The Devil's Trill Sonata

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “I don’t know why you don’t just forget about them,” he said and turned those beseeching eyes on Darren plaintively. “Mum made up the room for both of us, and you can’t let all her hard work go to waste, and Dad has to have someone to watch the Boxing Day match with, and…”

  “I’m impressed you know there’s a game on,” Darren interrupted.

  Jayden shrugged. “His tradition.”

  “Ah.”

  “C’mon.” Jayden squeezed his hand again tightly. “You’ve never spent actual, proper Christmas Day with me, just Eve, so you have to this time.”

  Darren laughed and rolled his eyes. This was Jayden: bullying him into doing things that Jayden wanted him to do, not letting blonde twigs and gay economists shape who he was supposed to be. This was Jayden.

  “Four-twenty,” the cabbie said suddenly, easing to a stop in the dark, narrow confines of Attlee Road, still wholly familiar, and Darren batted Jayden’s hand down and rummaged in his pocket.

  “I got it,” he said and pressed a rumpled fiver through the glass hatch. “Keep the change, mate, cheers.”

  “Merry Christmas,” the cabbie grunted, even though he probably didn’t celebrate it, and Jayden huffed as he hauled their bags out of the car.

  “I was going to pay for that,” he said pointedly.

  “Oops.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Jayden muttered, then curled his fingers into Darren’s coat and kissed him. He tasted of the Coke Darren had bought him on the train; his hair, when Darren touched his fingers to it, was icy-cold and escaping from its spray.

  Light spilled out into the street. “Darlings!”

  “G’wan.” Darren laughed and shoved Jayden unceremoniously in the direction of Mrs. Phillips. He’d never be greeted at the door like that if he went home. Jayden didn’t know how lucky he was; he never had.

  “Both of you!” Mrs. Phillips demanded imperiously and pulled them into the house by their collars. Darren let her. She was several inches shorter than both of them now, but she hauled them with determination and obliviousness to the height difference, and then they were in the hot light pooling in the narrow hall, and…

  Oh.

  “Jesus, Mum!”

  Mrs. Phillips was wearing a blue blouse that did very little to hide the small but obvious baby bump. Darren had experience with mothers-with-bumps and nodded at it before toeing off his shoes, hanging up his coat, and helping Jayden—who was jaw-dropped, eyes-bugged, flat-out gawping—out of his.

  “You’re going to have a baby?!” he demanded. “I mean…you’re…Mum, you’re pregnant?!”

  “Yes, darling, very well done,” she teased and hugged her son tightly with an enthusiasm that brought a lump violently to Darren’s throat, and he busied himself with hanging up Jayden’s coat just so. “You too, Darren, darling.”

  Her hug was firm, despite the bump that pushed at Darren’s hip, and she smelled of roses and stale perfume. Her hair teased at Darren’s skin, and he must have pulled a face or hugged back too tightly, because suddenly Jayden’s hand was on the small of his back, and when he pulled away from Mrs. Phillips, they wore identical worried expressions.

  “Are you all right, dear?” she murmured, stroking his cheek with her housework-rough palm, and Darren swallowed. Stupid. Stupid to get choked up over this. He was out of practice. It wasn’t like this was any different to how Mrs. Phillips always greeted them.

  “Fine,” he said hoarsely, and Jayden stepped a little closer. “Long trip, that’s all.”

  Neither of them bought it for a minute, but Mrs. Phillips stretched up to kiss his cheek and then flitted away, calling to her husband (“Colin, get yourself in here, you lazy excuse for a man!”) and left him to Jayden. Who slid both arms around his waist, kissed his cheek in the same spot, and asked, “Are you feeling all right?”

  Feeling all right. The question to end all questions. But he did, when he thought about it. He just felt a little jarred, being back here and having Jayden sliding back to normal. He’d forgotten how difficult visiting Attlee Road had always been, because it was everything he’d wanted his own family to be like. He’d forgotten this part.

  “Yeah,” he said and squeezed Jayden’s arm across his waist. “I’m okay.”

  Jayden bit his lip.

  “Promise,” Darren added and kissed him lightly on the mouth. His lips were cold from outside, and warm at the very seams, like they’d been outlined in a hot fine liner pen. Or something. “It’ll be a girl. Bet you a tenner it’s a girl?”

