Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Everything that’s forbidden lives a hundred times over; thus, if something is supposed to be dead, its life is all the livelier.

— Robert Walser, Jakob von Gunten

Life isn’t kind.

It’s hateful, kicks you in the back of the knees and punches you in the stomach, so you can’t stand up for anything and have to throw up anything that could help you. People don’t help when you’re on your knees, when your bones are frozen to their marrows, when you can’t even breathe without choking. They spare but a glance, often blasé, and at times, pitying. You stare at their backs as they walk away, thinking, “How can a human be so mean?”

James Hetfield had to learn these pretty early.

University life isn’t kind, too.

Frankly, he never thought he’d get into one. It just wasn’t in him, you know?

Turns out, it fucking was in him.

He made friends. Oddly, suddenly.

One, a dude called Lars. He’s Danish, has wide blue eyes and a ridiculous height. James laughed the first time he saw him, a chuckle barely hidden from the icy glare.

Second, Kirk. The man is nice—nice to everyone. He pays for their food when someone forgets their wallet and owns a nice guitar. James thinks if anyone deserves to go into Heaven, it ought to be Kirk.

Third, Dave. Now, Dave is another breed. First, he’s pretty angry for a nineteen-year-old. Second, he is a ginger. Third, he has a guitar, too. And they share a class, Introduction to Literary Studies.

Fourth is Cliff. Cliff is a peculiar guy. James doesn’t even know if he can call Cliff a friend. Cliff nods at him when James, along with his tray, strides through the full tables. They sometimes sit together if Kirk doesn’t drag him away or Dave doesn’t ask to revise some of their notes.

He doesn’t have a fifth friend. He’s not sure if he needs one more. Isn’t four too much already?

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It’s a calm September evening when it begins.

His second year has just knocked on his door, but before James could get up from his warm bed, it crawled inside after breaking his window.

The record shop he works at is small, on campus, and usually he mans the place on Wednesdays and Sundays. It’s in an old building’s ground floor; the floors are a worn-down redwood and the clock on the shelf near the counter ticks loudly. Loud enough that he hadn’t heard the bell’s giggle.

He thinks he’s in a reverie. How can someone be so pretty, even without a face?

Brunet. His hair is a lot lighter than Kirk’s and wavier, but it falls to his shoulders. They look soft, but James wants to know. If he tangles his hands in those wiry strands, would they cut into his skin like a scorching cable?

James can’t see his features, but he’s wearing a denim coat. It’s dark in colour, a vivid navy, the thick fabric tattered around the elbows. It says ‘Master of Reality’, and under the purple letters, are Black Sabbath’s faces in black and white. Custom-made. Masterfully done. Would he do one with Aerosmith if James asked?

James knows he’s staring. But the guy hasn’t turned around just yet, so he’s safe for a while.

The guy is staring at the Pink Floyd section.

James digs his nails into his palms and settles into the chair behind the counter. He should begin writing the essay for Professor McKinnon. It’ll take days to finish, since it’s about “the tradition of courting and other pleasantries surrounding attraction and crushes in the works of Austen and how to apply them to your daily life”.

Why is he writing something like this? He’d rather do research about Dante. Or Poe. Definitely Poe. Dave likes him too; they could turn it in as a term project or some shit. Maybe Stendhal, too. Or—oh, what was his name? Gustav, James thinks. His surname reminds him of Back In The Saddle. Only if he could remember it. The Angel of the West Window. The Golem. The Golem.

“Hello.”

“Each thing on earth is nothing but an eternal symbol clothed in dust.”

Oh, death. How sweet it’d be if James could fucking stop living.

The guy blinks, head tilted to the side. His eyes are blue. Not the usual blue James sees in the mirror, but it’s Egyptian blue under the dim, yellow lights. “That’s a nice one. Where’s it from?”

“The Golem. Gustav Meyrink. I forgot the page number.”

Meyrink! Meyrink! How could he forget it?

The guy giggles, actually giggles. It sounds like a rainfall in May, soft and clean. “Is it any good? Worth my time?”

James swallows, a small flame licking his neck. “It’s—it’s nice. A bit dark and fantastic. I like it, so you should—uh, can give it a chance, yeah.”

“Will do. If I find the time, that is. I wanted to ask if you can tell me what album would be the best to start Pink Floyd. It’s a gift, and I like Meddle and Animals too much to be fair to the others.”

James realises he’s on his feet. Since when? Is a simple hello that frightening he had to jump out of his skin?

Oh, sweet. James isn’t that eloquent in Pink Floyd’s discography. In Zeppelin, Dave is. Van Halen is Kirk’s bailiwick. Deep Purple, Lars’. But not Floyd.

His mouth opens without his brain’s permission. “The Dark Side of the Moon, probably. Or Wish You Were Here. The Wall can be a good pick, too.”

The guy bites the inside of his cheek. “Then I’ll get Wish You Were Here.”

His voice is like a shag carpet, warm and earth-toned. Like brown sugar and cinnamon muffins. James would like to hear the way each word leaves his mouth jauntily, an ineffable chime of summer breeze and waves, until he goes deaf or until he dies.

The guy pays with notes and lets James place it in a gift wrap, fingers scrupulous with the Sellotape. He ignores the stain of his fingerprints on it.

“Do you know anywhere I can find that book?”

So he meant it. That’s weird, because, other than Dave, his friends don’t read the books he recommends. He can’t even blame them. What he suggests is always too long or dark, anyway.

It's a moment before he can conjure up some words. "Probably the bookshop down the street. But they might be out of it; no one reads Meyrink that much, so his stuff comes every other month or so. I might have a copy; I can, y'know, lend it to you or something."

A smile permeates across the guy's features, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Pretty, like the sunbeams fractured in a shallow stream, chummy and luminous. "I'd love that."

James grabs his bag from the floor—an old post bag, its stitches frayed—and ruffles through it. No, that's a textbook, and Northanger Abbey, and an empty pack of gum, and Dante's Purgatory. "Here. Sorry for its state, though."

The book's spine is cracked, corners rounded into a fucking circle, and the pages infected by jaundice and dog ears. It looks so wrong in the guy's pale hands.

"You must really like this," the guy mutters, his smile undaunted. "Thanks a lot, man. I'll bring it back in a week if you're lucky."

James tries a grin. He hopes he doesn’t fail. "It's fine, you—you're welcome."

And then, the guy leaves, the shiny silver wrapper and the carious book tucked under his arm. James sighs, collapsing back into the chair.

A few minutes later—or hours, but who cares? Not James, for sure—Dave pushes the door open.

"Hey, man."

"Hi. Guess what? McKinnon wants that essay for Friday."

"This Friday?"

"Yes, shit. We should just drop out, fuck."

"No way, dude. I gotta write that shit."

Dave grimaces. "You gonna write about crushes, Het? You're, like, eternally single."

