Tired. He felt so extremely tired. Physically he was alright and he could do anything, but his brain was tired of all things, all feelings he was dealing with at that moment.

He was stood against the window frame that gave you view over the whole city. The window was opened slightly, to let the cigarette smoke escape from the hotel room he was staying in. He took another drag, inhaled deeply and let it slip over his lips out the window. It was dark outside, only the light spots from the lamp posts and some headlights from speeding cars were visible. He brought the bottle of beer up to his lips and took a swig, hopelessly trying to get rid of those wrong feelings. Or maybe he didn’t want those feelings to go away, but he wanted them to stay instead and he was just looking for a solution. He sighed deeply, threw the cigarette out of the window and put the empty bottle of beer on the bedside cabinet. It was obvious he was oblivious to what was happening around him, because suddenly he heard someone yelling.

“Charlie, open the freaking door!” Charlie’s heart made a small jump of awareness. He heard stumbling on the hallway and a squeaking James, “Open-the-door!” Charlie laughed to himself, walked over to the door and opened it. James pushed himself in and stood behind Charlie, with his hands on Charlie’s side, looking over Charlie’s shoulder, watching the closed door. It almost looked as if he was afraid that someone, or something was going to break the door open and kill him. And to a certain extend, that was true. “The guests are after me,” he breathed in Charlie’s neck, still looking over his shoulder. It made Charlie’s skin squirm.

“Why?” Charlie asked, before turning round to face a very scared looking James.

“Because I screamed,”  He said quietly. “at four in the morning.” He added, shrugged and turned to the bed. “But anyway, I think we need to talk.” James sat down on the bed, patting on the space beside him.

“We do?” Charlie asked, raising both of his bushy eyebrows.

“Yes,” James nodded. “I worry about you.”  He turned to face Charlie. “You’ve been really absent minded lately.” He said, getting straight to the point. “Care to tell me what’s going on?” Charlie searched for an answer in James’ eyes; he couldn’t tell James what was really going on. He might flip, slap him in the face and run as fast as he could.

“Are you that worried that you come to me with this at four in the morning, James?” Charlie sighed once again, and let himself fall back on the bed, his hands folded onto his stomach.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it for ages and ages, but never seemed to be the right moment, or I didn’t have the guts to ask you.”  He blushed slightly, and found his fiddling fingers suddenly very interesting. “It might’ve been something very personal and I didn’t have the right to know. You’re not very open about your feelings anyway.” James summarized for Charlie. James turned from his sitting position on the bed and lay on his stomach facing Charlie. James was leaning on his elbows, his legs were crossed at the ankles and his white t-shirt was slightly cropped up and showed a bit of skin of his back. They looked at each other for a minute or so, Charlie basically drowning in James’ sky-blue eyes. He concentrated himself on James’ slow breathing, that seemed to calm down his nerves a bit. Charlie slowly unfolded his hands, and was about to stick one hand out to James’ face to brush that rather irritating lock of hair, that was hiding one of James’ eyebrows, out of his face, but he changed his mind abruptly when he saw James’ screwed up face and let his arm casually fall down next to his body. James smiled faintly, which gave Charlie the courage to pick James’ hand up and rub it gently with his thumb.

“James…” Charlie began, looking at James, who had his eyes fixated on his and Charlie’s hand. James’ eyes began to glister in the dim light of the room and a captured tear streamed down his cheek, falling down on the cream coloured sheets of the bed. He pulled back his hand and dried his cheek from the single tear.

“I miss Kara.” He muttered before burying his head in the sheets. Charlie’s heart stopped beating right there and then. Just as he was about to declare his undying love for his best friend, band-mate, but most of all, the love of his life, James had to bring up his current girlfriend. For a short moment, Charlie’d thought that James maybe felt the same, but this blunt comment made him look at it in a different perspective as he had done three seconds before. He looked at James’ buried face for a few seconds, before stroking James’ hair lovingly unconsciously. “I love her so much.” James whispered.

“I love you too,” It’d slipped out of his mouth before he even realized he’d done it. James’ head shot up from the sheets and looked at Charlie.

“Sorry?” James muttered, but he knew very well what Charlie’d just said. Charlie’s mouth opened to speak, but what came out sounded like a cat choking on its hairballs. James stood up quite quickly, his hands on his hips, his facial expression set on confused. “Wh- what did you just say?” Charlie swung his long legs over the edge of the bed, looking up at James. Charlie bit his lower lip, not quite sure whether to repeat those words again.

“I-I love you,” He stuttered. His voice had trembled slightly. Not a word James said when he turned on his heels and stormed out of the room, slamming the door as he left.

Charlie didn’t know what overcame him, but he burst out crying. First soft sobs, then tears streaming down his cheeks, followed by deep inhalations because he became out of breath by the loud crying. His cheeks pricked from the salty tears, his nose had become slightly blubbery, but he couldn’t care less; all he wanted to do was cry all those wrong feelings out, his pain, all the bottled up emotions.

He slid down the bed, and with his back resting against the bed, he held his head in his hands. The tears had stopped trickling down his cheeks and the sniffs had turned into imaginary sniffs. The only thing that was left were his salt cheeks that became slightly itchy as the wet patches dried up. He just sat there, his mind totally blank, staring at the dark red carpet, for what seemed like days on end, but when Charlie looked at the analog clock on the bedside cabinet on the right side of the bed, he saw that only fifty minutes had passed. He got up mundanely, and hazily started to undress himself for an attempt to sleep.

When his t-shirt and jeans had found a place on the carpet, a soft knock on the door made Charlie groan to himself. What idiot would knock on his door at five in the fucking morning?

“Charlie? Can you please open the door?” Charlie froze on the spot. A few knocks followed. “Charlie, I know you’re up…” James’ voice trailed off. Charlie heard a faint sigh and some weird soft scraping sounds. Charlie’s legs moved to the door, but his hands made no attempt to open it. Instead, his knees bent down and made him position in front of the door.

On the other side of the door, James had done the exact same thing.

“I’m sorry I ran out.” He mumbled, not aware of the fact that Charlie could hear him crystal clear. “I don’t know what I was thinking, and I’m sorry.” Charlie heard James sniffing a couple of times. “I miss the old Charlie, y’know? The sweet one, the tender one, the listener, the sensitive one. Where did that Charlie go?” James wondered out loud. James felt his backrest disappearing and stood eye to eye with Charlie, tears once again leaving the corners of his eyes. James sat, on the floor, not moving an inch. “Am I the reason you’ve changed?” With a little help from Charlie, he got to his feet. “Because if I am, then I’d like to do something about it.” Before Charlie had the chance to respond to this, James had made himself a bit longer and pressed his lips onto Charlie’s, making him feel all tingly inside. James pulled back first, a satisfied smile curling around the corners of his mouth before opening his eyes slowly.

“I think it’s a good idea for both of us to get some sleep now.” James said, Charlie nodded in agreement. He was just little surprised when James didn’t turn to go back to his room, but walked in Charlie’s and stripped to his boxers, then crawled under the duvet. “You coming?” He asked sweetly. Charlie grinned, closed the hotel room door, and pulled the duvet over himself, not entirely sure about the whole situation. But when James’ arm found his way over Charlie’s stomach, he relaxed. He felt James pressing his warm body close to his.

“I love you too,”