The Devil's Trill Sonata

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “The next train at platform one is the 1533 service from London King’s Cross. This service terminates here.”

  Jayden dropped off the wall and bounced on his heels excitedly. He’d not been able to eat breakfast or lunch, he was so wound up. He’d slept badly, and he didn’t care, because Darren was finally coming. He didn’t know whether he was going to hug him or kiss him or bury his hands in that amazing hair, or maybe all at once, and he should take him on a tour of the city centre and the college and everything, but there was no way he would just yet, because…because…

  Then familiar battered trainers at the bottom of too-long jeans strolled into view, and Jayden smiled so wide it hurt.

  He felt like Darren had been gone for years. He itched to touch, even over the barriers; he fidgeted impatiently as Darren, head down and not looking his way at all, fumbled in the pocket of his fleece for his ticket. He was wearing his gorgeous glasses, and a royal blue beanie that had replaced the dearly departed red one in sixth form, his curls framing his face like a crushed halo, gorgeous and perfect and outlining those angular cheekbones just right. He looked scruffy in his long jeans and oversized fleece and bright orange headphones over his hat, and then he was through the barrier and pulling those ugly headphones down around his neck, and…

  Jayden launched himself, and Darren caught him in a wide embrace, staggering back with a choked laugh as Jayden tried to strangle him in a hug.

  “Missed you too.” Darren laughed, low and rumbling in his ear, his voice amazing without the tinny echo of a phone line, or the weak signal on Skype, and Jayden squeezed tightly, burying his face in Darren’s fleece-covered shoulder and tightening his grip even further when those huge, familiar, wonderful hands rubbed up and down his back.

  “You’re here,” he breathed simply, then let go enough to kiss him. Damn the stupid station and whatever the stupid commuters thought, it had been months and Darren was here and he was beautiful and smiling and dorky and everything Jayden ever, ever wanted.

  “You going to take me home, then?” Darren murmured lowly against his mouth, and Jayden smiled, running his hands down to find Darren’s fingers and lace them together, squeezing the familiar weakness that tugged at the edges of that enormous left hand.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” he said and hauled Darren out of the station by the hand towards the taxi rank. “Ella and Jonathon and Leah and Tim and everyone want to meet you, but I told them you weren’t coming until six, just so I could keep you for a bit.”

  “I have an objection.”

  Jayden stopped and stared. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah,” Darren said, completely straight-faced. “I’m too hungry to be kept until six.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You said don’t stop for food. I’m hungry,” Darren whined.

  “I have chocolate cookies in my room.”

  “Then lead on.”

  “Oh, my God, you’re such a troll,” Jayden muttered as he picked a taxi; Darren squeezed his hand and grinned at him remorselessly. He hadn’t changed; Jayden’s chest swelled with simple happiness at that knowledge.

  He had never liked those couples that were all over each other in public (it just was weird, it wasn’t decent) but he suddenly couldn’t help himself, resting his head on Darren’s shoulder for the journey and holding his hand, rubbing at the cool edges around his nails and the thickened skin on the pads of his fingers that said he’d kept up at least a faltering habit of playing the piano.

  “Landlady has one in the communal hall,” Darren said by way of an explanation, and Jayden felt the vibration of his voice in his neck and hummed contentedly. He was here. He was here, he was here, he was here…

  They timed getting back well; the last exam was still in session, and Jayden was able to smuggle Darren up the back stairs and into his room without being caught by anyone, locking the door behind them (to keep others out, or keep Darren in) the moment they arrived, and pushing Darren’s sports bag off his shoulder to thump on the floor.

  “Come here,” he whispered, pulling Darren in, fisting his hands into the fleece at each shoulder, and kissing him until he could taste the faintest traces of an apple at the very back of Darren’s mouth, sweet and dry and lingering. Hadn’t eaten, Jayden’s left foot. Liar.

  They clambered onto Jayden’s bed still attached at the mouth, Jayden only letting go long enough to allow for the shrugging off of jackets and shoes, and then Darren was back where he belonged: between Jayden and the mattress, warming up and wild-haired and giving those quirky little smiles between kisses, rubbing his knuckles lightly up and down Jayden’s ribs like he was counting.