James glances at his bag before answering. "I sold Wish You Were Here vinyl to someone. I don't think I'm that bad."

"That's not even romantic. Now, move so we can start McCock's essay."

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The first week of October. Ah, lovely, lovely seasonal blues.

It’s pouring outside, the blackest Saturday in the history of Saturdays, the clouds so thick James thinks Jesus will walk the earth tomorrow.

He turned in the stupid essay about courting customs of Great Britain in the 18th century just two minutes before the deadline—Dave beat him with one single sentence, that smug bastard—and has written six more for other classes too. The midterms are only ten or so days away, but James’ mind is the blankest and whitest slate one can see in the excessive amount of American men.

He asked for Dave’s notes before he left for his shift. Dave’s handwriting is ugly and spidery, but he can read the words, so fuck it. He should really stay awake in lectures to take his own notes.

The bell chimes, like a fae’s laugh, but James doesn’t look up. He should finish this section before—

“Hello? Is anyone here?”

That voice. James jumps to his feet; the chair slams to the floor with a heartbreaking bam, that traitor.

“It’s you.”

The guy laughs. Water has calmed the obstinate poof of his hair, but his gaze crackles with electricity. Cheeks and nose wet, like his jeans and the shoulders of his coat. It’s different; this one’s leather, and wearing it in this weather was probably a bad decision. “Yeah, hi. Brought your book back.”

He unzips his jacket, revealing the book James thought was gone for good. It looks as it always looked: old, dirty, and repugnant.

“I couldn’t finish it until yesterday. Profs have flooded us with so many assignments and quizzes that I—shit. Anyways, sorry for the delay. Also, I liked it.”

James eyes the book on the counter, then flits his gaze to the guy. “No problem; glad you enjoyed it. What do you study?”

“Electrical engineering, a bad choice for my sleep schedule. And relationships.”

Electrical engineering. Cliff studies that too. Or did he switch to mech?

Fuck. He’s staring again. Kirk says he scares people with the way he zones out sometimes.

“How did the gift-giving go?”

The guy hums, raking his fingers through his soaked hair. Oh, how much James wants to do that. “It went nice. I’m not sure if he listened to it, though. Busy studying. Also, he only ever listens to Sabbath’s old stuff and Rush.”

“Old Sabbath is pretty good. You got a favourite?”

“You know, Paranoid is the best, but Vol. 4 has a little weird groove I love. My friend likes Master of Reality more. ‘Cause of the bass.”

“Well, you see—”

“Hetfield!”

Oh no. Not now. Not fucking now. Not when James finally had the chance, the opportunity to learn the Pink Floyd guy’s name.

Fucking Dave.

“You didn’t tell me we were gonna get graded for that presentation. McCock gave me a fucking thirty, and if I fail the term, I’m killing you.” Dave rushes over to the counter, a scowl carved on his face, water dripping from all over him to the floors.

The guy snaps his eyes at the ginger, confusion in his gaze. ‘McCock?’ he mouths.

James laughs. It feels wrong, like laughing at a funeral or crying when you kiss someone.

“You dare to fucking lau—Oh.” Dave blinks when he notices the guy. He slides in behind the counter, nudging James in the ribs. “I, uh, my friend James here is a bastard; sorry if he was awful to you. Are you the Pink Floyd dude who stole his Meyrink? That’s probably his favourite bo—”

“Okay! Get ready for your shift, my dear Dave.” James pushes Dave through the staff room’s open door, the back of his neck burning like a dry branch held under a magnifying glass.

His shift ends in five minutes, so that means—

“Well, then,” the guy smiles, lips pressed together, “I guess it’s time for me to go. Have a good one.”

So what if James watches the guy leave again, stepping into the grey rain, shoulders sagging? So what if he traces the pages of The Golem when he gets to his room after midnight? So what if he gets cursed by Dave for playing that goddamn psychotic rock album when he is trying to finish his analysis of Three Lives by Gertrude Stein?

Live does kick you in the back of the knees. James still doesn’t know the Pink Floyd guy’s name. And now, he doesn’t have any reason to let the lamp burn, hoping he’ll return.

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The cafeteria is loud and overcrowded, and the pungent smell of people invades James’ nostrils.

Of course, James is a fool to come here and see the absence of empty seats and still hope he can sit somewhere. But he has to pen the horror story for tomorrow.

“It has to be over six thousand words,” his professor told them last week, “but no longer than twenty. Remember, you’re writing pulp fiction.”

Pulp fiction. He agreed to do that, instead of writing a poem. Why is he stupid? He can write the story; it wouldn’t matter if he lost five hours of sleep, but, shit, he can never be Fitzgerald or Asimov. Nor Milton; he doubts he can even write anything close to him, because poetry has to be rigorously crafted, honed with a needle-sharp pen, and James does not have that.

But to start writing any of those, he first has to find a seat.

“Hey, James!”

James’ gaze snaps to the direction his name is shouted—it’s a miracle he heard it—his shoulders relaxing upon seeing Cliff waving at him near the window.

“Hi dude.”

“Hey.” Cliff gives a tight smile. “You look like a ghost. Somethin’ happened with the Pink Floyd guy?”

The Pink Floyd guy. It sounds shallow. Too empty, for a dude who bought an album—James realised it was a collector’s item or some shit, because a single vinyl for sixty bucks is just too much—and read The Golem and giggled loudly, the sound’s gleam bouncing on every surface of the tiny shop.

“No. Whatever, it’s stupid.” James stabs his food, boredom filling his stomach. The steak—it might be poisonous, but, y’know, fuck it—doesn’t look any better on the grey plate than it would in a garbage bin. He stuffs a piece of it in his mouth. “How do the midterms look?”

“Gonna get fucked, or some shit. Didn’t study enough. And a friend gave me this fucking gift, and I got no time to check it out. I didn’t even open its wrapper.”

James hums, his fork clinking against the plate. “What did you get?”

“An album. I wanna listen to it with a clear head, so it’s on my shelf. He seemed pretty excited over it.”

The silence following makes James’ hair stand on end, as if a premonition of public humiliation. Or maybe it’s just the nerves. It usually is the nerves.

“Hey, Burton!”

It’s definitely the nerves. Also, he might be schizophrenic, but who knows? Being too exposed to Professor Barlow’s warped obsession with Kafka and depression and dark things, so much that it turned him into Robert Walser? Maybe then he’d be a better writer. “One is always half mad when one is shy of people.”

He glances up from the slight bend of the fork’s second tine at the same time as Cliff, but unlike the latter, a smile doesn’t visit his face.

It’s the Pink Floyd guy.

Here we go again! As if James had no other things to spend hours thinking about!

He doesn’t even realise Cliff elbowing him—the guy has bony elbows, and the first time he did that, it bruised his skin and ego—nor the pull at the chair across from him, nor the slam of the old metal tray on the wooden table.

