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After the wake, Simon stays to help clean up, gathering the scattered remains of food, and plastic cups and plates left behind by Amy's mourners. The last of whom only trickled out of the Walker house a few minutes before; the house is quiet with Amy's post-funeral, as she put it in her will, “party playlist” having finished running through for the fourth time. Mostly quiet.
Simon is holding a big plastic rubbish bag, filling it for lack of better things to do; idle hands and all that. His mind is running down avenues better left to a clear head, and Simon wishes someone would put Amy's CD on again. Something to fill up the silence so he can focus on anything other than his thoughts. Simon doesn't have it in him to let the tidal wave of what he's done fall over him. Not yet. He needs to get back to the bungalow and put a plan together. Unpack, and assess just what a mess he's made. Because he's crossed a line. He did it without thinking, and he would do it again, but it doesn't lessen the weight he feels settling on his shoulders. It's the weight of what he's wrought, more or less a leaderless militia and a life, or likely more than one life, in his hands.
The rubbish bag is suddenly heavier than it should be.
Simon breathes, eyes closing as he tries to focus on dealing with that later. If he focuses, the Walker house isn't nearly so quiet. There's the thrum of a bass line shaking the house ever so slightly; that only started up a few minutes after the last of Amy's send off had left, tear stains on her cheeks, holding Kieren's two hands in her own and kissing Sue's cheek. Simon doesn't know who she was, someone from Amy's pre-Undead life, but she had waved at Simon before she left. And Simon had raised his hand in a gesture of farewell, giving the woman a slight smile. But that seems ages ago now.
There's a creaking on the stairs, and the hush of a talking just out of range for Simon to hear what they're saying.
And then there's a hand on his shoulder.
Simon keeps his eyes closed. He breathes in, fingers clenching in the material of the black plastic and hearing it rustle in his grip. Simon says, low, but sure, “Kieren,” just as Kieren begins to ask Simon if he's alright.
Kieren's hand squeezes Simon's shoulder once before pulling away. His touch lingers though, on the material of Simon's jacket; Simon can feel it, soft as it is and through the layers. If Simon's being honest, he thinks he might be imagining it.
Simon opens his eyes and looks at the picture of Amy, dear Amy, on the table. It's from when she was alive, before, and her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are the color they were. Before. Simon wonders if this was the picture they displayed at her first funeral. And he wishes there had been time to get one of her in this life before she had gone. An idle sort of want that does more to weigh one down with guilt.
“Are you okay?” Kieren asks, getting through the words this time.
“Yeah, fine. Just.” Simon cuts off, the words unwilling to form. He jerks his head to indicate, but he's not entirely sure what he's trying to say. That he's lost in his mind? Lost in grief?
Kieren, however, nods like he understands. He's reaching for Simon again, fingers curling around Simon's free hand. It had curled it into a fist without Simon knowing, and Kieren's touch makes Simon, reflexively, let go, shaking his hand out as he releases a deep breath. He lets Kieren curl fingers around his own, his forefinger caught between Kieren's fingers and thumb. The overwhelming thoughts are quieted by the feeling of Kieren running his thumb back-and-forth over Simon's skin.
And Kieren smiles, gentle, but not hiding for a moment that he's so sad as well. It's so careful and honest and human, more human than Simon's seen in years, that Simon's chest feels like it's warming.
If he had a beating heart, Simon would bet it would beat a little faster at the way Kieren's hand falters, then slips hesitantly into his own, entangling their fingers until they're palm to palm. And, yeah, Simon thinks, he would do it again. He would cross the line because there's Kieren.
All there is, is Kieren.
-
It gets late enough that Sue won't let him leave. Simon tries to protest, looking at Kieren for help, but Kieren just shakes his head, helpless and helplessly fond, from the doorway, leaving Simon to try and explain that, as an Undead person, he's not really worried about getting home. But it's Roarton, and there's a history of how unsafe it can be to be Undead and out alone in this town. It's an argument Simon won't win.
