Archive of Our Own ^beta

After combat class, we were dismissed for the day. Alexander, Filippa and Wren wandered off to the docks, asking if anyone was wanting to join them. James politely denied, staying at my side, hands reaching out to me, but not touching, as if he wanted to hold my cheek and apologise, but didn’t quite reach me. I denied too, saying I was feeling lightheaded still. Meredith had gone off to check on Richard, leaving James and I ambling back to the Tower.
As we were walking, I felt his gaze linger on the scratch, felt his eyes on my skin, but I was too afraid, too ashamed to look back.
“It’s nothing, really. I’m fine, James.” I came to a halt to look at him sideways. His eyes were widened and the golden rings around his pupils were almost glistening. “I’m sorry.” James prompted quietly, looking away from me to resume walking.
“James.” My hand reached for his, holding it in gentle firmness. “I should have moved, I was distracted.” I simply repeated my words from class.
He held my gaze as he held my hand. “What were you thinking of?”
The question unsettled me and I was sure he could see it in my eyes, in my shoulders tensing, in the words that would take too long to be said. So instead, I settled for the vulnerable truth. Or at least, something close enough to it. "Nothing. Camilo’s task was lost in my mind in mere seconds.” Of course, it wasn’t the entirety, but I hoped he would be satisfied. James looked somewhat discontented with my answer, although I could not grasp the reason.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” He employed the words of Shakespeare.
We both stayed silent for a while, wandering back to the Tower. Our hands had lost each other at some point, though I hadn’t noticed when.
As we entered our room, James sat down on my bed and I took my place beside him. Although he kept our silence, I felt his unspoken words on my neck like a soft breeze. But I didn’t know if it was a soft cool summer breeze, pleasant and welcome, or a chilling breeze, giving me goosebumps, afraid of the storm that might follow.
“What were you thinking?” I inquired then. A daunting question for the both of us, but somewhere deep inside me I felt the need to know what he had been thinking about. I felt his backhand on my cheek, although he hadn’t actually hit me, it stung now.
James swallowed, looking down at his hands in his lap. I let the silence stretch again, sensing that he wasn’t ready to speak, but hoped he had the words on his tongue.
“You’d do something stupid. Something utterly dumb. And you’d be helping me with it.” He paused as I tried to begin to understand, but he continued carefully, his voice almost frail and tender as if he was stepping on hot coals.
“You couldn’t do a lot of things that would make me hit you.” He smiled weakly into my direction but didn’t meet my eyes. “So the only thing I could think of was you doing something stupid to help me.”
I had started to understand what he was telling me, but James felt the need to elaborate.
“Like in third year? You were so close to being cast as Romeo, but you knew I wanted to play Romeo, so you purposefully messed up your audition. It could have gotten you purged, but you did it anyway.”
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help but smile. It was almost relieving that that was the sole thing I could do to anger him. James shifted beside me, looking into my eyes before his shifted to the side. I felt his gaze on the scratch again, but it didn’t sting this time.
His hand brushed my cheek, his slightly callous fingertips carefully touching where his watch had nicked me earlier. Instead of tensing, I almost instinctively leaned forward, into his gentle touch.
“And what were you thinking about, really?” He then prompted, making my smile fall ever so slightly. I didn’t know if it was this vulnerable moment we shared, or his genuine answer, or maybe his fingers on my skin, but it made me want to tell him everything, even if I had no idea yet, what the smallest bit of everything was.
“You.” I said, coming to the realisation. It took yet another realisation for me to understand that I had not thought of that little word, but instead muttered it to him. His fingers stayed on my cheek, comforting almost, as my heart clenched and I saw no way back out of this. But most of all, I saw what I had been failing to see clearly for over three years.
“Your eyes, the little golden rings around your pupils, the way your jaw clenched, the way your lower lip twitched.”
His eyes were wide now, soft in the way they rested in mine.
Shakespeare could likely say it best, I figured then. “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
I leaned closer to him and so did he, letting his palm cup my cheek, almost pulling me to him. Gently I rested my hand around his waist, so close now that I could feel his breath on my skin, like a pleasant summer breeze.
“I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.” James whispered into my ear and all I knew is that I had never loved Shakespeare more than in this moment. And that I had never loved James more than in this moment.
We took each other's words, before either of us could dare to speak in more quotes from plays we had lost our nights in, instead now losing our minds in each other, the only feeling, the only thing that felt true was his lips on mine, the way we moved together, the way his hand was holding my cheek, the other carefully twirling strands of my hair.
Gently I pulled away, keeping my hands on his back as I whispered to him.
As I formed the words, Iwondered if he knew the lines as well as I did, if he’d notice. I was met with his smile, the skin around his eyes slightly crinkled, his pupils wide and the golden rings around them alight as Shakespeare’s words fused with my own.
“As there comes light from heaven and words from breath, As there is sense in truth and truth in you.”