Rhapsody on a Theme

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “Hey! Megan and I are back on.”

  “For the sixteenth time.”

  “Eighteenth, but it still counts,” Scott admitted, and Darren snorted.

  “Give up on her, Jesus.”

  “Give up on him,” Scott jabbed a finger at Jayden.

  “He hasn’t ever dumped me for forgetting to buy flowers for a week.”

  “You’ve never bought me flowers,” Jayden pointed out.

  “If I keep expectations low, there’s less to live up to,” Darren mumbled, eyes still closed. Jayden combed his fingers through that mad hair.

  “Mm, you’ve got a point.”

  “And you two are still disgusting.”

  “Do you pay rent? No. So shut up,” Darren grumbled.

  “Both of you shut up and eat your pizza,” Jayden ordered and heaved himself off the chair. The cat read his mind and jumped down to follow him, meowing hopefully. “I’m going to make some pasta. Want anything else?”

  “Not right now, thanks,” Scott said, then suddenly whooped at the rugby—Jayden squinted—nope, football on the telly. “Fucking yes!”

  Jayden shook his head and retreated, putting the cat out of the back door and fishing around for dry pasta in the cupboards. A pill was missing from Darren’s painkillers, but Jayden shrugged it off and put a pan on to boil.

  Another burst of noise drew him back to the kitchen doorway. Something exciting had happened, because Scott had jumped up and was howling a protest at the TV, and Darren was…

  He was laughing. He was sitting forward over his pizza box, laughing at his brother’s anguish, smile wide and stunning in that shocking face, and Jayden was caught fast in the doorway, staring breathless at the sudden surge of Darren—the cruel gleam in his eyes, the clap of his huge hands, the mocking edge to his laughter, the beautiful smile…

  Jayden’s heart hurt—as did his face, when he smiled himself, and knew that finally, instead of the drugged, addled mess struggling with an illness that nobody seemed to understand…he had Darren back.

  Chapter 18

  When Jayden came home after his weekly session at the am-drams, he found Rachel out, Darren in, and the piano lid up. Darren’s glasses were folded on top of the minor keys, and a sheet of hasty notes—scratchy music, like Jayden had found countless times in Darren’s schoolbag when they’d been just starting out—folded on the major.

  “How’s it going?” he asked, but when Darren didn’t answer, turned to study him and forgot about the piano and the half-completed and never-heard composition. Darren was lying on the sofa, flat on his back, and though the TV was on quietly in the background, had his eyes closed. “Darren?”

  “Mm?”

  “You okay?” Jayden asked, going to perch on the sofa by his hip. He had gone back to work last week and been put on the day shifts. He was still dressed in the black trousers and the itchy polo shirt.

  “Mm,” Darren said again and pinched the bridge of his nose briefly before dropping his arm over Jayden’s thighs. Jayden stroked the back of the large hand belonging to said arm. “Headache.”

  “…Not, you know…”

  “Not an episode, no, just a headache,” Darren mumbled—and then huffed. “You’re going to laugh.”

  “Oh?”

  “Think Trev’s given me his sodding cold.”

  Jayden did laugh, just a little bit, and kissed Darren’s forehead. He did feel a bit warm, really. “Do you want some ibuprofen or something?”

  “Not meant to until the new drugs settle.”

  “Oh,” Jayden murmured, then draped himself over Darren’s chest. “Fancy a hug, then?”

  Darren smiled. It was still weak and not covering enough of either his shy gratefulness or his sardonic humour, but it was a smile, and Jayden kissed the corner of it, feeling desperately pleased to see it.

  “Shall I bring the duvet and a couple of DVDs and call for a Chinese takeaway?” he wheedled, and the smile widened fractionally.

  “Curry from Ruichi’s?” Darren bargained.

  “Okay,” Jayden agreed, tweaking a wayward curl before getting up for the phone and the promised duvet. Darren hadn’t had a cold in years—maybe ever, Jayden couldn’t remember him even getting the usual Christmas stuffed-up sniffle that Rosie passed around every year—so he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Maybe he did have one, because his run of good physical health was well overdue a breaking, but maybe he didn’t, because…well, he just didn’t. Darren didn’t even get hay fever, the lucky son of a bitch.

