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"Have you given it another thought? What I said, the other day?" His mother doesn't take her eyes off the television, but her hands are still in her lap, knitting project abandoned for the moment.
"Mum," Kieren groans, "we have known each other for less than a year."
"I know, I know," she hurries to say. "I don't mean right now. And you are young, you have time – not forever, of course, now that you're ... It's just – your dad and I … "
"Mum, leave it be," Jem says, and Kieren throws her a grateful look, at least until she adds: "Kieren has Simon wrapped around his little finger, I don't think he needs a ring to tie him down."
When he glares at her, she sticks her tongue out at him behind their mother's back.
"Fine," Sue says, disgruntled, but without heat. "Fine. I can see that my opinion is not wanted." She picks up her knitting again, a dark blue monster of soft, fuzzy wool. Kieren has the strong suspicion that she's making a scarf for Simon, even though she hasn't said, and he is doubly glad that his boyfriend is not around for this conversation, seeing as how he still hasn't quite recovered from the last time his mother brought it up.
The first time his mum mentioned the issue of gay marriage, Kieren put his face in his hands and seriously considered shooting himself in the head, this time for good. He didn't know if he should love her for wanting that for him, for them; or if he should hate her for not bringing it up before – before the blush returned to his cheeks, and colour to his eyes, before the hole in the back of his neck started closing up, knotting into an ugly, raised red scar.
He chose to go with merely resenting her for the way it made Simon cringe, the way he couldn't look at Kieren for hours after they left his parents' house. He resented Simon, too, for being so horrified at the thought, but it only lasted a moment. He knows that marriage – whatever kind – is not something Simon had ever thought he would have, had ever wanted to have: not when he was dead, and certainly not the first time he was alive. Marriage was something that normal people did, and Simon thought of himself as far from normal as anyone could be.
Kieren rather likes normal. He isn't ashamed of who he is, who he has been, and he has always valued doing the right thing over fitting in, but he also does not have a particular desire to stand out if it can be helped. In fact, for a while after they warm up, he is so caught up in the exhilarating relief of finally being normal again, it takes him a long time to realize that in the eyes of other people, he and Simon are anything but.
"What do you mean, boyfriend?"
Gran Esther is frowning so hard that her face wrinkles like a forgotten T-shirt stuffed into the back of a wardrobe.
"Mum …" Sue says quietly, but Gran Esther shushes her with a gesture. Seeing his mum like this, with her own mother, makes Kieren think of all the times he has been angry with her for not standing up to his dad.
Gran Esther makes an impatient noise. "Are you telling me he came back from the dead as a poof?"
Sue looks upset. "Mum," she says, and then doesn't seem to know how to continue.
Kieren rolls his eyes. "No, Gran, hell did not turn me gay."
She sniffs. "Do you like causing your family pain?" she asks. "Wasn't this whole undead business unpleasant enough?"
"That was just a phase, Mum," Sue says, with a bit more strength in her voice.
"Well," Gran Esther says with a sigh. "Let's just hope that he gets over the queer phase just as quickly. Children these days. Next he's going to say he wants to be an artist."
By the time Kieren gets home, he thinks it's hilarious, and he can barely keep his voice straight long enough to tell Simon the whole story.
Simon doesn't laugh.
"What?" Kieren says, confused, when Simon just stares at his hands. "What is it? Come on, it's just Gran Esther, she's always been like that. My dad's parents are great, you'd love them, I promise. Only they moved to Greece a few years ago, so we don't …."
"I corrupted you," Simon says. He sounds so shocked at the thought, Kieren would laugh if he wasn't quite sure that Simon is not joking.
"Are you mad?" he says. "You didn't corrupt me. Well, maybe a little bit," he adds, smiling, and stops himself when Simon glares. "No, but, seriously. I hate to disappoint you, I know you are proud of your conversion skills and all that, but you are not that good. I was gay long before I was dead, you know that."
"Kieren –" Simon says, but he sounds more exasperated than guilty now, and a smile is tugging at the corner of his mouth. Kieren counts that as a success.
"Stop," he says. "It's not worth talking about. I promise you won't have to come with us to Gran's this Christmas, if we are even around. And she's a terrible cook, you don't deserve being subjected to her horrible stuffed turkey. Now, didn't you promise to play me something on the guitar?"
