i'm sorry boys, i got the dirty night clowns.

open . / @beforedawnstarters​​​

location: hogsmeade 

         there  had  never  been  a  time  when  the  streets  of  hogsmeade  had  been  so  empty  of  bodies  -  and  even  in  the  madness  of  it  all  ,  rosine  finally  finds  time  to  take  a  breath  .   this  had  been  the  day  that  she’d  been  dreading for  days  after  a  vague  warning  from  her  eldest  brother  but  this  was  far  worse  than  she  could  have  ever  imagined .   the  loud  thump  of  the  aurors  passing  by  is  signal  of  another  store  cleared  and  it’s  her  turn  once  more  to  clean  the  mess  that  continued  to  unfoil .  but  hogsmeade  ?   rodolphus  had  never  mentioned  something  happening  here  …  and  somehow ,  the  uncertainty  had  her  nerved  .  ❝ i  cannot  in  my  good  conscience  allow  you  to  slip  out  just  yet  -   ❞   she  says  with  gentle  tone  as  rosine  approaches  the  first  person .  ❝  the  area’s  not  cleared  just  yet  ,  so  while  we  wait ,  why  don’t  i  make  sure  that  scrape  there  isn’t  too  deep  ?  ❞                       

“That’s no gonna help anythin’.”

﹕   𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑⠀  ›      @peterpettigrcw

slow  nights  had  become  a  staple  in  the  small  pub  as  august  began  to  trickle  closer  to  september  ,  the  more  modern  spots  in  muggle  london  far  more  inviting  than  the  quiet  atmosphere  of  her  workplace  —  it  made  for  free  time  ,  leaving  lily  to  ponder  on  how  things  changed  in  the  blink  of  an  eye  .  it  had  been  barely  a  week  since  she’d  laid  eyes  on  one  peter  pettigrew  and  by  some  sort  of  odd  glitch  in  the  fabric  of  the  universe  ,  she  missed  him  —  the  sound  of  his  voice  had  somehow  become  comforting  ,  and  with  dangerous  thoughts  swimming  inside  her  mind  ,  she  craved  it  .  it  was  why  when  the  creaky  door  was  pushed  open  and  she  saw  his  face  ,  the  girl’s  grin  —  a  tired  reflex  that  seemed  to  pair  well  with  the  pallor  under  her  carefully  applied  blush  ,  the  cold  blue  of  the  circles  under  emerald  eyes  —  doubled  ,  hands  moving  to  get  him  a  pint  before  he’d  even  reached  the  bar  .  "  thought  you’d  forgotten  me  ,  pete  .  "

james snorted, taking in the full weight of peter’s skepticism, then rolled his eyes and laid his hand over his heart. “oh, forgive me, pete, i’m so sorry for holding up the schedule trying to have a special moment with you.” but james didn’t hold the sarcasm of his apology long, leaning over to sling his arm around his friend and lean in. “it’s not going anywhere, don’t worry. don’t you worry for even a second, mate, the pub will not grow legs and walk away. probably.” he paused, thinking this over for a half a beat, then carried on like he’d never paused at all, “you’re right, you’re right, you’re thirsty, let’s get you to the pub.”

“She deserves better than him,” Jamie corrects quietly, though it’s none of his business and he well knows it. What he knows about the relationships between mothers and sons could fit in an egg cup, but if there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s that you don’t get a boy like Peter without putting in a great deal of care. He’s entirely himself, for better or for worse, and that in itself is some kind of miracle. Why would she want any son other than the one she’s got? “She’ll never think she deserves better than ye. And she’s right. She’s yer mum, Peter. She loves ye as ye are.”