“James, this is Jason,” Cliff says; his voice comes in waves, first low, underwater, then crescendoing on the last word. “Jase, this is James.”

Jason. The hero who dared to sail through the Symplegades and retrieve the Golden Fleece. He was married to Medea, who was enchanted to love him by the malevolent arrows of Eros. Is Eros that evil?

“Life with its savage laws is, in any case, for certain people, a succession of discouragements and terrifying bad impressions.” How much James would like to be the one to write that. How much James would like to even lick the nib of Walser’s pen! How much easier it’d be!

“Hey, dude.” Jason smiles at him. “How’s it goin’?”

James swallows. “Fine. Nothing bad except the midterms. You?”

“Same. I’m gonna fail two of my classes. Oh, by the way, Cliff—” Jason—such a fitting name, James thinks—reaches for his bag, a navy, medium-sized backpack covered in band pins. “—I brought the stupid book you wanted.”

Pride and Prejudice. Why’d Cliff want to even read a romance book? A book written by Jane Austen? James doesn’t want to see any more of that woman, thanks. No, really, until this semester ends, at least.

Astonishing enough, James contributes to the conversation. They talk of their shitty jobs—Cliff works at a Burger King, and Jason tutors people—and of music—Jason doesn’t say anything about Wish You Were Here, so James says nothing too—and of their unnerving, incoming and looming midterms. Jason enthusiastically explains something called three-phase circuits, over a sheet of paper, and Cliff argues the configurations are Y-Y in that question, not Y and Delta.

No, he doesn’t know shit about probability theory, too, but so does Cliff.

“That’s—dude, that’s what we’ve been doing for, I don’t know, two weeks. I taught you this Tuesday.”

“I was high.”

“Dear Lord.”

James laughs.

Jason is prettier when he’s mad. His forehead creases in a way that makes James wonder if a kiss in between his brows would cure his irritation; the blue in his gaze sharpens into low, grey clouds and a squall. He’s sure Chekhov would love to depict him; Basil Hallward would sell his soul and Gray’s portrait to even sketch him, and Dostoevsky would be enthralled by his antics, smiles and each letter coming out of his mouth.

James wonders if the heat on his skin is real or if he just belongs to Ward No. 6.

“James? Dude, wake up.”

Cliff’s worried expression appears right before his eyes. James starts.

“What happened?”

Cliff rolls his eyes. “You zoned out for ten minutes. Did you even sleep?”

“Do you think Dave lets me sleep? All I do is read, revise, review and write with a fuckass carrot hovering above me like a sleep paralysis demon.”

He should absolutely be put in a straitjacket, because Jason’s laugh, shit, it does things to him. Instead of fentanyl, that laugh, that ethereal sound of pure joy and amusement, can heal the very ache in his skull.

“Sweet veils of silver and soul-haze swam through all things and lay over all things. The soul of the world had opened, and all grief, all human disappointment, all evil, all pain seemed to vanish, from now on never to appear again.”

“We got lab in fifteen.” Jason gives a rueful grin, eyes boring into James’, and Cliff groans. “But if you’ve got another book rec, I’ll read it.”

James blinks stupidly. “Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser? Or, oh—Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children. You can drop by the shop and take it whenever you’re free.”

“Hang on there.” Cliff glances at them, bewildered. “Are you—” he points at Jason, “—the guy who stole James’ book? The Pink Floyd guy?”

“The Pink Floyd guy?” A smirk—probably, ‘cause it is smug and a bit amused—tugs at Jason’s lips.

James is sure he is so fucking red; he feels the warmth of shame, of embarrassment (I knew it, a small voice in his brain whispers, I warned you) ooze into every millimetre of his skin. “I didn’t know your name, so, yeah.”

“You could’ve asked, you know. It’s not a state secret or something.”

No, it isn’t, but James is a wimp. He never was taught how to communicate with people in the right way, and university is a brutal, rotten vampire, and James is the only one with blood in his veins. Or maybe it’s a demon, tied to his wrist, following him around like a black dog, and everyone else has angels on both of their shoulders.

Under James’ gobsmacked eyes, Jason holds out his hand. “Jason Newsted, at your service.” He speaks in a preposterously terrible British accent, his grin undaunted by James’ lagging brain and delayed reaction.

The palm against his is cool, like a stream only unfrozen by a stubborn spring sun or the rare nights of summer where he can sleep without sweating his kidney out. Calluses on the fingertips against the back of James’ hand; James finds himself shaking the hand, grip firm. “James Hetfield.”

His voice doesn’t quiver, so he should throw a party or something, maybe pop a champagne.

He wants to drop to his knees and mourn when Jason’s hand leaves his. But he can do it later, because public humiliation doesn’t sound good. He’s weird enough, but it wouldn’t be nice if people thought Cliff or Jason were too.

“Fuck, we’re gonna be late.” Cliff pushes his chair back and stands; the sound claws at James’ ears.

Jason gestures at him with his head. “You go first; I’ll catch up to you.”

Cliff gives Jason a jaded and dark look but grabs his tray and bag nevertheless and nods at James, and then he’s gone, one of the many water drops of the sea of students.

“Just wanted to ask a favour,” Jason begins, straightening in his seat. “Don’t tell Cliff what I got him. He has been talking to a dude about music, and the guy suggested he go listen to Floyd. He was short on money, so I got it for him instead.”

Scratch that, Jason is an angel.

“Sure, man, no problem. It’s cool you thought that, actually.”

‘Vertiginous’ is a beautiful word, James realises, and it describes this man’s merriment frightfully well.

The smile and that sun-washed “Alright, thanks” echo in James’ brain as he watches Jason leave, the faces of Iommi and Butler hidden by the bag Jason slung over his right shoulder.

“I do not know how I got through without breaking down, without my heart bursting from sorrow and shame.”

Later that day, Lars and Kirk visit him and Dave at about six p.m.

“You look happy,” Lars says instead of a regular greeting, maybe a “Hello” or “Hey” or “Greetings, my asinine fellow.” “What did you do again? I bet you bought another depressing book.”

“Is that the dwarf again? Kirk, how many times do I have to tell you, don’t bring a kid here?”

Kirk laughs at Dave’s words, then at Lars’ grumbles.

Is it rude, ill-mannered, a vile injustice to his friends to wish to have Jason here? A man whom he had seen only three times?

James doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, frankly, nor why he can’t keep up with the conversation. Lars’ odd accent, Kirk’s and Dave’s voices all merge as his brain processes them, and all he hears is an irritating droning.

“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”

He may be ill or have a coronary disease. Who knows? Maybe he’ll have a heart attack one day, when he sees Jason.

His brother used to say, “It’s all brighter after a good night’s sleep.” James should test that out.

