Work Text:
James sits at his desk, a slightly chipped mug of rapidly cooling tea cocooned in his hands. He stares at the computer screen, the infernal blinking of the cursor on a blank word document staring at him, mocking him incessantly. No matter what he does, he cannot will the words from his brain to flow down through his fingertips, on the keys, and onto the page.
This used to be easy. He used to not even have to think about it. Waking in the middle of the night, putting the kettle on, and settling in front of the computer to type up a few thousand words of rubbish he could mould and shape into an article was a typical Wednesday night. Or Monday. Or whenever inspiration struck him like a lightning bolt.
But lately, he hasn’t been able to find any words. He hasn’t had the inspiration in months. He can’t even remember what it was to be able to write – to be able to convey what he’s thinking into actual words, actual phrases, actual sentences with subjects and verbs and predicates.
He takes a sip of his tea, hoping the tepid liquid will somehow give him the will to put words onto page. Somewhere deep down, he knows he can’t force the words, knows that they will read as forced as they feel. He has to wait. He has to be patient. He has to have the words to come to him, and when they do – he will be rewarded.
The mocking cursor continues to tease him as he sets the mug back down on its coaster, pushes his reading glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and waits.
He tries different music – scrolls through his iTunes and tries Bach. He waits and listens – waits for the words to stop swirling around in his mind for more than half a second so they can congeal into sentences that actually make sense when they’re written on paper rather than just in his mind.
Nothing happens.
Perhaps he should take a bike ride. The fresh air and exercise will clear his mind and the words will come to the forefront and he will be able to write at least a page or two without even thinking about it.
He looks out the window to his left and finds a miserable rainy day greeting him – the clouds pouring out buckets of rain just to spite him. He cannot help the sigh that heaves out of his chest.
He could give up – try writing another day. But that doesn’t seem like progress. If he could just break through the dam of words clogging his brain – maybe, just maybe, he could get create something out of this mess.
A knock on the open door makes him jump slightly – it’s just a slight rap of knuckles on the wood, but the sudden intrusion into his writer’s block bubble shakes him. A slight tilt of his head finds Jeremy standing in the doorway, two mugs of steaming liquid in his hand – although James has told him approximately 84 times that he probably shouldn’t hold two mugs in one hand as he, the world’s clumsiest man, will end up spilling boiling hot tea all over himself one of these days – and for some reason, James is inexplicably glad to see him.
It’s not that he isn’t happy to see Jeremy almost every single moment of the day since they’ve moved in together, but at this moment, he cannot explain the gratification bubbling up inside of him at the sight of this man.
Over the top of his glasses, he sees Jeremy notice the mug of half-drunk tea on the coaster, and cuts off those thoughts immediately by thanking him for bringing him a fresh cuppa – it might be exactly what he needs to squelch this blockage. He holds out his hands to take the hot mug from Jeremy’s fingers and when he attempts to take a sip, his glasses steam up.
Jeremy’s rumbling chuckle makes him smile as the fog clears from in front of his eyes. Maybe what he needs is a break from thinking – if he stops trying to write, then maybe the words will come to him when he’ll least expect them to. It’s certainly a possibility, and it has worked before in a complete pinch.
He spins in his chair slowly until he’s facing Jeremy, setting the warm mug down on a stack of junk mail that he’s been meaning to sort through for weeks. Jeremy easily walks into the V that his open legs make and bends down to kiss James on the lips.
It’s meant to be a simple, chaste kiss, but the frustration James has been feeling all morning works its way into the kiss – his hand reaching up and carding through the curls at the back of Jeremy’s head as he nips at Jeremy’s bottom lip slightly.
They break away with smiles on their faces until James notices his vision is slightly blurred through his left lens.
“You’ve smudged my glasses, Clarkson,” he says with a laugh.
It’s an automatic motion to take them off, lightly breathe on both lenses, and then rub off the smudges with the soft cotton of his t-shirt. Jeremy chuckles before leaving him alone once again.
The left lens is stubborn, he breathes on the lens once more, before carefully wiping the lens clean.
And then out of nowhere, it hits him. He puts his glasses back on and takes a sip of the hot tea.
He begins to write.