So he lets Sue pull extra sheets and a duvet from the cupboard, and Simon takes them in his arms, smiling back at Sue the best he can. It's not his most charming, he knows, balancing the lot in one arm so he can run a hand over his hair that has fallen out of the combed back style he did for the wake. Sue smiles back but it's not quite right, something being held back, and Simon tries not to let anxiety choke him up. He feels young, looking at Sue, and wanting her to like him. Even with the world on the precipice of something, Simon just wants Kieren's parents to like him. And isn't that a strange thing?
“Thank you, Sue.” Simon adjusts the duvet and things again, to his other arm so he can hold out his right hand. She looks at his outstretched hand, and the smile becomes amused as she shakes it.
“I'll just sleep out here, yeah?” Simon asks, indicating the sofa. And she looks everywhere but at him, taking in the party streamers still hanging, and realizes that maybe it would be unkind to ask Simon to sleep in a room so filled with reminder of loss. Her lips falter into a frown and Simon thinks that she wants to apologize. When Sue meets his eyes, Simon smiles, really tries to smile, and says, “This'll be grand. Thank you, Sue.”
“Not a bother,” Sue says, and she doesn't cry. Simon watches her go to Kieren for a hug, saying something to Kieren that Simon can't hear to which Kieren nods, patting his mother's back before pushing her gently toward the stairs. Simon watches Kieren watch Sue leave. And like every time before, Simon can hardly look away. Kieren has a magnetism, for Simon, that tugs at something Simon hasn't felt stir for a long time. If it ever had before.
Simon thinks he must have an awestruck look on his face because, when Kieren looks at him, befuddlement takes up Kieren's features. Just as it has every time Kieren has caught Simon staring. Simon stares like Kieren has hooked the moon, but he doesn't have the words to prove to Kieren that he has. The moon and the whole load of stars above.
“Sure you're alright down here?”
Simon nods, looking away. “Yeah, yeah. I'll be fine.” When he looks up again his features are tempered and though he is bursting with what he needs to tell Kieren, Simon keeps it locked up. For tonight. Until he has sorted the words out and can give Kieren reassurances, and a plan. “Go on to bed,” Simon says. “I'll see you in the morning.”
Alone and sitting on the Walker sofa with the duvet fallen against him in his wrinkled suit, Simon wishes he was brave.
He doesn't quite put his head in his hands, but it's a close thing. He stares straight ahead at the painting of Kieren and Steve and it all presses in. He can hear the angry voice that derailed him so much in his youth gaining power it hasn't had in years -
There's a creak on the stairs. When Simon turns around, Kieren is standing there. He's smiling, and he waves at Simon, embarrassed, before he takes the last of the stairs down. Simon turns on the sofa so he can watch Kieren's every movement. Kieren looks soft and warm and like a home in long sleeves and long pajama bottom; and like this afternoon, confidence is nearly pouring out of him.
“I couldn't sleep.” Kieren says, approaching. Then he stops, smiling down at his hands, before beaming at Simon. “No. Actually. I just, I couldn't sleep with you down here. By yourself. With all of Amy's ...”
Simon watches Kieren look around, watches the light on Kieren's skin and the way Kieren swallows, but stays smiling.
“Amy's things,” Kieren finishes. Moving closer. Simon turns as far as he can on the sofa so he can watch Kieren come up to the back of the sofa. Kieren has his hands balled in fists until the moment he is close enough to reach out for Simon.
Simon doesn't expect it when Kieren does, reach out for him, hands going to Simon's shoulders as Kieren bends down to brush their lips together.
Simon shocks into the kiss, like every kiss before, startled and happy as his hands come up, hesitantly, to cup Kieren's face. But so careful, not to make it more than holding Kieren where he wants to be, as the kiss deepens, and one of Kieren's hands has to leave Simon's shoulder to hang onto the back of the sofa to keep his balance.
Kieren kisses like he's been aching to kiss Simon for ages, and maybe that's true. Simon wants to say a thousand things, to tell Kieren how glad he is to have found him. But he doesn't.