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The second week of midterms comes with brusque winds and ruthless rain. James argues the exams weren’t that difficult, but he simply hadn’t studied enough.

“You don’t need to fucking study,” Dave tells him on a Tuesday night, around ten p.m., as they climb the stairs of the smaller, less crowded library. “It’s fucking creative writing, man. Meanwhile, I have read all the books my profs suggest, because I’m stupid as shit.”

It’s Dave’s problem, really; no one forced him to study English, and certainly not English with an emphasis on literature. James is incredibly elated and complacent with his aching wrists and portfolio of clumsily written stories and abortive poems in the creative writing side of the department.

He told Dave about Jason—oh, how wondrous it is to finally put a name to that bewitching face—a few days ago, when they went to a nearby bar with Kirk and Lars.

“You finally got over your little obsession?”

James had frowned. “It’s not an obsession.”

Fuck Dave, it absolutely isn’t. It’s more like the Narrator and Nastenka. But, in a university in America, the nights are dark and torturous, and—wait, Jason’s hands were cold, too, like Nastenka’s in the poor Narrator’s.

It’s in the way Jason carries himself, really. He’s obviously a real-life man, someone who has savoir faire, is reverent and chummy, is keen to smile, is clever.

Electrical engineering, though it, too, begins with an ‘e’, certainly isn’t easy, if Cliff’s dark and perpetual circles under his already dead-looking eyes and endlessly smoked joints imply something. Torture, James guesses, is what it would be for him. He’s jolly in his department, no, thank you, next to the pedantic poets and dyspeptic writers.

Dave leaves the library an hour later, with four more books stashes in his bag and three in his arms, cursing quietly with each step, saying he should’ve begun studying—reading the suggested books, if you will—months ago. Again, his problem.

James learnt in tomorrow’s exam—Renaissance Art and Lit—they’ll be asked to write a historic story either set in Venice in the 1700s or in Paris in the 1800s. Jack Reed told the whole class yesterday, after the F. Scott-induced exam. God knows how he managed to acquire that information, but James won’t complain, because he finally has a chance to get a more than passing note in this class.

With a sigh, he gets to his feet and stretches, spine cracking pleasurably.

Cliff offered him a joint today, at lunch, after James asked where Jason was. “Probably rolling some more of these and memorising his cheatsheet.”

“They allow cheatsheets?”

The grin on Cliff’s face was broken. “Only one sheet of paper. I can’t even—the summary of the summary is a total of three pages, front and back. I ain’t doing shit.”

“You’ll fail?

“Jason will help me. Hopefully.”

“When’s the exam?”

“In an hour.”

James stared at the joint after he walked Cliff to his department. He couldn’t see Jason, and he hasn’t got a lighter. He likes his suffering raw, thanks, only heightened by prose and ink. Then he put it into the small metal box he carries around for no reason.

It once held tiny white circles, but the circles are now in the second drawer of his nightstand, so the box has been empty for months.

The night air is fresh, unnaturally warm enough to not wear a thick coat, and finally devoid of people’s miasma and noise. James settles on the low wall near the grove behind the beige-painted library. The streetlamp above him flickers every once in a while, a loud yellow.

A week has passed since he last saw Jason.

Enough time to crave his presence again, surely, but James is a glutton for the splendour of the electrical engineering major. Everyone else is too lurid or eminently bleak, but the fingers on his skin are vivid; they turn into lucid daydreams and have an uncanny talent for making James feel harrowingly elated and devoid of everything but the flutter in his chest and the tightness in his lungs.

A loud shout, followed by collective laughter, snaps him out of his thoughts. A group of guys—same age as him, presumably—passes before him. James flits his gaze to his hands: fingers covered in paper cuts, ink and redness of healing skin, and only sees their shoes in his periphery. White, brown, grey, black. Is the world so drained of colours?

“That's what's so miraculous about the city: each person's bearing and behaviour vanish among these thousand sorts, observations are fleeting, judgements swift, and forgetting inevitable.”

Vanishing. How many times did James wish for that? Is he but a feather, ruled by the wind, thrown at the feet of someone, and shown around like a treasure, but cast into the mud once they realise he’s not of an angel’s wing but a pigeon’s old and useless tail?

How are the observations of him? Lonely? Sad? Jaded? Mad?

A tingle runs through his whole body when someone from the group walks over and stands next to him. James doesn’t lift his gaze. They’re wearing black ankle boots and black skinny jeans. The scent of grass invites itself into James’ nose.

He feels the stranger’s eyes on him, like bullets, shot straight to his brain and throat. Who could want anything from him? Who could want anything with him, at this hour of the night?

“Hey.”

Luck likes him these days. James glances up as Jason settles next to him, a half-smoked joint in his hand. “Jason.”

“Want some?”

James lets the corners of his mouth curl into a smile. Does Jason carry a charm with him to make people beam?

Dave smokes. He, at times, comes back to the dorm reeking of that pungent shit, high as Dante’s God, and James opens the windows even if it’s raining. James tried to smoke too, but he doesn’t—it’s not his thing, not really.

“Next to music, beer was best.”

Yes, Mrs McCullers, yes. Oh, how can one think of grass when glasses of melted gold can be drunk, when that amber lets you forget, and when you can pick between the flavours of those dead sunrays?

“Sure.”

Pretty. So, so pretty. God, it hurts in his chest, in his cheeks; his ribs creak and shatter with each beat of his treacherous heart, only to heal when Jason passes the joint to him, and in that brief second their hands touch.

Jason hasn’t looked away from him since—fuck, he can’t recall. His eyes are red, but his grin is easy and words soft. They are talking, James realises, though it’s easier, with the warmth permeating beneath his skin. It’s about books, specifically about James Salter’s Light Years, and James can’t dry the stream of words coming out his mouth, but Jason listens.

James doesn’t know why he hadn’t left yet and why his friends didn’t come to fetch him, but the plumes of smoke dance around Jason’s head, and he looks so, so foreign in this pitiful university, sitting on a wall—wait, when did he turn to face James?

“You didn’t give me that book,” Jason mutters, slowly, as James hands him the now-small blunt. “I was gonna have an excuse to see you. To talk to you longer than five seconds. But, no, I suppose you didn’t mean it.”

His voice fades into the inky air, like—like, God, James can’t think of a simile, a metaphor, an idiom, anything!

‘Carpe diem’, Horace said, in 23 BCE, in Odes, seize the day. But the sun is brutal, intrusive and puts every creature under the thickest scrutiny. If the day is judgemental, then when can one relax and breathe without sunbeams burning into their eyes and live without that malady poisoning their skin with light?

So seize the night; the gentle, lawless, wild night, the lacuna of a lifetime, the void where all dejected, tattered spirits are cured by the winks of the stars and the stare of the moon.