  He called for Darren’s favourite—lamb rogan josh with overkill on the naan bread—and retrieved the duvet from their bed rather than the spare room, fully intending to get under it with him. The uptick in Darren’s mood since the new drugs was reeling Jayden back from wary regard to overaffectionate relief, and he didn’t care if he seemed a bit clingy lately. The bloody fluoxetine had made him clingy, and if the pregabalin was working…

  He would take drowsiness and the odd headache over panic attacks in the middle of the night and serious depressive episodes any day.

  “I’ve missed this,” he admitted, once he had coaxed Darren into sitting up for some shitty action film (that way Darren could watch and Jayden could focus on Darren and ignore the stupid film) and had wedged himself under Darren’s good arm for a hug in the middle of the sofa, the groove between the cushions tipping them into each other like off-kilter ornaments.

  “What?”

  “Being us,” Jayden said, pushing his head into Darren’s shoulder in a kind of hug-substitute. “Without the depression and the drugs and stuff in the way.”

  Darren squeezed wordlessly.

  “I’ve missed you,” Jayden said quietly. “It’s like…like you’ve not been here.”

  “I haven’t,” Darren said simply, and Jayden felt a flicker of relief that he understood, that he got where Jayden was coming from and what he actually meant. “I’ve not even felt like myself the last few months. Starting to now, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mm.”

  “What do you mean?” Jayden pressed.

  Darren shrugged. “I don’t know. Don’t feel so cut off. The Prozac, that felt like someone chucked up a glass wall between my brain and the rest of the world, including my own body. Felt fucking scary. Well, I got my body back—most of it—and I don’t feel like I’m slipping loose anymore. Felt like I was going to float away, but I got my anchor back. Starting to be able to think and feel properly again.”

  Jayden slid an arm across Darren’s waist and curled into him, as though trying to help the re-anchoring process. Or anchor him to Jayden, whichever. Both.

  “Not all the way there yet, though,” Darren shrugged, scratching lightly at the hair at the base of Jayden’s head. It felt soothing, and Jayden hummed contentedly. “Still weirdly tired all the time, still feel…”

  He paused sharply, and Jayden squeezed, wordlessly coaxing.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  Darren sighed. “I still feel…indifferent to some things.”

  “Such as?” Jayden probed.

  “…Dying.”

  Jayden stiffened, the alarm like a shot of cold adrenalin in his veins, and Darren groaned.

  “I’m not suicidal,” he said. “I just…you know. I’m not bothered either. I’m not…dead pro-life. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m not going to try to off myself, but I can’t…I don’t know. Like if I randomly stumbled at the top of a steep drop, I can’t say with conviction I’d grab for the railing. But I also can’t say I wouldn’t.”

  Jayden let out a breath and tried to force his muscles to relax. That was okay. That was…okay. Fine. Ish. He’d been a lot worse, and Jayden had seen him through those, and those worse times had been…had come really, really close, even before Jayden had come on the scene, so…indifferent was better.

  Relatively speaking.

  “Can’t get it up yet either,” Darren added flippantly, and it worke
d: Jayden laughed and pinched his thigh lightly.

  “You’ll get there,” he said and paused. “Um. The…the, um, indifference thing…”

  “I called Sam while you were out.” The memory flashed up in the front of Jayden’s mind—Sam (33) in Darren’s call log, seven years ago now—and he grimaced, although whether he was grimacing at the memory of his reaction or the fact that Darren had called at all, he wasn’t sure.

  “Why?”

  Darren shrugged. “Figured I should. Get a chat in with someone a bit more removed from the whole thing. Was okay. Got some girl called Samantha. Her sister’s on Prozac—apparently, I imagine they’ll tell you anything to get you on board, some of them—but we talked about it a bit.”

  Jayden relaxed completely. So he hadn’t called because…because of the reasons he used to. He hadn’t called because he was going to…you know. He just called to talk. That was okay. That was fine. That was even…

  “Good,” he said finally. “I mean, you know, it’s good you’re trying to talk to someone, and if it helps and you know, it’s not going to be some silly counsellor saying you need to find yourself and run away to Mali and start building schools and stuff…”

  Darren chuckled lowly; the sound and sensation through his chest warmed Jayden right down to the bone.