  “Missed you,” Jayden whispered, like a dirty little secret, as they curled around each other, and Darren hummed, running a large hand down Jayden’s spine and toying with the back pocket of his jeans.

  “It’s been lonely without you,” he confessed quietly.

  Jayden clung on, tight as possible, kissed the cotton of Darren’s T-shirt that hid a vicious map of scars—years old, but still vivid against his skin—and said nothing at all.

  * * * *

  Ella had more tact and subtlety than the others liked to give her credit for, and it was ten past six before the knock on the door finally came. It had been the best couple of hours of Jayden’s life (well, nearly), to be allowed to just curl up with Darren in bed again and hold him. They had stripped to their underwear and twisted up together and talked in whispers, like they were still teenagers trying not to let on to Mum that they were there, and it had been wonderful, just to curl up on the sheets with him and hug him. Not even have sex with him (and knowing Darren, that’d happen sooner rather than later and Jayden wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea, you know?) but just hold him and trace all those new muscles from boxing, trace the white and pink map of his scars exposed to his fingers, feel the weakness in his hand when he lifted his bad arm around Jayden’s shoulders, and play with that hair again. He’d even missed playing with Darren’s hair and spent the better part of the hour relearning the way it would bounce back into place when you let it go, fascinated.

  “Missed you too,” Darren whispered, lying content and half-asleep under the attention, those brilliant eyes like a warm Thai sea. Jayden touched the smooth skin under one, and kissed a freckle he hadn’t had last time he’d been here. September seemed like an age away.

  But eventually, Ella’s impatience and curiosity won out, and there was a knock on the wood about ten past six. Jayden knew his time was up and pulled on his jeans and a fresh shirt (Darren raised his eyebrows at the shirt instead of the T but said nothing) and unlocked the door before sitting cross-legged on the bed and smiling as Darren curled around him.

  “Hello!” Ella said brightly, slipping in like a skinny, blonde ghost.

  The atmosphere shifted instantly, and Jayden fidgeted. He had forgotten, maybe, the way the shutters came down in public, the way Darren’s face closed up and hardened, the way he went from languidly gorgeous to wary and watchful, and those brilliant green eyes were suddenly sharp, tracking Ella as she crossed the room and sank onto the end of the bed gracefully. He watched, still and silent. The same narrow look he’d given Jayden three years ago in the theatre storeroom in which they’d met. The same moment of calculated observation.

  “Ella Mays-Wright,” she said, holding out one flawlessly white hand to Darren. He sat up, hair askew, glasses long since abandoned to the side table, and shook it briefly, still giving her the wary face, and Jayden flushed harder. Suddenly, he realised how Darren looked. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the sheets were around his waist, and he was messy and scruffy and not at all like the pictures Ella had admired on his Facebook.

  “Um, Darren, this is Ella,” he fumbled. “And um, Ella, this is my boyfriend, Darren.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “Jayden’s been very excited about your arrival.”

  “Good,” Darren said flatly. Jayden scowled at him, but Darren wouldn�
��t take his eyes off Ella’s perfect face. He looked like…like a cat, just staring.

  “But he won’t tell us much,” Ella continued sweetly, either ignoring him or oblivious to him. Jayden flushed.

  “I did,” he protested.

  “You didn’t,” Ella insisted and turned that saccharine smile back to Darren. “Hardly anything, anyway. So what do you do?”

  “I’m training as a crime scene examiner,” Darren said flatly. “You?”

  “I read law,” she said and cocked her head, a ripple flowing down her hair. “You didn’t want to go university yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Darren,” Jayden warned.

  “Isn’t that…well. I thought you met at school? You didn’t like school?”

  “I didn’t care,” Darren said, and Jayden rolled his eyes.

  “Academia just…isn’t one of Darren’s interests,” he tried diplomatically, and Ella hummed thoughtfully.

  “I just think…you know, going from school to work without any taste of what’s out there…isn’t that a touch…”

  “Ella…”

  “…limiting?”