"I did," Simon nods, but instead of picking up the instrument, he reaches for Kieren. Kieren honestly doesn't mind so much, not when he's being snogged like the world is coming to an end. Even though eventually he has to come up for breath. Sometimes being alive certainly has its disadvantages.
They run into Zoe on the street. Or rather, they are walking home after Simon's shift at the medical center and come across her leaning against the Wilsons' fence, coughing and shaking like she's going to fall apart. The other pedestrians in the street give her a wide birth. She is one of the last to change back here in Roarton, as if she has been fighting against it as long as she could, and even now, she seems to resist the transformation with everything she has got.
Kieren reaches out to touch her elbow. "Are you all right there?" he asks.
She looks at him with scorn and spits a mouthful of black bile at his feet.
Simon growls. He moves as if to step between her and Kieren, hands curling into fists at his sides, but Kieren drags him away before he can open his mouth.
They walk the rest of the way in silence.
He tells himself that he isn't afraid, that he merely pities her. Zoe hates that her body is coming alive, and hates them for what they represent. To her, a heartbeat means giving up, selling out, and Kieren tries not to think too much about a time when Simon would have felt the same.
"What do you want to do now?" Kieren asks. His eyes are closed against the sun, his face tilted up to catch as much warmth as possible. They sit on a bench in the cemetery, reveling in the pale light of an early summer sun.
"What do you mean?" Simon asks, his fingers stopping in their caress of Kieren's palm, resting against the inside of his wrist as if to feel for a pulse.
"I was just thinking," Kieren says. "When I go to uni in the fall. I mean. I know you and Dr. Russo get on all right, but I can't imagine you'd want to work in the lab in Roarton forever. Especially now that there aren't any PDS cases left to deal with …" He breaks off, suddenly feeling nervous. "I was just wondering. If you had plans. What you were doing before you died. I mean … do you want to go back to Ireland?"
"No." For a moment, the grip around his wrist becomes painfully tight. Kieren opens his eyes, but Simon is not looking at him, staring out at the line of graves underneath the trees.
"No," he says, more softly this time. He makes a noise, like he's amused. "I was a lecturer," he says. "University of Ulster. Pharmaceutical Science."
"Are you serious?" Kieren asks.
Simon smirks. "How do you think I managed to make our own Neurotriptyline?"
Kieren stares at him, mouth open, until Simon leans in to kiss him. He kisses back, clutches the fabric of Simon's coat and wonders if he should be more appalled at the fact that they are about to get off in his hometown's cemetery.
Only much later, he realizes that Simon never answered his initial question.
"The bloke back there is staring at us," Jem mutters, hunched shoulders indicating her discomfort at the thought of being watched.
"Where?" Philip asks, craning his neck.
"Don't be so bloody obvious," she hisses, drawing her head in further. "Behind Kier," she adds, "the one in the pink shirt."
Kieren turns around quickly and back again before Jem can start yelling at him. "Never seen him before," he says. "So it can't be that he's recognized us."
"And we are all breathing, so that's not it, either." Simon's smile is lopsided.
Philip shrugs. "Probably just that he's bored." He looks around, at the sparse Thursday night crowd at the pub, then raises his brows at them, as if to prove a point.
Jem nods, relieved. "You're right. Dead or alive, we are definitely the most interesting people in here."
It's a night out, at the pub two towns over, and it's a bit awkward, the way it usually is when they all get together: Simon and him, Philip, Jem. It's odd to be around Philip, who still resents them for getting another chance at living when Amy didn't, but who keeps gravitating toward them nonetheless, because they are the only ones who understand what missing Amy feels like.
It's odder yet to spend time like this with Jem, who is trying, trying so hard to get better, for his sake as much as her own, but who has been thrown into another pit of guilt and horror by the news that the undead are waking up, are feeling again, breathing. She doesn't talk about it, not to him, but Kieren can imagine what is eating at her, now that the people she kills in her nightmares don't advance on her with threatening grimaces and broken eyes, but cower in fear, vulnerable and utterly human.