When Kieren begins to pull away, Simon lets him. Hands drifting from Kieren's face, down to smooth over his shoulders and down further from Kieren's arms to his hands. Kieren's hands turn under his own so they're holding onto each other; Kieren smiles down at him, and he looks so good without make-up or contacts in the Walker living room, surrounded by his own art and looking happy, truly so, for the first time since. Since Simon doesn't know when.
“I have to go to bed,” Kieren tells him, though he's making no motion to let go. His lips curl toward a smile, and he bites at his lip to keep it from spreading into a full grin. Probably guilt and something else stopping him from wanting to be wholly happy in the moment, Simon thinks. It shouldn't make him giddy, Kieren being so happy with him in this moment. But it does, and Simon soaks it up while he has it.
“I'll see you in the morning,” Simon says, running one hand up Kieren's wrist to hold his arm in his hand, running his thumb back and forth over the knit of Kieren's shirt and the scar there. The latter is mostly unintentional; when Simon realizes what he's doing, he hesitates. Kieren doesn't pull away in the moment of Simon's hesitation, so Simon resumes with the reassuring gesture.
It's a moment of stillness before Kieren's free hand pulls free from Simon's hand. A breath catches in Simon's throat before Kieren's hands come up to press against the back of Simon's head, cupping and cradling Simon close.
Simon breathes shakily out.
“See you in the morning. For breakfast. Which we don't eat,” Kieren says, amusement in his voice, as they separate very slowly from each other. He's letting himself grin now, and Simon can't help responding with a chuckle.
“Sounds lovely,” Simon says. He doesn't ache at the loss of Kieren's touch, he doesn't. And he isn't overly fond, watching Kieren take a detour on his way to the stairs so he can run his thumb and forefinger down the frame of Amy's picture. And watching Kieren walk to the stairs with his back to Simon doesn't make anything in Simon's chest tight. Really, it doesn't.
But it does. It all does. Simon wants to follow Kieren, and not just up the stairs. Simon is so fucking gone for that boy; he was a fool to have ever entertained any other notion.
-
Simon wakes up with a name on his tongue and a panicked feeling in his chest that goes nowhere.
He swallows back the name and presses a hand to his chest, even though he knows it won't console a feeling that is being caused by a phantom organ. Phantom muscle.
It's bright in the room now, and he has lines and button sized circles pressed into his skin from falling asleep in his suit. His hair is completely free of the product he applied earlier and it hangs in his eyes as he realizes why it's so bright. Someone has pulled back the curtains, and he's on the sofa of the Walker living room, with a painted visage of Kieren smiling down at him. Nearby someone, likely the same someone, is humming. Simon thinks that he might hear bird-songs beneath the humming, coming from outside the windows, which is mildly puzzling. He doesn't remember noticing birds migrating back into Roarton.
Simon sits up, pushing the duvet off and it falls to the floor. Simon makes quick work, unbuttoning the collars and cuffs of his shirt, feeling suffocated by the words trapped in his throat and the remnants of a dreaming that is quickly escaping him. He takes deep breathes in an attempt to ease his unease.
The humming ends abruptly on an, “Oh,” that hangs in the air, unaccompanied, until Simon turns to look through to the dining area. Sue Walker is standing there, plate in hand, and flushed as she says, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you,” and means it. As if it's something a mum should say to Simon.
Simon doesn't know what to do with the way she runs her wedding ring along the edge of the plate, not-quite frozen, but not moving to finish setting the table. He's in a day old suit and Sue looks like she's been up for ages; it adds to Simon's unease, though he can't search out why.
He flicks through his options of which there are two, getting dressed and fleeing or staying and helping out, and he chooses the latter. Simon smooths out his rumpled trousers before he stands, using his hands on his knees as leverage out of the sofa.
“It's alright, Sue,” Simon says. And he walks through to the dining room that has been redressed for regular Walker-family gatherings, or the like, instead of the festivities before. Simon smiles at Sue and then looks at the table. He eyes the delicate looking china, too nice for a simple breakfast, and asks, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Sue adjusts her hold on the plate, a fifth member of the same china, so it's pressed against her chest. The plates match each other, but not the tea cups she's put out. Her face is wistful and her lower lip sucked between her teeth as she crosses her arms over the plate and runs her ring now against the opposite side of the plate.
