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“Leave the bottle,” Winn says, and there’s an edge just under his blithe tone.
James does.
Later, he’s on his way upstairs to talk with the layout and design guys, and he catches the elevator just as the doors are about to close. Winn’s the only one inside.
“On second thought, maybe leaving me with scotch in full view of the boss’s office was a less than stellar idea,” Winn says when he sees him. He’s listing horribly against the elevator wall, and his usually tousled hair is even more awry than usual, like he’s been combing his fingers through it without noticing.
James is mildly alarmed when he realizes how drunk Winn is.
“Cat may be brilliant,” he says casually, “but she’s also laser focused. If you’re not doing something for her, you might as well be invisible.”
“Huh,” Winn says. “Yeah. That is true. She didn’t even know my name until...” he flaps a hand through the air, “recently.”
“You’re not planning on going home like this?” James asks, frowning at him.
“Well, I was,” Winn says, turning his head to squint at him. “But you’re making that face.” He pokes James in the cheek ungently. “Judgy.”
“Yeah, okay, you’re drunk,” James says, taking hold of his hand and moving it away from his face. “I’m taking you upstairs and you can hang out on the couch till you sober up.”
Winn scrunches up his face and puffs out his chest like he’s going to argue, and then gives the heaviest sigh James has ever heard and slumps over against the wall again.
“Fine,” he mumbles. James hits the button for the right floor. “But only ‘cause Kara’s off saving the world from that Bizarro…person.”
“I thought you were done avoiding her,” James says, brows lifting. He leans against the back wall next to Winn.
Winn is silent for so long, staring at the floor between his shoes, that James doesn’t think he’s going to answer. He watches the floors tick by and tries not to dwell on Winn’s earlier comments. But you – like, you could be with her, and you know it. Literally all you have to do is say the word.
“You know, it’s so easy for you two,” Winn says. “You’re Jimmy Olsen, award-winning photographer, and she’s – friggin’ Supergirl, and both of you are just so – so attractive that it is actually unfair.” He drags a hand down his face. “God. God, I’ve turned into that jerk, that whiny jackass that feels sorry for himself when he doesn’t get what he wants.”
James thinks that’s gonna be the end of it, though his brain is still stuttering over the phrase both of you, and then Winn braces his shoulder against the wall and turns to face him fully and continues.
“It’s just, I don’t get it, man. Lucy Lane, pfff, sure, she’s a Lane, she’s beautiful, she’s smart, but she’s not Supergirl, you know? You know Kara likes you. She might not know that she likes you, but we know that she likes you. In what universe do you give up the chance to be with Supergirl?” He says the name with a reverence James doesn’t expect, like it’s something holy, something perfect and wonderful and totally unattainable.
“Winn…” James starts, not knowing what he’s going to say that he hasn’t said already. He thinks, There isn’t really anything else to say, is there, that doesn’t sound like an excuse?
“Whatever,” Winn mumbles. “You’ll probably figure it out eventually and then the two of you, with your Hollywood perfect faces, will make perfect Hollywood babies and move to a suburb and get a dog. If humans and Kryptonians can even have kids together.”
The elevator pings when they reach their floor, doors opening. James shakes his head and puts an arm around Winn’s shoulders to pull him along.
“Really?” he asks, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. “That’s your ultimate fantasy? Me and Kara and kids?”
“It’s what beautiful people do, isn’t it?” Winn sniffs, and he wobbles enough over the threshold and into the hall that he drops his arm around James’ waist to steady himself. James shakes his head and represses the urge to comment on how much Winn makes a dejected drunk.
There’s a little bit of difficulty when they make it to the doorway to their secret headquarters, or whatever they’re calling it now. James fumbles the door open with one hand, and turns them sideways to walk them into the room, but then Winn just up and buries his face in James’s shoulder and inhales. James freezes. He has the absurd urge to kiss the top of Winn’s head for one brief moment before he shakes himself and moves them past the door.
The poor guy is really drunk, and it’s definitely James’ fault.
“Beautiful people,” James mutters, feeling off-balance as he guides Winn across the room. “It’s not like you’re unattractive, Winn.” He levers him onto the couch.
“Just boring,” Winn goes where he’s put, disentangling his arm from James’ waist after a long pause.
James rolls his eyes and perches on the armrest. “You’re not boring. You’re drunk.”
The look Winn gives him makes him feel like an asshole. He doesn’t look drunk at all for a second, just stares incredulously, and James is pretty sure there’s a lifetime of being ‘that one weird kid whose dad killed people’ behind that look. That look says No amount of scotch makes up for the fact that I’ve always been second best.
James has to look away. And then he looks back, because Winn deserves better than that, and James doesn’t totally know what comes over him except he wants to make that desolate look on Winn’s face go away. He leans forward to brush his lips over Winn’s forehead like he’d wanted to earlier.
Or he tries to do that, anyways, but then Winn tilts his head back against the back of the couch just a second before James bends over, and he ends up kissing the corner of Winn’s mouth instead. He tastes, predictably, like scotch.
“The hell,” Winn says. He moves back quickly, his eyes widening, and that couldn’t even properly be called a kiss, but James’ lips are left actually tingling.
“That,” James says, touching his mouth with his fingers, “was not intentional.”
Winn stares at him, his head bobbing like he keeps starting to shake it and then aborting the motion before it begins.
“Yeah, sure,” Winn does not look like he believes this at all.
“I’m serious,” James frowns at him. “Listen, I’ve still got some work to do. You just – hang here till you’re less drunk.”
“Sir yes sir,” Winn says, rolling his eyes slightly. “Whatever you say.”
James nods, stands up, moves to the door. When he looks back Winn has pitched over to lay down and thrown an arm over his face, though what James can see of his chin looks…a little redder than usual.
He can still feel Winn’s mouth under his as he walks back to the elevator.
***
James tells Kara he has to go pick up Lucy from the airport, and it’s true, but that’s not for hours yet. Her flight doesn’t get in until ten. He just can’t face pretending everything is completely normal, not tonight, not after what happened.
“I love her,” he had told Bizarro, and he’d meant it in the way everyone loves Supergirl, meant he cares for her as a friend, as a hero, as one of the best people he has ever known. But the confession has hollowed him somehow, split open all the lies and reasons he’s been feeding himself. He’s already failed at keeping himself from having feelings for Clark’s young cousin, and avoiding admitting them for Clark’s sake no longer seems imperative.
His defenses down, James thinks of Winn again. It had been Winn on that damn couch, his green eyes wide and lost, that James had thought of when he’d said, “We all feel ugly sometimes. We all feel like no one loves us. Like maybe they never will.” He takes the elevator upstairs, not that he really expects Winn to still be there. He’s not even sure what he wants from him.
But Winn’s still on the couch, playing some game on his phone, eyes heavy-lidded like he’s half asleep. He sits up quickly when he hears the door open.
“James,” Winn says, as surprised to see him as James is to find himself here.
James sits down beside him gingerly, half afraid Winn is going to get up and move away, or at least scoot over and put some space between them. He doesn’t, just stares at James with his mouth open slightly, waiting.
This, James thinks, is something entirely different from the loud declaration of love he’d just given for Kara, different also from the lingering feelings and the sense of obligation he feels for Lucy.
“I don’t know,” he says with an honesty he’s been avoiding for a long time, “what the hell I’m doing.”
Somehow the bottle of scotch has arrived in this room too, because Winn picks it up off the floor and holds out what’s left.
“Join the club,” Winn says.