  “It’s good,” he reiterated, and then the doorbell rang.

  “That’s even better,” Darren said and poked him. “Go on. It’s food, and you keep bitching I’m not eating.”

  “Because it’s true,” Jayden said, but unburied himself and pulled Darren’s hair before heading for the door. He could take indifference and feeling drowsy and the return of Sam (or Samantha) and a bit more no sex. He could take all of it—because Darren was back.

  He’d finally arrived, and now all Jayden had to do was keep him here.

  * * * *

  Darren was on early shifts for that week, so when Jayden came on Friday evening to find both cars present, but the house quiet and Pog dozing happily across the full length of the sofa (cats were stretchy, Jayden was learning) he decided that something was definitely up. The kitchen hadn’t been assaulted by Hurricane Rachel, even though her coat and shoes were by the front door, and Darren’s work bag with its million-and-six forms, folders and ‘fools’ (fucking tools, Jayden was informed) was by the coffee table, conspicuous without its grumpy owner.

  Jayden headed upstairs, following the faintest flickers of light.

  Rachel’s bedroom door was open, and her TV muted. The culprits were both dozing on her bed, Rachel under the covers and apparently in her underwear, judging by the visible bra straps, and Darren stretched out over the sheets in his pyjama bottoms and sleep shirt. She was cuddled against his chest, fast asleep against his right breast and his arm lying heavily around her shoulders, and Jayden’s initial indignation at the affectionate display was shaken off by the drying tear tracks on her face, and the nest of tissues and empty chocolate wrappers surrounding both of them.

  And Darren didn’t do slushy romantic films for love nor money.

  “Darren?” Jayden whispered, touching his free shoulder lightly, and Darren blinked sleepily up at him for a moment before grimacing and dropping one foot to the floor. He eased himself out from under Rachel, using Jayden as leverage, and they slipped quietly from the room, closing the door behind them, before he spoke.

  “Tony dumped her.”

  Jayden winced. Tony, Rachel’s music teacher boyfriend, had been a semi-serious thing for the past few years. She was crazy about him. “Seriously?”

  “Mm.”

  Jayden followed him downstairs. “Why?”

  “Apparently,” Darren yawned, scrubbing both hands over his face and flopping onto the sofa. Pog jumped clear only just in time and hissed at the pair of them before relenting and huffily clambering into Darren’s lap. “Apparently,” Darren repeated, scratching the cat under the chin, “he’s decided the ‘we can never have sex’ thing is a deal-breaker after all.”

  “It took him this long to figure it out?” Jayden asked incredulously.

  Darren shrugged. “The guy’s a bit thick, I reckon.”

  Jayden perched on the arm of the sofa, wedging his toes under Darren’s thigh. Darren still sounded stuffed-up, and his eyes were rimmed red, which was a sure-fire indicator of explosive sneezing recently, but he seemed well enough. The cold didn’t seem to be developing into something worse—either normal-illness worse or mental-illness worse. Jayden wiggled his toes under that thigh until Darren squeezed his ankle warningly. “Jesus,” Jayden mumbled. “Is she okay?”

  “She will be. She came home from work bawling her eyes out, hence,” he waved a hand at the ceiling. “She’ll survive. Bounces, does Rachel.”

  Jayden hummed. “Still. What a jerk. She told him, she told him ages ago, and he was fine with it for, what, three years?”

  “Nearer four,” Darren agreed. “I don’t know. I get where he’s coming from, in a way, being told you’re never going to get your end away with the girl you’re supposedly with for good…it’s a hell of a choice.”

  “We’re not having sex at the minute,” Jayden pointed out tartly. “And that doesn’t mean I’m dumping you, just because we’re not.”

  Darren shrugged. “I’m just saying, Rachel’s a bit…I don’t know. It’s all or nothing for her. Like…you and me…it’s not. Yeah, I can’t get it up—but you can, and you don’t have to come to enjoy sex anyway. I could blow you or use my hands or whatever. I don’t need to get it up. We could still have a sex life.”

