Rhapsody on a Theme (3 page)

“Only two.” Jayden was wary of Darren drinking too much. Alcohol was a depressant, and he couldn’t imagine it would do Darren’s mental health any favours. But getting him to give up
entirely
would probably be overkill, especially as Darren didn’t actually go weird on alcohol as a general rule, so they’d settled on a kind of low-level compromise—that Darren was only to drink socially, and not much when he did. Darren had pulled a lot of faces and complained when Jayden had issued the orders, but hadn’t been too bad. In
general
, he was reasonable.

More importantly, he hadn’t been too ill since then either. That had been in June, right after he’d come off the antidepressants that had messed him around so badly, and Jayden was hoping that the good streak was going to last. But then, it might just have been that the last three months in London had had him too busy, or busy enough that he could hide it easier. Maybe. He was
good
at hiding it, when he really wanted to. Worryingly good.

But it wasn’t worth thinking about now. Now was Christmas and tacky decorations and Rosie and having a headache by two in the afternoon and maybe sneaking Darren off upstairs again for ‘a game’ in Jayden’s room. Jayden might try and tell Rosie that ‘necking’ was a vampire game too, it had worked on Misha when they were teenagers. Or maybe Darren would invent some other excuse for her, and Jayden would try not to laugh, and Dad would make a snide comment when he heard about it and Mum would hit him for being scandalous…

Now was for family and celebration and being happy and sleeping wound around each other as tightly as possible in Jayden’s tiny bed.

Now wasn’t for depression.

“Game of pool?” he asked, nodding towards the tables, and Darren shrugged, one shoulder higher than the other.

“Go on, then,” he said, and Jayden watched him set up, left arm still slightly awkward, hair burning almost copper in the warm pub light. Jayden felt like he was in a more-than-good place, eyeing Darren’s long legs and narrow hips in baggy jeans, his broad shoulders and leather jacket, his wild hair and the glasses that had become permanent
last
Christmas instead of fleeting.

Jayden felt lucky.

* * * *

It was half past midnight when they turned into Attlee Road: dark, icy cold, and spinning loosely underneath their shoes. Darren’s arm was warm around Jayden’s waist, the leather too cool, and two drinks had turned into five each (Jayden suspected Darren had snuck in a sixth when he wasn’t paying attention) and a pool tournament with a couple of guys who had turned up at around eight that had gone to St. John’s as well. Jayden couldn’t remember the names, but the faces had been familiar, and Darren had recalled some inside jokes with them, and it had been nice to be able to remember school without the bad bits attached. To remember school
after
Darren had come along, after Jayden had left Woodbourne, after everything.

But before going to Cambridge.

“You weren’t as heavy at school,” Jayden accused as he unlatched the gate; Darren simply smiled and pushed him up against the front door for a messy kiss, open-mouthed and lax, barely missing the knocker. “Oh my God, you’re unbelievable,” Jayden whispered into his mouth, fizzy and tart from the mixture of cider and lager, and laughed lightly when Darren pinched him through his coat. “That’s not going to work.”

“Shame, might shut you up,” Darren muttered, and Jayden pulled his hair.

“God, you’re a mess.”

“You love me anyway.”

“I do,” Jayden agreed, kissing the side of his mouth. Darren hummed, his eyes closing. They had looked cat-like under the orange streetlights of the main road, and Jayden kissed an eyelid hoping they would open again. They didn’t. He kissed the bridge of his nose instead. “Always love you, you know that, even when you’re being a drunk tosser.”

“Mm, maybe I do.”

“You do.”

“Yeah, okay,” Darren said and worked cold hands under Jayden’s coat.

“Shit!”

“Chilly?”

“
Yes
. And ssh. We can’t wake Rosie up.”

“You’re being noisy, not me,” Darren murmured, kissing him again, loose and messy and gorgeous and half-hard in his cold jeans, and Jayden wanted so
badly
to be able to say
to hell with it
and break into the garage and just…just
fuck
, right there.

Only he didn’t have garage keys, and it was really cold, and Dad would go mental if they got anything on his car, and Darren was always ready because he was a bit of a clean freak when it came to personal hygiene but Jayden was pretty sure he hadn’t taken lubricant to the pub, for God’s sake, and Jayden
definitely
didn’t have a condom, so…

“
Ssh
,” he whispered again and smiled, peeling Darren’s mouth away from his neck.