How are they back here again? For three years Jamie has managed to keep his distance from Peter, avoiding him and pushing him away in equal measure, but now… it’s like he can’t help himself. There’s no good reason for him to have followed Peter into this bathroom, and there’s certainly no good reason for him to still be sitting here when he could’ve left at any time. All there is is the truth: that Jamie is here of his own accord, and it’s all because he wants Peter Pettigrew. Now that he knows what it’s like to kiss him, to touch him, how the fuck is he supposed to keep away? How can he ever go back to pretending he doesn’t want those things? His stomach twists.

Jamie wishes Peter wouldn’t look at him so much. What is he even seeing? “Me neither,” he replies, his voice barely loud enough to hear. It’s almost a relief when Peter’s lips finally meet his, and he moves slightly towards him, meeting him part of the way. He honestly doesn’t know what he was more afraid of: that Peter would kiss him, or that he wouldn’t.

Without pulling away, Jamie fumbles to retrieve his wand from inside his jacket and points it at the door, hearing a metallic click from within as it locks. This isn’t like it was at the pub, or even at school - not an ill-considered tryst in a dark, but ultimately public space. This can be kept private. This Jamie can control. He puts his wand back in his pocket, and the hand that was clenched around Peter’s sleeve begins to drift, travelling the length of his arm to settle against his clavicle. With a locked door between them and the rest of the party, it’s easier. Jamie kisses him slowly, but no less desperately. It’s like his body’s been waiting for this moment, for the inevitability of seeing him again. I’m fucked.

he wants to argue with him, but he doesn’t, just locking it away in his head so he can think about it and stew over it later. he had never believed that he’d be enough for anyone, there’s this doubt in his head that he doesn’t know what to do with because it’s too much for him to think about. he always had a million thoughts in his head that he never knew what to do with, emotions too. they were just too much for him. “maybe,” he says, before smiling down and looking at the tub in front of him. he knew that his mother loved him, and he was lucky that she had been so accepting when he had come out despite her worries. he remembers one of the first times that he had gotten beat up at hogwarts after someone had found out that peter had kissed one of his friends who swore would keep it a secret but never did. it didn’t matter to peter whether he did or not but the consequences of being so open still stayed with him. it had gotten better now, people become more discreet in their disdain but wanting to know what it’s like. he doesn’t want to think about how that used to effect him because it did, but he was stronger because of it. she had reason to worry about him but the love she felt for her son never faltered. 

he doesn’t know what his next move will bring, if jamie will push him away or pull him close, or both. he just knows that he’s being incredibly selfish trying his luck once again. he doesn’t know why he does it, or why there’s even some kind of magnetic pull but there is. he knows it’s because he had very genuine and real feelings for him that he tried to stuff down for years, looking for it in the wrong people before he eventually gave up thinking that he’d never feel that way about someone again. even now it’s still an intense feeling of being in the same room as someone you loved and not knowing what to do about it. it’s different now, they’re different now, and maybe jamie is still scared to be with him but he can work with that if jamie lets him. he had every reason to be scared and he wanted jamie to know that he could walk in the dark with him through it. 

@peterpettigrcw

“it’s not just a rock, pete, come on, what are you talking about??? it’s for you! i found it, and i picked it up, and i’ve been holding onto it for just the right moment! look, it looks like a snowman!!! just a rock, pfffftttt.”

                 ❝      that’s   cause   i’m   her   little   girl   ,      and   i   mean   look   at   me   ,      i’m   tiny   !      ❞         a   fit   of   giggles   as   she   tried   to   kick   and   splash   peter   with   water   that   was   already   above   her   knees   .         ❝      sure   i   a—      ❞         but   the   words   were   cut   off   mid   answer   ,      am   turning   into   a   scream   as   she   felt   herself   get   lifted   into   the   air   .         ❝      peter   !      put   me   down   !   ❞         too   late   ,   just   as   soon   as   the   words   left   her   lips   she   was   tossed   back   into   the   water   .      deeper   water   now   ,      soaked   to   the   skin   and   grinning   and   laughing   like   a   fool   as   she   broke   through   the   surface   .         ❝   that’s   on   you   pete   !      you   told   me   you   could   carry   me   on   your   shoulders      ❞         treading   water   as   she   watched   peter   join   her   .     ❝      rat   ?      you’re   not   going   to   snitch   on   me   !   don’t   you   dare   !      ❞