  “What?”

  “The new baby. It’ll be a girl.”

  “Oh, and you just know these things, I suppose?” Jayden murmured, nosing at his cheek promisingly.

  “‘Course I do.”

  “How?”

  “Well, she got close enough to a girl last time…”

  He got a punch in the arm for that one, his shoulder throbbing unhappily, but Jayden laughed anyway. It lifted the worry that was oddly foreboding, and Darren dragged them into the kitchen. As he hoped, Jayden was distracted by the sight of Mrs. Phillips’ baby bump from the side, and exploded all over again, probably not helped by the girly comment.

  “I can’t believe you’re having a baby!” he cried, dropping Darren’s hand and throwing his own up. “I mean, you’re…”

  “Old?” Mrs. Phillips asked dangerously. Mr. Phillips, sitting at the table and taking his boots off, guffawed. He was losing his hair, Darren noted absently.

  “You can’t be having a baby!” Jayden exclaimed. “I’m nineteen! That’s a nineteen-year age gap! And, I mean…oh my God, how?!”

  “I got laid,” Mr. Phillips said suddenly, and Jayden’s mum shrieked and hit him with a tablespoon.

  “COLIN!”

  “What?!”

  Darren snickered; Jayden went magenta, clapped his hands over his ears, and started singing very loudly to himself.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, you’re both impossible!” Mrs. Phillips threw up her hands, just like her son, and turned to Darren. “You. You’ll have some sense. You’re a middle child, aren’t you, darling? Isn’t it lovely to have a little sibling?”

  Darren opened his mouth; Mrs. Phillips tapped her fingers on the top of the biscuit tin, and he reconsidered.

  “Isn’t it?” she prompted.

  “Yes,” he lied, and Jayden glared at him. “Yes, it is. Wonderful. And miracle of life, and all that jazz.”

  She beamed and pushed the biscuit tin towards him; Jayden groaned, muttered something that sounded like “Sell-out!” and said in a louder voice, “I am not babysitting.”

  “You live in Cambridge, kid, I’m not paying the fare to make you babysit.” Mr. Phillips grunted and stood up. “I’m going to get changed. Welcome home, you wastrels,” he added, ruffling Jayden’s hair in passing, and then he was gone.

  “Now.” Mrs. Phillips snapped her fingers. “Table, the pair of you. We ate earlier but I kept some casserole for you both, and Darren, would you like turkey or roast beef on Christmas Day? Colin won’t go without his beef so there’s always the option, even if turkey’s traditional. But no wine this year—if I can’t have any, neither can the rest of you.”

  Darren blinked; Jayden pulled him down into a chair by the wrist. “Er,” he said, and Jayden huffed.

  “He’s trying to make excuses and escape, Mum.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Phillips said immediately. “I need all my boys home for Christmas—you and Jayden and Colin—and Jayden, your Uncle Andy is coming to us this year, so it’s a full house, and don’t you dare say a word about his hair loss.”

  The lump was back, and Darren had to take a deep breath through his nose.

  “Jayden,” Mrs. Phillips said suddenly, “run upstairs and ask your father if he’s still wanting some dessert. We’ll have our dessert while the two of you eat and you can catch us up on everything. Go on, dear.”

  Jayden wasn’t any dumber than Darren, even if he was blond, and he squeezed Darren’s g
ood shoulder before slipping out of the kitchen, and then Mrs. Phillips sat in his chair and rested one of those dainty little hands on Darren’s elbow.

  “How are you, darling?” she asked lowly. “Really?”

  Darren licked his lips. There was a tennis ball in his throat, but thankfully his stupid face hadn’t gone further and decided to shake—or worse, cry. “I’m…” he said, fished for an answer she would buy and he could give, and settled for: “Okay.”

  She squeezed his elbow. “But that’s all, isn’t it?”

  He nodded wordlessly.

  “Oh, darling,” Mrs. Phillips said and folded him into a hug. Darren let her, dropping his head onto her shoulder and pressing an ear to a tiny pulse just shy of her collarbone. She combed her fingers through his hair, the gentle bounce of his curls soothing, just the way Jayden did it half-asleep. “I know Jayden’s asked, and I am telling you: spend Christmas Day with us. After all this time, I think I’ve earned the right to say you’re one of my boys too.”