James cups Jason’s cheek, a feeble tremble in his fingers. His skin is soft as China silk, and James traces circles with his thumb. Jason’s eyes bore into his, an undertow muddying his gaze. A sigh escapes Jason’s lips. Lord, how pretty they are! How pink and welcoming they look!

A tilt of the head, then the warm weight of Jason’s face spikes a flash of electricity in James’ blood. Without a command from his more-or-less stoned brain, he moves forward to close the gap between them.

Just as their mouths touch, Jason’s arms come around James’ neck, craning his neck to meet him in the middle. A simple push-and-pull is what they do, at first.

The frantic blood rush in his ears, it makes—shit. Jason’s tongue slides into his mouth, and it’s so hot, because it’s Jason.

James licks into his mouth and drops his hands to Jason’s t-shirt, fisting the fabric and leaning in closer and closer until their chests are pressed together.

“Wait a sec.”

Jason pulls away, a sheepish grin on his face. His arms leave James’ shoulders, and for the first time that night, James realises it’s really October. The streetlamp shines in Jason’s eyes as he takes the long last drag of the blunt. He releases a slow breath, cheeks flushed, and the smoke is sweet, and now James knows why Sabbath decided to open the album with Sweet Leaf.

“Courage,” he whispers; the roach burns orange on the barred soil before dying.

James opens his mouth, then closes, then bites his lower lip. His blood runs faster thanks to the weed and that makes him reckless, he knows. But the words escape the loosened grip of his self-restraint before his mind can process it. 

“I think I—I like you.”

To that, Jason laughs, the sound like a church bell in the darkness, but it’s rather merry in an odd way. 

“You look good when you blush so much.”

Huh. So the warmth in his face wasn’t the grass. 

“I like you too, if you couldn’t tell.”

They are only separated when the library begins to darken. Then Jason walks James to his dorm, and this time, he speaks. About the kid he tutors, about the exam he had today, about the first time Cliff smoked Jason’s grass, and about his family.

Jason pulls James down to press their mouths together when they reach James’ door for a few seconds, and then he beams and leaves, but James doesn’t stare at his back this time; instead knocks on the door.

“I hope you die.” Dave opens the door, groggy and in nothing but briefs.

“I might as well,” James replies.

“You’re smiling.”

“Such a sharp eye!”

“It’s the Pink Floyd guy, isn’t it?”

James grins.

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It’s a while before Jason visits the shop again. Odd, because, as Cliff tells him at times, Jason listens to music a lot, more than Cliff himself. That means a lot.

“Our neighbours hate it,” Cliff says. “You wake up to take a shit and hear Ozzy’s voice, and it’s two fucking a.m. Or worse, Gene Simmons is moaning, and this man is taking a hit and doing extra assignments. Not fun.”

James agreed to cover Dave’s shift today. He actually planned to enjoy the first Friday after the gruelling two weeks of unfiltered stress, but the gaze in his eyes did it for him. It’s concerning, to say the least, how willing Dave is to study himself to sickness. It’s nice that one of them is hard-working, though.

Time by Pink Floyd is playing. He played enough Madonna yesterday, so he has to reward himself. The record itself is—is peculiar but masterful and lovely, and if it weren’t for the alarm ring and bells, James wouldn’t know when the song began.

“No one told you to run, you missed the starting gun.”

James runs a hand through his hair, fingers tangling in the knots. Why would someone put all of Off The Wall vinyls over Judas Priest’s? To make him suffer through putting them all in their right places?

November took over the calendar just three days ago, and James hates it when this little city is wet and colourless. Each time he steps outside, a monochrome strips the world of its life. Such a shame.

“You finally listen to it?”

James jumps. A laugh subdues the song. Whipping his head to glance at the newcomer, James returns the grin on Jason’s face.

“Got bored and thought I’d give it a shot.”

James sets the last of the vinyls he collected next to Prince’s Dirty Mind and Kim Carnes’ Mistaken Identity before striding towards Jason. Today he’s wearing a Rush t-shirt and leather trousers. Those must’ve cost a fortune. Black leather, shiny, doesn’t hide the shape of Jason’s legs at all. He could know how smooth the leather was if he had any courage.

“How do you like it?”

“It’s, uh, really good. Awesome, really.”

And he’s an English major who just used “really” twice in, what, six words? Astounding.

Jason nods, grabbing the newest Iron Maiden record. It’s a really nice one; James played it continuously when it first came out. “How much is this?”

“Sixteen bucks.”

“But for me, it is?”

“Twenty.”

“Hey, come on!” Jason punches James’ arm. His glinting eyes kindle a small fire in James’ throat. “Oh, it’s Us and Them.”

James lets his lips curl into a smile. He watches Jason blink leisurely, like a cat, carnations blooming red in his face under the mellow light. Does he know how beautiful he is?

It’s unfair; God is unfair because if all the vivid colours and beauty and kindness of life gleam in this man’s eyes, then James will begin to wish and want. Life is unfair, because if they met five years ago, everything would be easy.

“Do you wanna dance?”

James doesn’t think before he speaks, per usual.

A wide smile suffuses through Jason’s features, a tiny lake drenched in sunlight. “Do you know how to?”

Timid, James mirrors the smile. “No.”

“I don’t, either.”

Jason wears cologne. It may be a one-time thing, but it’s sweet-spicy, inebriating and so, so close. James wants to scream. Also, he can’t tear his gaze away from Jason’s. If he tries, it feels as if it’d ache, rip his veins off his muscles, dry the marrow of his bones, and flood his brain with bile.

It’s strange how the palm on his shoulder permeates a warmth through his left arm and freezes his hands, how his fingers began to sweat the second they settled on Jason’s waist.

Jason steps on his foot. James smacks his ass to a rack, and some of the records fall on the floor. It’s nothing like Jane Austen oh-so excitedly depicts, but it’s nice. James doubts Mr Darcy stepped on Elizabeth’s foot, but he also doubts Elizabeth would laugh like James did.

“The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.”

“Please stop quoting writers and just kiss me.”

Did James say that out loud? Dear fuck. No, noooooooo. He’s already ruined.

“I—uh,” he begins, “it’s Oscar Wilde?”

Jason pulls him down and mashes their mouths together.

It’s not soft, by any meaning of that word, but feelingful. Emotional. Or maybe James is just not enjoying the moment to think about these.

Sloppy. Yes, that’s the word for it, for the way Jason opens his mouth to let James in, and how eagerly James nips at his lower lip. Jason grins when James sneaks his hands beneath his t-shirt, but doesn’t break the kiss. Which is hot. And then Jason’s hands find his hair, and for once in his life, James understands why he keeps his hair long.

Spit gleams on Jason’s lips, and his cheeks are ruddy when James pulls away to breathe. Pretty, yes.

It’s an hour later when James gives in to the need to ask a question.