      𝑎  𝑡𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑡  𝑜𝑓    his  lips   joins   the  snort  that   leaves   him ,    fingers  coming  up  to  wordlessly  light  his   smoke   as  peter  laughs .      ❛     you   have   a  point .    i   do   say  that  to   all   my  rat  friends .   every   single   one   i  have .   constantly .   ❜       although ,    sirius   will   fully  admit  that  he  doesn’t   feel   like  he’s   affectionate   enough  for  his  friends ,    sometimes .    that  his  utter   devotion   isn’t  coming  across   fully .    but  he  knows  it  likely   never   will .   the  depths  in  which  he   cares   for  them  cuts  like  a   knife ,    more  apparent  to  the  odd   outsider   than  his  own  mates ,    smothered  as  they  are  with  it ,   and  sometimes  that  line  almost  just   feels   like   eggshells   where  he  knows  he  shouldn’t   let   it  be .   in  all  honesty ,   sirius  just   believes   that  all  of  this  can  solve   itself   with  adulthood .    that   leaving   his  home  means  leaving  his   mind ,   taut  with   years   of  hatred  and  fear .    that  things  would  just  become   easier   —   and  in  a  way ,   he’s  sure  they   will .    but  peter’s  reaction   reads   right  into  him ,   and  sirius  remembers  it  doesn’t  apply  to   others   the  same  way  it  does   him .    he  thinks  peter  can  be   absolutely   brilliant ,   a  schemer  ready  to   tie   his  way  into  things   flawlessly   on  the  spot   —   that  it’d  make  for   stellar   work  at  any  job  that  might   elevate   his  passion .    but  things  don’t   work   like  that .    and  never  memorising  a  mermaid’s  mating  cycle  or  whatever  next  thing  sirius  can  understand  not   wanting   to  store  in  memory  means  that  peter’s  options   are   limited .    sirius   doesn’t   know  what  to  say ,   so  he  mutters  a   low        ❛    yeah .  ❜      in  its  place .   he  won’t  dig  any   deeper   into  it .    where  sirius  lacks   ambition ,    he  knows  peter  absolutely   doesn’t .    the  implication  of  the   compliment   is  clear .    sirius  won’t   spew  on   about  how  little  he’s   considering   what  that  path  could  actually  be ,   beyond  his   friends .    so  he   moves  on ,    letting  peter   explain   how  he  lost  the  job  with  a  sneaky  smile  on  his  face  until  he  actually   faces   peter ,   and  notes  that  something’s   still   wrong .         ❛     it  doesn’t   seem   like  it  didn’t  matter ,   ❜     sirius  retorts  slowly ,   brows  furrowed .    he  can’t   quite   get  a  read  on  it ,   but  there  has  to  be   something   bothering  peter ,   and  now  sirius  is  wondering  if  he’s  truly   dug   his  grave  here  already .    but  he  still  can’t  help  but  smirk  at  pete’s  next  bit .        ❛     you  have   teeth   and  a   mouth ,   don’t  you ?    i’m  sure  you  could   drag   up  to   fifteen   carat  in  there .   ❜ 

