Author's Note: With apologies for the delay, there will not be that long a gap again and to confirm, I know some readers think that this story has "dragged on", but the intention behind this story is to look at a relationship that evolves and changes over many years! Thank you for all your comments.
== From Sebastian's POV ==
Rory stepped into my car as a light drizzle of rain fell over the driveway leading up to his house. He was wearing a gray cashmere roundneck and his hair held a slight residue of the mist-like rain from outside. He gave a sigh of theatrical exhaustion as he sat in the passenger seat, and leant over to kiss me, peck me, very lightly on the lips. It was nice, it felt reassuring, but then that was probably why he had done it - to calm me down. When you love someone like that, I think you get into a weird kind of emotional infinity symbol of knowing how well they know you and they know you know that they know... I don't know. I'm rambling. Anyway!
"Hey," he said, breathlessly, after the kiss. He had dashed from the house without a coat or umbrella. Clearly he assumed we were staying in the car to talk, which was fine with me. There was more privacy that way, in case anyone yelled, cried or, like last night, ended up inside each other.
"Hey," I answered, turning the key. "Who'd you tell your parents you were going out with tonight?"
"You," he answered. "Should I have lied?"
"You told them it was me?" I asked, half-looking at him but keeping my eyes on the dark country road as I turned out of his driveway. "Rory!"
"What?"
"I assumed you'd lie to avoid questions. I thought you'd tell them you were hanging out with Robbie or Virginia, not me! Jesus, Rory, if I'd known you were going to tell the truth I'd've called to the door! Now I look like a d-bag who waits in the driveway and doesn't call up to the door to say hello to your parents. Fuck!"
"Sebastian, they know you. And we're not back together, yet, so... calm down," he smiled, there was an incipit smile in everything he was saying. I hadn't forgotten he could be like this, but I'd forgotten what it was like when he did it; how it made me feel. He had a rare kind of charming condescension, an endearing emotional snobbery, something that arose through an innate and very loveable superiority, when he felt calm, certain and in control. He used it with particular effect when he had to stay calm for both of us. I wondered if he could sense how nervous I was.
It had all happened so quickly, from the accidental meeting in Edinburgh to the totally unexpected sex at the wedding the night before. And now, here I was; so very close to what I had wanted on some level for nearly two years. Having suppressed the desire to be with Rory Masterton for the best part of a year, it had all come flooding back to me and a nervous ticking metronome of panic was clicking away in my head at the thought that, having come so close and reawakened all those old feelings for him, for us, it wouldn't happen. What was he going to say if, or rather, when, I told him about how promiscuous I had been during our separation? Morally, it wasn't as if I had done anything wrong. We had been broken up for a long time when I first fucked somebody else and none of them had even remotely come close to usurping Rory's place in my heart. But we were at different universities now, separated more or less by the full breadth of the United Kingdom, and if Rory thought sleeping around was a compulsion, a habit that couldn't be broken, a cause for mistrust... It wasn't. I knew it wasn't. Zac Efron could have lubed up and begged for it and I'd've shrugged him off if Rory was free for so much as an afternoon coffee, but still, the doubt remained that Rory would know know that. Or not believe it.
"What's wrong?" he asked from the gloom of the car. "You're not as loquacious as usual."
"I'm shitting myself, Rory."
"Aren't you seductive?"
"Seriously. You've no idea how nervous I am. Lame, right?"
"Adorable, actually. Turn left here."
"Isn't straight on quicker?"
"To where?"
"To the grove."
He shrugged, "The left's a better road."
"Maybe twist and turns just make the final destination feel like more of an accomplishment," I said, flashing a grin. He rolled his eyes and laughed, before staring out the window.
"Isn't it a horrible night? Weather-wise, I mean."
"It's December," I said. "That sweater looks really good on you."
"Thank you."
"It'd look better off, though."
"Haha. You left a mark on me, you know, from last night."
"Well, that's just for all those dudes up at Saint Andrew's to know that you're mine now. Again. I dunno."
I pulled into the grove, a parking lot that on a clear day had a beautiful view over the green trees of the Weald, but tonight it could have been looking into a blackhole once I switched the headlights off. Rory instinctively flicked the car locks on, a tribute to the traumatization he suffered everytime he was forced to watch a slasher movie. He looked over at me and smiled, "Slasher movies," he explained.
I nodded, "I know, Rory."
"So..." he said, angling towards me and unclicking his seat belt. He brought his right leg up to perch slightly on the chair and he stared at me. In the half-light being given off from my radio, his eyes swam with questions and the cheekbones of just-the-littlest-bit-too-thin face were beautifully lit up. Objectively, I knew Rory was never the most perfectly handsome guy in the world, but he had a way with him, maybe only I saw it, maybe only loves see it, I don't know, but he really could take my breath away.
I turned to face him and sighed, "Yeah."
"We have a lot to talk about."
