To any passing observer it might've seemed that Jamie had fallen asleep sitting there, his head down, blonde hair spilling into his face to cover his eyes. Really, he was just far away, resting on a green lawn in the sunlight. John's voice brought him slamming back into the present and he flinched horribly against the wall, grimacing as the stones scraped at his back through his t-shirt. John. His brother. Immediately turning away and saying something about Theodore. Jamie wanted Theodore, but not now. Now he needed something warm and alive and smelling of home, even if it wasn't the home he dreamed of in the end.
He pushed himself up and closed the distance between himself and his brother. Ever since Christmas - well, not really, since Jamie hadn't been around very long after - but ever since Christmas it seemed that maybe, maybe there was a glimmer of hope for something to change between them. For something to grow. Broken as he was, Jamie's heart lurched painfully in his chest at even the thought of learning to love John. John wouldn't love him. No one would, once they knew. Really knew.
But he reached out anyway and grabbed his brother's wrist in his slender fingers, asking him not to go with the silent touch. There were no words. He simply stepped forward and pressed his body along John's seeking solace where he'd never found it before. His head tucked into the curve of John's neck and shoulder and he breathed deep, a great, quaking motion.
"Don't," came the barely audible whisper, breathed against John's neck.