“i bloody knew it.” he says with his own snort, shaking his head, watching his friend light his cigarette and hold out a hand for one for himself. “bastard, you are.” he says with his own cheeky smile. he would never admit it, but it was nice being able just to talk like this out in the open and not behind closed doors and in the quiet. it was easier, he thinks it might be the same for sirius. most of their conversations were held in the dark and in the quiet. he never minded it, in some ways peter was always a little secretive, not for his own benefit but for the benefit of others. he thinks maybe that’s why his teachers often found him untrustworthy, but he didn’t know if they just had projected what he should be because of people like james, sirius, remus, even lily were all brilliant and there was just something about peter that lacked what they had. he never cheated when it came to tests, he had decent marks, but he was just more cunning than he needed to be, held back bits of information because he wanted to see the whole thing before he could make up his mind. he reaches out to touch his friends shoulder and smile, “i think adulthood is a scam, but if you ever want somewhere to breathe a little you can always come to my home for a bit. mum’s been wondering where you lot have been.” he lets him go now. he wouldn’t understand what it meant to live in a world like this, looking back briefly at the black estate, but he could certainly be there for his friends that needed him. peter wasn’t good at a lot of things, but he did love his friends more than anything and would do just about whatever for them. 

        ”that sounds like a stellar idea! and i mean, what’s the worst that could happen? we all know how to fly - if it works i’d imagine it couldn’t be that much different to handle.”

If Jamie were a different sort of person, perhaps this is the point where he’d reach out to Peter, take his hand or try to smooth away the tension from his jaw. Instead he just listens, turning over what he says in his mind, adding yet another layer to the increasingly complex picture of the other man he’s taken such pains to form. It makes sense, that it’s not really about what he has, but about what he’s lost. Jamie’s own father is many things, but at least he isn’t the type to abandon his family. He can’t imagine what that would do to a person, to their sense of home. “Yer dad sounds shite,” he says simply, with feeling. It’s not very helpful, it’s not even really what he means. He ought to have said: I’m sorry that happened to you.

He can’t look at him. All he can do is hang onto Peter’s sleeve, clinging to his token attempt at resistance even as he moves in closer. Jamie lets out another shaking breath as their foreheads touch, feeling that dizzying mixture of fear and… something else entirely. It would be so easy to close the remaining distance between them, to claim his lips in a kiss, but he doesn’t. This feels different from the other times they’ve been alone together - it’s not so frantic, and he doesn’t know what to do with that.

His body is still screaming at him to leave, but he stops moving at Peter’s words, his free hand a vice on the scrolled edge of the stupidly fancy bathtub. “Then why don’t ye?” Jamie asks quietly, eyes flickering up to meet Peter’s at last, searching them for something that will make him understand. Why, after all this time and everything that’s happened, does Peter even want him? He’s not an idiot - he knows that he’s been shit to him, that his inconsistencies can’t be easy to deal with, and that the secrecy he demands from him isn’t fair. Peter deserves someone that can be with him properly, and Jamie can’t give him that. He isn’t brave. He isn’t anything. He’s just a waste of space. 

he used to think that he didn’t hold much grievances over his father, but there are moments like this where he can feel the hurt throughout his entire body. he knows that it’s more than that. peter acted tough and proud, a fake bravery, because he wanted people to think of him like that, but when it came down to it, he wasn’t. he was just a scared little boy that didn’t know what he was doing half the time. “he is shit.” he says with a small smile shaking his head. “my mum deserves better than the pettigrew men,” he says, adding a little more honestly and vulnerability that he hasn’t really given anyone in his life. he didn’t like himself all that much because of his impulsiveness that worried his mother so much. “i want you to live a long and happy life,” she’d say as she tuck his hair back, nursing whatever new wound that he had gotten. he’s quiet for a moment before shaking his head. 

the moment feels different now, they’re close but they’re not close, jamie is wanting to pull away and peter isn’t letting him. he knows that he needs to, but he doesn’t know why he keeps holding on like it’ll solve anything. maybe naively thinking he’d feel the same way about him, and maybe he does and he just doesn’t know how to show it—it’s something that peter can understand. he’s holding on to peter’s sleeve, it’s the small moments that let him know that he wants to be close but can’t. 