And yet. Despite the awkwardness, the things unsaid, they make it work, if only because there aren't all that many other people they want to be around these days, for one reason or another. Philip goes to get the first round, three pints, and an apple juice for Simon, and they settle in, talking, or, just as often, not – just nursing their drinks, watching people. Kieren thinks, with some practice, he could get used to this.
Simon rises when their glasses are empty, his hand resting on Kieren's shoulder in a fleeting gesture before he heads for the bar, Kieren leaning into it without a second thought.
"Cheers, mate," Philip says, and goes on to tell Jem about the plans he has for the parish council, which Kieren has to admit really has taken a turn for the better since Philip has pretty much taken over. Still, local politics don't interest him enough to keep his attention for long, and his gaze follows Simon, who is leaning against the bar, waiting for their drinks. He is handing the bartender a 20-pound-note when the bloke in the pink shirt sidles up to him.
"Never seen you around here before," Kieren hears him say. He can't see Simon's expression, but watches him shake his head.
"Probably because I'm not from here," he says, voice soft, but careful.
"I'm Mattie," the man says, offers his hand. Simon studies it for a moment, then reaches out to shake it.
"Simon," he says.
"Any chance you will let me buy you a pint, Simon, after you've dropped these off with your mates?" the pink shirt asks. Kieren narrows his eyes.
As if he can feel it, Simon turns around to look at him, his gaze intense and dark. "Thank you," he says, almost absent-mindedly, "but I'm here with someone."
"Figures," the bloke says, sounding frustrated, and turns around as well, to see who Simon's looking at. His eyes widen.
"That one?" he asks, and there is an ugly twist to his voice. "Bit young for you, don't you think?"
"Fuck off, berk," Jem tells him, unexpectedly. Kieren realizes that she and Philip have stopped talking, and are watching the exchange with interest.
The man huffs, annoyed, and turns away. Simon is staring at Kieren with an odd look on his face. Kieren shrugs and smiles helplessly, but Simon has already turned back to the bar. When he comes back to their table with their drinks, he carries three pints, and a double shot of whisky for himself.
Kieren feels something unpleasant stir in the pit of his stomach and tries to catch Simon's eye, but his boyfriend won't look at him as he's reaching for his glass.
Jem raises her brows at them, but she stays quiet, and without a comment switches to Fanta after her second beer. At least she'll be sober enough to drive them home.
Zoe kills herself two weeks after fully coming alive. She swallows a bottle of Blue Oblivion, which apparently kills her after hours of seizures and cramps. Whether this is an act of suicide or a misguided attempt to regain her previous undead state, no one can know for sure. She does leave a note, saying in an unsteady scrawl: The second rising will be a day of judgment.
Simon hears about it at work from Dr. Russo, who is called in to write the death certificate, and by the time Kieren looks up from his painting at the sound of the door, Simon has already set out the Tullamore Dew and two glasses. It is two in the afternoon. They work their way into the bottle.
"This is my fault," Simon says finally, with an expression of shame and self-hatred Kieren remembers from Amy's funeral.
"Simon, no …" he starts.
"It is," Simon insists. "I gave her something to believe in, and then I turned around and betrayed that belief." He looks straight at Kieren. "I don't regret what I did. But I let her down. And now she's dead."
Kieren doesn't respond, because in a way, it is the truth, and Simon does not need people lying to him. But he does not want to see Simon beating himself up over this, either: Simon is a victim of the Undead Prophet just as much as Zoe was. He betrayed the cause because he tried to do what was right, which for Kieren is not really a betrayal at all. Besides, that day in the graveyard, Simon came back to him, saved his life, and that is hardly something he could ever fault him for.
In the end, he pours them another glass of whisky, and makes sure to lock eyes with Simon as he drinks.
"To the dead," he says, raising his glass.
"And to the living," Simon nods, drinking as well.
"Give this to Simon, when you see him, now, will you?" His mother holds up the wool monster. Kieren needs both hands to take it from her.
"You didn't have to do this, Mum," Kieren says. She smiles nervously and doesn't quite meet his eyes.
"He'll need something to keep him warm this winter," she says, and Kieren has to laugh.
"It's not even really summer yet."
She rolls her eyes. "It's England," she points out. "Does it really matter?"
"Maybe not," he says and hugs the scarf against his chest. It's incredibly soft. "Thank you, Mum. He'll love it."