"I love you," I said. "I just wanted to get that out there. You've no idea how nervous and happy and excited and shitting myself with fear I've been since last night, Rory. I can't... I know we have a lot to talk about, but I'm so completely in love with you that I will do anything that needs to be done to make this work and I don't want to play any games, because that's not us, it's not you and I. I just, before anything was said, I wanted to say that." I smiled at him and he kissed me, hard, impulsively and the gearstick certainly got in his way, but he did it and I kissed him back. It wasn't sexual, it was just, well, I'm honestly not entirely sure how to describe it. When he separated from it, the calm he'd been wearing since he got into the car was rattled a little.
"I love you, too, Sebastian. I do, honestly, I know that..." He stopped himself and took a breath. He bit the bottom of his lip slightly. "We need to be able to talk about things though.There are things to talk about." I nodded and he launched straight in with his first question, "The first thing being, I suppose, to ascertain how mad you are at me?"
"I'm not mad at you. Why would I be mad?"
"Don't do that. Don't let's ignore everything unpleasant now until six months down the line it becomes a huge thing that breaks us up a second time round. You know that you are mad at me on some level, you're bound to be angry. I got a little flash of it at the Balmoral when I brought up Evan and Sarah. And when you referred to me as a 'blast from the past.'"
Jesus, he didn't miss a thing.
"So," he continued, "talk to me. How angry are you? Say what you need to say."
I could hear the incipient nerves that he was trying so desperately and masterfully to control. To anyone else, he would have appeared unflappably serene, but I knew this performance was a bit like a swan in motion with its feet paddling frantically beneath the surface.
"There have been times I've been angry at you, yes, of course, but they're not enough to keep me from wanting you. Of course they aren't! But Rory, I guess the thing that's always half-bothered me - and I know it shouldn't, because the rest of the time I know the answer - but, why did you do it? Maybe why's not even the right word; maybe 'how' is. That night, that party, it wasn't, I mean, fuck, I'm not going to say it was assault, but it wasn't consensual. I could barely stand and the guy just launched himself at me and, okay, you're looking down, I can tell you don't like hearing about it or imagining it, and I get that: if someone had done it to you, the image of it in my head would've killed me, it would've made me so fucking angry. But, Rory, the difference is I wouldn't have broken up with you over it, not in a million fucking years. I would've gone after the guy and beat the shit out of him, and that's not bullshit machismo: I would've done it and you know I would have. I could barely fucking stand and he... I just don't understand how you weren't able to see it from my point of view, because it wasn't like I was trying to pretend that it wasn't an awful thing to have happened or that I didn't understand why you were upset. And when you slapped me, punched me, whatever you want to call it and then you were in my arms, sobbing, in my arms because of something I had done, Jesus, Rory, you've no idea what that was like. It was the single most awful moment of my life, it felt like I'd been punched right in the heart, and I was trying so hard over the next few days to get you back, to hold on to what we had, but I just feeling you slip away from me, completely... It was fucking awful. And Rory, I loved you! I loved you so much and we had been through so much. You were my boyfriend, the guy I loved totally, and you were my best friend, too. It just seemed like it was so easy for you, and I know," I held my hand up to stop up when he open his mouth to protest that point, "I know it wasn't so easy, but it was too easy for you. I couldn't have done what you did to us anymore than I could have walked to the moon. And then to cut me out completely... I just, fuck, I don't know. I don't know how you did it and part of me thinks, 'Shut your fat fucking mouth and don't ask any questions that'll stop him wanting to get back together with you again,' but the other part of me needs to know that you won't do it again ... I don't want to go through the rest of our relationship living with this fear that you could ditch me. That I'm an optional or an addition. I don't know." My voice quivered, broke with held-back tears, and I clenched my right fist and lightly thumped the steering wheel with it. "Fuck. This is..."
There was a long silence that was only broken when I said, "Will you please say something?" In response, he just shook his head and wiped his cheek. "Don't cry, Rory," I said, reaching over and taking his hand. "I'm not... I don't know where that came from. Don't cry."
"I'm fine. I'm dealing with trying to repress that for eighteen months, Sebastian, so give me a minute."
Another pregnant silence settled over the car, broken only by the rain as it evolved from a drizzle into a shower. The fingers of Rory's right hand were beating nervously against his leg, in an increasingly fast pace until they stopped and he lost the battle for self-control; a sob broke from his throat and his shoulders sagged. In a few minutes, the entire dynamic had changed and his calm, poised self-assurance had finally been irrecoverably shattered.
"Oh, Rory, don't," I reached over to him and putting my arm around his shoulder, pulled him in towards me. I felt a second of hesitation and then he went with it, allowing himself to be awkwardly guided over towards me. Instinctively, without thinking about it, the first endearment of the evening slipped from my mouth, "Baby, shhh... come here." His face pressed into the crook of my neck and I could feel the tears on his cheek. "Baby... Rory. It's... I love you."
