20A/N: The end! This last bit is ridiculously fluffy. And simulataneously quite angsty. I don't really even know. Anyways, sorry to sound like a broken record - but those reviews really are what make my world go round, so please keep them coming. They make me endlessly happy. So yes, hope you enjoyed this thing, and I actually might write more of this pairing (Adam/Jamie) because I'm a bit in love with these characters at the moment, but they will most likely just be one-shots featuring lots of sex. Heh. Yeah. Read on, please.
The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me.
- part three -
After a load of supplication and sucking up and general loss of dignity, Adam finally manages to scrounge a number and address out of Megan after she stalks through the door of his hotel room about twenty minutes after he leaves the theatre.
She is angry. Adam puts on a brave face but inside his nerves are rattling like skeleton keys.
"You've done it again, Adam. I hope you're fucking happy" is the first thing Megan says when she enters.
He ends up 5 dollars poorer, and without his metallic-gold jacket, and two of his rings, but he is armed with an address and that is all he needs. He hops the Underground and jumps off at the first stop. It is evening now. A violet sky, a dipping sun still casts pink-orange light like curls of cigarette smoke, and low-hanging clouds that promise rain.
There is a block of crumbling flats. He reads the scrap of paper again.
This is it.
The complex lacks an elevator and boasts instead a single, dirty staircase, which Adam treads delicately and climbs to the third floor. There are no windows, only colorless walls and the stray, skinny cats that guard Jamie's hall. Adam steps over them carefully, and counts the door numbers. 331, 332, 333 – 334. This is Jamie's.
He raps his knuckles against a door with pale blue, peeling paint and a chipped door knob. He hears the flat, muffled buzz of a television and something like a crash, a fumbling of locks, and the door swings open.
"Helena, I told you that I don't want your bloody cactus plant, and this cake you brought me definitely expired about 6 years ago—"
Adam smiles nervously.
"Oh," Jamie says in quiet, breathless recognition. Adam notices that the scar down his cheek looks much more severe in ugly white light of the corridor. Jamie is wearing loose, drawstring pajama pants with little duckies on them and no shirt. His chest is white and sort of formless, lacking any sort of apparent muscle, but he's not atrociously thin either like some of the boys Adam is used to seeing, where you count each of their ribs. Jamie runs a nervous hand through his hair and looks to the ground. Adam follows his gaze, taking note of Jamie's mismatched socks – one is dark purple and the other lime green and striped. A cockroach scuttles by on the bare cement.
"I think I might've accidentally broken one of those cat's tails. It wouldn't let me past the stairs," Adam says, voice louder than he anticipated when he breaks the awkward, overbearing silence. It echoes, syllables bouncing off naked walls.
"That's alright, it's not like they're mine," Jamie says softly, scratching the back of his head, messing up his hair even more. "Would you, um –"
"Look, I brought you—"
"—Like to come in?"
"Um, some tea and sandwiches from this place below my hotel, if you'd like—"
They speak over each other, words fumbling together like mismatched puzzle pieces. They both laugh nervously. Jamie bites his lip, and steps back for Adam to come in.
"Sorry, it's such a mess…no one but my mum or Helena ever really come over, and Henry before he dumped me of course, but you don't want to hear about that, I know – do you like Merlin? I actually quite enjoy it, it's completely historically inaccurate and stupid of course, of course you don't like it, but I mean Merlin and Arthur have such a lovely and queer relationship, it's really quite hilarious. We don't have to watch it of course if you don't want to, feel free to change the channel, the clicker's right there on the arm rest I think, or perhaps I moved it to the kitchen, and I have some tea if you want, but oh wait never mind, you brought tea, didn't you, and it's probably better than any shit I could make, and excuse any crumbs you see, I haven't cleaned out that couch in ages, or the floor for that matter, so sorry if you step on any underwear or rubbish or anything like that, um—"
Adam smiles at Jamie and his nervous, babbling spell breaks. Jamie swallows hard, Adam's apple bobbing beneath a white throat. Adam watches it, transfixed.
"So, um. How'd you find me?" Jamie asks quietly, refreshingly straight forward.
"Helena gave Megan your address. I finally wheedled it out of Megan; though I'll have you know I lost 5 bucks, one of my favorite jackets, two of my favorite rings, and a lot of pride to get it," Adam says, with a charming smile, confidence mounting know that he knows Jamie is just as nervous as he is.
"So, in short – Helena?"
"Pretty much."
"I hate her," Jamie says delicately.