  “Yeah but…” Jayden protested, but the protest died in his throat.

  “I guess I’m saying if at the outset, I was told I could never have sex with someone but I was supposed to date them and do all the other stuff…I’m not sure I wouldn’t walk. I just wouldn’t take four years to make the choice.”

  “And if we could never have sex again?” Jayden asked pointedly.

  “S’different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve been with you long enough that I’m in too deep to duck out because of a lack of sex. Going in to a relationship without it, and being in the relationship first…that’s different.”

  Jayden chewed on his lip. “I guess.”

  “On the sex front, though,” Darren pinched his ankle; Jayden retracted his feet, scowling. “Guess who managed a semi in the shower this afternoon?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Thank God,” Jayden blurted out and flushed hotly. “I mean, you know, there’s no pressure or anything and you, um, whatever time you need, that’s fine, it is, I just…”

  “Keep digging that hole.”

  Jayden went purple, but sighed through gritted teeth. “I am,” he said reluctantly, “relieved.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could relieve you more, if you want.”

  “That’s weird if you don’t like it too,” Jayden protested, even as Darren’s large hand was walking up his thigh. The prickle of blood heading for his crotch followed the hand despite his words, and Jayden groaned as his own body betrayed his intentions. “It’s weird if you can’t yet,” he insisted, catching the guilty wrist and holding it fast. “It is,” he said firmly. “It’s weird. You should be, um. You know. You should too.”

  “Not necessarily,” Darren said, shifting onto his knees and leaning forward to kiss the slip of skin between Jayden’s untucked work shirt and his belt. Jayden shifted uncomfortably, and Darren deftly slipped the belt free. “I’m going to enjoy it just fine. Don’t need a hard-on to enjoy myself.”

  “Oh God, you’re disgusting,” Jayden said breathlessly, then gave up on pretending he didn’t want to and pretending he hadn’t been just a little bit selfishly frustrated lately, and pulled Darren’s hair. “If you’re going to do it, just do it, seriously.”

  The cat regarded them in a patronising fashion, and stalked off towards the kitchen. Jayden ignored her, his
whole focus heading south with his blood and his heart speeding up in eager anticipation—because God, he hadn’t realised just how long it had been alongside all the other worries he’d had—and then the dry streak was broken with Darren’s mouth, and everything else just…blinked out.

  Chapter 19

  “Hey!”

  “Hey yourself,” Jayden called from the sofa, where he was drafting the next blog update. Darren threw his gym bag onto the armchair and plucked the tablet out of his hands. “Hey!”

  “Go get changed.”

  “You what? Why?”

  “Because we’re going out.”

  “Darren, it’s like six o’clock, I have to start dinner…”

  “About dinner…”

  “You are eating, Darren, and don’t push me on this, if you don’t start gaining weight again Dr. Zielinski is going to produce one of those intense diet programs for you and you’ll damage your health and…”

  “Chill.” Darren held up his hands. “I mean, we’re going out for dinner. I booked a table. So get changed.”

  Jayden blinked and deflated a little. Darren had showered at the gym, judging by the wet-but-defiant hair and the distinct smell of Lynx deodorant. “Fine,” he relented suspiciously, feeling torn between finding out what was going on, and jumping on him for feeling well enough to want to actually go out anywhere at all. “But I’m going to need to shower, and change, and where are we going anyway?”

  Darren grinned as Jayden heaved himself off the sofa and followed him up the stairs. “What, you coming too?” Jayden sniped half-heartedly, and was answered when Darren merely gathered his abandoned clothes in the bathroom doorway and replaced them with a large towel over the radiator.

  “Never hurts to watch.”

  “If you’re coming in, come in,” Jayden insisted. He stepped into the shower cubicle, but left the glass screen wide open. A few minutes later, Darren sighed and kicked the bathroom door shut behind him, stripping unceremoniously. “Better,” Jayden said imperiously and drew him under the water by bared shoulders to kiss him. “So, what’s this plan?”