2 // DRESS // JEDDY

// fourty one //

i'm sorry this has taken so long but it's like nearly 5000 words and i wanted it to be good
so this is still in the car but once lorcan and hugo have left, teddy's pov
litty

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teddy watched as hugo and lorcan left to go inside the building, wanting for this moment to stay only between him and jamie. he couldn't let jamie carry on like this, it wasn't the way things were supposed to happen. if teddy hadn't fucked things up last night because he was a coward, they wouldn't be in this situation. so he had to be honest, even if that meant being vulnerable as well.

as soon as hugo closed the door, teddy turned to jamie and saw the back of his head, facing away from teddy. the immaturity jamie was displaying did nothing to help teddy's worries about him being younger than himself, it only fuelled them.

when teddy was 22, he was a twat, to phrase it bluntly. he struggled to come to terms with him own sexuality and wanted to prove someone that he was straight. to make a long story short, he failed. lying to himself and others about his sexuality felt wrong, and after many trials and tribulations (hercules who), he found acceptance within himself. and things improved. they weren't perfect, but they were better, and that's what mattered. yet, just thinking back to that time, he wondered what jamie was feeling, and teddy knew that he wanted to help him in any way he could.

he opened his mouth but words wouldn't come out no matter how hard he tried. the only thing that was going around his brain was don't fuck this up, lupin. because if he did, it could ruin things more than they were already crumbling apart. teddy imagined he looked rather comical, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. now really wasn't the time to lose functioning between his brain and his mouth.

"just spit it out." jamie said sharply.

it felt like a slap round the back of the head when his gran would scold him from sneaking biscuits when he was younger. he knew he was doing something he shouldn't be, but he couldn't help but indulge. but this time round, the biscuits represented talking to jamie (possibly even kissing him - what teddy wouldn't give to be able to kiss him again), and he should've really let him sort this out on his own. but this knock somehow shocked teddy back into talking, and yet the only thing that left his mouth was, "you don't know how hard it is not to kiss you right now."

because it was the truth. teddy wanted nothing more than to reassure jamie that everything was going to be okay. but more recently he was realising that things didn't have to be okay all the time, you just needed someone to help you through the tough times, or learn to manage yourself. for teddy, that person was jamie. it had always been jamie.

and if teddy had to kiss him to show him this, then that wouldn't be a problem. and jamie did look rather fit, in teddy's own opinion. but he did notice the toll of heartbreak draining jamie of his usual upbeat and bright energy. teddy couldn't believe he'd been so selfish the night before, to think that he was doing jamie a favour by denying his own feelings, but causing jamie's to become hurt in the process.

"you lost the right to say things like that after last night, teddy." jamie's voice shook with every word he spoke, and his hand kept running through his hair, pulling a couple of times. old habits die hard, teddy thought.

he also thought of how badly he wanted nothing more than to reach out and take jamie's hand in his, to clear jamie's mind of his worries and heartache, to stop his feelings from being crushed and trampled on as if they were nothing. because that's what teddy treated them like. jamie didn't deserve him, because he deserved better. and that still rang true for teddy, despite his friends' attempts to make him believe otherwise. but even with teddy's faults and mistakes, jamie still loved him. and he had to fix this.