Adam laughs lightly, standing up from the arm rest he had been sitting on. Jamie backs into the counter of his small kitchenette, the small of his back pressed into the wooden edge. He swallows again.
"So then, um. Why are you here?" Jamie says so soft it's almost a whisper.
"I wanted to ask you out on a date," Adam says without a hint of hesitation. "A real date."
Jamie fixes him with one of those dark, unfathomable looks that Adam is beginning to believe might be the death of him. It is long and unnerving, and Adam finds his confidence withering into a bare, threaded sort of desperation that translates on his face as a weak smile. Jamie's face is drawn, and he bites his lip to quell the tremble. He lowers his eyes to the ground, feet turned in at the ankle, an awkward, nervous gesture that leaves Adam thinking aw and fuck and something so warm and so sure is bubbling under his skin, a want so consuming that Adam thinks his skin might split with the heat and intensity of it all.
"Um," Adam says, feeling stupid for his short burst of confidence and his impulsiveness and his big mouth. "I'll take it your silence means, er – no?"
Jamie is pressed up against the counter still, eyes still trained firmly on the ground, lashes licking faint, swirling patterns on his cheeks. His lips part to speak, just as Adam says, "Look, Jamie, I—" but a whistling tea pot interrupts it all, and before Adam can blink, Jamie is running around the kitchen, mumbling, "Sorry, sorry – completely forgot about this, um, keep talking please, I'll just yeah, dump this out—" he dumps the tea into the sink and shoves the tea pot into a corner, wiping his hands on a towel and still rambling about nothing and apologies.
"Jamie," Adam says.
And Jamie freezes. Adam reaches out to catch his wrist, to pull him closer, but Jamie yanks his hand away, and tugs his arms around his waist, hugging himself, head ducked so his hair falls all over his face. And even now, even in this awkward, humiliating silence, Adam can't help but think how of how soft the skin of Jamie's bare torso looks, what lovely things the setting sun – the dip of a glowing golden crescent shape, the unfurling swirls of pinks and blues and yellows – does for Jamie's face. Rain drops are just beginning to speckle the window, and the shadows leave tiny, round freckles on Jamie's downcast face.
There is an all-consuming silence that follows, heavy and bleeding at the edges with wrung-out, raw emotion, pounding in Adam's ears and his eyes too, for a little tears slips out that he doesn't even notice until he tastes the sea-water salt of it on the crest of his upper lip. Jamie's face is wet too, cheeks washed ashen-pale like rain. Adam takes one step, two steps, three steps, and presses their lips together, and feels something complete and hot buzzing beneath his bones.
It's like dominoes, the way a simple kiss leads to Jamie flinging his arms around Adam's neck and curling his elbows around Adam's ear, fingers tangled tightly in Adam's hair. Adam folds his arms around Jamie's waist so every inch of skin feels the touch of the other, mouths licking each other open. The kiss is slow and fast and hot and cold and passionate and gentle and mostly just perfect. Adam kisses every inch of Jamie he can reach, hard, wet kisses on his lips, his nose, his cheekbones, the gentle slope of his chin and jaw, his forehead. He drops kisses on Jamie's hair, and he tucks his face into Adam's shoulder.
"Why'd you run away?" Jamie pants into the crook of his neck, cheeks slick with tears. Adam can feel a hot trickle crawl down the collar of his shirt. "Why'd you run – I thought, I thought –"
"Shh—" Adam begins to say, but Jamie's hand, the one cupping the back of his neck, squeezes hard, and Adam stifles the protest to listen. Jamie's eyes are stretched wide, pulling him in earnestly, tears glittering the lining of his eyelashes, eyebrows raised significantly, like a plea.
"I couldn't stop thinking about you, y'know, after you fucked me in that bathroom – no one had ever treated me like that – and now that I know you're an actor, it could've of just been your talent speaking, and I worried about that too, endlessly really, worried that it was all just an act to get me to shut the fuck up and throw me out, y'know, but then I remembered how sincere you looked, your honest, gorgeous face and how I got scared and ran and not because of you, because I had just made the biggest fool out of myself in front of the most beautiful man I'd ever see and god, I was just so embarrassed. I got home and cried for days, and I only told Helena and my mum because I had to tell somebody or I would just burst, told them how I'd just fucked everything up, and then of course weeks later when I saw you again, god, I thought I might piss myself I was so scared, but also excited and overwhelmed and – I watched your audition, by the way, and it was brilliant – and then when Helena told me you were still here and I should try to find you or talk to you, anything, and then I was, and you just ran, you ran, and now I just sound like such a girl, all melodramatic and crying and foolish and such, but –"
Adam shuts him up with a kiss – it's sloppy and he seriously misjudges his aim, catching the corner of Jamie's mouth instead of full on the lips like he was going for, but it's effective all the same.