She blushes and smiles. When he leaves, she hugs him, unexpectedly.
The scarf is so big he has to stop and readjust his grip twice on the way home. People walking past give him funny looks. He gives them a wide grin in return and wonders what Simon is going to say.
His boyfriend is in the bedroom when Kieren gets home.
"What are you doing?" Kieren asks curiously, pushing the door open, and frowns.
Simon is sitting on the bed, as still as a statue, staring at his old rucksack, laid out on the covers.
"What are you doing?" Kieren asks again, more slowly, as he is taking in the picture, and then, starting to put things together:
"Where are you going?"
He doesn't recognize his own voice anymore over the ringing in his ears.
Simon looks up at that, finally, guilt written all over his face, and Kieren suddenly finds it difficult to breathe. There was a moment, after he cut his wrists, before he lost consciousness, that felt a lot like this. He wonders if he is dying. He thinks of Rick leaving for the army, of Rick's cold body in his arms, thinks of Simon's empty room and the bottle of Blue Oblivion, of Amy's hand, slippery with blood, of Jem's face as she's pointing a gun at him, and …
The next thing he knows, he finds himself crouching on the floor, breathing into the plastic bag Simon is holding in front of his face, while Simon's other hand is rubbing his back.
"It's okay, Kieren," Simon says helplessly. "You are all right. It's okay."
"Why are you leaving?" Kieren squeezes out, as soon as he gets enough air into his lungs. His hands are shaking, he is vaguely aware that he is crying. "Please don't leave."
"Kieren –" Simon sighs. "I'm not – I'm holding you back."
"What?" Kieren struggles to sit up straight, stares at Simon in disbelief. "What in bloody hell are you talking about?"
Simon looks as lost as Kieren feels. "You are young," he says, as if it pains him to speak. "You are starting a new life."
"What? Young? You sound like my dad. I don't understand."
Simon runs a hand over his face. "I thought you wanted – I thought you were trying - that day in the park, when you asked about my plans …"
Kieren's mind is in chaos, and it takes him a long time to understand what Simon means. "What, last month? You –" He starts shoving Simon, not really hitting him, even though part of him wants to.
"You bloody wanker. You are such an arse!"
Simon actually has the nerve to look a bit hurt. "What …"
"You git, I was trying to ask you …" Kieren sobs. "I was trying to ask if you'd move to London with me."
"Oh." Simon makes, sounding shell-shocked. He sits very still.
"I don't want you to leave," Kieren rambles, more tears falling now, and his nose is dripping. "You can't leave."
"Okay," Simon says numbly. "Okay, I won't, I promise."
His right hand is running absent-minded patterns over Kieren's back. His other hand comes up to touch Kieren's face, and Kieren falls into him, tries to bury his face in Simon's chest.
Somehow they find themselves tangled in something soft. "What is this?" Simon asks, trying to get his arm free from the wool monster that seems to be clinging to him.
Kieren sniffs. "My mum knitted you a scarf, you idiot," he says, and this of all things sets Simon off, and now he is crying as well. He cries through Kieren wrapping the giant scarf around him like a blanket, through Kieren getting up to blow his nose and fetch some water, and he's still crying when the last of the daylight outside begins to disappear.
"I don't think this is quite what Mum was hoping for," Kieren finally says. He is starting to be a bit worried, wariness mixing with the relief that Simon seems to have abandoned all plans of leaving him.
Simon shakes his head, looks at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I love you," he says, and then, dead serious: "Life scares me."
"Yes," Kieren agrees, sitting down next to him, their shoulders touching. "It's terrifying." He takes a deep breath. "And I love you, too."
They move to London in early September. The last time they visit the cemetery in Roarton before their departure, it's raining, and the soil on the graves is muddy and dark. Simon hunches his shoulders and pulls the scarf more tightly around him, as Kieren sets their flowers against Amy's gravestone, next to the lilies Philip brought the day before. On the way back, they pass Gary in the street, who turns his head away and pretends not to see them.
Simon reaches for Kieren's hand, interlacing their fingers, slotting their palms together. Kieren squeezes his hand, and marvels at how this touch, despite everything else, is the one thing that feels wonderfully, utterly normal.