"I love you so much," he cried, softly. "I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything."
"I do and you know I do!"
He moved back to his seat and I rubbed his shoulder.
"I'm not saying this to make you feel worse, sweetheart, but you were weird, uneasy, I guess, about us going away to different colleges beforehand and I've always been worried that you - I don't want to say 'used' - but that what happened at that party sort of gave you an excuse, a reason, a legitimization, whatever, to..."
Rory shook his head. "No, Sebastian, that's not what it was, at least not consciously. You're so much better looking than I am that I was worried that when you went to uni there'd be people throwing themselves at you, left, right and centre, but I knew I was just going to have to get used to that idea and to trust you. And I did. I do. But when that happened, that kiss, something just snapped inside of me and I can't fully explain what that was, although I suppose I should try to. Everything just went into a kind of slightly manic overdrive. I was in therapy then, remember, counselling for my stupid eating thing..."
"Rory, that's not stupid, by any stretch of the imagination..."
"Anyway, it was a good thing to go through, but when you're in it, it kicks a hornets' nest. It strings you out while you're looking for answers and that stringing out gives you less of an even keel. To extend and distend the metaphor." A ghost of smile played on his lips at his inarticulateness, but it faded quickly as he tried to explain why he had behaved that way, though, as I'd said, a part of me already knew why. "I was so fragile, panicky, I suppose, that when I heard about you and that guy I knew that if we went to university with that still hanging over us, it would drive me mad. And it would have, Sebastian. I can't tell you that it was the right thing to do morally, but pragmatically, on some level, I think it was. It was a reasonable reaction to a really shitty string of circumstances and I wish I could tell you that it hadn't been and I wish that I was half the boyfriend you are, were, will be, but I dropped the ball because I just didn't know how to play the game. I'm so sorry; you are..."
"What?" I prompted.
"The love of my life. You are. I think about you all the time and it took so much self-control not to text you or call you or Facebook you anytime I was down or upset or really happy. Even now, I just want your arms around me and to love you and make you happy. But I feel as if you need to shout at me, so that you can get these things off your chest?"
"I don't want to shout at you, Rory, but before we go any further you should know that there were other guys at college. Quite a few."
"I know that," he said.
"How? Because you always thought I was a bit of a slut? I guess I've no reason to get pissed off about that, now."
The rain was getting much heavier outside. Driving back would be a nightmare.
"I know because people talk," Rory said, gently, "and because I assumed you'd have... fun... at university, Sebastian, if you were single."
"It was just sex," I said. "No one could ever replace you. Last night, when you were lying in front of me, naked, Rory, I couldn't believe how happy I was that you were there. I realized how much I'd missed it, you, how stupid it was to think that anyone could ever replace you. You're my guy. You always have been. Evan used to say that he knew him and Sarah were meant to be together after they broke up when he figured that random hook-ups meant nothing to him anymore, that they left him feeling a bit sickened, and wanting nobody but her. I feel that way and then some, now. I don't think what I did was wrong and I don't hate the guys I did it with, but even during it, there were times I was comparing it to you and nobody ever rose to the challenge of even seeming like a disadvantaged competitor. I love sex, but I love it with you more than anyone else and I love you more than it, me and pretty much anything else combined. I need you to trust me, because I want this to work and I want it to work in a way that makes you as happy as I can. I don't want you sitting in Saint Andrew's worrying about some guy throwing himself on me in London because, believe me, no matter how drunk I get I won't let that happen again and it'll always be you that I want. If you are ever in my arms sobbing again, Rory, I swear to God that I want to be sure that I didn't cause it. I want to be the one that wipes away your tears, not fucking causes them. And that sounds like something from a Ryan Gosling movie, but I do mean it and you know that. Don't you?"
He nodded.
"Anyway," I prompted, "you said last night that there had been other guys that you'd..."
I paused, why couldn't I finish the sentence? I wasn't a prude, I had a very matter of fact attitude to sex, particularly with him. I'd joked about it right after he got into the car. I'd just told him about my own sex life. But the words stuck in my throat; on some instinctive level I just could not bring myself to say "had sex with" in relation to Rory and somebody else.
"Had sex with?" He finished, interlacing his fingers with mine. I nodded tersely. "Yes," he said. "There were two. The first one was awful. It wasn't you and it just felt... awful. I hated it. The second guy, it happened more regularly, obviously. I was actually on top for most of that one, which..."
"For fuck's sake, Rory, I don't need the details."
"Sorry," he said, looking surprised by my tone. Which, I'll admit, was aggressive. Far more than I'd intended it to be, it just sort of fell out of me. I hated the idea of him with anyone else.
"I didn't give you details or numbers," I said, defensively.
"Well, that's probably because you couldn't count that high," Rory shot back. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said. Why are you being so weird?"