Darren exaggeratedly placed a finger on his lips, and Jayden chuckled as he was finally allowed to unlock the front door and let them in. He wasn’t allowed very far inside before a hand was in the back of his jeans, though, and he hooked the chain over blindly as Darren pushed him back into the door and shifted close enough that no air could get between them, mouth over Jayden’s and a thigh sliding between his knees.

“Oh, is
that
what you’re after?” Jayden whispered sarcastically into that fizzy mouth, and Darren pushed large, insistent hands into his coat and under his shirt, reaching his nipple and pinching it expertly between finger and thumb, a spark of pure, hot pleasure bolting from chest to spine to dick. Jayden groaned, muted it, and hissed into Darren’s mouth. “
Promises
. Mm, maybe. Upstairs, come on, ssh.”

He had to lead Darren by the hand, to stop him from trying for the living room sofa (a favourite of his at Jayden’s student flat in Bristol, or the old flat in Southampton, mostly because in Southampton it had horrified Rachel, and in Bristol it had been the comfiest surface in the whole flat). The lights were all out upstairs, but Rosie’s bedroom door was propped ajar, so Jayden shut his entirely, crowding Darren towards the bed and persuading him, through kisses and interrupted touches, to take his coat and shoes off before letting anything develop further.

“You’re impossible,” he whispered; Darren smiled into his neck and twisted Jayden down onto the bed in reply. “And
stubborn
, oh my God.”

“I want to show you something,” came the quiet reply.

“Already seen it.”

“Something else,” Darren murmured, wriggling out of his jeans and popping the button on Jayden’s. Jayden held his hand in place for a moment, rubbing up into his fingers enticingly and enjoying the sparks of pure
want
that Darren’s touch always elicited, before letting Darren finish the job and pull the denim off.

“What, then?”

“This, see,” Darren whispered, slurring a little from the alcohol, and he reached clumsily to switch on the bedside lamp, teetering dangerously at the edge of the bed before sitting back on Jayden’s hips, the pressure over his crotch enticing, and taking off his shirt, stretching like a professional porn star in the process. The flex of his abs and chest was distracting, and Jayden slid open palms up that hard stomach before his eyes found the change and he stilled.

“What’s…?”

The scar tissue from the stabbing had gone—or rather, it had been painted over.
Inked
over. Black ink was stark on Darren’s white skin and in the gentle glow of the lamp. More specifically, black
notes
. A short reel of sheet music, rolling from the treble clef tattooed on the very top of his left arm, over the top of his shoulder and down towards his pectoral muscle, the staff lines looping and whirling but perfectly parallel, the dark notes themselves shimmying over his skin almost delicately. It was pretty in its simplicity, and strange in its choice. Even through the alcohol, Jayden knew this was…special. Somehow.

“You…” Jayden blinked and lightly touched a finger to them. He could feel the harsh edges of the staff lines, narrow and almost knifed in, and the soft blur of ink on the notes, like polish or a wax crayon, distinctly different to the feel of Darren’s skin. “When did you…?”

“Two weeks ago,” Darren murmured, folding a hand over Jayden’s on his bare shoulder. Jayden could still feel the rough scar tissue, the thickened stretch of it, but it was completely dominated by the music. The tattoo felt almost alive, in the feel of it under his fingers and the heat of it from Darren’s skin, somehow more intense along the lines.

“What is it?”

“It’s a piece from the
Devil’s Trill Sonata
,” Darren said quietly. Jayden pushed his hand aside to sit up a little and peer at the tattoo closer, almost plucking at the notes, trying to read them when he’d never learned how to. “A few of the trills themselves.”

“…Why?” Jayden whispered eventually.

“To remind me I’m not dreaming anymore.”

Something in his tone made Jayden glance up into his face, and when he did, those green eyes were intense and sharply focused, the alcohol barely there. Jayden’s breath caught; he heard Darren’s message, heard the weight in his words, and reached, sliding his hand back over the tattoo and around Darren’s neck to pull him down into a kiss as pure as it was hungry, as if something inside him was reaching for something inside Darren, yearning for him in some way more intense than just sex, more desperate than just the physical.

