Chapter Text
JAMES POV:
The four band members arrived early at the airport. Their flight was supposed to depart in about two hours, and they had free will, which they interpreted as walking around the large Berlin airport to pass the time.
Shane’s breakdown from yesterday was still burning inside James’ mind, and while everyone walked around looking at every single dumb detail they found, he walked a few meters behind them, sunken deep into his thoughts. Shane had once tried to talk to him, but after not getting an answer out of James for five minutes straight, he just rolled his eyes and went up to Dan to annoy him.
It was kind of awkward if you looked at it. In front of him were his three friends, and he was just walking behind them. But that wasn’t even the worst part. It was the way that Shane and Nic were on either side of Dan and continued to talk to him, although he wore soundproof headphones and had already signalled enough times that he couldn’t hear them. But Nic and Shane both refused to even acknowledge each other, to the point where they would have rather talked to a wall than to the person on the other side of it.
Dan turned and gestured at him for help, but before James could even react, Dan was yanked back by his younger brother to continue their “conversation.” It was childish, and James would have loved to yank out his eyeballs, but it was too entertaining to watch.
It was the way Nic looked at Shane’s face when he thought that nobody was noticing.
It was the way that you could see the unfiltered yearning inside Shane’s eyes.
It was the way they both positioned themselves around Dan so they wouldn’t see each other and used Nic’s brother as a wall to protect them.
To James, it was the most obvious thing in the world, but to Nic and especially Shane, it seemed to be harder to realise than it should have been. They liked each other, easy – Dan probably had already guessed it. James made himself a mental note to speak to Dan later and link him in with some plans of his.
Oh, this was going to be the time of his life.
⸻
SHANE’S POV:
An hour later, everyone was sitting around in a corner of the airport, scrolling on their phones or napping. Shane wished he could sleep, but his mind was everywhere but sleeping.
He had wanted to talk to Nic so badly earlier, to have the type of conversation they had had when they were drunk and it was dark. He wanted to speak to Nic, joke around and kiss him again. He wanted to look at his gorgeous, unreal face and never look away again.
He was yearning for things that he had already done, but could never do again.
He wanted Nic so desperately, it hurt.
The silence that overlayed their little couch arrangement was broken when James suddenly got up and declared that he would get coffee for everyone and unexpectedly dragged Dan with him. As soon as he and Dan had left, Shane’s eyes followed them until he couldn’t see them anymore. He was scared when he slowly looked in the direction of Nic.
Nic was already looking at him.
His grey-blue eyes pierced through him and, surprisingly, didn’t snap away when Shane met them.
They stared at each other in silence, looking at each other’s features and taking the other person in. It gave Shane a weird feeling of familiarity and finality. But for the first time, he wasn’t scared to stare at Nic and felt no shame in him noticing, because, frankly, he was doing the same thing.
The moment was broken several minutes later (it felt like hours) when Shane heard hushed whispers a few meters away and whipped his head to look at the cause. And there they were — Dan and James — looking at them with interest sparkling in their eyes. James had his hands up and gestured wildly between Shane and Nic, while Dan held a tray of coffee cups and just looked mildly confused as he stared at them, seemingly searching for something.
When James’ eyes met Shane’s, he immediately stopped. Instead, a huge grin spread over his face, and he looked… proud of something?
He proceeded to rip two coffees out of Dan’s embrace and went over to Shane and gave him one of the small cups. As soon as he took it, he felt how cold it was.
It wasn’t the type of cold it reached when it stood unattended for too long; it was legitimately icy. He looked at it, uncertain and pretty sure that he had told James about a million times that he, even in the hottest of summer, preferred a hot milk coffee.
He took a swig of it and immediately pulled a grimace, trying not to spit it out.
This was the bitterest coffee he had ever drunk — probably just twenty espresso shots with too many ice cubes.
Only one menace would have liked this.
When Shane looked over at Nic, he was mirroring his expression and was looking at his coffee cup with a look of deep betrayal. James had already vanished again and was standing next to Dan, looking expectantly between them while sipping his coffee.
Something dawned in Shane’s brain, and he glared at James once before turning to Nic.
Nic was frowning, and then realisation dawned across his features as well.
“Don’t tell me your idiotic best friends switched up our coffees.”
Shane didn’t know which would have been better: them switching their coffees now or needing to buy new ones because of James.
“Only if you liked the coldest and bitterest coffee imaginable.”
He tried with a grin and was met with a look of annoyance as Nic stood up and went over to him, took the cup out of his hand and—
“Yeah, that’s mine.”
Shane just stared at him with an open mouth, shocked by the fact that Nic truly liked this sort of coffee and that he had just drunk from the same cup as Shane. Of course they had kissed, but this, this…
“Still want your coffee, or do you expect me to fill it into your open mouth?”
Shane’s mouth unconsciously opened a bit more, and Nic’s eyes darkened with his dilating pupils. Nic just grabbed his original coffee, probably too light for him, and stood next to Shane, the cup in hand, already lifted, almost touching Shane’s lips.
Shane didn’t follow, just accepted.
He saw the second of hesitation before Nic moved his hand so that the cup of coffee touched Shane’s lips, and slowly let the warm liquid leak into his mouth.
Shane looked through his eyelashes and felt triumph rush through him when he saw Nic swallowing hard.
He was feeling hard as well.
He believed that, apart from the coffee, he could also taste Nic’s lips, which had touched the cup moments earlier and oh fuck—
That was the fucking hottest thing Nic had ever done.