“I think we've got it all about sorted,” she says. She's deep in consideration when she adds, “Kieren's still sleeping,” seemingly offhanded.
When she stops the nervous motion of running her ring around the curve of the plate it looks as though she's made a decision and she meets Simon's eyes directly. It's far more direct than any look she gave him the night before. Not even when she asked where he was staying, shaking Simon's hand after Steve had finished doing so.
The look is more what Simon is used to, but it startles him none-the-less. Some of that must show on his face because Sue's look changes, slowly, from searching to amused. Almost kind. And she asks him, “Will you stay for breakfast? Steve's making more than enough eggs.”
She stops in the middle of a gesture, something fond and meant to indicate the ridiculousness of Steve, probably. Sue falters over what she's said. And looks at Simon for a moment before she sort of snorts, and in a self-chastising way says, “I know you ... you and Kieren don't eat. But.” Sue reaches out here, to put a hand on Simon's arm as she adds, “Well, Steve likes to pretend. And he likes to cook. And we indulge them, don't we?”
Simon has no intention of reading into that. There's far too much there that relies on him hoping. Instead he nods, a little hunched in on himself, and recalling all his lessons in being a good, Catholic boy that all the mums would want around as he says, “That's very nice of you, Sue, but I really should to get going.”
He asks her, one more time, if she's sure she doesn't need the help. Sue waves him off with the hand she had placed on his arm, on the sleeve of the suit coat that Simon forgot to take off the night before, letting Simon turn to grab his duffel from where it's been sitting since the night before. And, when she thinks Simon isn't looking, stares at the dining room table like it has the answers she needs. She begins now to tap her wedding ring against the plate, gently enough that it barely makes a sound. Then, after a moment, Sue stops and reaches out to run her fingers over the painted flowers on the plate in front of her.
Simon steps back from the living room doorway where he's been peeking. The weight of his duffel in one hand, the weight of all his belongings in one hand, a symbol of something. And Simon considers.
He knows he'll go back to Amy's bungalow; it's as safe as anywhere else. And he needs a shower, a change, and his dose before anything else.
And then there's Kieren's words from back at the clinic making rounds in his head. He knows they'll nag at him if he leaves without a word to where he's gone. In the days to come there'll be enough worry to go around without Kieren running around looking for him.
So Simon folds up the duvet and sets it on the sheets he didn't use, and sets them neatly on the arm of the sofa. He looks at them and realizes what an awful pink the duvet is with it's faded pattern of a cat. And now that he's looking, the duvet matches the sheets. All of them worn out and the sort that belongs to a kid. The seams are a few more washes from being tossed out, but despite seeing better days, they're soft. They aren't guest sheets because they're fancy; sentimentality and the notion of Sue or Steve running their hands over the sheets and remembering a time before the Rising, it's enough to make Simon's mouth dry.
“Oh, you're still here,” Sue says, drawing Simon back.
“Yeah. I forgot to say, tell Kieren I went back to the bungalow. If he needs me, that's where I'll be. All day.” Simon only looks at her once he's finished speaking. He hopes he doesn't look like he's falling apart the way he feels like he is. Sue gives no indication, either fear or pity, that Simon is being anything other than civil; she nods and promises to pass on the message, making a joke about Kieren being a teenager and sleeping all day. It falls flat, but Simon appreciates it.
Simon has his duffel over one shoulder and is actually, really leaving this time when Sue calls his name.
“Simon?” she asks. “If anyone from the treatment center comes for Kieren?” That, Simon knows, is fear in Sue's eyes right alongside the steel of a woman ready to fight. Simon knows both looks well.
“We won't let them take him.”
Sue looks like that was all she needed to hear.
-
Simon gets back to the bungalow and tries not to fixate on what Sue said. He tries not to think too much about suits and doctors showing up to take Kieren back to the clinic. Tries his hardest not to remember the clinic, to remember John, and the feeling of helplessness. But it doesn't work well, and in his mind, it's Gary throwing Kieren in the back of his truck all over again, but there's no sense of let's see what happens, just a sense of heavy dread in Simon's gut.
