A/N: Merry Christmas, Jo (jojor99)! This is written for you, I hope you'll like it!

Also written for the Christmas Prompt Competition at the HPFC, where I got the prompt "Christmas Morning."

Many thanks to my beta, mew-tsubaki.

Good Things Come to Jameses Who Wait

James sat in his favorite chair, drank his favorite tea, and listened to his favorite song. It was a good day, indeed.

Yesterday hadn't been as good, and the day before had definitely not been as good. It had been hell, to be honest. He still became upset just from thinking of it. He had been to Lily's place, as she had successfully convinced him of being just the little extra touch she would need to make her cookies perfect. And, as they had stood there in her kitchen, (covered in flour because James had happened to eat, as Lily put it, half of the dough, and therefore she just had to throw a spoon at him, and so the flour war had commenced), and suddenly someone had knocked on the door.

In came a flushed, wild-eyed Teddy, and James had wanted to fall through the floor. He hadn't seen Teddy for years, he had specifically made sure that he wasn't going to see him, and now, now Teddy had burst in there with purple hair and red cheeks and frostbitten lips. Everything had come back to him, and he had told himself he was over Teddy, that it just had been a silly little crush, but of course he wasn't over him. He was as hopelessly in love with Teddy as he always had been.

And Teddy was as clueless as always.

Otherwise he wouldn't have given James the biggest of bear-hugs, would he? No, Teddy wasn't the cruel, simple as that.

James suddenly realized he had shivered just from thinking about it, the way Teddy's arms had held him to his chest, the way their hands had brushed together…

But of course, it hadn't lasted long. Why would it, even? Teddy had removed his arms from around him after the not-too-long-not-too-short amount of time and moved over to hug Lily. "Where have you been all these years, James?" he had asked with laughter, and James had felt himself blushing.

Luckily he had been able to answer, and only Lily had raised her eyebrows at his red-faced appearance.

Well, so far so good. Now came the hellish part of the day before yesterday. The part that made him close his eyes, as in pain - or, embarrassment.

When they had been sitting around the kitchen table, munching on the freshly made, still steaming, cookies, Teddy had asked whether James still lived alone, and of course - argh, he couldn't even think about it without blushing - and Lily had said, "Yep, he's waiting for you, Teddy," and nudged James with a smirk on her lips.

He had stared incredulously at her, cast a glance at Teddy's confused appearance, and dashed out of Lily's apartment as fast as he could.

And that had been it. It was what had made his yesterday quite rubbish, too, as he hadn't left his apartment for one minute, and he'd been walking around repeating the happenings in his head; how Lily had grinned (How on earth did she know, by the way?), how Teddy's brow had scrunched up, how he so obviously thought Lily had been joking.

Because, even though James couldn't imagine himself revealing it all to Teddy, he still didn't want to make it some kind of show drummed up by Lily, not when it meant so much more.

So, that was why he sat there in his favorite chair with his favorite tea and his favorite music. He tried to forget, and not think of it…well, he didn't succeed very well with that, obviously.

He sighed and closed his eyes. Don't think of it, don't think of it, don't think of it, he hummed to himself under his breath in beat with the Weird Sister's tune that blasted from the radio. It worked…for a while. Then Teddy's eyes appeared on the inside of his brain, the way they had lit up when he had spotted James in Lily's apartment.

Argh, James groaned to himself. What was he doing? He got up from his chair and walked to the window, where he could look out over the city, all the lights that had been put up in the trees, and the way it all shimmered. It reminded him of that Christmas morning when he had realized he was in love with Teddy. It had been a beautiful, snowy day, he had been sixteen and Teddy twenty-two, and he hadn't first understood why his stomach kept jolting when Teddy wrestled him down and rubbed snow in his face. Because, really, the shivers running up his spine could've been because of the cold, couldn't they have?

Anyway, in that one, vibrant, explosive second, when Teddy had breathed into his ear something about "Gotcha, kiddo" James had realized he was in love with Teddy. They had walked in a while after with the other snowball-war contestants and for the entire day James had been walking around as though on fire. He hadn't dared to speak to Teddy, and he had been so afraid someone would notice something that he had been even more hyper than normal. Luckily everyone believed he and Louis had "just" sneaked into the cupboard and tasted the firewhiskey, so he actually managed to go through the Christmas day unnoticed. Well, he had to face a furious couple of parents and a pissed off Louis, as James didn't deny it, but that was lots better than the alternative…

He missed it. All of it. The carelessness, the freedom of being a kid. And he missed Teddy.

Gosh, could he be more pathetic? Standing here brooding over memories, like some sort of melancholic, tragic person with no life. Then again, wasn't that what he was?

James sniffed a bit and leaned his head against the cold window pane. Suddenly something knocked at the window, rapidly, and James jerked his head up.

A tawny owl was outside the window and looked sourly at him with big eyes. He hurried to open the window, and it took a little hop inside and stretched its leg out. There hanged an envelope from it, which James grabbed, and the owl hooted shortly before swooshing away.

James didn't know why his hands were shaking, but they did, as he closed the window and walked back to his favorite chair. Something about this letter made his heart beat faster - probably the fact that he recognized the hand-writing…

He ripped it open and began to read.

Hey, James.

Nice meeting you at Lily's place, I can't believe it's been so long since we last met! I actually feel rather embarrassed about that, I mean, we were pretty close when we were kids, weren't we?

And that's why I'm writing this to you. I was hoping we could catch up sometime, you know, chat a bit, maybe grab some food and, er, you know.

So, what do you think?

Meeting you that other day made me also realize I miss you. A lot, James. You, we, we were always close - and I want to get back to that, again.

Anyway, tell me what you think about it, and send me an owl back, will you? I know of this great restaurant I'd like to show you.

Okay, now I'll stop rambling. I'm sorry about this letter, it came out rather rushed, as I hadn't planned what I should write, and now I must go, so I can't rewrite it.

Yeah, let me know.

Teddy

James smiled to himself. The letter was exactly like Teddy, jumpy and not really finishing anything…and most of all, James was going to go to a restaurant with Teddy. Maybe everything was going to solve itself now. He folded the letter after reading "I miss you. A lot, James"one more time. Maybe it hadn't been such a disaster seeing Teddy at Lily's, that other day.

James turned the volume up and grinned. Maybe the saying was true. All good things come to he who waits.