and one more new short thing...

Yesterday I posted all the happy fluff ever, and then I think my brain rebelled, on the walk to campus, and decided that it was time for something completely different. So...have some rather short, James point-of-view, angst-filled fic? Basically, all of the things I don't normally write for these two? (But I promise that in my head there's more to this story and they will be happy! I couldn't leave things like this.)

Title: Like A Song You Still Know From So Long Ago
Word Count: 597
Rating: PG-13 for non-explicit thoughts about sex, and one use of the f-word.
Disclaimers: boys are not mine; only doing this for fun; title from the Dropkick Murphys’ beautifully pensive “World Of Hate”: a feeling inside/ in the back of my head/ like a song you still know from so long ago/ and I wouldn’t change a thing…
Summary: James knows the exact minute he fell in love with his best friend. Unfortunately, he’s already married.
Warnings: angst, not quite a happy ending (at least, not yet; in my head there are two more parts to come, and eventually things will work out, I promise!). First real attempt at writing James p.o.v., so...thanks for reading, if you care to?

James knows the exact minute he fell in love with his best friend.

In a good story, of course, a proper narrative, he’d’ve been in love all along, pining away, or maybe just for so long he hadn’t even noticed it, and maybe it would’ve crept up on him, like the slow caress of a glowing sunrise, or else exploded in some terribly dramatic realization, some horrifying accident on set, a drunken and unexpected kiss, a thunderstorm of comprehension. And maybe all of that’s true. Maybe he just never knew.

But he can pinpoint the awareness down to a single startled moment in time, and it’s not any of the laughter on the X-Men film set (though it might’ve been that), and it’s not Michael tiptoeing exaggeratedly away after crashing a golf cart, looking back and pretending innocence (though it might’ve been that too). It’s not even the first time Michael had grinned at him, with all those teeth, years ago (though he loves the teeth as well, and wonders, late at night, how they’d feel, against his skin). No.

It had been that one terrible and amazing interview. The one when they’d been asked about superpowers and secret talents, and of course they’d been asked those questions before, probably inevitable when filming a superhero movie, and of course it shouldn’t’ve been anything special, this time, either. And it hadn’t been, not really. Nothing extraordinary. Just another moment in another day. No different from any other moment, except for the way it’d split his life in two, on the spot, before, and after.

He’d tried to say he didn’t have any secret talents, because he doesn’t, none at all, and Michael had promptly said, “Are you crazy, you can sing, I’ve heard you sing,” and he’d tried to say no but Michael had smiled at him (those damn teeth again) and kept talking—“You know this one, I know you know this one, sing with me, come on—”  and James had found himself, helplessly, singing along, and failing miserably because he was also laughing, watching the way those winter-river eyes lit up when he gave in.

He’d said, afterwards, “You absolute bastard, that’s going to be all over YouTube tomorrow, I hate you,” and Michael had kept laughing, and James had known, completely known, that he was in love, and well and truly fucked.

He’d thought he’d been in love before, of course. Even seriously, once. He’d been a lot younger then, and utterly convinced that he’d found the right person, that there could never be anyone else, anything better for him, not ever. And not ever had lasted until the exact second that Michael Fassbender had made him sing in public, on camera, as himself and not buried behind the security of a movie role, embarrassed as hell and not giving a damn, because he could do anything with Michael at his side.

Michael’d asked, afterwards, still smiling, whether he wanted to go out. Had looked at him with those complicated eyes, oddly warm beneath all the wicked satisfaction, and offered to buy him a drink, if he wanted one.

He could picture everything, too, with perfect certainty: one drink, three, a hotel room, clothing flung recklessly across the floor, all that lean muscle pressed up against him, around him, inside him, everywhere, and that unfairly spectacular voice calling his name, just once, in that diamond-edged and brilliant moment.

He’d said no. Had left the studio, instead, pretending that neither of them could see, or feel, that pounding ache of disappointment. Had found his way, despairingly, home.

To his wife.