They’re currently walking through the small grove leading to the west dormitories and Jason’s department. Each time Jason’s shoulder brushes against his arm, it’s all giddy and bright somewhere down James’ stomach. Butterflies, he muses, or sparrows—but who cares what they are, really—flap their wings and push the question to his mouth with an updraught.

“Where were you?”

James digs his hands into his jacket’s pockets, thoughtfully kicking the small pebble. He watches it roll before it hits a thick trunk. It’s a maple tree—though now it’s naked of its leaves—James knows that because he carved a quote on this tree last year, when he was drunk off his ass. From A Sport and A Pastime. Such a read, that book is. He feels Jason’s eyes on his skin.

“Here and there. I forgot about the midterm project completely, so I begged my prof for a week of extension. And Cliff caught a cold, so I had to make sure he didn’t die. Have you ever seen a man his height trying to curl into a ball and cry about how cold he is?”

James didn’t, and he chuckles but says nothing, so Jason continues. “What have you been up to?”

He shrugs. “Nothing much. Still tryna sell records and write fifty stories a week.”

“One should not believe too strongly in a life which can easily vanish.”

That’s what he carved, with his nail, right under the branch which now grazes the air above James’ head. He keeps a copy of that book in his nightstand, beneath the small bottle of empty, contained sleep. Maybe because he can’t bear to see its name on the bookshelf he shares with Dave, or maybe each time he reaches for that bottle, he feels the cool cover under his fingertips, and it calms him a little, having something that belonged to home at some point in time, like James did.

Maybe he should carve something else beneath it. Something from Wittgenstein’s Mistress. Or The Book of Monelle.

He sees the sky reflected in Jason’s eyes, pale blue and lively, despite it being November and cold and cloudy like London, and decides to do so.

“Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover...or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?”

“I pity you, I pity you, my love. Even so, I shall return to the night; for it is necessary that you lose me before you find me again.”

No, no, they wouldn’t look good beneath Salter. Perhaps another one from the same book.

“Great lovers lie in hell, the poet says.”

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Instead of heroin, James mainlines serotonin. Or maybe it’s just the fact he gets to see Jason more often, five times a week. Tuesdays, at lunch; Wednesdays, in the shop; Fridays, in the library; and Saturdays and Sundays, in the shop, or if Dave mans the place, James suggests they go to the small grove.

He’s walloped by the existence of happiness, however brief and grey it may be. Perhaps it is unhealthy he finds peace when he’s only with Jason, but he doesn’t find it in himself to care. He can drown in that sea maybe a year later or when Jason gets bored of him.

A trick his brain plays on him is when his thoughts begin to swirl like a tornado, getting faster and harsher, until James can’t focus on anything his prof or Lars says. Then it just stops to let five words ring loud and clear in his ears.

“Dedicated to a happier year.”

Is sixty-eight years enough? Is it now a happier year?

James doesn’t know.

Jason reads Jakob von Gunten and The Man Who Loved Children. Then, A Sport and A Pastime. He finishes them before the first week of December. James kisses him each time he brings the tattered copy of the book back, and Jason grins. He says he likes the books. James asks how he finds the time to read them, on an icy Tuesday as they sit at the lunch table.

“I don’t do extra assignments anymore.” Jason takes a sip of his apple juice. “It’s better this way, anyway. My brain hurt when I had to restart the whole fucking thing each time I made a mistake. But you can’t make mistakes when reading, so, yeah.”

James doesn’t know what they are. It’s not friends, that’s for sure. Not lovers. Something in between. He decides to ask Dave for advice. After all, the man has been in relationships.

“I don’t give a shit about your love problems, Het. Go fuck him if you want to know,” Dave answers without sparing him a glance, completely captivated by the essay he’s writing on Tolkien’s usage of English and other Eurpoean languages while creating Elvish. “Or better, ignore him for a week and see if you’re any closer to killing yourself than you are now. Knowing you, it’d be easier than actually doing something.”

He also asks Kirk. James knows Kirk would give him a sensible answer, and it’d be something James could never do in this lifetime.

“Go ask him, man.”

Yeah, in his next thirty lifetimes too.

“It’s not that easy.”

Kirk frowns at him, pushing up his glasses. The library is quiet today, probably because the business majors are holding a party. “Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not—how do you expect me to ask him that, like some kind of, I don’t know, chick?”

“Dear God, save me. You go up to him and say, ‘What are we?’ with your chest, and if he says ‘friends’, I beat the shit out of him with Lars and Dave.”

“What if he says something else?”

“That’s your problem. Can I study now?”

James wants to scream.

Yes, it is his problem, sure. He’s but a man, a man who lives in pages, and now that he’s forced to take a look away from it, he isn’t sure if he’s brave enough to keep looking. So, probably, he’ll do what Dave tells him to do. Or not, because—wait, wait. He can do something different entirely. Revolutionary, extraordinary, never been done before.

James hands Jason Maurice by E.M. Forster that Friday.

He’s on tenterhooks the whole weekend because he doesn’t see Jason. James forgot his midterm project, too, so he’s holed up in his dorm, with two dictionaries laid on the desk and three pencils he broke. But he is nearly done with it with only seven more poems to go.

“Remind me why I wanted to write a poetry book.”

“Because you are gross and in love and stupid. The worst combination ever heard, if you ask me.”

Dave is a fucking bitch. James tells him so. Dave throws him a pen. Then James gets up from the desk and smothers Dave with a pillow until the ginger manages to punch his stomach.

They calm down after some time, and James goes back to his papers.

“What can I use instead of cordial? Something longer.”

“Convivial. It sounds sexier, too.”

“I need something that swings.”

“A swing, dumbass.”

“It needs to be poetic, dude.”

“Then the thing the old clocks had. Something that rhymes with calidarium.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“The hottest room in the Roman baths. Why don’t you use that?”

“I can’t say seasons changed with a fucking bath—oh, I got it. Pendulum.”

“You fucking bastard. If you know it, don’t fucking ask me!”

“Irate but longer.”

“Vitriolic. Seething. Apoplectic. Acrimonious.”

“Hot but hot-hot, not hot-sexy.”

“Sweltering. James, are you sure you’re an English major?”

“I hope you accidentally drink hemlock.”

“I’ll bet my ass you’ll drink it before me.”

“You’re a ghastly fellow, my dearest, and the most ruthless. I confide all my darkest secrets in you, yet—”

A knock on the door cuts James’ words in half.

Dave lets out a groan as he lifts himself up from the bed. James watches as he opens the door. “Oh, hello there, Jason.”

Wholly atrocious. James wants to scream—like “AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” or “FUCK THIS!”—but his heart jumps at the sight of the brown-haired man and the familiar colours of the book in his hand that he catches through the door Dave opened only ajar.

“Hey.” God, how much James missed that voice! “Can I come in?”

