“Yeah, Mum’s choice.” Jayden grimaced and ushered Darren into his room. “I have more taste,” he added unnecessarily.
At least he had been ready up here. Jayden always kept his room tidy. Dad called him a neat freak. Mum called him responsible. Jayden called it not liking his room looking like a bombsite. Okay, he’d left his sock drawer open, and Mum had been in to get his laundry and had knocked over his stack of magazines, but he toed them out the way and slammed the drawer and presto, his room was ready for visitors. And Darren didn’t seem to be the type to mind the bed having been vaguely restored rather than properly made anyway.
Sure enough, he dropped his bag on the floor and bounced down onto the bed, one of the shortbread fingers already in his mouth. He made a noise that was obscene. “God, I love these.”
“Really?”
“Uh, yes?” Darren gave him a look. “Mrs. Smith—Paul’s mum—she makes amazing homemade ones, but I’m not picky.”
Jayden sat gingerly beside him, uncertain of what to do, still fumbling with his bag. “I, um,” he began, and Darren cracked open the Coke. “I was kind of hoping you could help me with my maths revision,” he blurted out.
Darren raised an eyebrow and swallowing an unhealthily large amount of Coke. “Really?”
“Um…well…” Jayden flushed as Darren set the drink and biscuits on the side table, having to lean right over his legs to do it. “Maybe…that would be a nice…side-effect.”
“I don’t think I can kiss mathematical ability into you,” Darren murmured, pushing Jayden down into the duvet and settling himself on Jayden’s chest. His weight was both pleasant and scary.
“You could try,” Jayden suggested lowly, watching Darren’s mouth rather than his face as a whole. It was only a couple of inches away. If he stretched…
“How about we have a bit of fun, and then study when your mum gets home?” Darren bargained in a whisper, dropping his head to kiss the spot under Jayden’s ear, his lips damp. The second kiss landed on Jayden’s pulse, and the flicker of his tongue had Jayden’s heart picking up. “Pretty sure she’s suspicious.”
“She…what?” Jayden struggled to grasp the meaning of that, with Darren’s weight on his chest and his mouth on his neck. Darren hummed, and Jayden shivered.
“She pretty much asked if I was gay,” he said.
Jayden laughed, breathless and too quick. “Well.” He pushed his hands up Darren’s sides, under the blazer. Through the thin cotton of his school shirt, Darren was really, really warm. “She’s not wrong.”
“Mm,” Darren murmured, shifting to attack the other side of Jayden’s neck. “She asked if my boyfriend had come to watch. I kind of lied. I said no.”
Jayden squeezed Darren’s sides, his heart jumping at the word. Darren thought of them as…
“We just won’t tell her you lied to her,” he managed, and tangled a hand into that wild hair, twisting to the side until they lay tangled up and kissing properly, the last traces of the Coke still cold at the edges of Darren’s teeth.
It was new and it was nice and Jayden’s brain veered between dissolving into a purring, messy puddle and panicking that Darren’s hands were under his jumper and Darren was in his bed and Darren was sitting up to take off his blazer and Darren’s biceps felt three times as good when he braced himself on his elbows like that…
They both lost their blazers. Jayden lost his jumper, right before he decided that Darren’s weight on his chest was nice after all and pulled them back into their original position. Only this time it wasn’t just Darren’s chest on his, but his whole body, his oversized feet tangling up with Jayden’s and his knees bracketing one thigh, and one of those amazing hands pressing against his side, up under his arm, like he was counting beats, or…
Darren dropped his weight a little farther, and Jayden gasped, breaking off the kissing with a sudden flash of fear. “I…”
“Mm?” Darren smoothly transferred his mouth back to Jayden’s neck, and Jayden shook his head, pushing his hands up into Darren’s chest and levering him up. “What?”
“I’m not…I don’t…”
Darren’s languid ease sharpened into focus, and he sat up, still astride Jayden’s hips, but…the weight of him was pulled away, the pressure…Jayden risked a glance and knew he’d been right.
“I’m not ready for that,” he said, and felt his face flush hotly, for once justified. Darren was his boyfriend. He’d said it himself! And yet…when Jayden had felt…felt that…
“For what?” Darren asked blankly.