"The idea of you having sex with anyone else makes me really unhappy."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, the second guy, the regular one, wasn't a fuck-buddy or anything else. We were dating at the time."
I think he knew as soon as he'd said it that it had made things a million times worse.
"You dated somebody else?" I said, turning to look at him in full. He nodded and opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off by repeating my original question.
"Yes."
"For how long?"
I didn't know what he was going to say but I certainly didn't expect the answer, "Four months." It was like being punched in the gut and I was very nearly shouting at him, even though I knew I was being totally hypocritical and very rude.
"Four fucking months?! Rory, how is that even fucking possible? When I ran into you in Edinburgh - fuck it - when I ran into you in Edinburgh, I had kind of been seeing someone in London and when I say 'kind of being seeing someone', I mean that I had been occasionally going for dinner with him on a fairly fucking infrequent basis and that was the first time I'd been in any kind of regular even faintly romantic setting with anyone in the last eighteen months. I was still referring to you as someone I'd 'just broken up with' for about 9 months after you dumped me. And obviously my heart was never really in it with Daniel. The minute I saw you at the hotel, it was sayonara for him and me. I don't care if I never see him again and the second I got back to my friend's apartment in Edinburgh and he found out that it was you I'd ran into, even he knew that there was no way anyone could compete with you. That's the level that people at my college know about you, and they've never even met you! I never ... Rory, how could you date someone for four months? Date someone! What was the little fucker's name?"
"You said you didn't want details," he said, firmly. I started to falter, my tone began to lose its belligerence; it wasn't fair the way I was reacting, especially when he'd taken the news that I'd fucked all around me with such comparative grace and tact. But this was worse, much worse; the idea of him snuggling into someone the way he used to with me, kissing them, smiling for them like we used to smile at each other, sharing jokes. It was primal and caveman-like, sure, but I felt so possessive and upset by the thought of it.
"Did you love him?"
"How could I love someone who wasn't you?" He said it with such sincerity and total simplicity that it stopped me in my tracks. "Please take my hand again," he asked, his voice rising and falling softly, undulating and pulling me in. I took his hand and he ran his free hand through the back of my hair.
"You mustn't be sad," he intoned. He'd said that to me once before, long before, and the tone was the same. Polished, elegant, flickering tones and lyrical smoothness. "You mustn't be angry, my darling. It's happened now and it's in the past."
I nodded.
"Talk to me," he commanded, beautifully.
I shook my head and lifted my head, my heart skipped a beat and my hand tightened around his. We were together again, everything seemed to melt away for a moment. "I love you."
"I love you, too, very, very much," he answered.
"It's just very hard for me to think of you as somebody else's boyfriend. Excruciating, actually, Rory."
"And it makes me want to vomit with fear at how much sex you've had. But it's happened, Sebastian, and we've come out of it still in love with each other. Haven't we?"
"Of course we have. You're my guy," I repeated.
"And you're mine. All these things, they're not going to matter if we hold onto each other. If we talk about them now, we'll find a way through them. I don't want to be without you again and I never want to let you go."
I smiled and the rain outside poured down harder. We stayed there for another forty-five minutes, I think, maybe a little longer. I drove him home and we began to laugh a little, at some memories and some random observations from the wedding the night before, the past and the future colliding nicely with each other. He shut down the idea of us formally reconciling there and then in the car, because he didn't want to restart the relationship in the car where we had both made each other cry. I understood that and when I dropped him off home, he kissed me on the cheek. After he left and I drove back to my house, his smell lingered in the car and I already missed him. By the time I got back, I had a text from him: -
"I love you. See you tomorrow at 11 xx"
== From Rory's POV ==
The next day dawned cold and clear, with the air only just a little damp from the heavy rainfall the night before. It would lift as the day dragged on. The sky was clear.
I can remember glancing out my bedroom window at half-past eight and feeling so completely elated. I can't explain why the news of Sebastian's other sexual partners didn't bother me too hysterically. In part, it was quite obviously because the gossip mill had given me a heads-up. I knew it was coming and I had mentally prepared myself by being firm with my own neuroses. After all, it had been my decision to end things and to maintain distance for so long. What had I expected: that he would remain a monk? Yes, of course, on some level there was a part of me that would have been overjoyed and immensely soothed if he could have told me honestly that there had been no-one else. Or, at the very least, only a very few. But I could be a realist when dragged to it. Sebastian was confident, handsome, a little cocky and very sexy. I hadn't asked him to take a vow of celibacy for me and I had no right to, either. When I sat down next to him in his car the night before, I had been holding myself in, steeling myself for the test of seeing how much damage had been done and how I would - or could - handle it. I had been surprised that it turned out that the real emotional damage, at least in the long-term, had been more on his end than mine. And he had taken the news of my relationship, that half-baked sequel to mine and his, far more painfully than I had taken the final confirmation of his active sex life.