“I don’t know. James, can Jason come in?”

James sprints to the door, pushing the door wider open. “Hi Jason. Why don’t we, uh, take a walk or something? The room turned into a shoddy hovel.”

“Whose fault is that, little cunt?”

James glares at Dave. Dave flips him off. James ignores the burn in the back of his throat. Nerves.

Jason chuckles. “Sure. It’s pouring outside, so wear something thick.”

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They walk in silence for a while. It sure is pouring and cold, colder than anything James remembers ever happening in Cali. Jason pulls out a brolly out of nowhere, and James takes it from him without a word.

The raindrops glisten in monochrome on umbrella tips, just before they fall to the toes of their shoes—James wore two different pairs: one is Dave’s dark brown ankle boots and the other is his own black one, but it’s up to his calf. He looks ridiculous, for sure.

Rain slams on his left shoulder, but his right is warm; Jason’s shoulder doesn’t brush against his arm but is rather pressed to it. They follow the convoluted stone path in between James’ dorm and the private dormitory area. It leads to another spinney (this one is broodier, the trees taller,but it may be the same one’s other end or the thick rainfall), mute as an abandoned cemetery, but Jason’s hand brushes against his multiple times, and with each contact, James is imbued with a longing that only increases with every stepping stone and turn to hold Jason’s hand.

“So I read the book,” Jason begins, after they halt to watch the rain beneath a large-leaved tree, and leans his head on James’ shoulder. It’s an incendiary weight, but welcome, and Jason’s tendril-ish curls tickle his neck.

“How did you like it?”

“It’s a complete and great character study. Bildungsroman? Is that what the afterword said?”

Something too close to joy oozes into his chest, and then into the cracks of the broken clay pot there. Since the meaningful words have escaped his tongue sometime before they entered the grove, James only nods.

“Anyways, I love it. It’s got a sad twinge that reminded me of you. It’s—”

‘It’s what?’ James almost shouts. It’s a miserable plight he’s in: his heart slamming itself against his chest, hands all cold as he tries to hold the brolly over their heads. ‘It’s what?’

Jason clears his throat. His head hangs low; he stares at his palms. “I underlined a few things actually, since you told me you didn’t mind. Wanna see them?”

Oh. Wait, what?

The book with its familiar cover of two sepia-toned men stares at James from Jason’s hands.

“It’s mostly in Alec’s parts,” Jason whispers, his voice faint as the tremble in his hands.

James leafs through the pages, quickly finding the dog-eared page—it’s his memorabilia—and the sentences underlined by a black pen.

They played for the sake of each other and their fragile relationship—if one fell the other would follow. They intended no harm to the world, but so long as it attacked they must punish, they must stand wary, then hit with full strength, they must show that when two are gathered together majorities shall not triumph.

James feels his heart beat behind his teeth and searches for other marked sentences, Jason’s head still on his shoulder. James wonders if he can hear his heart.

"Killed yourself? Death?"

"I should have known by that time that I loved you. Too late...everything's always too late."

"Oh, let's give over talking. Here—" and he held out his hand. Maurice took it, and they knew at that moment the greatest triumph ordinary man can win. Physical love means reaction, being panic in essence, and Maurice saw now how natural it was that their primitive abandonment at Penge should have led to peril. They knew too little about each other—and too much. Hence fear. Hence cruelty. And he rejoiced because he had understood Alec's infamy through his own—glimpsing, not for the first time, the genius who hides in man's tormented soul.

"It's a chance in a thousand we've met, we'll never have the chance again and you know it. Stay with me. We love each other."

"You can when you mean to," said Maurice gently. "You can do anything once you know what it is."

He had brought out the man in Alec, and now it was Alec's turn to bring out the hero in him. He knew what the call was, and what his answer must be. They must live outside class, without relations or money; they must work and stick to each other till death. But England belonged to them. That, besides companionship, was their reward. Her air and sky were theirs, not the timorous millions' who own stuffy little boxes, but never their own souls.

“I kind of hate Clive,” Jason says. James closes the book, putting it under his arm. “He’s a dickhead. How can you love someone and not want them—”

The umbrella falls to the muddy ground, and the rain drops are an instant whiplash on top of James’ head as James grabs Jason’s face and crashes their mouths together. Jason smiles into the kiss, so sweet and blithe that James finds himself returning it. His legs threaten to drop him when Jason grabs a fistful of his hair and tugs lightly at it. Their teeth clink. Jason opens his mouth to let James in. James learnt Jason likes it when his lower lip is nipped at sometime last week, so he does that.

The rain slows a bit when Jason breaks the kiss for a breath. His eyes shine like the cool rivulets streaming down his face. Radiant, James decides, flitting his gaze away from Jason’s with warm cheeks.

“Now your umbrella is all dirty,” he murmurs.

Jason laughs. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I really like you.”

“Maybe we should roam in the greenwood, too.”

James grins at him.

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It’s getting stupid.

You see, James has a notebook in which he wrote things when he was seventeen. He had been sure that it was gone, because those days weren’t the best to feel anything.

Lovers are ungrateful. They die for your attention, and once they have it, their attention dies.

He doesn’t know where that came from, really. It must’ve been his third re-read of Wuthering Heights or sixth re-read of Pride and Prejudice.

He’s dating Jason Newsted as of the end of November.

It’s going well, James guesses. His heart still races like a Thoroughbred when Jason smiles at him, and his knees go weak after they make out and spit drips to his chin.

“So,” Dave begins, one afternoon in early December, cross-legged on the floor in the middle of sheets of half-written pages. “So when you guys gonna fuck?”

James chokes on his beer. “What?”

“I think it’s about time.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“You literally wrote a fucking poem about how good his body looks and called it a literary project.”

“Well, Jason is my boyfriend and handsome and hot and—fuck off, dude.”

Dave shoots him a nasty glance, and James knows better than to say something else.

He talks to Lars about it, too, the next day. Or rather, Lars brings it up the same way Dave does, so maybe the fucking carrot told something to him.

“I just think you shouldn’t try to make what you want make sense, man. What we want, how we want, why we want; they just are there.”

Kirk snickers at the surprise in James’ eyes.

Relationship anxiety, James concludes in the second week of December, is what he’s suffering from. Is it the correct word, ‘to suffer’? Is this what happens to other people, too, when they are dating someone they like so much? Are they also tentative to ask for more?

No one answers that for him, so he goes back to his books.

Carson McCullers says love is a joint experience, but there’s a lover and a beloved. The beloved breaks the lover’s heart’s dam, and all that flood makes the beloved loathe the lover to their bones. Being the object of someone’s attention, affection and care is unbearable, she says; that is why we would rather be the lover than the beloved.

But in love, both sides must be equal. Both lovers of the other, both beloved by the other. James likes that idea. It fits what he has with Jason better, at least.

