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Everyone James knew had kissed someone.
Sirius definitely had. He snogged people left and right, moving on from one person to another in a flash. But recently, it was Remus who was on his lips. James was waiting for Sirius to tell him about their relationship, they weren’t exactly subtle, at least under the watchful eye of James.
Remus had kissed boys before, he had told James one night in confidence.
Peter surprisingly too, had kissed someone. Macdonald and he had just clicked right.
Evans, too, had kissed someone. Someone she was desperate to keep secret.
McKinnon had Meadows, and Meadows, McKinnon.
For the longest time, James had kissed no one.
It wasn’t that people didn’t want to kiss him. Far from it. He’d been on dates, but never second ones. He’d pop his lips on someone’s cheeks but strayed far from the lips. He’d walk, shoulders touching but never holding hands. He’d done everything he could to kiss someone, yet whenever the opportunity arose, he’d push them back, hesitant.
Always hesitant.
It never bothered him really, until one day, somewhere in July.
He found himself, wide awake, in the middle of the night. He heard Remus, snoring. Sirius’s blanket was half on the floor and Pete had drool coming out of his mouth. The windows were open, just a bit, so the room wouldn’t be too warm.
He'd been thinking, since he had gone to sleep, or tried to.
What was it like to kiss someone?
His fingers brushed over his lips. They were sort of soft, not too thick, not too thin. They dried easily, no matter how many times he licked them over, but they weren’t cracking either. He thought of Macdonald’s lips, the ones Pete kissed. Hers were big and plumpy, maybe even bouncy, a quaffle if you would. Evans had lips that were soft and pink, but they weren’t as big as Macdonald’s. McKinnon’s were thin, but they didn’t look so bad to kiss.
He thought of different girls in his year, outside of Gryffindor even.
There was Fortescue, hers were really defined. There was the Rosier girl, her ones were wider than they were long – if that made sense even. Then, James couldn’t think of any more lips.
Well he did, but it felt wrong to think so.
They belonged to a certain boy in the year below him.
If you asked James, he’d tell you he had the perfect lips.
His top lip was an tad bit longer, and shaped in such an way that it looked like an cat’s. Or an smirk. They weren’t as plump as the others, but they were somewhat. They’d get even plumper if you bit down on them, bite so hard you’d draw blood. It’d look nice, against his lip ring. He had one, on his right side. Most of the time anyway. Some days he had an ring on both sides, some days it was just one in the middle. But James liked them all. He wanted to run his tongue over the cool metal, then over the drawn blood. Barty would enjoy every second of it, James was sure. He seemed to be amused by the smallest of things.
Maybe Barty also thought about James’ lips. And what it would be like for them to kiss.
But it felt wrong, thinking about kissing boys.
James wasn’t homophobic, not at all.
He never thought of Remus differently when he came out as gay. Or when he realized Sirius stared at him for too long sometimes.
James’s didn’t care when McKinnon and Meadows would snog right infront of his face.
But, kissing a boy himself?
It felt wrong. Oh, so terribly wrong.
But he tossed and turned.
If Barty kissed him first, would he pull away? Would he tell him he didn’t want it, when it was the very thing, his soul craved?
James’s thought, and he thought some more, and just a bit more.
He thought of other girls, and how he should think of kissing them. But the more he pushed himself away from a kiss that was only in his dreams, the further he drowned in waters he dove head-first into.
Eventually, he fell asleep.
And when he saw Sirius kiss Remus the next morning, thinking no one was awake, he tried very hard to not picture doing the same to fucking Barty Crouch Jr.