50 Shades of James

Taco Night

     Aleks hadn’t returned.

     Eddie was pretending (to who? To Chef? To himself?) that he was watching the movie blaring from the TV in front of him, but really he was just listening for the sound of the door opening.

     He fucked up. He fucked up and he knew it and Aleks knew it, too. Kevin had texted him earlier, confessing that he’d spilled to Aleks. Eddie couldn’t begrudge him; the trip were the best of friends, but Kevin had always been closer to the Russian.

     Now, he was just waiting for the inevitable confrontation. Hazily, he recalled from his time in Puerto Rico the best ways to dodge a punch—then winced because this was Aleks. Then he shuddered, because there was a very real possibility that Aleks would punch him. They’d fought before, like all friends do, but not like this. Eddie knew Aleks could take a lot before he got pissed, unless someone invaded his privacy. It was the only thing he asked of his friends and fans: respecting that there are things he’d rather they didn’t know. Eddie had broken his best friends’ golden rule. He must be furious.

     Three loud raps on the door pulled Eddie out of his thoughts. He almost tripped over the hem of his jeans as he rushed to the door, throwing it open with a nervous smile—which faded when his eyes registered blonde hair, instead of brunette.

     “So…are you gonna let me in or what?” Seamus cocked an eyebrow at the stunned Puerto Rican, rocking on his heels. “No need to look so upset about me being here, you’re the one who invited me to taco night.”

     Eddie blinked twice, then shook his head, a big but not quite sincere smile forcing its’ way onto his face. “Oh, taco night, right, right. I forgot, sorry.”

     “Yeah, you should be sorry,” Seamus quipped with a smile. “So, uh…”

     “Right, right, sorry…” Eddie moved out of the way, padding towards the kitchen to make the tacos, knowing his friend was comfortable enough in his apartment to make himself at home.

     Sure enough, the blonde flopped down onto a chair at the kitchen table and watched Eddie pick out ingredients from various cabinets and refrigerator compartments.

     “So where’s Aleks? Wasn’t the whole taco night thing his idea?”

     Eddie tried not to visibly tense, and luckily managed to keep his grip on the box of tortilla shells he was holding.

     “That’s, uh, why I forgot about taco night, actually. I don’t know where he is. Did he say anything to you?”

     Seamus rolled his eyes. “Nah. He’s probably with James, anyway.”

     This time, Eddie did drop the bowl beef strips he was carrying, sending meat everywhere. He whipped around, almost slipping on the barbeque sauce that was now coating the floor. “”You know?” He almost shrieked, voice at least an octave higher than usual.

     Seamus actually got off of his lazy butt and grabbed a handful of napkins to help clean up the mess. “Jesus, Sly. About Aleks and James? Of course I know, I think I was the first to figure it out. And then the other day after Ashh left I could hear them in the other room—”

     “—Dooooooon’t want to know.” Eddie shouted, running a hand through his hand. Seriously. He and Aleks were best friends, but that didn’t mean he wanted to know every detail of his sexual encounters. “Who else knows?”

     “Uh, I didn’t even know you knew, but I think Jordan. I mean he walked in on—I mean, I’m pretty sure he knows about it. I don’t think any of the other guys do, though.”

     Seamus’s head was down as he picked up the limp strips of meat off of the ground, but for the first time all night, Eddie heard something other than detached sarcasm in his tone and imagined he had squeezed his eyes closed.

     “What’d Jordan walk in on?”

     Seamus leaned back so that he was kneeling on his knees, looking up at his friend, with almost an usual amount of composure keeping his expression blank. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

     His voice held just a slight hint of bitterness in it, and Eddie wondered just how out of the loop he was with his friends, that he didn’t know what had been going on with any of them lately. He resolved to be a better friend, the best friend, in the future. Starting now.

     “C’mon, Seamus, something’s upsetting you. You can tell me.”

     The Irishman sighed, standing up and tossing his meat-filled napkins in the trash. “Jordan…walked in on James and…” He had turned away from Eddie, and his muttering dispersed into the air before it reached Eddie’s ears.

     “James and Aleks?” Eddie questioningly clarified.

     “James and me!” Seamus spun on his heel to glare at Eddie, though it was a mark of the kind of person Eddie was that he realized Seamus was angry at the situation, not him, and had the grace not to start a fight.

     That didn’t mean he had tact, though. “But…James is with Aleks…and you’re with Ashh…”

     Seamus scoffed at his friends’ confusion. “Yeah, now. But…I don’t know, I suspected before that, and James was mad at him for something so I thought I was wrong, but Jordan walked in on us, and said something about—I don’t know, something that made it sound like it wasn’t the first time he’d interrupted James and someone and like I said, the next day I got with Ashh and then could hear them in James’s room…” He shook his head dejectedly, the beanie on his head almost dislodging with the force of his movement.

     Eddie gave a low whistle. “Shit, man. Drama.”

     Seamus nodded slowly, eyes closed. “Yeah. Drama. And don’t get me wrong, Ashh is great, even though she drives me fucking crazy sometimes she’s great and I really like her, but…” he trailed off, and even Eddie could sense what wasn’t said. It still hurts.

     The Puerto Rican cleared his throat awkwardly, trying to process all of the new information. “So now that I’m up to speed on everything…” He started slowly. “What do we do now?”

     Seamus opened his eyes, looking at the empty meat container that lay overturned on the ground. “Well, looks like we have a vegetarian taco night.”

AN: Well. Feels good to be uploading again. I'm sorry for any distress I've caused by pausing the story, and I'm sorry to say I still can't guarentee regular updates. As it is, it took me three days to get this chapter done, when usually I just sit down for a few hours and pound it all out. Plus school is literally killing me. But I am going to be making an effort to bring 50soJ back onto its feet, as well as uploading it's entirety thus far to tumblr and possibly AO3 as well. (probably not the latter though.) Extra thanks not just for reading, but for sticking with this story and me through all of this crap. You guys are the best <3

For updates, go to the ’50 Shades of James’ tag on tumblr (you don’t need an account!). To talk to me or to send fanart, you can message me on here, email me at Therealsabertoothtigress@gmail.com, or message me on my tumblr, captainthief.tumblr.com. For a compilation of updates, fanart, and milestones, go to captainthief.tumblr.com/50. On tumblr, I follow every person who’s read this story and reply to pretty much everything I get asked (unless my inbox eats it). Thanks again for reading!