Haste Ye Back (Scorbus)

The Hopping Pot

The next few days were a blur of activity, so much so that Albus had mercifully little contact with Pippa since their late night conversation. Although the few times they had crossed paths entering and leaving the flat, she had drawn him meaningful looks that he chose to ignore. Instead Albus continued to live in a hell of his own making.

He had tried reasoning with himself, tried dismissing the growing feelings inside of him as nothing more than a passing crush. But as the days passed, Albus knew the truth of the matter. He was constantly aware of Scorpius' presence, every touch - however innocent - was driving him to distraction; the occasional brush of their elbows when they walked together, the way their knees knocked together when they sat together during mealtimes. Night times were the worst when they lay in bed together, Scorpius splaying arms and legs across Albus as he lay stiff as a board trying to wish away the distracting thoughts and feelings for his best friend that now dominated his every waking hour.

This was not a passing infatuation.

It was something much more terrifying.

Love.

Christ, just thinking the word and everything that it entailed scared him shitless. How could he have let this happen?

He had spent the last few days brooding, trying to reconcile his own feelings and had gotten nowhere. He found that trying ignore his feelings, pushing them deep down in the hopes that they would go away, had only made things worse. Not only was he pining for his best friend at arm's length, he had taken to dreaming about him every night into the bargain - dreams that if Pippa were to stumble across would surely make her blush. Merlin, they made Albus blush.

He still had three weeks of his holiday left. He both wanted it to end immediately and to go on forever. He wanted to be close to Scorpius, closer than a best friend was permitted to be, and it was driving him crazy.

Albus had never felt so alone in his entire life. The very person who he would normally confide in was the one person he could not turn to this time. And he was not keen to talk to either Pippa or Rose about his feelings. But he had to talk to someone.

Only one other person came to mind.

As a particularly cold Tuesday morning dawned, Albus watched the pale beams of sunlight crawl across the ceiling, glancing at his watch every few minutes waiting for the hand to strike five o'clock. His father was an early riser, so Albus knew if he messaged him in the morning he'd catch him just as he was getting out of bed. His checked his watch again - one minute passed five. He clicked send on a pre-written text message.

Albus: Dad, ru free 2 meet with me 2day? It's an emergency.

Albus lay in bed waiting patiently for a reply, listening to Scorpius breathing gently beside him. It was a pleasant sound that normally lulled him to sleep, but the last few nights it had had the opposite effect. Albus felt the phone vibrate in his hand and he checked the message.

Dad: I can meet you at 1pm if that suits?

Dad: Do you need me to send you money?

Albus: 1 is fine. I'm good 4 cash, thanks. Where will we meet?

Dad: Meet you in The Hopping Pot at the top of Cockburn Street?

Albus: Great. CU then.

Albus: Thank you.

Albus let out a long sigh of relief. He and his father might have their differences, but Albus knew he could always rely on him to have his back when he needed it. Ignoring the chorus of morning songbirds twittering outside the bedroom window, he closed his eyes and finally fell into a restless sleep. He had nightmares about Scorpius finding out about his true feelings, being angry and disgusted at him for it and throwing him out of the flat. More bad dreams followed, this time his father admonishing him, telling him what a disappointment of a son he was. Dark thoughts and unsettling dreams swirled in his head and when he finally woke he felt as tired and irritable as ever.