“For…” Jayden bit his lip, suddenly feeling close to tears, he was so embarrassed, and gestured awkwardly at Darren’s crotch.
And Darren laughed. “Oh, Jesus, Jayden, ignore that,” he said, sliding off him to stretch out on the sheets beside him. “You turn me on, I can’t help it, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to try anything.”
Jayden bit down harder on his lip and closed his eyes.
“Hey.” Darren’s voice softened and he rubbed a hand up and down Jayden’s bare arm. “Relax. It’s fine.”
“Sorry,” Jayden mumbled, turning into him and tucking himself under the arm that Darren held out. “I just…I panicked.”
“Fair enough,” Darren said. “But there’s no need.”
“It’s stupid. You’re my…I should…”
“Doesn’t matter what I am,” Darren said flatly. “You’re not ready. So what? Honestly, I don’t think I am either. I’m not the romantic that you are, but even I don’t go around jumping into bed with guys.”
“Or girls?”
“Or girls,” Darren said and grinned when Jayden offered him a smile. “It happens, Jayden. I’m reactive. It’ll happen again, I guarantee it, but it’ll never mean we have to do anything about it.”
Jayden took a deep breath and pushed the anxiety away. “Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled, reaching out to toy with the top button of Darren’s shirt. Somehow, although the tie had vanished, the shirt had remained completely buttoned. “It’s just…you know, you’re heavy, and I suddenly felt kind of…trapped. And you…you had…”
“Gee, thanks,” Darren interrupted dryly, and Jayden laughed unexpectedly. “Why am I here? If you’re just going to call me fat…”
“I didn’t, don’t twist it!”
“You did,” Darren said and twisted his fingers into Jayden’s ribs. Jayden screamed and shoved, trying to push him away, but it was too late. Darren’s eyes gleamed, and then he pounced, tickling mercilessly. Jayden gasped for air over helpless laughter, and finally got rid of his tormentor by pushing him off the bed entirely. Okay, so Darren clung on and took Jayden with him, but Jayden ended up on top and with a pillow in hand, so he shoved it over Darren’s face and pinned him down.
“Who’s reactive now?” he demanded.
The bedroom door opened. “What the—oh God,” Dad said and groaned. “Jayden, stop murdering him.”
“He tickled me,” Jayden said, easing up only enough to let Darren actually breathe.
“Good for him,” Dad said dryly. “Your mother’s home, wants to know if your mate’s staying for dinner.”
Jayden removed the pillow and eyed Darren expectantly. He was a funny shade of pink. “Okay,” Darren croaked and shoved Jayden off and onto the carpet. “Jesus. I might be fat, drama queen, but you’re not exactly fun to take to the chest either.”
Dad shut the door with a mutter that distinctly sounded like ‘bloody kids’, and Jayden shoved his bag behind it to stop any more unexpected entrances.
“Good thing he didn’t come in ten minutes ago,” Darren remarked, still sprawled out on the floor.
“Mm.” Jayden crawled back over him, folding his arms on Darren’s chest to prop himself up and stare down at him. He was flushed and ruffled and wild and absolutely gorgeous, and Jayden couldn’t help but lean down for a kiss. “Well. Mum’s back,” he murmured lowly, examining the swirls of green and blue
in Darren’s eyes. “Are you going to help me with my maths?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Darren said and obnoxiously ran both hands through Jayden’s hair. “Now get off me. I have to go purge that shortbread because my boyfriend thinks I’m too fat.”
Jayden groaned, pushed him back down, and kissed the notion away.
Chapter 16
The bubble burst.
But when it did, Darren couldn’t quite tell. He had been so preoccupied with the winter reprieve and Jayden, he had woken with no recognition of the apathy. He had put it down to tiredness, or the dreary winter morning, or the prospect of no entertainment because Ethan was at his aunt’s wedding today and Paul was having a bust-up with his girlfriend. It wasn’t until he raised the bow in orchestra practice and cut a note so badly mangled he wasn’t sure which string he had touched that he realised.
It sounded like it came from another room.
