Rhapsody on a Theme (21 page)

Darren played
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
, once, smoothly from start to finish, then closed the lid and cried.

And when he stopped crying, for the first time in
months
, he felt better for it.

* * * *

The pregabalin did indeed make Darren drowsy. He went back to work, but had to use public transport instead of his own car. But that—for the first couple of weeks—was all there was to it. He occasionally rubbed at his temples or scalp like he had a headache, but never complained about it, and the insomnia was knocked on its arse and he slept like the dead for at least ten hours a night, but…

But Jayden waited for the mood swings, for the episodes, for the bleak emptiness around the eyes…and they didn’t come. Darren was tired, but normal-tired; he was quiet, but not so deeply withdrawn. By the third week, his appetite had returned with a vengeance, and Jayden felt less jittery about letting him go boxing without eating properly.

And slowly—very slowly—the solemnity began to lift.

It began with the piano, of all things. Jayden came home several afternoons in a row to find Darren home and the lid up, or at breakfast watching Rachel practice new sheets she hadn’t had a few weeks ago, and written in handwriting that was definitely not hers, although she denied actually having any lessons. It wasn't until a Saturday that Jayden caught him at it, waking late in the morning to find the bed empty and the house quiet, but for the odd, sporadic string of notes that died away as abruptly as they started.

He padded downstairs, yawning, to find Darren alone at the piano stool, a notepad covered in scratchy scribbles on his knee. Struck with a fierce sense of love and pride, Jayden hugged him tightly from behind, reducing the practiced dozen notes down to a jangle of surprised keys, and then Darren folded up his arm to grip Jayden’s around his shoulders.

“Morning.”

“Hello.” Jayden kissed his cheek, nose nudging the edge of those wire-rimmed glasses. He was wearing them properly, instead of constantly taking them off or fidgeting. He was finally
focusing
on something, and Jayden could have cried. “What are you doing?”

Darren squeezed his wrist and returned his fingers to the keys, tapping the minor keys very lightly as he seemed to think something over. “Trying to come up with something for the wedding.”

“You’re going to play?”

“Well, I’ve been giving it a go since we started the new pills, and I feel okay so far, so…yeah.”

Jayden tightened his grip, resting his cheek briefly on Darren’s shoulder. “Are you really feeling all right?”

“I think so,” Darren said, and when Jayden straightened, dropped his head back against Jayden’s chest to blink up at him over the top of the glasses. His eyes were clear. Jayden swallowed against the suspicious lump in his throat. “Er. Well.”

“What?”

“…Kind of hungry, actually.”

Jayden laughed, sounding too high and delighted, and kissed the bridge of his nose. “Oh my God. Okay. I could stretch to a fry-up if you keep the cat out of the kitchen?”

“Okay,” Darren said and pulled a face. “And, uh. Scott’s visiting.”

“Sorry?” Jayden blinked.

“Scott’s visiting. He should get here before you get back from auditions.”

Jayden chewed on his lip. He had actually been considering not going to the auditions—he had co-written a new play with a girl from the drama group, and it was going to be performed at the end of the summer. The auditions for parts were this weekend, and he was supposed to go, but…

Darren read his mind. “You should go.”

“I was playing it by ear.”

“Well, here’s the sound,” Darren said, pressing a chord into the keys firmly. “Go to your auditions, and bring back a couple of massive pizzas when you’re done?”

Jayden stared.

“I really do feel okay,” Darren said quietly, and Jayden’s mouth twitched.

“Oh God,” he whispered, then sank down to hug him again, bundling up Darren’s arms into his grip too, still chest-to-back. Jayden felt like he was spilling over, too happy for his own skin, and he squeezed tightly to hold them both in. “God, I love you. I love you so fucking much.”

Darren hummed. “I think…think I’m getting there.”

Jayden smiled, a warm hum of relief and contentment bubbling up in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly, the house felt like home again, though the house
itself
hadn’t changed a bit. He perched on the piano stool beside Darren, back to the keys, and slid both arms around that lean waist for a proper hug this time. After a moment, Darren abandoned his music and returned the grip.

“Want breakfast, then?” Jayden asked contentedly, pressing his head onto Darren’s shoulder and sighing deeply when a hand pressed against his back. “After a hug.”

“Yeah, you’re not getting one when Scott gets here,” Darren agreed. His tone was amused, for the first time in weeks. Maybe even months. Maybe since…Jayden cast his mind back, and realised that levity, of any kind, had been missing for…

“God, I’ve missed you.”

“Mm,” Darren hummed. “Hey. Any plans next weekend?”

“Uh, no.” The of course not, my plans involve looking after you went unsaid.