  Darren squeezed back, and she exhaled over his neck and shoulder wearily.

  “I know you find us a little overwhelming sometimes,” she murmured. “But I’ve patched together a little family here, and the moment you caught my Jayden, you were part of my family. And you always will be, sweetheart. Just remember that when you have one of your bad days.”

  Darren took a deep breath and bared a shred of soul to her. “Already know that,” he mumbled. “Got me through a few days before.”

  She kissed the back of his neck. “Good,” she said softly and then let him go. He worked his jaw furiously, trying not to cry—sometimes he hated Mrs. Phillips for her ability to just cut right through him like that—and then Jayden’s footsteps were on the stairs and he closed his eyes to gather himself. Wordlessly, his boyfriend’s mother got up and started getting plates out of one of the cupboards.

  “Okay?” Jayden queried softly, kissing Darren’s ear before informing his mother that his father was coming down for cheesecake in a minute.

  “Yeah,” Darren croaked, and Jayden slid his chair closer and pressed up against his side. “Thanks.”

  “Love you,” Jayden whispered, and it was like everything had clicked back into place. Darren felt sixteen again, fresh out of hospital, stiff-shouldered and rubbing his socks across the linoleum just because it felt different to hospital flooring. The way Jayden had kept close every time he’d managed to wheedle Scott into bringing Darren over, the way everything else had taken second place to Jayden’s encouragement and Mrs. Phillips’ mothering…

  Slowly, the unsettled mood lifted and the pang of something being missing eased as Mr. Phillips slouched back into the kitchen and had a brief, good-natured argument with his wife about the proper utensil to use to eat cheesecake. His wife won, of course, and Mr. Phillips was sat down with a spoon as plates heavy with home-cooked, delicious-in-taste-and-disgusting-in-appearance Phillips-style casserole landed in front of Darren and Jayden.

  Conversation mostly revolved around Cambridge (Jayden), work (Darren), the new baby (Jayden was still ridiculously scandalised about that, whereas Darren was just surprised Jayden didn’t already have a bunch of little brothers and sisters, by the way his parents had always behaved) and Mr. Phillips’ promotion at work. Darren let it wash over him somewhat. He had never quite gotten used to the rough and easy way the Phillips family related to each other, so different from the stilted, tense small talk at home if Father insisted they ate together for once, and after so long away from it, he found it easier to tune them out a little bit and absorb the warm and tight feeling of the small kitchen. Hemmed in, but safe. Blanketed, maybe.

  He’d set Jayden off, though: his hand was never far from Darren’s wrist, and he kept shooting little glances at him all the way through dinner. When Mrs. Phillips offered dessert, he refused for the both of them, and dragged Darren back upstairs by the same wrist, supposedly to unpack.

  “I made up the camp bed for Darren!” Mrs. Phillips shouted up the stairs after them, and then Jayden hustled them into his room and closed the door.

  “Like hell you’re sleeping in the camp bed,” he huffed and pushed Darren beyond it and onto the bed proper. “Sit. Sit.”

  Darren sat, and Jayden was promptly straddling his lap and massaging lightly behind his ears.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he murmured lowly, and Darren sighed, rolling his head back into the undeniably pleasant tingles beginning in the hinge of his jaw.

  “Nothing,” he said honestly. “I’m just adjusting.”

  “Adjusting?” Jayden prompted gently.

  Darren chewed on his lower lip. “You know it’s…your family’s not like mine,” he said finally. “And you remember I had to get used to that?”

  Jayden nodded slowly, still looking anxious.

  “I guess I’ve just…forgotten a bit,” Darren said. “It just hit me in the hall that…that’s not how I would have been greeted by my mother.”

  Jayden’s face twisted, and he slid his arms around Darren’s shoulders, hugging him tightly for a long minute and kissing the side of his head when he eventually drew back a little. “As long as you’re okay,” he said after a moment.

  Darren shrugged, toying with the hem of Jayden’s T-shirt absently. “You’re here,” he said.

  He wanted to say he was back. He wanted to say they were both back, and that this was how things ought to be, but the words stuck in his throat, and then Jayden was smiling and pressing kisses along his jaw to his mouth, and the urge to clarify died away.

