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Something inside James's chest had broken, when that boy had announced it to everyone that Oliver and Meredith were making out in the stairwell.
He wanted to howl, to cry, to kill himself.
He was burning with a savage fire of jealousy.
And then he took his revenge. He shouldn't have, he could see that by the look in Oliver's eye but he was siezed by that petty feeling of tit for tat.
And he was drunk. Insanely so.
When Oliver had held him close in the bathroom, when James had sobbed out all his anguish, he was seized by the anger. The fire which burned up the broken thing in his chest.
He left him. He told him, warned him. "Don't follow me, Oliver."
And when he went out of the bathroom he hoped and knew that he would follow him anyway.
He wanted to show him that feeling, how it feels like when your love leaves you for another and you can do nothing but stare after it.
He glided through the crowded room towards the kitchen, turned around to catch sight of him. There he was, following him earnestly.
They all stood there, Alexander, Filippa and Wren.
He reached them and looked over once again, to make sure Oliver saw everything perfectly.
Then he grabbed Wren's hand and hurried her up the stairwell behind him.
The same stairwell where Oliver had broken his heart. And his drunken savagery made him do the same, break his. Take the revenge. Even if it broke his own heart just as much.
That was the pettiness of it all.
Wren squeaked, shocked. "James, what are you doing?"
Oliver knew what James was going to do, as he should.
"Don't-" Oliver did his attempt to stop him.
But he was not going to stop. He cut him and spoke loudly enough for Oliver to hear, after all, the words were meant for him.
"Come to bed with me, Wren, please." He looked over to her for an answer, but his eyes were on him actually.
And he saw it.
Oliver stood frozen. He wasn't breathing it seemed. And there was that look written all over his face, as it was that night on his own, the look of heartbreak. The feeling of feeling your heart crushed into pieces inside your chest. The heart ache. The terrible ache.
"Yes" Wren had stammered by then. He turned his glance back to her and nodded slightly. And before he went away, James made sure to look Oliver in the eye.
And in that split second conveyed his anger, his bitterness, his hate towards him for breaking his heart like he did that day. He felt a coolness, a savage triumph in that moment. But it didn't last long.
What Oliver returned to him in that moment was painful to look at, it was grief, it was disbelief, it was the same broken feeling which he never had wanted to see Oliver go through.
But thanks to himself, Oliver was going through it.
As he turned towards their bedroom, the same room he shared with Oliver, all his anger had dissipated. The savage monster inside him was gone, after doing the damage.
All he was left with was the guilt. The pain. Of breaking Oliver's heart, of breaking his own. Knowingly, like an idiot.
It was what he had wanted to do, he cursed himself, he had wanted to take this fucking revenge on him.
And now he couldn't stop the memory of Oliver's heartbroken eyes looking at him in the stairwell from clouding his vision.
He didn't even realize that he and Wren were already in bed, all he could think of was Oliver.
Why on earth did he do that, why did he so cruelly did that to him? To see him broken? Even though it broke his own heart. To get that moment of triumph for taking that fucking revenge? For which he was going to curse himself for the rest of his life.
And he thought, in that last moment before his eyes shut the world out, he could never be a hero in his life, he was doomed to be the villain.