"Jamie," Adam breathes into Jamie's mouth, "Jamie, Jamie, baby, I went through all the same things, I made love to the prettiest little thing I'd ever seen in a fucking bathroom stall of all places and watched him leave me, and not chasing after him was maybe the stupidest thing I've ever done, but now he's here even after all my stupid mistakes, and more beautiful than ever—"
"I'm not—"
"You are," Adam says seriously, holding Jamie's face between his two hands, which look so big and unworthy on Jamie's sweet little face, but it also somehow looks like a perfect fit. He presses their mouths together and holds it there, lips and tongues lying silent in their mouths, just feeling the hard press and burn of raw contact. He feels Jamie's lips spread into a smile beneath his.
Rain is pounding the pavement, coloring all the shadows and spaces lush and green, glittering on the windowpane in condensed little pockets of water that morph into raindrops when they get too fat, trickling down and collecting in a shallow tin of dying flowers that Jamie keeps at the foot of his window.
Jamie drops his hands to Adam's waist and tugs him over to the couch, pushing his shoulders down so Adam falls flat into the cushion. Jamie settles on his lap, thighs straddling Adam's waist. He pecks him on the mouth again, stroking a thatch of Adam's glossy black hair to the side and kissing the patch of forehead it reveals. He runs a finger over Adam's eyelashes, sooty with thick mascara and kohl and a touch of glitter. Adam is paler than he remembers, softer.
Jamie's hands fall silent and drop to his lap when he notices where Adam's gaze has landed – just to the right of his eye, down his left cheekbone. The scar.
Eyes like a child, fingers curious and gentle, Adam trails the back of his knuckles down the side of Jamie's face, careful not to graze the skin with his chunky rings. Jamie pales and his throat tightens, emitting a strangled little gasp that freezes in his throat when Adam's gaze shifts from the scar to his eyes.
"The ex?" Adam asks.
Jamie ducks his head, hair falling forward to guard his eyes. "Henry? No, no—well, sort of – see, he um, he came by a few nights after—" Jamie glances up at Adam quickly before lowering his eyes again, "after we, you know, and he was picking up some of his things that I kept, some clothes and things, and we just got in a bit of a – a fight—"
"He hit you?"
"N-no, no, actually I hit him, not that he even felt it probably, but he chucked a piece of this bottle thing at me that I threw at him and it just caught the side of my face, it didn't hurt much, honest, just—"
Jamie's mouth clamps shut, and Adam gently coaxes the hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ears. It's as soft and fluid as he remembers, like water between his fingers, but still untamed.
"I would treat you so much better than that, Jamie," Adam says so softly it's barely audible. "I know that sounds so cliché and dramatic and whatnot, but I really would, like you deserve."
Jamie smiles with his teeth clenching on his bottom lip, and pulls Adam into another kiss. "But what about you? Mr. Manwhore," Jamie teases. Adam cocks a challenging eyebrow. "Oh yeah, your friend Megan's told me all about you and you insatiable sexual appetite. Have you ever even had a boyfriend?"
"A few," Adam says stiffly.
"Uh huh, sure," Jamie teases again. "That's weirdly sexy to me, though. I would be your first."
"How did this go from fluffy and romantic to naughty? I mean, really—"
Jamie giggles into Adam's shoulder, tossing his arms around Adam's neck and kissing the skin behind his ear. "I get very flirtatious when I'm nervous," Jamie says, voice muffled by Adam's hair.
"That's extremely weird, I don't think I've ever heard that one before."
Jamie sighs and shifts himself on Adam's lap so that he can curl up against Adam's chest and sprawl his legs out across Adam's. "I really, really like you, Adam" he says.
"I really like you too."
"Good, that's very good," Jamie says quietly through a hearty yawn. His eyes flutter shut. Adam strokes his soft cheek and Jamie kisses his knuckles as they pass his lips. Adam's fingers find his hair and pet lightly until Jamie is well and truly asleep. He studies his face again, and that hot, beautiful feeling resumes occupation in his veins.
Adam knows that he loves him and he wants to say it so bad because the realization of it is a delicious throb in his stomach, but he's new at these things, so perhaps he will just let it burn for a while.