  𝑖𝑡'𝑠  𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑒𝑟  𝑡𝑜     fall  back  into   rhythm   with  his  friends .     harder   to  keep  the  pessimism  and   sardonic   qualities  family  just   brings   out  of  him ,    even  .       ❛     i  miss  him   too ,   ❜       he   responds   without  a  missed  beat ,    turning  to   nudge   at  peter’s  elbow .        ❛    and   you ,  ❜       his  grin  widens .         ❛     have  a  rat   warming   my  bed   one  night  and  suddenly  i’m   addicted ,   you  know ?   ❜      he  laughs  it  off ,   but  there’s  a  lot  of   truth   to  his  words .    one  of  the  reasons  he  sticks  himself  in  the   rut   of   loneliness   he  does  is   because   it  just  feels  so  much   less   impactful  than  the   empty   period  after  he’s  just  spent  time   with   his  friends .   he’d  rather  the   constant  sickness   over  its  sudden   drop .        ❛     graduation  could   not   come  faster ,     at  this  point .   ❜        sirius  gives  a  huff ,   turning   against  one  of  the  exterior  walls  to  take  out  his   own   pack  of  smokes ,    offering  one  to  peter .         ❛     no   shit ?    ❜     he  laughs ,   placing   the  cigarette  between  his  lips .        ❛     fired  !   the  hell  did  you  do ,   wormtail ?    didn’t  take  them  as  the   strictest   joint .   ❜     sirius  shakes  his  head ,    rather  humoured .    frankly ,    he  knows   he   wouldn’t  be  able  to  hold  a  job  to  save  his   life .    still ,   he  has  a  rather   higher   opinion  of  his   friends ,   even  where  he   shouldn’t .   ❛     ah ,   i  take  it   back .   all  the  better  for   me   then .   just  sneak  some   jewels   in  on  your  way  out ,    you  won’t   need   a  job .   ❜

peter wasn’t one to be outright with his feelings, mostly because he tried to push them down whenever he could. it was different, his relationship with all of them, especially his relationship with sirius. so when he tells him he misses him and cracks a joke he smiles a little fondly before getting hit with some kind of sadness that he doesn’t know how to name. and he would never try and name it either. it was the kind of affection from someone he cares about that he didn’t think he deserved. he was lonely all the time and he never told anyone about his loneliness because he often tried to do something about it but it had never worked because at the end of the day he was still lonely. he pursues his lips before he looks over at his friends and rolls his eyes. “i bet you say that to all the guys that shapeshift into a rat for you.” he says, shoving him a little bit but the shove stings his elbow. when sirius brings up graduation there’s another punch to the gut that he doesn’t know how to deal with. peter had wanted to be a million things but he knew that his professors wouldn’t let him be. peter was brilliant in a lot of things, it was just they didn’t think that he was so they barely let him pass. he had wanted to be an auror at one point but that dream was slowly sailing past him and he couldn’t keep up. “sure,” he says, “go off into the real world, yeah?” he says with a small smile before shaking his head. he could wait. “i’m sure you’ll bloody succeed whatever you end up doing, padfoot.” he gave him a wink now, holding the bottle of alcohol in his hand tight before he brought it up to his lips to throw back feeling the burn in the back of his throat. 

“Mm,” Jamie hums absently, allowing himself to think about it for a moment. He misses living in a quiet place, where there’s nothing and no-one. The house he grew up in was surrounded by a dense forest and vast fields, with the Firth of Tay rushing by only minutes from their front door, keeping the rest of civilisation at bay. It had been a practical purchase, a place with lots of land that would allow generations of Woods to practice quidditch unseen and undisturbed, but for Jamie… it had given him somewhere to escape to. How many hours had he spent roaming the countryside, putting off going home because he knew what would be waiting for him when he did? Too many. Far too many. “S’bullshit there’s no Scottish Ministry. If there was, I’d go back tomorrow.”

What Peter says about his life in Kent is surprising, and Jamie glances over at him, frowning slightly as he tries to understand. “Why?” From what little he knows about Peter’s home situation, it doesn’t seem all that bad. If nothing else, it’s clear that his family loves him, and to Jamie it feels like that should be enough. They’ve lived such different lives.

