Anthony pulled his hand back closer to himself, and side-glanced at James. "What do you want?"

James pouted. "Are you angry with me?"

"I'm not mad at you." Anthony replied. It was true, at least—pulled away from the edge of a breakdown, he found himself less mad and irritated at James than before. He felt guilty about ever having been angry at him. That's not what he wants to be.

James crawled closer to the man and leaned against him. "Then will you tell me a story?"

Children are so oblivious that he almost envied them. "No," Anthony said, freezing up as James leaned against him, but didn't protest or do anything about it. It was fine. Fine. Just fine.

"Why won't you? Please?" he begged.

"Because—because I'm not in the mood to tell another story tonight," he replied. After going through two breakdowns in the span of a few hours, dissociating and other such things, all that he actually wants to do at this point is just to be alone. Sighing, Anthony glanced at James for a brief moment, a moment that proved to be surprisingly melancholy for a moment. 

"Alright, fine, I'll tell you a story. One story." Anthony eventually decided, a bit too guilty and empathetic to decide otherwise, at the end of the day.

James clung on to Anthony's arm and rested his head against it. "Thank you."

That was simultaneously very uncomfortable and very nice for him. On one hand, Anthony didn't know how to react to affection like this, and on the other hand he's very touch-starved. "Of course," he said. "what kind of story would you like? Anything except my childhood." He hoped that James would have gotten the hint that he really did not like talking about when he was a kid. And also hoped that he wouldn't ask 'why'.

James was tempted to ask another why question, but it hadn't gotten him an answer before. "Erm... Have you ever met pirates? I want to hear about pirates!"