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“How do you stand it?”
Alex startled at the voice, and looked up, confused.
The voice belonged to a girl, Claire, who had been around the Kavanagh manor virtually all day every day the entire time he’d been there. He and Darren had arrived to spend some time with the boys, only to find themselves in the middle of some war between all the kids. He knew the bones of it from Darren, about how the big blond boy, Gibsie, had had his childhood rape put on blast by the very girl in front of him now. There was more nuance to it than that, he knew they had been together (he had no idea what their current relationship status was), and that the big friend group was all kinds of strained because of what had happened.
“Sorry?”
Claire appeared to realize that it was a bit of an odd way to start a conversation with her friend’s brother’s boyfriend that she barely knew, and she waved her hand in front of her.
“That was weird, sorry. I’m not sure if you remember me but-“
“You’re Claire, right? Sister to the other blond one? Hugh?”
She smiled then, happy that he remembered her.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“And I know you, of course.” she added, almost as an afterthought.
“What were you saying, earlier?”
He hadn’t really been paying attention because the only people in the kitchen were the girl in front of him and Aoife feeding baby AJ in the corner. If Claire hadn’t been stood so close to him he probably would’ve thought she was talking to Aoife.
This wasn’t to say that anyone had been rude or impolite towards him, he actually felt a mood shift when some people greeted him versus Darren. Although it made him sad to see such animosity directed toward his boyfriend, Darren assured him that it was warranted every time he brought or up. (He’d never believe it, but he was able to see that he was probably blinded by love.)
Claire dimmed a bit, and repeated her question (or some iteration of it).
“How do you do it?”
Alex cocked his head to the side, not quite following.
“Do what?”
Claire shook her head, straightening from where she’d been leaning against the kitchen island, braced on her elbows.
“Forget it, actually. It was, like, overly personal, I’m sorry.”
She turned to walk away, but Alex found himself struck by the need to help her.
“No, wait. What are you asking? I don’t know you all that well, but I might be able to help you.”
Claire turned back towards him, bringing her thumbnail up to her mouth to chew on nervously.
She stared at him for a few seconds, visibly deliberating on whether or not whatever was on her mind was worth talking about with a virtual stranger.
Clearly, she made her decision, pulling the stool in front of her out and slumping onto the kitchen island.
“I… I love Gerard. But I don’t know-”
“So sorry,” he interrupted. “But - who?”
She straightened up, gesturing with her hand.
“Sorry, Gibsie. I forgot you wouldn’t know his first name.”
“Ahhh, got you. Continue, please.”
She continued, her eyebrows drawn together in thought.
“I love him. I’ve always loved him. But… I don’t know if I’d be able to support him in a relationship when he has so much trauma to work through. And I don’t mean I can’t love him through it! I can! I do! But… I don’t know. I feel like it’s so complicated, and I’m so scared of getting it all wrong. Again.” She tacked on, perching her chin on the palm of her hand.
Wow. That was certainly a situation he had a lot of experience with, but he was less sure in his ability to help someone else through it. But he could try.
“Uhm… wow…” Was all he managed to get out, his eyes a bit wide.
“That’s… a lot to work with.”
He shifted forward, bracing his forearms on the edge of the island.
“What exactly is it you’re worried about? I know you said that you’re not sure about your ability to support him adequately through everything, but what is your main concern there? His abuse, the whole ‘picking sides’ thing it’s done to you lot, what it means for him to have people know? Because I know a lot more about one of those things than the other two.”
Claire put her arm down, sitting up straight, and blew out a breath.
“His… abuse. I think. I know- God, this is so invasive. Feel free to tell me to shut up at any point, please. I know that you’d know a good bit about that, with Darren and everything and just… How do you do it? Anyone with eyes can see that you two clearly have a great relationship and I know that obviously you didn’t know him when it was going on, so you wouldn’t know if he was different before but… like, is it different from being with someone else? I mean obviously it’s different, but- geez I’m rambling, aren’t I?”
She finally paused her stream of speech, peering at him looking a bit overwhelmed.
Alex tipped his head back, thinking. Lots of potential sentences and configurations swirled through his head, but he was saved from picking one to answer her with by the introduction of a new voice.
“Interesting duo over here.” Aoife said, walking over with AJ perched on her hip.
Alex’s eyes followed the baby on her hip, recalling Joeys resistance to Darren having any kind of connection to his son.
“I don’t think Joey would want AJ-”
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Aoife cut in, anticipating where he was going. “And besides- those issues are between him and Darren, not you and me. That’s, what, three degrees of separation? Good enough for me.” She concluded decisively, sitting down on the stool next to Claire.
“I’m seeking counseling.” Claire filled her in. “About Gerard.”
Aoife’s face softened a bit, understanding washing over her features.
“Of course.” She said, repositioning AJ on her lap.
Alex turned back to Claire, addressing her previous question.
“It’s difficult. I’m not going to lie to you and say it’s not, because it is. And there’re a lot of deeply personal components that you’ll have to sort through yourself. But I can help with some of it, I think.”
Claire nodded her head as he spoke, taking in what he was saying.
“Those two are the same in the way they’re very good at pretending to be fine. Darren is very…” He trailed off, thinking of the best way to phrase it.