He wants to argue, to tell Peter that he’s wrong and he doesn’t feel anything of the sort, but he can’t. There’s a dull, familiar pain radiating in the hollow of his chest, filling him up, constricting his throat and making his head throb, but there’s nowhere for it to go. He can’t cry. He hasn’t cried in years, and that’s part of the problem - he tries pretend otherwise, but Jamie does care about what other people think of him. He cares so much that he’s broken himself at a fundamental level, trying to be something he isn’t. He swallows, trying to force the feeling away, knowing he has no choice but to let it pass.

Jamie watches Peter’s progress towards him out of the corner of his eye, and though his body tightens instinctively, defensively, he does nothing to stop him. He can’t blame his inaction on the champagne - he hasn’t drunk nearly enough for that - which leaves only the terrifying truth. This time when Peter touches his hand, Jamie’s fingers clench into a white-knuckled fist, but he doesn’t pull away. It’s taking everything he has, but he doesn’t pull away.

The passage of Peter’s hand up his arm is excruciating. It feels like every nerve-ending in his body is on fire, and his breathing grows unsteady as he finally feels the weight of the other man’s palm pressed against his cheek. It’s hard not to think about the last time they were together, assaulted by memories of the warm skin of Peter’s stomach, the soft of his hair, even the way he’d smelled as Jamie had buried his face against his neck. He could have this. Peter is offering it to him, and he could take it - if only he could shake the feeling that it would cost him everything to do so. “Don’t,” Jamie whispers suddenly, catching his fingers in the sleeve of Peter’s jacket, where its safe, and using it to pry himself free.“Don’t. I can’t.” He makes to stand up, to leave, because if he doesn’t… Jamie knows there’s only so many times this can happen before he’s unable to go back. 

maybe peter didn’t have the big kind of land to grow up on, the streets was his playground, the river and the many bridges by his house had been his sanctuary, but there would always be something missing when he looked over to his left to see a man and his boy fishing because they could. often without permits, the police only ever pretending to care that they were fishing without them. he’d instead grab a rock and skip it pretending that he had a father next to him to do it with. maybe in another universe that boy and his father had been him. maybe his father would’ve left them with something more than a couple of hundred dollars to their name to make a house a home. but they never could afford a house, just some shabby little hole in a wall above a fish n chip shop that would for sure go out of business within the next couple of years. “yeah,” he says, agreeing with him, not knowing what else to say to that, other than the fact that peter probably wouldn’t make it as far as the ministry because no one would believe that he could. 

“my dad left,” he says at first, looking down, “didn’t leave us much,” he sighs, “i used to wonder if maybe he’d ever come back. maybe thinking that the little bit that he left us would ever be enough to purchase something more but he never did.” he can’t remember the last time that he heard from his dad, other than small little things in passing that his mother would say to her friends on the phone. all that he knew was that his dad had a new life now, had another family, lived somewhere on the coast with more air and space that he needed and that he was happy. “so i used to hate it because it made my mum so sad,” he clenches his jaw so tightly, “it’s why i tried to pick up some shifts here and there where i could but coming home never used to feel right because there was this overwhelming gloom none of us knew what to do with.” it wasn’t the same—peter knew that he was lucky in a lot of ways but it never got rid of the fact that no matter what, peter would always be missing someone. 

it was stupid, to love someone this much, because what were you meant to do with the parts that they didn’t want? peter didn’t know. it was an overwhelming feeling to love someone this much the way that he loved jamie. he knew that it was first love- an overwhelming love that consumed him but he didn’t know where else to put all of it other than try his best to give it to him. sooner or later peter may get the point that maybe it wasn’t wanted, but jamie still wasn’t pulling away so peter took it as an opportunity to try and push himself a little more to tell him in some non subtle way that he was there and that he wasn’t going anywhere. it was a feeling that ran through him like nothing else. he felt like he was running on thin air that soon it would just leave him and his entire body and he would have to figure out what to do with himself once that it was gone. it should be illegal to feel this much for one person but it was too late now, he felt it and now he had to put it somewhere. give it to someone. 