  Frost formed on the inside of the windows, and Darren’s eyes were hard shards of glass in his face. Slowly, he sat up properly against the headboard and swung his bare legs out to rest those massive feet on the floor; as he rose and crossed the room to get a pair of jeans out of his bag, Ella covertly flicked her gaze over his nearly naked form, and the tiniest sneer appeared on her lips. She raised his eyebrows at Jayden, and he flushed hotly.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve offended…” she began, flat-voiced and slow, and Darren turned to stare at her.

  “Darren, just leave it!” Jayden tried desperately, knowing that the sudden silence and the look meant trouble.

  “See this?” Darren asked instead, gesturing at his injured shoulder as he zipped his jeans. “See that scarring?”

  “An accident?” she asked.

  “A stabbing.”

  She flinched, and Darren raised an eyebrow. “I’m…sorry, what?”

  “I was stabbed,” he said. “Several times. My left arm and hand are permanently fucked. Pardon my Latin. Someone tried to mug me on my way home from Jayden’s house and stabbed me when I refused to hand over my phone. I nearly died. I’m still in physiotherapy sessions once a month, and it happened years ago. I’ve had three corrective surgeries, and it’ll never fully recover. Don’t try and tell me that I’m missing out on being alive because I skipped university, all right? I’m lucky to be alive, and I don’t fancy wasting three years of it with narrow-minded…”

  “Darren!” Jayden interrupted, scowling. Okay, she wasn’t tactful, but that was uncalled for. “Stop it, Jesus.”

  Ella drew herself up, eyeing Darren from head to toe, and slowly said, “Rather as I expected,” in the snottiest voice Jayden had ever heard. And then the smile was back, and she was turning to Jayden, and said, “You should bring him down to the bar. We’re having some drinks before dinner. Celebrate the end of term!”

  “Okay,” Jayden said, trying to keep the peace. “Um, we’ll join you in a minute.”

  “Good.” She twinkled, throwing Darren one last shrewd look, before turning and sweeping out of the room, closing the door delicately behind her.

  “Darren.”

  “That’s Ella? Your friend?”

  “Yes, she is, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t blow up at her. She didn’t mean anything by it!” Jayden insisted.

  “Bullshit she didn’t, Jayden.”

  “She didn’t!” Jayden insisted, then sighed heavily, running both hands over his face. “Look, can you just…just try? Try to get along with them? Please? They’re my friends, Darren, and I have enough stress trying to get all my coursework done without you upsetting Ella.”

  Darren’s jaw worked, then he turned away to dig out a shirt—Jayden had told him to bring nice ones and his neat, black jeans instead of his favoured baggy clothes—and grunted.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes, Jesus, fine,” Darren muttered, buttoning his shirt and scowling at the door. “But I’m not fucking promising, all right?”

  * * * *

  Thank God he hadn’t fucking promised.

  ‘The bar’ was a proper bar. Dark, dingy, sticky floor, the lot. But the people Jayden led him to were not proper people. Every one of them held a wine glass. Ella was less annoying in company of equally pretentious idiots, but then Jayden introduced him to Jonathon, a tall, blond, foppish sort of bloke, and the hairs rose up on the back of Darren’s neck. Fantastic. Now one of these idiots was gay.

  …And judging by the way he watched Jayden flit to the bar, interested. Great.

  They largely ignored him while Jayden got drinks, and Darren welcomed it. He eyed them in turn as they discussed queer theory. (Seriously. Queer theory. That was a thing. One of them, some white girl who was probably more than a bit queer herself, was studying it.) They were pretty much as he’d expected: every third word ended in ‘ism’ and every fifth word was ‘theory.’ They were mostly female, and two guys at the table were gay (Jonathon) or might as well be (some blond guy holding hands with the dreadlocked girl, and sporting half a pound of metal in one ear). Not one of them was normal, and when Jayden brought back a pint of Carlsberg for Darren, Darren took an unhealthily large swallow and mentally decided to upgrade to Guinness for the next one. Or maybe a pint of vodka.