The jarring note made him hyperaware. He could hear himself apologise, retune the string, test it, and start again. He could feel the smooth wood of the bow in his hand and the weight of the violin on his arm and shoulder. He could feel his collarbone straining—and he felt it all as though it belonged to somebody else. He felt it through a gap, an empty space in his head, and even as he visualised it, the gap began to colour itself in. Black.
When he tried to be angry with himself for succumbing to this pathetic indifference for the hundredth time, nothing bubbled up, not even tired exasperation, and Darren knew—just knew—that he’d lost this battle before he’d even begun.
He lowered the bow. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself saying, and his mouth felt numb. “I’m not feeling well.”
Mr. Weber dismissed him with a wave of the hand, haughty and imperious. He didn’t care. Darren shut the door on the raucous thunder of Summer’s storm, and fumbled with numb hands to text Jayden. He would expect to see him; there was a greying over his vision, like a shroud, and the phone screen seemed too dull even when he dialled up the brightness.
Nothing was getting through.
It was icy cold outside, but it didn’t pierce the haze. It was muggy-hot in Costa, but it didn’t disturb the lethal peace. Experimentally, Darren sipped at the piping-hot coffee the barista pushed his way, and though he felt the searing hot on his tongue, and the pain that briefly bolted through the darkness to tell him what an idiot he was being, it was a fleeting and temporary relief. This spell had a grip and knew how to use it.
When he wasn’t under a spell, Darren hated them. When he was, he didn’t have the energy to hate them, but it all worked out the same. He was rendered useless, unable to feel anything properly or do anything correctly. His music jarred in the wrong places. His reactions were sluggish. And the only thing that simply would not be dislodged was the crippling, cruel knowledge that he was utterly, completely, and wholly pathetic for letting it happen.
Darren knew he was depressed. He didn’t need a degree in psychology to figure that one out. And he knew that he had absolutely no reason to be. He was just like those emo kids on the internet who cut themselves because Mummy didn’t buy them a pony, or Daddy had taken a job in Kansas and ugh, Kansas sucked and their parents were ruining their lives! He was just like them. Admittedly, he’d never moaned on a forum which glorified putting out cigarettes on your elbows about it, but he was just as bad. Why should he be depressed? He had parents who threw money at him; he had mates at school who liked most of the stuff he did; he had a brother to do the stuff they didn’t like with him, like slag off bad action films and make skiers plough into snowdrifts. And he had a boyfriend, one of the most brilliant, beautiful people Darren had ever met. (Key word: met. The people in magazines were twice as beautiful, but mostly airbrushed.)
And yet here he was, staring at a mocha in a generic coffee shop staffed by people who didn’t know Colombian from Peruvian, and wishing for…
For what? An end to the emptiness, certainly. How was the problem. When Father had allowed time for sports, they had helped. Darren had boxed for a couple of years at Mother’s insistence for self-defence. He still played football now and then, though not so much. They had helped, until they were gone, and Father had decided that the violin was the priority from this point on. Since then, the only things that had helped had been…
Been things Jayden wouldn’t want him doing, so Darren took another sip of scalding coffee and waited, staring into the distance until the tiles on the floor began to blur into kaleidoscopic patterns. White and yellow and red. A lot of red. Bright red, like…
“Darren?”
Jayden’s voice was soft and hesitant; he hovered at the edge of the table when Darren glanced up at him, hands in pockets and face twisted into a half-frown, that anxious tug to his mouth like he was seconds away from biting his lip.
“Are you okay?” Jayden prompted gently.
Darren shrugged; Jayden slid into the seat opposite and cupped his hands over Darren’s around the cup. His hands were icy from the outside; Darren’s knuckles were cold, and his palms hot. “No,” Darren admitted.
“You said…are you not feeling well?”
“I’m not feeling,” Darren muttered, and Jayden frowned.
“What…what does that mean?”
“I’m having a bad day,” Darren said finally, and when Jayden bit his lip until the skin went white, he knew he’d made himself as clear as he had to be.
“Oh,” he said. “Um. Are you…are you not going to orchestra practice, then?”
“Obviously not,” Darren mumbled. He wanted to snap, wanted to shout, even, but the words fell out limply and dropped like dead flies to the table.