And the unfortunate knowledge of what they could do to Kieren, and what they would do if they knew.
Simon breathes heavily in Amy's front room with it's hideous green paint and barely stays standing when the panic attack threatens to cut him down at his knees. He smothers ragged sounds with the back of his hand, his lips catching on the his knuckles, and drops his duffel bag.
He eventually calms down enough that his hands aren't shaking, Simon goes to give himself the shot of nortriptyline. When Simon closes his eyes, he tries not to see the old nightmares or variations of them with Kieren in the starring role. One crisis at a time, Simon thinks to himself, gripping the kitchen counter tightly, needing to get to work un-fucking the first problem as best he can.
He unpacks and spends a moment staring at his mother's portrait of the Sacred Heart while it stares back at him from the bureau. Simon thinks about touching it with fondness, of wiping the dust from the glass. He moves it so it's face down instead. And when the symptomatic sleepiness of the nortriptyline kicks in, Simon doesn't mind. He's glad to fall asleep after a while. The bungalow is too quiet without Amy.
Simon spends three days catching himself pacing in front of Amy's room, forgetting and hoping to find her there, wracking his brain for details about the ULA, and breaking those two patterns up with sleeping and taking the medication.
He sets an alarm clock, a vintage looking thing with a hammer and bells that he finds in Amy's room, to remind him when to take the medication. The clock rings loudly every time, the sound breaking through even the worst of his dreams and audible even from the yard.
Today, Simon heaves himself up from the sofa to go to the kitchen. Setting up the medication is muscle memory now. Applying it to himself, however, is trickier. Simon leans forward over the kitchen counter to make it easier to reach back inject himself. After, Simon takes a while to stand up, unable to find the energy to get up. And he just stays there, letting the metal needle hit the counter top harder than it should so he can clench his, now free, hands around the edges of the counter top. He waits for the side-affects to pass. Shaking alone in Amy's kitchen and so alone it aches; that's, of course, how Kieren finds him.
Simon didn't even hear the front door. He startles when he hears Kieren call, “Simon?”
“Are you okay?” Kieren asks, appearing in the doorway, and wavering slightly in his cheeriness as he takes Simon in.
“Peachy,” Simon mumbles, still shaking slightly.
And then he catches himself. His tone, the frustration in his voice is completely misaligned; he recognizes it the moment sound escapes his lips. Simon looks up quickly, from the counter, trying to take it back by sending a reassuring smile Kieren's way. It slowly gains honest affection the moment he looks at Kieren, but Kieren doesn't seem to buy it. He looks confused, eyebrows coming together, though, after a moment, he does smile back.
“Sorry.” Simon licks his lips. The tension is easing and the bungalow is feeling less suffocating. He stands up from the counter, facing Kieren fully as he says, “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself,” Kieren says. He tugs at the cuffs of his jacket as he hovers in the doorway, watching Simon. Before turning and leading the way to the living room.
Simon watches him as he follows, taking the opportunity Kieren's turned back presents. Simon takes stock, a hundred dramatic comparisons spring to Simon's mind at the way Kieren's hair looks in the sunlight breaking into the bungalow. When Kieren turns back around, Simon tries to smile and not look like he's thinking about angels or saviors or messiahs. Kieren has a way of noticing.
Kieren's wearing the mousse again, but not the contacts. Simon's glad, preferring them to the stock brown contacts every other PDS sufferer got from the clinic. Simon can read Kieren's face better without the constricting contacts. He can tell when Kieren's eying him better.
Some of the tension in Simon seeps out. He sprawls on the sofa, more at ease than he has been in days.
“You're invited to Sunday lunch today,” Kieren says, licking his lower lip, a quick and endearing little motion, as he reaches out to pick at the peeling paint of the doorway with his thumb nail.
“Am I?” Simon asks. He knows how to do this, grinning as he watches Kieren grin back, and try and hide, turning to give his full attention to the chipping paint instead of Simon.
