The Devil's Trill Sonata

Chapter 1-2

“This is going to be my year,” Jayden said to himself and turned in a half-circle in the room.

It was a small room, tucked up under the college roof, with a narrow window that was probably as old as the rest of the college, and plug sockets that had been inexpertly added several hundred years after the glass. The bed was a narrow wrought-iron job with a sagging mattress; the desk was impressively large, and a wardrobe that could have held another bed dominated the north wall, looming ominously over the threadbare carpet.

But it was his room, for the next three years, and the enormity of it was just…just…daunting.

“You look terrified,” Darren said.

Jayden turned towards him. Over the pile of boxes and bags in the middle of the room, Darren lounged against the closed door in his baggy jeans and leather jacket. The jeans were ancient; the jacket was newer, Scott’s Christmas present last year. Jayden liked the new one better. It had buttoned-down lapels that he could use to pull Darren around—and he did, hooking his fingers into one and tugging him over the bags to wrap his arms around his neck and bury his face in that wild curly hair.

“I’m going to miss you,” he mumbled.

Darren’s hands slid around his waist, and Jayden clung tightly to the familiar smell (Tesco-brand aftershave, apples, and the air freshener in his car) and tried to commit it to memory. This was going to be their last hug until Christmas, and he struggled to wrap his mind around it, never mind his heart.

“You’ll throw yourself into your jolly good life, what, and forget all about me,” Darren mocked gently, and Jayden pinched his shoulder without letting go.

“I’m going to miss you,” he repeated obstinately, and Darren squeezed.

“Christmas is only, like, fourteen weeks or something,” he said. “Anyway, you’ll be having all the fun, and I’ll be working a nine-to-five and probably trying to drown my neighbour’s kids or something.”

Jayden huffed, and leaned back to cup Darren’s face and examine every inch of it. He felt scared of letting Darren go somehow, because, okay, fine, Christmas was only fourteen weeks away or whatever, but they’d never been apart for fourteen weeks and…and…

And they’d been sixteen (Darren hadn’t even been that) when they got together, and Jayden had turned nineteen two weeks ago, and this was different. He was going to university (Cambridge University, no less, which meant a workload like nothing he’d ever known) and Darren was starting a job a hundred and thirty miles away in Southampton, and…

And school couples didn’t make it.

They just didn’t. They never did; they broke up in the first year, if not before, and as much as Jayden didn’t want to break up with Darren, there was part of him asking if maybe…maybe it wouldn’t hurt less to do it now, before time and distance and experience did it for them. Maybe it would be like ripping off a plaster—brutal, but it was over faster and it hurt less in the long run, right?

But every time Jayden tried, or even thought seriously about it, he wanted to throw up, or hug him, or…just not. So he hadn’t. So maybe…maybe this was going to be the last hug. The last time. The last…

He leaned up (Darren had finally won the height battle, by about an inch and a half) and kissed him, soft and wistful and hoping that there’d be more kisses at Christmas, hoping that a hundred and thirty miles and university and work didn’t pull them apart, hoping he’d never have to let go for good, hoping they’d be the ones to prove the trend wrong. f**k the bell curve, as Paul would say.

Fuck, f**k, f**k the bell curve.

“I’m going to miss you,” he whispered again, clinging to Darren’s lips and his hair, and Darren bumped their noses lightly.

“Miss you too,” he murmured in a low voice. “But you’ll be fine. You got everything you ever wanted. Your straight A's, your Cambridge—and hey, you got your boyfriend a few years earlier than your plan said, right? Don’t go too mushy on me.”

Jayden laughed breathlessly. He felt giddy with the nerves, and he couldn’t unglue his hands from Darren’s hair, but Darren didn’t seem to mind. He’d never seemed to mind being…being…cuddled. He might not openly admit to liking it, but…Jayden knew he did. He knew.

“I’m still going to miss you,” he repeated into Darren’s shoulder, clutching him tightly. He’d tried to persuade Darren to come too. He was brilliant; his grades had been as good as Jayden’s. Better, maybe, given that Darren was a scientist, really, and there was no way Jayden could have gotten an A in any kind of chemistry. Darren was clever. There was no way Cambridge wouldn’t want him too. But Darren had just laughed, said he wouldn’t be caught dead in any university that still liked a good old-fashioned qualification in Latin, and had stuck by that. He'd ditched the idea of university altogether, never mind Cambridge. No matter how much Jayden had wheedled and coaxed and bribed and bullied and outright threatened. He’d stuck to it, and now he wasn’t coming, and Jayden was going to have to get used to being without him, for the first time in three years, and Jayden almost didn’t remember life without Darren.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Darren murmured, nosing at Jayden’s cheek lightly, “but I might miss you too.”