“Well, don’t make any,” Darren said and let go. “But if you could make some breakfast…”

“We have no eggs,” Jayden said hoarsely, still feeling close to tears of sheer relief. “Um, Rachel used the last ones last night.”

“Bacon butty?”

“Okay.” Jayden clamped that head between his hands and kissed Darren soundly before bouncing up off the stool and meandering into the kitchen. “Orange juice with your pill?” he called over his shoulder, and received a vague affirmative before the piano playing—a light and tinkling melody that broke off in the middle to the scratch of graphite on paper—started up again. Jayden smiled into the fridge and curled his bare toes on the cold tiles. Darren was finally coming back. His face was pinched and his voice was rough with disuse and he was too thin and his libido was still apparently absent and he couldn’t quite drive yet and he was only back at work part time and he kept stopping and starting too much on the piano, whereas before he would have ploughed through and worked out
what
he’d played later, but…

But he was coming back.

For the first time in weeks, Jayden felt
happy
.

* * * *

When Jayden returned to the house at around six o’clock that evening, there was a hideous sports car in violent yellow parked on the pavement outside. Rachel’s car was gone—Jayden vaguely remembered something about spending the weekend at her sister’s, but in the wake of Darren’s improvement this morning, he hadn’t paid too much attention.

The TV was on pretty loud when he let himself in, and Scott cheered a greeting at him, raising a can of lager in his direction. “There you are!” he said. “And there’s the food!”

Jayden dropped off a pizza box in Scott’s lap. He was stretching out across the sofa, lankier than ever and with his head, as it had apparently been at Christmas, shaved bald. It looked…kind of really totally weird, actually, but Jayden decided to hold his tongue. Darren was crushed into the armchair with the duvet from the spare room and Rachel’s cat curled up on his lap. Jayden shooed her off and offered the other box. “All right?”

“He’s fallen asleep four times already,” Scott called.

“That’s not bad,” Darren defended himself, and Jayden laughed.

“It really isn’t,” he confirmed.

“I got another side effect,” Darren added, and Jayden felt his smile falter. “Nah, chill. It’s just dry mouth.”

“Oh,” Jayden said and let out the caught breath. “You want a massive glass of lemonade then?”

Darren gave him the
please
face, and Jayden kissed the top of his head before disappearing into the kitchen. After a minute, he heard Scott heave himself off the cushions and follow, and then Darren’s older brother was taking up space by the oven. Scott wasn’t any taller than Darren, but he was broader—especially after Darren’s weight loss—and his head, without all the hair, was kind of a funny shape that Jayden knew from seven years of handling Darren’s was not quite the same. But they were still, for half-brothers, shockingly similar in appearance. And in the art of the blunt approach.

“How’s he doing?” Scott asked without preamble, and Jayden was reminded vaguely of Paul.

“Better than he was,” Jayden said, getting cans of Sprite out of the fridge and offering one to Scott. “The doctor had him on fluoxetine but that didn’t go any better than the citalopram last year, so we’re trying pregabalin now, and that’s going better.”

“Uh,” Scott said. “What?”

“He’s been on it nearly three weeks now and the drowsiness is beginning to wear off a bit,” Jayden continued, then blinked. “Um. The happy pills didn’t work, so he’s on an anti-anxiety pill now, and he seems to be getting a bit better.”

Scott nodded, cracking open the can. Jayden eyed him for a moment, then returned to fishing some ice cubes out of the freezer for Darren’s glass. There’d been a distance between them ever since Darren’s last suicide attempt. Simply put: Scott had blamed Jayden, and Jayden knew it. Scott had thought Jayden should have been there (right), had let Darren down (right) and wasn’t doing enough to rectify the mistake (definitely wrong). Secretly, Jayden sometimes thought Scott wanted rid of him, but Jayden would be damned if he was going to let Scott being a prick change anything.

So he left him in the kitchen, wandering back to Darren bundled up in the duvet, and perching on the arm of the chair to hand over the lemonade glass and kiss the top of those wild curls again, dropping his arm around Darren’s shoulders loosely. “Cold?” he asked.

“Mm,” Darren said, draining half the glass and putting it on the floor. He whistled to the cat, who regarded him disdainfully, but nevertheless jumped back up into his lap and cuddled into his chest, purring. Jayden smiled, resting his cheek on the top of Darren’s head as Scott flopped back onto the sofa.

“You two are nauseating,” Scott opined.

“Eh, go fuck yourself,” Darren grumbled, dropping his head back into the crook of Jayden’s elbow and closing his eyes. “Just because you’re a miserable sack of shit who can’t keep a girl for more than ten minutes…”

“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.

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.