I stepped into my shower and adjusted the nozzle as the too-hot water caused me to start. I began to lather up and congratulated myself on remaining so calm about his other partners, in what must have been a sure-fire testament to my personal growth. I knew that running into any of the people he'd gone to bed with would hurt, but when would that happen? And even if it did and it was uncomfortable, uncomfortable things are a part of life: was any of it really worth not being with him, again? Was anything?
I thought of Alisdair, Sebastian's temporary replacement. A lovely guy. Clever, elegant, funny, confident, but not Sebastian. In my eyes, who could compete? Whatever happened next, whatever had happened since, from the moment I had collided with him in the streets outside my hotel in Edinburgh, I had known that there was no going back. I had known it ever since Alisdair and I had broken up, or perhaps it's safer to say drifted apart, at the end of the summer term. I must have. On paper, Alisdair was perfect. I stepped out of the shower and glanced at myself in the mirror - naked and slightly wrinkled from the water. I steeled myself to look, inhaled and mentally steading myself. The love bites were still on my torso and I ran my fingers over them lightly. Had I ever, realistically, believed that there was any way I'd be completely happy away from Sebastian?
After I was dressed - jeans, black sweater, newish shoes - I curled up in an armchair in my room and tried to read. There was already a text from Sebastian: "Can we meet at 10? xx"
"Sure," I responded, mentally panicking that he had changed his mind. "Why? xx"
A few seconds later came the response: "I just can't wait to be next to you again. Spent 2 much time apart. I feel like this text merits an emoji?"
I smiled and wrote back, "I'd rather kill myself than use an emoji. 10 works fine. I can't wait to see you again."
I can't remember what the book in my hands was. Some novel that on another day I might have enjoyed. I picked a wax jacket out of my wardrobe, scarf and gloves and walked down the stairs at 9.55. My brother Dermot, in the standard rugby sixth year boy's day-off ensemble of sweatpants and t-shirt, was in the sitting room just off from our entrance hall. The beautiful Christmas tree twinkled behind him, as he munched a bowl of cereal and watched TV.
"Where are you going?" he asked, barely flicking his eyes away from his crappy show.
"Out," I replied.
"No shit, Raz. Who with?"
"Pardon?"
Dermot and I are nobody's fool and we could read each other and the rest of our family very well. He turned to look at me, his face now glowering with undisguised and knowing antipathy. "Seriously? 'Pardon?' You clearly heard me."
I rolled my eyes. "Don't start, Dermot."
"He's a cunt."
He had swivelled in his armchair to engage fully in the conversation and I felt myself getting angry. The coat felt heavy over my arm. "He is not a cunt," I answered, firmly. "You liked him."
"Past being the operative tense."
"He didn't..."
"He broke your heart."
"It was complicated."
"Nope," he said, angrily, "it wasn't. You love him. I get that, whatever. But he's still a cunt, Rory. And he'll do it again."
"You don't even know if we're getting back together!" I snapped. Why the fuck had I said that? It would just make telling him later even worse.
"I know you. When you didn't want to get back together with Sebastian Carson, you kept him as far away from you as you could. And since the wedding... For fuck's sake, Raz. You deserve better."
"I think I can be the judge of that, don't you?"
"Yeah, you're right," Dermot said, with tidal-wave levels of sarcasm. "I'm just your brother. Why the fuck should anything I say matter?"
"Well try fucking acting like it then!" I shouted. I swung the front door open, stepped out of the house and slammed the door behind me. Sebastian was getting out of his car in the driveway, determined to knock on the door this time. I had to give him points for manners and moxie.
"What's wrong?" he asked, instinctively.
"Nothing," I lied. "Where do you want to go?"
I was walking towards the car, but he crossed round and stood in front of me, taking my hand. "You're shaking."
"Nothing, I'm just... Stupid family stuff. Can we go?"
He glanced over at the house, then back to me: "Sure."
To his credit, as we drove to the forest car park where, two years ago we'd gone walking and had rambunctious sex in the rain, Sebastian did not ask anymore questions. If there was anymore proof needed that he knew the argument had been about him, his silence was it. He was too good and too selflessly noble in a crisis to ask, "Was it about me?" in case it magnified the stress or put himself in the centre of attention. He kept up a steady stream of distracting chatter and it reminded me of how much I loved him: he wasn't an emotional voyeur. He knew when to get angry and when to get involved; he knew when to step back and let things slide. It's a rare skill. Like so many of his.
We drove past Saint Eustace's Church and I blessed myself. A fond and teasing smile tugged at the corners of his lips, but he said nothing. We reached the car park and stepped out in the freezing December air. He reached into the back for his own coat, tugging it on over a thick cableknit sweater he was wearing.
"So?" He said, falling into step next to me as the winter sun splintered into light around us.
"So," I answered. An emotional call and response. I put my hand above my eyes to shield out some of the Sun's blinding glare.