“Yes. And you're coming. Seeing as you skipped out on breakfast the other day,” Kieren teases. Simon can't help the bark of laughter that gets punched out of him. He feels at ease, fully now, throwing an arm out over the back of the sofa. It's almost easy, and Simon watches Kieren push off the wall to face him, coming slightly nearer. Simon wants to kiss him.
He asks, instead, “Do I have to wear...?” Simon trails off, indicating Kieren's face, leaving his real question unasked: why was Kieren wearing the mousse again?
“Oh,” Kieren says, as if he just remembered, running a hand over his cheek. “No. That's something to do with Jem,” Kieren says by way of explanation. He's still grinning broadly, so Simon doesn't press. “You will come, right?”
The light is still shining on Kieren and the way he's stuffing his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels and smiling at Simon like he deserves it. Simon smiles awkwardly and replies, “Of course,” and watches Kieren's face light up further, against probability.
Simon parts his lips slowly, licking them, and starts to say, “Come here,” free hand twitching on his knee with effort it takes him not to reach out to draw Kieren to him. He's interrupted first.
Kieren says, voice quiet, “It's quiet here without Amy,” and his touch lingers the way his gaze does as he moves slowly around the room.
Simon swallows the request back and he watches Kieren walk the longest path possible to get from the doorway to where Simon is sitting. When Kieren gets close enough, he drags his attention from the lopsided painting on the wall, and steps right up toward Simon. His full attention on Simon, Kieren leans and puts his hands on the back of the sofa beside Simon's shoulders. He took ages it get this close, but Simon almost goes cross-eyed trying to keep eye contact.
Simon parts his legs to give Kieren room to get even closer, too caught up in watching the way Kieren's eyes have gotten focused and intense. Just a moment before there was something wistful about the way he looked at the peeling walls and the ugly art, and now he has Simon floored. There's something hard in Kieren's eyes, something resolute, and it makes Simon's hand twitch again to reach out for him. But he waits.
“Would it be too weird if I kissed you right now?” Kieren asks, voice pitched low, like that fight in the kitchen. But he's not angry now. The feel of his body so close, bent over Simon's own is everything Simon thinks he should deny himself and it's everything he threw his life away for.
Simon says, “I don't think so, love,” and lets himself reach out, finally, cupping his hand along the curve of Kieren's cheek, fingers brushing Kieren's ear and the sweep of his hair there. Kieren's hair is soft, and though the mousse makes his skin feel foreign, not quite sticky, what with how much Kieren uses, it doesn't stop Simon from being awestruck.
Kieren's eyes flicker closed at his touch, and he leans into Simon's hand and Simon feels so much for him.
Simon lift's his free hand up to cup the other side of Kieren's face; his hands mirroring each other's reassuring caresses on Kieren's skin for a moment. Before he slips his hand down to cup the hinge of Kieren's jaw, drawing his thumb along the bone, and moving his hand further still to comb his fingers through Kieren's hair. Kieren shivers in his hands, because of Simon's touch, and Simon can hardly catch his breath when Kieren ducks down, out of his hands, to put his lips on Simon's.
It's a heated kiss. And Simon shocks, his hands empty before belatedly twisting to catch ahold of the hair at Kieren's nape. Kieren's eyes are closed, but Simon keeps his open. He can't see much, not this close.
He feels Kieren's lips insistently pulling and pressing at his own and the twist of Kieren's fingers curling in his hair. Kieren arches, trying to get closer even though he's leaning all of his weight on where his shins are pressed against the sofa between Simon's legs, his free hand gripped tight in the fabric of the sofa as he presses into Simon.
They kiss long enough that Simon loses track of when he closes his eyes.
When Kieren starts to pull back, it's with regret. He keeps laying soft, chaste kisses against Simon's lips as he murmurs, “Sorry. Sorry, Simon. I have to go.” His fingers twist painfully in the hair at the back of Simon's head, and Simon sucks in air between his teeth. It's barely louder than Kieren's grumbling that he wishes he didn't have to go, but Kieren hears and draws his fingers free. The absence of touch is equally awful. Simon grabs for Kieren's hand.
