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“Will? Can you open the door, please?”
James felt like he was begging, which would have been embarrassing if he hadn’t been so desperate to make sure that his best friend was alright. He was sure that the most likely drunken texts from Chris had been meant to do that, but if Will had gone out to get sloshed with his friends on a week day for something other than a video then something was very wrong indeed.
He had a sneaking suspicion that thing might just be him, despite his attempts to let Will down gently. He had thought that he had done a good job explaining that he didn’t do the boyfriend thing, but apparently he had been sorely mistaken.
Which was why he had bought an extra train ticket from Brighton to London on a day when he was meant to be meeting up with his bassist so that they could record a new song together. He had rescheduled the meeting almost as soon as he got the messages from Chris and confirmed that his rejection had fucked Will up instead of saving their friendship, then shipped himself from city to city.
Standing on Will’s stoop and begging on the door like a scorned ex in a romcom was only one of the most humiliating things that he was willing to do for the other man. After all, what was banging on his door in the middle of the morning when he had worn obnoxious onesies and hats with balls attached to them for Will to post on his YouTube channel? What did literally any level of humiliation matter when it got him closer to his best friend, to having him back the way that they were before?
He had been just about ready to give up and go on his way back to the train station so he could catch a ride back to Brighton when he heard the lock slide out of place. Will’s face came into view them, leaving James staring at a haggard and out of sorts man instead of the usually discombobulated by jubilantly grumpy one he knew well. “Why?”
“What?” James asked, intelligently.
“Why should I let you in when you ripped my fucking heart out of my chest and stamped on it?” Will was seething with anger and not in the fun way that he pretended to be when they were recording together.
“You see, this is exactly why I don’t do relationships or romance,” James said morosely as he let his forehead collide with the cool wood of Will’s doorframe. He had memories from relationships in the past that had failed for lesser aggressions that him misspeaking, but most of them had gone this way. He refused to let him and Will be another in the long list of failures that marred his life.
“Let me in, Will,” he said with renewed energy as he pushed his foot between the door and the frame to stop it from closing.
The other man gave a huffing, grumpy noise before he wrenched the door open and then moved to the side so that James could enter. They walked in silence through the barely decorated flat to the quick-wipe cream sofa that was pressed across from Will’s sad little telly set. James sat down and tried to make himself as small as he could, fingers looped over his knees and arms tight to his torso.
“What did you want from me, you bellend?” Will asked. He didn’t sit down, instead leaning against the wall that held a single framed, and signed, F1 poster with his arms crossed to mimic the expression on his face.
“I wanted the chance to explain myself better. I thought that you had understood me yesterday, you seemed to take it well. But then Chris messaged me to tell me that he had gotten you home safe after my ‘rejection’ and that made me worry,” James said.
“Why would you worry if you don’t do the relationship shite?” Will grouched.
“Friends can’t worry about each other?” James shot back. “You never questioned how I cared for you before you pulled this on me out of nowhere.”
“Didn’t pull it on you out of nowhere! I thought you were flirting with me all the time. Always bringing me coffees in the office and checking on me during shoots and being all touchy-feely with me. What was I supposed to think other than you fancying me?” Will was nearly shouting now like he did when he was genuinely upset, gesticulating wildly with his hands as his accent grew thicker with emotion.
“I do love you! I’m not capable of loving you the way that you want me to, Will!” James ran his hands through his hair, which had only just begun to grow out. “I- I’ve grown past the point of thinking that I was broken, but I know that I don’t have the same chemistry as you.”
“You already told us that, lad, you don’t have go barge into me flat just to say it again,” Will narrowed his eyes dangerously.
“No, that’s not what I’m trying to say. Would you please just listen to me for a second? Please, Will, if our friendship meant anything you will sit down and listen to what I have to say,” James pleaded.
Will marched over to the couch like a toddler sent to timeout and slumped into the chair opposite James so that he could listen to what the other was about to say.
“I don’t want you thinking that this is some weird woke excuse but it’s the truth. I’ve never really wanted to label myself as anything other than queer, but the phenomenon of feeling that I’ve always had is best defined as being aromantic,” James rambled. Half of what he was saying he had rehearsed on the train ride over, which was why it sounded like he was reading it out of a text box. “Essentially it means that while I feel sexual attraction to both men and women, I like to kiss and have sex and all that, I can’t feel romantic attraction. I’ve never looked at someone and thought that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with them, I’ve never looked at someone and wanted nothing more than to be around then twenty four seven. I don’t do romance because I can’t.”
“Oh,” Will mumbled. He had been quiet for a while as James explained, staring down at his fingers while he twisted his rings back and forth anxiously. “You can just… opt out of that? Thought everyone had to do that shite.”
James shook his head, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You’re not going to die sad and alone if you don’t find a romantic partner. You’ll have your friends and family and any pets that you end up with. And you don’t have to define certain actions as romantic either.”
“So the bringing me coffees and checking up on me and treating me different than you do your other mates…?” Will slowly locked eyes with James.
“That was me showing that I love you, but I can’t be pinned down into the role of a boyfriend. I won’t have those feelings and I never will,” James let them sit in silence for several very long minutes. “Will? Do you understand now?”
“Better than you think I might, lad,” Will nodded his head. “Always wanted to end up with someone at the end of the day, have someone take care of me and put up with my bullshit. Think that you do that best, may have been why I decided that you had feelings for me and I had to act on them.”
“Act on my feelings?” James asked, cocking his head to the side like a cute puppy.
“Aye, it’s what I did a lot of the time. S’why my breakups never really hurt, can’t hurt when there’s no real feelings there to break. I like the idea of being linked to someone though, but I’m already that to you, right?” Will was clearly thinking very hard about what he had just been told.
“I think that there’s not a lot of other duos that are as linked to each other as we are,” James nodded in agreement. “We could just stay like this but maybe add more physical intimacy into the mix? I don’t mind sex and hand holding and cuddling, so long as nothing is specified to be romantic. Makes me a bit uncomfortable to think of myself in that kind of expectation.”
Will thought about it for less than a second before he nodded his head. “Yeah, that works much better than what I had planned. Do wish that you had explained this all yesterday, Jimothy. My head fucking bangs.”