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Sunday; James Potter 📺

summary: you spend a lazy sunday evening with your boyfriend, James.

word count: 1.5K

warnings: beefy!james, fem!r, established relationship, lots and lots of fluff, mentions of eating

note: BEEFY JAMES 🩷🩷

The telly hums gently beside the trickling rain outside, lulling you into a swath of late-afternoon drowsiness. The cooking competition that once effortlessly held your attention is now fuzzy at the edges, the challenges blurring together into a mess of commentary. Beneath you, the sofa seems to swallow you further and further into its enticing comfort.

Distantly, you register the sound of the lock clicking in the front door, and then the push of it falling inward. Your eyes close heavily and startle open again and again, an endless fight against sleep that you’re probably losing.

Thankfully, your boyfriend traipses into the room at that very moment, giving you a reason to turn your head and shake some of the sleep from your person.

He’d popped to the gym while you vegged on the couch, and by the looks of it he’d chanced a trail run. His ebony hair sits in slick curls, dampened with rain. The old shirt he’d thrown on is tacky over his chest and shoulders, likely absorbed with an assortment of rain and sweat. It shouldn’t make him as handsome as it does.

As he tosses his gym bag to the floor, you push yourself up the sofa cushions feebly.

“How’s my gym rat?” you ask sweetly, with a tang of teasing at the corners of your mouth. James is all smiles, leaning into the silly nickname you like so much.

“Hiya, lovey,” he sighs in response, finally settling from his long trek home. He’ll run off to shower in a moment, but for now he moves to lean over the sofa back, aiming to get a good look at you. “Miss me?”

“Mm.” James kisses you once, twice, then leans just far enough away so he can see you. “Terribly.”

“Mm,” he mimics your hum as he leans in for a third kiss, and then two more to your chin. “Same for me. Couldn’t stop thinking of my lovely girlfriend, all warm and dry and falling asleep to the telly.”

“I was not falling asleep,” you insist, even as your eyes droop faintly, dry from so much screen-time.

James lets you have this, though he smiles soft and knowing as he kneads his calloused fingers into the juncture of your neck and shoulder. You sit silently like that for minutes, your forehead meeting his lips in a moment of lucky structure.

“D’you need to shower?” you eventually broach.

“Hmph,” James sighs, “yea.”

Bringing a gentle hand up, he encourages your head back, displacing it to the couch once more. As if you couldn’t possibly do that yourself. It’s a simple thing, an unnecessary thing, but one that James happily does without hesitation.

“Don’t move an inch, love. Back in a tick.”

James disappears, and defying his words—though you know he was exaggerating—you shuffle to spread yourself fully over the sofa.

The shower starts, and the chefs on the screen are up for elimination. You pay hazy attention to who wins, distracted by the muffled water lapping into the tub in the bathroom, and the rain still coming down outside.

Before you know it, you’re slipping under the blanket of sleep, your mind taking each evening apartment noise for its strange sofa dreams.

+

When you wake later, it’s significantly darker outside, and the apartment is fragrant with dinner-smells. The television is playing an antique auction show quietly. You haul up and off the couch, stumbling into the kitchen where James is working.

“Hello, boyfriend,” you greet sluggishly, still wiping sleep from your eyes. A faint headache lingers that only a sofa-nap causes, so you sally up to the cabinet to start a glass of water.

James, presiding over a simmering pan of mystery sauce, preens over his shoulder at you.

“Lovely girlfriend,” he returns. “How was your nap?”

Unsure of your answer, you hum noncommittally. James glances down at you in amusement as you settle against the counter beside the stove, facing him.

“Weird dreams,” you say as a means of explanation.

“Oh, yea?” James sets his ladle down carefully and crosses his arms. You watch his arms tense against his short black sleeves, and then trace his jaw up to watch his damp hair fall over his forehead. You nod distractedly to his question.