  “What are they talking about?” Jayden whispered as he sat down.

  “Fuck knows,” Darren muttered. Jayden elbowed him, and Darren rolled his eyes. Seriously? Did any of these people have a sense of humour? Watch football? Films? Films that were popular instead of weird black-and-white Greek ones or something?

  “Stonewall,” the dreadlocked girl offered, overhearing the mutter. “Do you support them?”

  Darren shrugged. In all honesty, he’d only heard of them because some speaker had come to school when he was fourteen to talk about homophobic bullying. He’d been bored stupid and ignored most of the talk, as had pretty much everyone else in the assembly.

  “They don’t support trans and questioning people,” she said. What in the hell was a questioning person?

  “They do!” another girl interjected hotly. “You have to look at the actions of an organisation first and foremost; actual policy, the written policy, is always the last to change!”

  Darren shrugged again. Frankly, he didn’t know and he didn’t care. He wanted to ask if anyone had seen the Spurs match last weekend, but suspected he’d get asked who Spurs were.

  “You think that’s acceptable?” Dreadlocks demanded.

  Okay. Fine. If she was going to push this, he’d push back. Fuck it. “You campaign for it?” he asked bluntly.

  “Yes.”

  “So why trans? Why not asexual people? Or intersex people, or queers, or pansexuals, or whatever other labels there are.” He didn’t even know what most of the alphabet labels even meant anymore, but fuck that too. “Why bitch about trans and not the rest of them?” he asked flatly and then tuned out as she started ranting. He didn’t care, but Jayden had sharp elbows, and Darren was under no illusions that he’d get another jab in the ribs if he engaged properly.

  He left them to their arguing and watched. It was hard to tell if Jayden didn’t join in much because Darren was here or if it was a mild version of school all over again. Jayden had taken nearly a year to start talking to the other boys independently of Darren; he tried to fit in, but was always wary and looking over his shoulder for the inevitable bully. Here seemed similar, but then, Darren wasn’t always here. Maybe Jayden liked drinking wine now; maybe he liked discussing this ivory tower, theoretical crap. Maybe he had big opinions about Stonewall and transsexual people and whether or not biphobia was a genuine phenomenon within queer subculture. He might.

  So why did Darren feel so uneasy about it?

  Chapter 10

  Darren wasn’t stupid. He might not be at Cambridge, but he
wasn’t stupid, and he watched the slow sag and relax of Jayden’s shoulders with every mile the train tore them away from Cambridge. The bustle of their connection in London was loud and distracting, and he pulled faces at kids in buggies to make Jayden laugh while they waited for their next train out, and it was like watching Jayden come back, watching the new, outer layer peel away.

  Jayden had always had an outer layer, but never such a deliberate one, and Darren didn’t know what to make of it. He’d always been shy and easily embarrassed, and sometimes he still flushed and got himself in a snit if Darren talked dirty to him, but this…this was more of a front, like a shield¸ and Darren didn’t like it. He hadn’t liked the distance between them last night in the bar; he hadn’t liked the stilted way Jayden talked and drank and acted in front of his ‘friends’; and he especially hadn’t liked the way that every veiled insult was left sliding across the table, and every single thing he said to defend himself got him an elbow in the ribs.

  But he liked this, when Jayden jolted awake from his doze just before their station, slipped his gloved fingers into Darren’s after the ticket barrier, and squeezed his hand as they reached the exit.

  “Hello,” Darren said, bemused by the sudden attention, and Jayden flagged down a taxi.

  “Just making sure you come home with me,” Jayden said, and the calm insistence in his voice outweighed the flare of irritation that the taxi caused. Since when did Jayden get taxis everywhere? Or anywhere?

  “Where else I am going to go?” Darren asked, peeling off his gloves and flexing his fingers once they were in the warmth of the heated taxi. Jayden caught his hands again and began rubbing them.

  “I don’t know. You get these stupid ideas of imposing on Mum and Dad sometimes,” Jayden sniped, and Darren relaxed back into the cheap leather seats.

  “I should go and see my own ‘rents tomorrow,” he tried, and Jayden snorted.