there would always be something missing when he looked over to his left to see a man and his boy fishing because they could. often without permits, the police only ever pretending to care that they were fishing without them. he’d instead grab a rock and skip it pretending that he had a father next to him to do it with. maybe in another universe that boy and his father had been him. maybe his father would’ve left them with something more than a couple of hundred dollars to their name to make a house a home. but they never could afford a house, just some shabby little hole in a wall above a fish n chip shop that would for sure go out of business within the next couple of years. “yeah,” he says, agreeing with him, not knowing what else to say to that, other than the fact that peter probably wouldn’t make it as far as the ministry because no one would believe that he could.
“my dad left,” he says at first, looking down, “didn’t leave us much,” he sighs, “i used to wonder if maybe he’d ever come back. maybe thinking that the little bit that he left us would ever be enough to purchase something more but he never did.” he can’t remember the last time that he heard from his dad, other than small little things in passing that his mother would say to her friends on the phone. all that he knew was that his dad had a new life now, had another family, lived somewhere on the coast with more air and space that he needed and that he was happy. “so i used to hate it because it made my mum so sad,” he clenches his jaw so tightly, “it’s why i tried to pick up some shifts here and there where i could but coming home never used to feel right because there was this overwhelming gloom none of us knew what to do with.” it wasn’t the same—peter knew that he was lucky in a lot of ways but it never got rid of the fact that no matter what, peter would always be missing someone.
it was stupid, to love someone this much, because what were you meant to do with the parts that they didn’t want? peter didn’t know. it was an overwhelming feeling to love someone this much the way that he loved jamie. he knew that it was first love- an overwhelming love that consumed him but he didn’t know where else to put all of it other than try his best to give it to him. sooner or later peter may get the point that maybe it wasn’t wanted, but jamie still wasn’t pulling away so peter took it as an opportunity to try and push himself a little more to tell him in some non subtle way that he was there and that he wasn’t going anywhere. it was a feeling that ran through him like nothing else. he felt like he was running on thin air that soon it would just leave him and his entire body and he would have to figure out what to do with himself once that it was gone. it should be illegal to feel this much for one person but it was too late now, he felt it and now he had to put it somewhere. give it to someone.
peter wasn’t nearly as drunk enough to not do something stupid, and this was stupid, clearly giving all of this love for someone who didn’t want it. (or act like they didn’t want it). but here he was giving it away anyways. he watches the way jamie reacts to his touch, like it’s burning him, marking him in the same way that jamie had once marked him. it had made him quickly wince his reaction before realizing that it wasn’t neither of their faults—not really at least. he had held his face in his hands and didn’t do anything else, just watched him react to it. “okay,” he says, repeating him, “you can’t.” he didn’t know if he believed him, and by any means, jamie could push him away from him, and yet he still got closer to the other, so close that his forehead was touching his.
“you can go,” he whispers, letting him know that, giving them a little bit more space now but not enough to where he was completely gone out of his atmosphere. he loosens his grip a little, releasing a little bit of his grip on his jaw and placing it on his neck and feeling his pulse underneath his fingers. “i can let you go.” he says, his voice barely a whisper. it’s an instinct to want to kiss him, but he knows that he can’t or wont, he’s already done too much as it is just being in the same room as him.