"Are you my boyfriend again?"
"Am I yours?" Mary, Mother of God, that was a pathetic response! How cringe-inducing. Why did I say that? Fix it! "Yes."
A smile broke across his face. Both our faces. And he leant in to kiss me. I wish I could tell you that after so long it had been a moment of sublime melodrama, of angst and tears and passion, like the time he flung me up against the tree in the driving rain the first time we kissed. Or his plate-smashing loving fury at his uncle's cottage. But it wasn't. After eighteen months, the finale had been transformed into an intermission and it all slotted very gently back into place. We fell back in to one another, into each other, into us, on a cold crisp English winter's day and as I felt our fingers interlock as he kissed me, all I could do was devoutly thank God for bringing him back to me.
Our mutual friend Robbie took the news of our reunion even better than I had expected. Although Robbie had been angry on my behalf during our break-up and, with Virginia, even helped determine it in their own way, he had remained close to Sebastian, Seb, as he and everyone bar myself, his mother and Virginia, called him. Robbie was, I think, lad enough to sympathise with Sebastian with the benefit of hindsight. He smiled when I told him and clapped me on the shoulder, "I think that's for the best," he grinned. "I always hoped you two'd work it out eventually."
Virginia was more sanguine, but hardly condemnatory. She raised the issue of the distance between Saint Andrew's and London, but, that aside, she simply asked how I felt about it, commented that she had felt sorry for Sebastian in her own way when we broke-up and said, with the kind of firm pragmatism I loved about her, that no-one knew a relationship better than the two people involved. Our "In a relationship with" moment on Facebook, a staple in the cyber age which Sebastian insisted upon honouring, drew dozens of likes but Dermot and I did not thaw to one another for at least a week and his non-like of the status was, to me, louder than the dozens who did click.
My brother point-blank refused to even acknowledge Sebastian's name in conversation, left the room when I told my parents we were dating again, went upstairs when he saw Sebastian pulling into our driveway and since I'd be damned before I'd climb down over this before he would, we were still technically on non-speakers with one another when we went to Midnight Mass with our family on Christmas Eve.
As the candles flickered in the gloom of the chapel, the heavy scent of incense swirled around us and Father Bridgeway intoned the Mystery of Faith, my father glanced down the pew to throw a reproving glance at Dermot and I, who were sitting next to each other but yet to even look in one another's direction until the Sign of Peace forced us to shake hands half-way through the service. "God be with you," Dermot said, quietly.
"And also with you," I replied.
He half-smiled awkwardly and hunched over. Then he nudged my shoulder, "Happy Christmas, Raz."
"Happy Christmas, Dermot."
"Hail Mary, Full of Grace," sang Father Ridgway, "The Lord is with Thee! Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus."
As we sang back, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death," I saw my father nod with curt approval at the rapprochement between his two eldest.
===From Sebastian's POV===
Two days after Christmas, Evan sat opposite me at the local McDonald's, where we'd stopped en route home from the stables where our horses were stabled. I was starving and as we tucked into our food, he raised the subject of New Year's Eve.
"Have you two any plans?"
I nodded and swallowed, "Yes and no. Dominic's having a big NYE part, but Rory got wind that Joshua Peterly is on the invite list and doesn't want to go."
"Is that the guy you used to hook-up with before him in school?"
"Yup - shithead," I took a drink. "I fucking hate the little dickhead, so I'm fine with staying in, too. All our friends are going to Dominic's and Rory thinks it'd be too aggro to start an alternative party all because of Joshua. So we're probably just going to stay in at ours. I've already said to Mom and Dad, and they're cool with it."
"That's probably for the best," Evan agreed. "I think Sarah and I are going to spend a few hours there, then head over to her sister's for about 10.30."
"Awesome."
"Mom was so pleased you and Rory were back together," Evan grinned. "You couldn't have asked for her to like him more, right?"
I smiled, "Yeah, that was really nice. Jenny, too. His brother wasn't exactly thrilled, you know."
"How many does he have?"
"Three," I answered, "but the eldest, after him, Dermot's, in Upper Sixth now and I think he knew a bit more about what went on when we broke-up. I like Dermot, so it's a bit annoying, but I guess he was there to see how upset Rory was..."
"I was there to see how upset you were and I don't dislike or blame Rory," my brother interjected, clearly a little riled on my behalf. "Why does this kid feel the need to get involved?"
"Same reason you feel the need to get involved now, Evan," I jibed.
"Fair," he laughed. "Have you two spoken about visiting each other or how you're going to make it work when you go back for next semester?"
I swirled a fry around in barbeque sauce. "We have. He's coming down to visit first and then we'll be together half-way through semester when we go to Leeds to visit Robbie for his birthday and then towards the end, I'll go stay with him for a few nights in Saint Andrew's. And Skype at least twice a week."