James borrows your water glass for a quick swallow, and you pretend to be inconvenienced. You’re sure he only takes it because it’s yours and he’s been compelled to share everything with you since you started dating—maybe even before that.

Handing the glass back and retrieving his utensil, he asks, “Was I in any?”

The answer is typically yes, and today is no different.

“Mm, I think so, yea.” You squint at the ceiling, dredging your warped dreams back to the front of your mind. “We were trying to swim but we had to get a turtle back to its owner first, and then I think the owner was Bobby Flay.”

You’re laughing at the absurdity as you recall the story, and James sends you amused little glances as he stirs.

“We’re lovely for doing as much. Did we get to swim for our troubles?”

“Nope,” you say disappointedly, “the dream changed to something else after that. I don’t remember what.”

James forces a frown that you think is meant to be lighthearted.

“Rubbish,” he curses. “Day ruined.”

Despite his dramatics, James’ free hand snakes over your torso, slipping under your thick sweater to soothe the skin of your hip. You smile contentedly, headache already ebbing away from the water and his hands and the promise of dinner very soon.

“Was your shower very pleasant?”

“So pleasant,” James agrees immediately, and you can imagine the simple pleasure of hot water on rain-wet hair. It makes you run your palm up his bicep, soaking in his warm skin, his clean clothes.

“Mm. I’m glad.”

A moment later, James steps away to fish a spoon from the silverware drawer. Returning, he dips it into his stew and offers it to your mouth.

“Taste,” he says, but you’re already closing your lips around it. You’d thought it was some kind of pasta sauce, but it’s significantly more rich and spicy than expected. It’s good.

“Curry?” you guess. James nods happily. “I like.”

Giving it his own taste-test, James seems to be happy with the flavor, too. A few more stirs for good measure and then he’s flipping the burner off and thwacking the spoon over the pan to rid any excess.

He moves around like a trained professional, removing the pan from the heat and wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. Competence is always sexy, but James has a way of amping it up further, twisting the metaphorical knife of affection you’ve taken for him.

There’s no arrogance in what he does, despite how good he is at it. He’d brag for days on end about his prowess in the gym, or on the field, but there’s a dexterity he has at home, too, that he doesn’t seem interested in flaunting. It’s the happiest you see him, when he’s practicing this genius of domesticity, and it makes your chest ache.

“Thank you, Jamie,” you muster sweetly, as he ferries your bowl and his to the living room. You reclaim your place on the sofa, and James settles in beside you.

You eat in a fuzzy silence, not really paying attention to anything in particular, just enjoying the food and the company.

“Good?” James ensures, glancing at you. You hum around a bite, enthusiastic. “Not too hot, you’re sure?”

“It’s perfect,” you tell him, calf pressing against his. “I was so hungry.”

“I bet,” he agrees.

Lapsing back into silence, you both pay haphazard attention to the TV once more. When your bowl is empty, you place it beside James’ and ease back into his waiting arms thoughtlessly. It’s like pinging from one good thing to the next—out of the meadow and into the clouds. You sigh.

“I love Sundays.”

James hums his agreement, the sensation shivering up your back. He follows with a press of his mouth, just over your temple.

“Love you, dear.”

The nickname makes your lips lift. James only calls you dear every so often, when he’s feeling truly, undeniably sappy.

You tilt your head up to catch his eye, watching his expression soften the same way yours does. Twisting in his hold, you press a kiss to his strong chin, his aquiline nose—reach up to fix his glasses, just because he’ll let you.

James strokes your back like a harp, and your humming is the music. You know you’ll go to work tomorrow, and you’ll miss him all day, but for now time feels doused in molasses. The apartment—James and you included—is swimming in the thick, sweet flood of your idle words and touches, as it will be tomorrow night, as it was the night before. It’s enough to make the long weeks worthwhile.

“Love you, too, Jamie,” you say, and then it’s him lulling you to sleep instead of the cooking channel.

+

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