peter wasn’t nearly as drunk enough to not do something stupid, and this was stupid, clearly giving all of this love for someone who didn’t want it. (or act like they didn’t want it). but here he was giving it away anyways. he watches the way jamie reacts to his touch, like it’s burning him, marking him in the same way that jamie had once marked him. it had made him quickly wince his reaction before realizing that it wasn’t neither of their faults—not really at least. he had held his face in his hands and didn’t do anything else, just watched him react to it. “okay,” he says, repeating him, “you can’t.” he didn’t know if he believed him, and by any means, jamie could push him away from him, and yet he still got closer to the other, so close that his forehead was touching his. 

He huffs a humourless laugh at the suggestion, unable to even imagine it. What would he do in Kent? Jamie tries to picture himself standing in the bedroom Peter just described, with its poorly painted walls and the clatter of service in the chip shop below, but he can’t make himself belong. Would he sleep on Peter’s floor? In his bed? On the couch in the living room for his mother and sister to see? No way. He’d be just as out of place there as he is everywhere else, of that he’s certain. “I’d go home, if I could.” Not to his father’s. To Scotland. “The air’s different down here.”

The apology has Jamie shaking his head, dismissing it without a word. It’s not Peter’s fault, is it? It’s him. He doesn’t hear the rest of what’s said, rapidly retreating into himself, the emotions that roil beneath his skin suddenly threatening to drown him. He knows he doesn’t express himself in a normal way, that everyone thinks he’s a fucking reprobate with no feelings, and though he does nothing to dissuade that opinion, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Even now, he takes everything so personally, straight to the marrow. He feels everything, but there’s nowhere for it to go. Has he always been like this?

“I don’t know why I do that,” he says in a small voice after an uncomfortably long period of silence. “I don’t mean it, I just…” Jamie flexes his stupid hand, regarding it as if it’s completely alien to him, yet still feeling the phantom brush of Peter’s fingertips tingling across his skin. Why can’t he let anyone touch him? It’s not just Peter, it’s not even men, it’s everyone - if it’s not born of violence, he doesn’t know how to accept it. “I don’t mean it.”

he knew it was stupid to suggest it but he does it anyway because what else is he supposed to do? not offer him some form of shelter. it’s such an odd thing to feel so fiercely about someone like this, he had never been this way before and now it’s like some out of instinct thing to want to make things better for jamie. he doesn’t know where it was born from because he’s never had gentle when it came to him and who he was as a person. he didn’t know how else to act though around him. it wasn’t like he was walking on edge shells, that would require them to be close, it was like he was trying to cross the sea to reach him but no matter how close you feel you’re always so far away. peter took the plunge anyway, never minding if he had drowned himself in the process. “yeah?” he says, his voice is quiet, trying to imagine what it was like for him in scotland, what a carefree jamie had looked like with no worries or restrictions. “i used to hate home, kent,” he says, looking down at his fingers tapping against the bottle. “i think i’ve just gotten to that age where i can see what people mean by missing home.” he was home now, all the time, but it was something else that he couldn’t put the words to. “i hope you’re able to go home someday.” 

peter never apologized for anything, it wasn’t because he thought that he was always right, it was because he felt like whatever words he said would be meaningless because he was meaningless who would believe someone like him anyway? no one else did. but when he says it to jamie it’s because he does mean it, and he knows that peter’s words have weight when it came towards both of them, whatever peter said came with purpose, it always had when he was just starting to get to know the other who took things to heart in a way that peter envied. it was one of the many things that peter had loved about him, maybe he wore his heart on his sleeve because he didn’t know how not to. he gulps now, watching him, feeling the tension resting on his shoulders and his entire body.