“I have to meet Jem,” Kieren says, apologetically. He cradles the back of Simon's skull now, no longer using the sofa to stay upright, but swaying as he tries to balance. Their lips aren't far enough apart to constitute having stopped kissing.
“I'll be seeing you at lunch,” Simon reminds him. He wants to run his hands down Kieren's body and feel out the lines of Kieren's body. The hand not tangled with Kieren's draws down Kieren's side. Simon hooks his thumb in Kieren's belt loop to keep him close. Careful to make it easy for Kieren to shake off, though, Simon makes no move to let Kieren go.
They talk about Kieren leaving, how much he really needs to go, no, really, Simon, I have to go, as they trade kisses. Kieren's thumb sneaks under the sleeve of Simon's shirt and runs reassuring lines over his wrist. Simon's skin prickles, and he sucks Kieren's lower lip in, pointedly. Knelt up on the sofa, Kieren presses his chest to Simon's and it's more contact than they've had before. It's a lot.
He makes the bungalow warmer, Simon thinks, though they hardly feel the heat. Hot and cold is more of a tickle than a full feeling, but Simon feels warm staring at Kieren. And it's not entirely fair, how giddy and young it makes Simon. This wasn't the sort of thing he had when he was living. So, why should he have it now? When he could lose it?
Simon never wants to let go.
He does though. Simon falls back into the casual way he was sitting when Kieren swooped into kiss him, but this time he's gripping the back of the sofa with both hands to keep himself from following.
Kieren's fingers linger, unlike Simon's; brushing back Simon's hair and running his fingers in non-threatening ways down Simon's neck to his collar bones and then fooling with the buttons on Simon's shirt before standing back.
“I better see you at lunch,” Kieren teases, feigning threat. It doesn't work when the mousse from around his lips has rubbed off, onto his own ridiculous looking mouth, Simon knows. It leaves Kieren looking unmistakably well kissed and it makes Simon laugh. It's a low rumble of a sound emanating from his chest while he watches Kieren run the sleeve of his shirt over his mouth, making it worse, as he grins happily back at Simon.
Then Kieren tugs at his sleeves, securely hiding his scars, and he shifts his feet. It's awkward for a moment, and quiet with Simon's laughter having died down, until Kieren rolls his eye before turning to leave.
Anxiety seizes in Simon's chest suddenly, something in his screaming, now or never and Simon thinks about when he was seventeen and he last had this heart-attack type feeling. Tommy Simpson next door had blown cigarette smoke in his face and had said, “We're all dying, Simon. Might as well live while the living is good.” Simon had been enough in love with Tommy to believe him. And naïve enough to think Tommy was the first person to string those words together.
“Wait.”
Simon clutches at Amy's Afghan, forgotten and not yet packed away. It catches under his nails, and is rough under his palms.
“I need to tell you something, Kieren.”
And Kieren looks at him, like he's important, what he's saying is important, and not the way Amy and everyone else looked at him at the compound. It's not Kieren believing Simon is important or him having faith in Simon the Twelfth Disciple. It's the cousin of love, the way Kieren is watching him. Illogical and as human as the confusion there in Kieren's eyes as well. Simon swallows hard and lets the silence of Kieren's anticipation weigh in. In a moment Simon knows he'll have irreparably shattered the way Kieren's been living and seeing the world. As much as he doesn't want to. It's more than guilt weighing heavy on Simon, Simon believes. It's also the nagging knowledge that Kieren could be killed if he doesn't know what he's up against.
Simon says, repeating, “I have something I need to tell you,” and puts faith in his certainty that Kieren deserves to know.
What he gets is worse than if Kieren screamed at him.
"Simon you can't just put that on me," Kieren says, and his voice is strained and nearly a pleading. He stares at Simon the way Simon was afraid he would. As if Simon just broke something in front of Kieren to hurt him. “I'm not some sort of messiah, Simon. I'm not."
“You're the First Risen, Kieren. You are.”
-
Simon doesn't move until after Kieren's gone. And then it's only to put his head in hands.