“How much?”

“Oh, not that much.”

Jayden huffed and lifted his head to kiss him again, sharp and with a definite edge of a warning. “How much?” he repeated.

“A bit?”

“You’re being an arse.”

“And yet, here you are.” Darren shrugged and grinned unapologetically. After a moment, the smile softened and he bumped their noses again. “You’ll stop missing me after, like, an hour. And then you’ll completely lose yourself in this weird old world and forget all about me until Christmas.”

“Not likely,” Jayden murmured, stroking those angular cheekbones reverently. Three years, two inches to his height, and a sudden weight loss at seventeen had drawn out that gorgeous face even further, added a hungry hollowness and an ethereal beauty. Hadn’t done much for his hair, though. If anything, it had made it look even wilder as his face looked leaner. “Promise me you’ll call before you move to Southampton?”

“I already promised.”

“And promise you’ll call every week,” he added. “And,” Darren groaned, “promise you’ll stay away from any LGBT groups or gay bars, because I don’t want you finding someone else, and…”

“Jayden, I’m bisexual. What do you want me to do, become a hermit?”

“Hang out with lesbians,” Jayden replied promptly.

“…I suppose I asked for that.”

“And promise you’ll come and visit me, when I’m not drowning in work. And make time for me to visit you. And come back to Mum’s for Christmas with me, because I know you won’t visit your parents and you shouldn’t spend Christmas alone and…”

“I’ll think about that last one,” Darren bargained.

“Okay,” Jayden murmured and kissed him. He’d persuaded Mum to let Darren stay the night last night, and the s*x had been more than a little desperate because they weren’t going to see each other again for months, and it might…

He crushed the hopeless thought, and pushed everything into the kiss, wishing they had the time and the privacy to just clear off the bed and do it all again, just one last time. Just once more.

“Hey,” Darren murmured, breaking the kiss to speak but barely moving. When Jayden peeked, those stunning green eyes were closed. “We’ll be okay, Jayden. We’re tougher than this.”

“Promise me you’ll still come to me if you feel ill,” Jayden whispered.

It hung in the tiny space between their lips, like the ghosts of the concerti Darren hadn’t played since the attack. The darkness that had lost its seasonal pattern, but not its strength when it did finally decided to strike. Its brutality.

“I promise,” Darren said, and Jayden kissed him until he couldn’t breathe.

“I suppose you have to go soon,” he murmured.

“Mm,” Darren said. “Motorway’s waiting. So’s my own packing. And your wildly successful degree.” He stroked his hands down Jayden’s arms to take his hands. “We’ll be fine, Jayden.”

“I’m still holding you to that promise.”

It took another ten minutes and maybe another ten kisses to let Darren go, because whatever Darren said, Jayden was scared of this. He was scared of letting go of them, because that was what was going to happen. Darren might think otherwise—they had rowed something awful, when he’d accepted his job offer and Jayden had suggested taking a break while he was at uni, and Darren hadn’t wanted to.

“Dump me or don’t, Jayden, but I won’t take a break from you unless you tell me it’s over. And there’s no coming back from over,” he’d shouted, and Jayden couldn’t do it. He couldn’t break up with Darren.

But this was uni. They weren’t going to see each other at all for months on end, and they would both meet all sorts of new people—Jayden here and Darren at work—and teenage relationships didn’t last. They never lasted. And it broke Jayden’s heart that they weren’t going to last, and it would hurt less to break it off now and save them both the pain of it all dying out slowly and lingering on, he knew it would, but…but…he couldn’t. Even if it wasn’t going to last, he loved Darren, and he just couldn’t do it.

So Jayden kept kissing him, kept holding on, and tried to commit it all to memory, just in case it really was the last time.

“I love you,” he whispered at the door, before finally letting Darren go, and Darren squeezed his hand as he stepped back.

“Tell me again at Christmas,” he said, and Jayden’s heart lurched with a warm flood of pure feeling. “Love you too, Jayden.”

And then he was gone, and his boots were loud on the ancient stairs, and when Jayden managed to unlatch the rusty window and ease it open, he was just in time to lean out and wave to the car, and he thought he saw Darren’s smile as it pulled away.

Jayden's chest hurt, and he missed him already.