"Saint Andrew's is supposed to be really stunning," said Evan. "You'll love it. History geek."
"Yeah, the only thing is, and it sounds fucking dumb, but Rory's ex-boyfriend lives in the halls next to his up there and apparently they have a lot of mutual friends. I'm kind of worried of what it will be like to meet him, because it's more or less impossible that we won't if everyone's going out together. And I'm not sure how I feel about it. It makes me really... I dunno..."
"This is the guy he dated for a few weeks..."
"... Four months..."
"... when you two weren't together?"
"Yup. I asked Robbie. The guy's name was Alisdair, does Theology, just like Rory. Robbie never met him, but..."
"Seb, stop this. Don't let it get in your head as something to be paranoid about. He broke-up before you two started to get back together again, didn't he?"
"Yeah, but..."
"Then clearly it wasn't working for reasons totally unrelated to you! Do not make this a big thing. Especially since he has been nothing but very, very supportive and understanding of how many guys you hooked-up with when you two split-up. Look, Sarah dated two other guys when her and I broke up. Did I like it? Of course I fucking didn't, but it happened, it's life and you have to move on with it, you know? If you don't want Rory to fling your actions in your face, you can't make a big deal out of his. And Seb, look, even leaving aside relationship tactics, anyone can see when he's around you that he absolutely adores you. And the feeling's mutual. Listen to me, you met the one when you were eighteen years-old. I have a feeling, and my gut tells me I'm right, Rory is my future brother-in-law because you are going to marry your high school sweetheart. And that's incredible. You've got him back and this kid Alisdair, for all you know, might have no interest in Rory anymore. They dated for a few weeks, months, whatever, in their first year of college. That's hardly unusual! You're with the guy you love and who loves you. Don't freak out about anything. It's not like you!"
I smiled, "Thanks, Evan. Are you going to finish those fries?"
"Yeah, I am. Touch them, and I'll break your fucking fingers, dude."
Just after midnight, and the Auld Lang Syne, Rory and I slipped into my bedroom at my parents' house. I turned the main light on, walked over to my bedside table, turned the lamp on and Rory clicked the main light off. The room was bathed in its soft glow, flowing over the contours of Rory's face as he walked towards me. We kissed each other deeply and my hands went round his waist, pulling him in closer until he was pressed tightly against me. His trailed awkwardly up my back until they were on the back of my neck.
"Happy New Year, I suppose," he said, as we separated. My right hand snaked round to his front and went down to the crotch of his trousers, massaging his building thickness through the fabric. I pulled him back into me for another kiss and began slowly shuffling him backwards towards the bed, until he crumpled over onto it and I lowered myself in with him. I was hard and began to unbutton his shirt. When it had separated along the buttonholes and fallen on either side of his body, I stepped back and, looming over him, pulled my red Christmas sweater off and shucked it to one side. I was completely topless as I leaned back in towards him, but just before our lips locked again, his right hand came up to my chest and stopped me going any further.
"Wait," he said. I leaned back, supporting myself with my arms on either side of him. Beneath me, those big beautiful dark eyes of his were swimming with an emotion that even I couldn't decipher.
"What is it?" I asked, softly, stopping down to kiss him gently on the side of his neck. But his right hand didn't go away and I was gently nudged back into my former position.
"I've just realised something," he said, in some kind of half-whisper.
"What, baby?"
'I've just sort of figured out... it's just sort of hit me that this is the last time I'll ever have sex with someone different again in my whole life. I know the wedding was, technically, but I didn't... I mean, this is definite. There'll never be anybody else as long as I live. I'm just very happy. I wanted to say it. I wanted you to know."
I felt my lip quiver and my chest contract. My hand went round the back of his neck and pulled him in towards me again. My tongue slipped into his mouth possessively. His torso crushed his right hand, still there, into mine. Mid-kiss, I began to unbuckle his belt and yank off his trousers.
"Me too, Rory," I said, flipping him over onto his front, pulling off shoes, socks and boxers and pulling his ass cheeks apart. I began to lick his asshole, lubricating it up with my spit, by the time he was wet enough for me to slip a finger in there I angled myself until I was on top of him and I kept fingering him as I whispered in his ear: "I love you so much and I will ask you to marry me one day."
"Just make it special," Rory quipped. "How do you it may as well be a surprise, since we already know what the answer's going to be!"
I made love to him twice that night and again in the shower in the morning. At four a.m., as I was riding him bareback and his legs were draped over my shoulder, I planted two hickies on him as he bit down on the pillow, half-laughing and half-groaning at the juvenile gestures, and nervous of waking my parents up, four doors down. The next morning, I watched him as he slept and I pulled him, naked, into me, nuzzling my dick against his ass. I felt contented as he half-stirred next to me and that feeling lasted for the next week until it was time to separate. We drove together to London with Evan, who dropped Rory off at Heathrow for a flight north to Edinburgh. I felt nauseous as he pulled away from me to pass security. He turned round and smiled encouragingly, but there was pain in his smile as I think he realised just how upset I was to be away from him. We started texting by the time I was back in Evan's car and for the first few weeks, we kept up the schedule we'd agreed upon.