Moving on.

They’re in a bar. It’s not lousy, by any means: the shelves behind the counter glisten in amber and burgundy, and the beer is as good as it usually gets.

Jason is next to him, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he laughs at something Cliff says, nursing a beer James tried but didn’t like. It’s too bitter.

It has been a few days since he had those conversations. He has been thinking about them, fair, but he also discovered two things.

One, Jason’s neck is sensitive.

Two, Jason doesn’t like loud spaces.

The first information he acquired through experience, but the second one dawned on him gradually.

Jason frowns slightly when they walk into the packed cafeteria, or a cafe at noon, or this bar, and he does his best to make James finish his food fast. Nowadays, he just grabs James’ fork and shoves a piece inside his mouth. Those times, James thinks he can eat anything if Jason feeds him.

It must be luck, James thinks, that they came here just when James convinced himself to do something.

Beer mixes with blood in his veins, and when it reaches his brain, it puts off fireworks of courage. Or maybe it’s the dimples on the flushed cheeks he wants to trace with his thumb. Or the leather trousers Jason wore again.

Jason’s laughter is like the bells in Heaven. It’s odd he just realises this, but alcohol surely opens his eyes. Or ears. Enhances the useless senses of a mere mortal like himself or something. Whatever.

“Hey,” James whispers into Jason’s ear, a smile in his voice. “Wanna get outta here?”

“Hey!” Across them, Lars’ eyes gleam malevolently under the dim overhead lights. Fucking bastard. “Don’t take Jason away just when I just met him. I have stories to tell about how much of a clumsy fuck you—”

No one can blame James when he presses his lips to Jason’s neck.

“Fuck, not in public, at least.”

“James! I’ve gone fucking blind for a hot second, man.”

“Pay up, loser. I want every fucking penny of that fifty.”

“Couldn’t you wait one more fucking day, you horny motherfucker?”

Jason grins back at him. “Race you to the car, clumsy fuck.”

Miraculously, they manage to squirm out of the crowd and to Jason’s car. It’s a small silver Ford, and its leather upholstery is pretty old but soft and obviously cared-for. James doubts Jason would be happy if it got stained.

In the morning, James sleeps through his three classes and only wakes when something crashes into a wall or the wall with a loud “thud”.

“What—”

“I’m late to my quiz—” Jason kisses him fast and hard, and then he’s gone. James hears the front door close. He rolls over and inhales the scent of the pillow: lavender, that cologne Jason sometimes wears, and sweat.

The door opens when sleep threatens to overpower him once more.

“I hope you’re happy,” Cliff says, his grin amused under James’ wide eyes. “Your boyfriend had an incredible night. Those bites, man. Do you have rabies or something?”

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The next year comes with chilly breezes, and James stays over at Jason’s because he can. Cliff is staying with Kirk and Lars and insists he stay there to catch some sleep and not hear more of their shit.

They watch films, and midway through it, one of them remembers they had an assignment due tomorrow. Jason drives them to the campus and laughs at the way the wind messes up James’ hair the second he opens the car door.

That February, James decides to ask the shop owner, Mrs Turner, if he can work one more day. She smiles and says it’s perfectly alright and apologises if she’s asking for too much. A peculiar old lady she is, with her grey-white hair pulled into a loose bun and eyes glinting a serpentine green behind her pince-nez. They agree on Mondays, and James relays the news to Jason.

On Valentine’s Day, James waits for Jason in the shop.

Anxiety bites bits off of his nails, but he knows Jason will come. And he does, with a bouquet in his hands, in smart trousers and a white button-down. James glances at his own clothes—blue jeans and a washed brown jumper he swears Jason wore just days ago. James feels his heart take flight somewhere high up in the sky when Jason kisses him sweetly.

The bouquet is made of red roses, pink hydrangeas and white baby’s breaths, and the note attached to it says in that slapdash scribble James is still getting used to:

Dear James,

I wanted to write a poem, but Cliff said they were terrible, so I’ll just say (or write) these straight. I love you. Thank you for being in my life, because now I get to talk to you (you, YOU, oh my sweet Lord) about everything, hold you and be with you every day. I won’t say anything about forever or any other sappy shit, but I want you to know that I’ll love you as best as I can and as long as you let me. I love you.

Will you be my Valentine?

Nervously sweating,

Jason.

P.S. My mum wants to meet you.

They go to a fancy restaurant far from the campus, and as James says his name to the host, Jason squeezes his hand three times and giggles when James stammers. They drink red wine and kiss each other slowly. James feels the stares, but it doesn’t matter, because he is lucky enough to love this man and they aren’t, so, really, James is the winner here.

They bicker about the bill, but James wins by shoving his tongue down Jason’s throat to distract him and earns a deep sigh and a glare when he hands the notes to the waiter.

Cliff makes a gagging sound when they stumble into the flat with hands in hair and fabric crumpled in fists, but he leaves quick enough. They make love and laugh until an ache in their stomach leaves them breathless and fall asleep with their limbs intertwined.

In the morning, they shower together, and James fingers Jason open, and Jason jerks him off lazily. They wash each other’s backs and hair and tell the stories of their scars: a skateboarding accident, a kick of a horse, a drop of a knife, a jump over the fence.

James gets to the towel first, but Jason ends up having it because he sucked another—as if all those purple marks weren’t enough—hickey on his neck.

They braid each other’s hair, and even though James did his best, his own braids are neater.

One day, Mrs Turner sees James kissing Jason in the shop after she comes back from the church and tells them to use protection with an evil grin under their horrified and flabbergasted stares.

James meets Jason’s mum and eldest brother, and somehow, he doesn’t make a fool out of himself. They eat dinner in the flat with Cliff, and James learns Jason’s Cornish pasties are made in Heaven.

James thinks he’s lucky.

Luck isn’t a miracle, he knows, but you simply reach a point where you decide to do your best and luck trails behind you like a lost dog. But luck is also about who you choose to be with, to love, to care for.

James is lucky, because he chooses to be in love with Jason Newsted. Yeah, sure, he may complain feebly in the morning when Jason presses a kiss to his forehead before he leaves for his 8 a.m. class; or, if he hadn’t stayed over, he sighs in his room loud enough for Dave to yell, “Shut up, fuckweed!” And he may be a bitch if Jason doesn’t drop by the shop, because he promised to.

But, in the end, he’s still the man Jason whispers “I love you” to and sometimes cooks for, so truly, he’s lucky.

He thinks he wants to roam in the greenwood with Jason.

｡ ˚ ︶︶✩︶︶‌ ₊ ˚ ︶︶✩︶︶‌ ｡˚

But the lovers get away unpunished and consequently recommend crime. Mr Borenius is too incompetent to catch them, and the only penalty society exacts is an exile they gladly embrace.

— E.M. Forster, Maurice