“S’isn’t a dream,” he whispered into Darren’s lips, sinking back to the bed and rubbing his fingers over that tattoo as Darren followed, transferring his attention to Jayden’s neck and pulling at his T-shirt, coaxing it up. “It’s never been a dream, not you and me.”

Darren said nothing, focusing on Jayden’s neck and chest and pleasure; Jayden felt the tattoo through the rise and the peak and the fall until it must have ached, but Darren still said nothing.

Jayden was woken by a very persistent tugging sensation on his arm, and groaned. It was too early for being
alive
—if it was before noon, it was too early, and it was
Saturday
, for God’s sake,
and
Christmas Day—and he mumbled something incoherent to make Darren leave him alone. There. Awake. Now go away.

Then there was a wet sort of sob, and Jayden woke the rest of the way up—only to find, on opening his eyes, the tugging was on the wrong arm, and his brain was stupid anyway. Darren was buried under the duvet by the wall, because
since never
did Darren wake up before Jayden did; Jayden’s right arm was hanging off the bed, and being persistently pulled by…

“Rosie?” he mumbled, scrubbing sleep out of his eyes.

She sniffled again, putting her hand in her mouth along with a corner of her security blanket. She was dressed in her pink butterfly pyjamas, hair askew from the plaits Mum tied in for her at night, face as red as her hair and tear tracks gleaming in the light bleeding into the room from around the curtains. His door was ajar, and the landing dark beyond it.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” Jayden asked when she escalated from sniffling to a quiet sort of crying, little shoulders hitching. She held up her arms beseechingly and he picked her up, settling her in the bed between himself and Darren, petting her fluffy red hair. She clung, sniffily and upset, and Jayden made a low cooing noise to hopefully avoid a full-on wailing fit. Rosie could
shriek
when she cried.

“I can’t find Daddy,” she mumbled tearfully and buried her face in Jayden’s shoulder.

“Did you have a bad dream?” he coaxed. The alarm clock said it was half past seven. The light around the curtains was dull and grey and barely-there.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, did you check in Dad’s room?”

“Uh-huh. I can’t find Mummy either,” she mumbled. Jayden cuddled her and nudged Darren with his elbow.

“Urgh.”

“Darren, help me,” he whispered.

“
Why
, Jesus.” Or at least that was
probably
what he said. Jayden huffed and elbowed him again insistently. “
What
?”

“Rosie’s upset.”

“She’s not
my
sister.”

Rosie unglued her face from Jayden’s skin to wriggle around and hit the duvet where Darren’s head would be. “
Dan
. Wake
up
.”

“Rosie, cuddle Darren for a bit while I find Mum, okay?” Jayden coaxed, tucking her into the duvet with Darren. Darren grumbled when Jayden peeled back the sheets enough to find his head, but seemed mollified by Jayden kissing his curls, and let Rosie squirm under his arm and latch on to him contentedly. “Okay, Rosie?”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled and wiped her nose on Darren’s arm. Jayden decided not to inform him, and slipped out of bed, closing the bedroom door behind him to keep her in one place. Darren would be okay with her. He was used to little sisters, right?

The baby gate—the source of many bitter arguments between Mum and Dad as to when it should be decommissioned and put back in the loft—was still locked, and he hopped over it and down the stairs. Dad’s boots and coat were gone but the hall was bathed in early morning sunshine and the kitchen light, and Mum was sitting at the table in her dressing gown and slippers with a large mug of coffee and a plate of toast.

“Hello, darling,” she said absently, looking rather as though she’d only just gotten up herself.

“Rosie woke me up,” Jayden said. “I think she had a nightmare. Says she can’t find Dad.”

“Oh, poor poppet.” Mum grimaced. “The nursery took them to a petting zoo last weekend and she didn’t like the goats very much. She’s been a bit clingy since. Has Darren got her?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, she’ll go back to sleep, then,” Mum said and rose to hug him and smooth down his stuck-up hair. Jayden’s was the wrong colour, but it was just as fluffy as Mum’s and Rosie’s. He’d hated it in school, but Darren was always stroking it if they went to sleep together (
actual
sleep, not euphemistic sleep) and Jayden kind of liked it now. “Your father’s gone to pick up Uncle Andy. Do you want breakfast before he gets back, or do you want a fry-up with them?”