No Time Like The Present
By Tsu Chan

When Siegfried thinks of Glasgow, he thinks that they might all be like James had started out being.

Quiet, and not really timid, but not overly bold either, slightly tentative. Siegfried got the feeling he wasn’t what James had expected that first day, but James had rallied strongly, and as Siegfried had noted approvingly that day, and ever since, James adapted well. At first he thought it was the big city way. The capital undoubtedly held many people like James, not too eager to make a show of himself when there was no need for it.

There would always be spotlight seekers (and Tristan was unfortunately one of them, Siegfried thinks with a scowl) but that wouldn’t suit James at all.

He’d blush under the scrutiny, Siegfried thinks, and allows himself a moment to ponder the shades of pink and red James might go. It would not be the blush that James gets when Siegfried smiles at him, certainly, but it might be a quieter red, one that might be mistaken as a reaction to a chill in the air in autumn time.

Then he starts thinking about whether he should make another trip to Glasgow, as he hasn’t been in years, and really, they might have newer things to buy there than any veterinarian catalogues might show. Actually, he thinks he might try to find a woman version of James, because James can’t blush at him forever, and one day there will be a girl to make James blush instead.

Siegfried doesn’t want to wait until then to find a James of his own. He knows James is special, knows that if he could he should just take the James that has been offered, but he finds it difficult to imagine that the blushes might mean something. Finds it difficult to suppose that James has more than a case of loneliness easily remedied by an attractive boss.

But then James glances at him over the breakfast table and smiles, and there is a lingering touch that lasts a few moments too long and yet far too short, and it’s that that makes James who he is. Siegfried decides there is no one quite like James after all, and he wonders when to make his move, when he realizes there’s no time like the present.

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