  Later, curled naked under the sheets of the single bed and twisted around Jayden to let them both fit, Darren tucked his head into the crook of Jayden’s neck, breathed in deeply, then exhaled all the anxiety and loneliness of their separation into the room.

  They were home now.

  Chapter 11

  “Jayden, what did I say?!”

  Darren was rudely jerked into consciousness by Mrs. Phillips’ loud voice and the light from the hall, and he buried his face in Jayden’s pillow to block her out. “Urgh,” he offered, and Jayden grumbled.

  “Honestly, the pair of you. Breakfast’s in half an hour. And you!” The bed shifted; Jayden yelped, and Darren surmised he’d been whacked. Maybe he should do something. Win boyfriend points or whatever. Eh. Later. He shifted farther into the pillow to hide in case she turned her whacking hand on him too. “You are in so much trouble, young man!”

  Yeah, yeah, but could he be in trouble later? Darren wanted to sleep, not be in trouble by association.

  Jayden muttered something that sounded unflattering, and then he was pulling at Darren’s arm and slipping under it to cuddle in against his side. Darren let him; he wasn’t going to say no to being hugged back to sleep. (And he would be sleeping again, thank you, because it couldn’t be morning, whether or not Mrs. Phillips left the bedroom door open. Which she did. Because Jayden’s mum was a sadist.)

  “M’nin’,” Jayden mumbled and kissed Darren’s ear. “We need to get up.”

  Darren stayed buried. Jayden could get up if he bloody well wanted.

  “Daaaaarren,” Jayden coaxed, shifting out from under his arm again and draping himself across Darren’s shoulder to toy with his hair. “Breakfast’ll be ready soon. Dad always does a fry-up on Christmas Eve. You don’t want some?”

  “I want to sleep,” Darren grumbled.

  “But you have to come with me,” Jayden wheedled, pulling aside a handful of curls and kissing the spot under Darren’s ear. “Mum’s mad at me and she won’t be if you come down too, and then we can go and meet Paul and Ethan like you said on the train yesterday and…”

  Darren groaned and levered himself over onto his back. Jayden let him and resettled on his chest. When Darren squinted up at him, Jayden’s hair was impressively spiky for being so wispy most of the time, and he was staring intently at Darren’s ear as he toyed with the lobe. “Why do I have to suffer?” Darren demanded.

  “She can�
�t get mad at you.”

  “Why’s she mad at you?”

  “One of us was meant to sleep in the camp bed.”

  Darren screwed up his face and put the pillow over his head. Seriously? He was being woken up because Jayden’s mother still lived in la-la-land? They’d been sleeping in the same bed every time he’d stayed over since…well, since they started sleeping together in the first place. “I’ve never slept in that camp bed,” he pointed out.

  “I know.” Jayden pushed the pillow away and kissed his cheek. “Come down to breakfast with me? What if I promise a bucket of coffee when we get into town?”

  Darren wanted desperately to go back to sleep, but figured he wasn’t going to get an offer like that twice, and finally pushed Jayden off his chest and sat up. His shoulder spasmed and he grimaced, and then Jayden’s fingers were rubbing deep circles into the muscle and soothing the twinge.

  “Okay?”

  “Mm.” Darren stretched and didn’t miss the way Jayden’s gaze flickered down his chest and back up. “I remember you freaking out if I so much as took my shirt off in front of you, you know.”

  Jayden reddened. “Oh, shut up and get out of bed,” he said and encouraged Darren by shoving him out of the bed entirely and onto the camp bed.

  Darren ended up going downstairs earlier than Jayden. He was happy in his pyjama bottoms and socks; Jayden had to look presentable, even though it was his house, and lingered to style his hair. So Darren ended up padding into the kitchen in time for Mr. Phillips to plonk a plate on the plastic table and grunt, “Get that down you.” Or it might have been ‘give a Danube’—Darren was out of practice translating the various grunts Mr. Phillips used instead of English.

  Darren got halfway through breakfast before Jayden appeared, seizing his head in both hands to kiss the top before rummaging in the fridge for juice, and had just finished when Mrs. Phillips materialised and started scolding Jayden for not using the camp bed.

  “Mum, I’m nineteen!” he protested hotly.

  “You’re teenagers!”

  “We’ve been sleeping in the same bed for three years, Mum!”