“Do you…” Jayden began, then paused, chewing on his lip. “I mean…is there…is there anything I can do? You know, to…help?”
Darren had dreaded that question. Frankly, he’d dreaded this: the moment when Jayden realised that this really was too much. The moment when he finally walked away.
“Hey.”
Jayden’s hands were tugging at Darren’s right wrist, and it was only then that Darren realised he’d pressed his palm to his forehead. He let Jayden take his hand and stared at them intertwined on the tabletop.
“Do you want to come over?” Jayden suggested hesitantly.
“Your rehearsal…”
“They won’t mind,” Jayden said and shrugged. “The next performance is some Shakespeare, so I’m not needed to write anything.”
“Which Shakespeare?” Darren managed, pushing the question out even though he lacked the curiosity, for once.
“They haven’t decided,” Jayden said and squeezed his hand. “We could just…I don’t know. Watch the telly and veg out. Whatever you want. Whatever would help.”
“Nothing helps this,” Darren said, but Jayden was already shaking his head.
“Let me try?” he coaxed and tugged on the captive hand. “I mean…it couldn’t hurt, right? Right?”
It couldn’t, Darren supposed, until Jayden realised that he wasn’t lying when he said there was nothing to be done. He’d tried it all before. There was nothing but waiting, waiting for a morning he’d wake up and not regret doing so.
“All right,” he said anyway, and Jayden pulled him out of his chair by the hand, dragging him back to the counter to order refills to go, biting his lip and frowning when Darren made no attempt to try and pay.
Things were bad. He didn’t let go of Darren’s hand all the way home.
* * * *
Things were bad. He’d never seen Darren this…
This.
Darren had texted him at three-thirty on the dot, saying he would be in Costa rather than the theatre, and a niggling unease had started in Jayden’s stomach. And his face when Jayden had got there…he looked almost shell-shocked, all the feeling shaken out of him. Jayden hadn’t known whether to talk to him or fetch a blanket and hug him to death.
Jayden didn’t know what to do. Darren was barely talking—barely even seeming to hear him, most of the time—and when e
ven raiding the biscuit tin and settling down in front of the TV to a show on BBC2 that Jayden knew Darren enjoyed did nothing to lift his mood, the unease ballooned into outright worry.
And a sense of…shame. Because this…this was real. This wasn’t the horror stories of uncontrollable crying, and he wasn’t trying to throw himself out of the window, and he wasn’t being hostile or clingy. He was kind of quiet, and very indifferent, but…
It wasn’t what Jayden had been expecting, and the feeling that his research had been too wild and picked up too much shit from the internet began to creep in. He needed to do it again. Scratch that, he needed to really sit down with Darren and talk about it, when Darren was feeling less…less…off.
For now, he curled up on the sofa and dragged Darren into a hug, as if he could just squash the lethargy and the apathy right out of him. Halfway through the show, Darren tucked his head into the crook of Jayden’s shoulder and sighed heavily, and that, it seemed, was that for the rest of the afternoon.
They were disturbed by Dad’s car on the driveway; Jayden fetched drinks and snacks and dragged Darren upstairs, shutting the bedroom door on Dad’s off-key singing. Darren dropped listlessly onto the bed, and normally Jayden would have kissed the white skin of his neck. As it was, he switched on the second-hand telly in the corner of his room, jammed a DVD into the player, and curled up on the bed beside him, manhandling Darren into a huggable position, and scratching his fingernails into that wild hair.
“At least your hair’s not depressed,” he mumbled as the opening credits rolled and he realised he’d mixed up the discs again. Meh, it would do.
“Don’t think that’s possible,” Darren mumbled, twisting into Jayden’s grip and slinging an arm over his chest heavily. “C’mere,” he added, wiggling the fingers of the hand on the offending arm. Jayden twisted their fingers together, his other hand lost somewhere under Darren’s side. “Thanks.”
“Is this helping? A bit? I mean, I know it won’t just make it go away, but…is it helping at all?”
Darren sighed heavily, his breath gushing across Jayden’s neck. “Yeah,” he admitted. “A bit. That you care.”
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