But the thought of Rory returning to halls adjacent to his ex-boyfriend gnawed away at me, despite Evan's words, Robbie's texts of encouragement and Helen, my Northern Irish flatmate's, joy that this guy who she'd never met had gotten back together with me. I guess my friends had heard so much about him that they couldn't help but know how excited I'd be that we were a couple again. But the images of Alisdair being near to Rory were not helped when I began a stupid perusal of his Facebook page; the guy was quite goodlooking and he had that compulsively well-bred look that the British upper-classes, English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Scottish, can all simultaneously pull off.
Rory's visit to me in London put Alisdair right out of my head for the time being. The only way to describe Rory that week was radiant, that charm that he used so self-consciously to make people enamoured with him was on full display, he was the life and soul of the party, he was funny, he was charming, he was interested in everything people had to say. Within fifteen minutes of meeting him, Helen liked him more than she liked me. I jest. Kind of. The only fly in the ointment was my flatmate Pete, who was good friends with Daniel, the guy I'd ditched the second I ran into Rory in Edinburgh and who had taken it very badly, to my surprise. Pete was chilly with Rory, which I thought was understandable but pretty unfair. Rory affected not to notice for the first two days but after repeated attempts at politeness, his cold snobbery reared its defensive head again and he repaid Pete's coldness with similar behaviour.
Sexually, Rory and I were right back to where we had started, with me always on top, and even throwing in a few new moves from what I had learned in his absence, most of which brought him screaming or cooing into cum-splattering - and we had a 50/50 split on blowjobs and rimming. The sex was fantastic and Helen gave me the cheekiest wink in the kitchen when she'd woken up the sound of Rory and I going at it one morning, when we assumed they had all left for class. I smirked and winked back. If Rory was making noise while I was making love, then I was doing my job right.
When we met in Leeds, a few weeks later, a city between London and Edinburgh, there were a lot of our old schoolfriends around for Robbie's birthday. Because of the number of people showing up, there obviously wasn't room at Robbie's halls and so Rory and I had booked into a cheap and cheerful Travel Lodge room near the city center. I checked in first and he arrived an hour later; I swooped him up into arms, feeling how cold his cheeks were from the February air, and kissing him on the lips, before giving him a little peck on the nose. It was going to be a messy weekend, which we were both looking forward to, since the whole group hadn't properly been together since A-Level results' night at the end of final year, but it was also nice to have a room to ourselves and to spend a few hours on our own.
As I caught up on a paper I had to read for class, Rory lay on the bed with me, his head on my stomach, stretched out and reading "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens, one of my favorite reads. I stroked his hair with my spare hand as we read in silence and from time to time, I'd glance down from my pages to look at him, engrossed in his novel, his eyes intensely focused on what he was reading. I loved him so much and it'd be a wonderful feeling telling him that my uncle had given us his cottage to stay in for a few days at the end of semester, so we'd be going right from my trip to visit him in Saint Andrew's south to the cottage. It was the same cottage in which we'd once argued, spectacularly, about his eating disorder, but here's hoping this time round it'd go a lot better. I couldn't wait. Rory has a quality that I've always loved, in which once you've achieved total familiarity, total comfort, with him, you're always kind of hankering to be back in that state again.
That day in Leeds, I planned to have sex with him before we went to meet the others; it turned me on to know we'd been that close only moments before he turned up so prim, so proper, so well put-together, with everyone else.
"You know he nearly changed the ending?" he said, from his spot on my stomach.
"Dickens?" I asked, although it seemed a fairly fucking obvious question.
He nodded, "They very nearly didn't get together in the end."
"Hmmm. It doesn't make sense," I mused, "that they'd just meet up in that garden and then not get together."
"I don't think they did meet in the garden in the original ending, actually," Rory said, adjusting his head slightly, for comfort's sake. "They met in Piccadilly, or somewhere in London, I think, and they bumped into each other by accident but nothing ever came of the conversation. They kind of just admitted they'd loved each other once and moved on."
"Fuck, that's a depressing ending, after reading the whole book to find out they couldn't make it work and his whole life had been a lie."
"I know. Some people think the ending he went for was a cop-out, a play for popularity," Rory said, getting up to pour himself a glass of water, "but I think he made the right choice. It makes more sense and sometimes it's best to listen to people."
"It doesn't even make sense, though, that they'd not get together."
"I know, but in the original ending, Estella had re-married in the time they were apart. She'd found someone else."
Rory resumed his place on my stomach and re-opened "Great Expectations". I felt a slight twinge of irrational hatred towards Alisdair again, a guy I'd never met.
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