“He doesn’t talk much. Or, he talks mostly about objective things. He deals best in facts, Darren. Hell, he gets paid to analyze numbers and form conclusions, it really doesn’t get make objective than that. And he’ll talk for hours about trivial things: about how much he hates the name Sylvester and who he thinks is favorite to win the Formula One championship. But God forbid I ask how he’s feeling. Obviously their situations aren’t exactly the same, but I’m sure you can relate to that part.”
Claire nodded emphatically at that.
“It bothers me so much when Gerard does that. And I know it shouldn’t, but I just wish he would open up more. Even though I know it’s more difficult for him.” She chewed her bottom lip pensively once she finished talking.
Alex nodded sagely. “It is difficult. Honestly, what works and doesn’t work will be a lot of trial and error between the two of you - what works for us might or might not work for you. I just let him come to me when he does. I keep things open. I talk loads - clearly - mostly because if I didn’t talk, our apartment would be silent. He does a lot of thinking, and for me at least, that makes it harder that he doesn’t talk. I know he has things to say, but somewhere between his brain and his mouth they get stuck. But, trying to force things out of him, or out of your Gibsie, won’t make it easier. It’ll probably make it harder, actually. Just, give him time. Make sure he knows that you’re there to listen.”
Aoife spoke up, then.
“I know I’m not in this situation like you two are,” she said. “But I can second that, Claire. I know you’re already a safe place for him, but focus extra on being clear on it, y’know?”
Claire smiled at them both, but then it fell, and she looked a bit troubled, her cheeks tinged a bit pink.
“I know this is like, super weird, and we don’t really know each other all that well- or at all really- but… It impacts things other than sex, doesn’t it? It messes with sex, obviously, but does it mess with other things too? You don’t have to answer that, obviously, I’m just wondering…” She trailed off, having grown steadily more pink as she spoke. She almost looked like she was expecting one or both of them to laugh at her.
Alex didn’t laugh. He paused for a few seconds, deliberating his best course of action before breaking the silence.
“We were together for nearly a year before we had sex for the first time.” he said. “And when we moved in together, we slept in separate beds for three months.”
Aoife gaped at him a bit. “Three months?!” She strangled out.
Alex laughed on the inside, knowing that that would seem like an eternity for her and Joey, given how it seemed they were on each other more often than they weren’t.
“Completely opposite corners of the room, too.” he confirmed, gauging both Aoife and Claire’s reaction.
Claire’s big brown eyes searched his, and she verbalized what was probably weighing on both her and Aoife’s minds.
“Why?”
Alex swallowed, thinking of the most informative yet sensitive way to put it. He really wanted to help Claire - but not at the expense of Darren’s dignity.
“Trauma manifests itself in a lot of ways.” Was what he ended up landing on.
“Darren… I work in the A&E. I can tell you that loads of people are sexually mistreated or abused all the time. Unfortunately, it’s very, very common. What’s not common is for it to require surgical intervention. What he’s survived places him in a really small population - in a single digit percentage. There’s not a lot known about. A lot of what I’m telling you is the blind leading the blind, really.“
He paused, reorganizing his thoughts and thinking of the direction he wanted to take this.
“The relationship he and I have is built on a base of trust. There’s nothing I value more than him trusting in me completely. We waited so long to have sex because he needed to trust me not to hurt him. And some things never cross your mind until you’re with someone who can think of nothing else. It never occurred to me that sharing a bed with someone else could be a real issue until it came up between us. But- being asleep is a really vulnerable state. And I’m lucky to never have been taken advantage of when I was vulnerable, but he has. And it killed me to sleep so far from him - it was like we hadn’t moved in together at all. We had class during the day, and if I couldn’t see him at night, it was the same schedule we’d had before moving in, except now neither of us drove home at night. But I tried to put myself in his position, tried to think of how I might think about sharing a bed with someone if I’d been abused, if I’d been brutalized like that. That’s my advice to you. Helping that boy of yours wade through everything will use all of your empathy and then some.”
He finally paused, taking a breath. Before he could lose his nerve, he finished the last drops of what he had to say.
“It sounds like a lot. And it may feel like a lot. But I’m really not giving him so much. I give him my patience, and that’s all he needs, is for me to be patient.”
The two girls in front of him sat in a silence for a second, clearly sifting through everything he had dumped on them in such a short period.
“That’s really sweet.” Aoife said, shocking him a bit with her abruptness.
“It’s really clear you love him a lot.” she said, smiling at him. It was a real smile, too, and he returned it; he could see she’d really meant it when she said that Joey and Darren’s issues didn’t extend to the two of them.
Claire broke her silence then, saying, “Do you ever wonder if it’s worth it?”
She corrected her approach almost immediately, “Not that I mean you’re not all in with him, obviously you are, but… at the beginning, did it ever seem…”
“Daunting?” he finished for her, and she nodded.
“Honestly? Not really.” he answered.
“He warned me against dating him when we first met, swore that he wasn’t worth it. So it wasn’t like I went into it blind, he told me what I was getting into.”
“How’d you start dating then? If he didn’t seem interested?” Aoife asked.
Alex smiled, remembering the way he’d bagged the man who’d already worked his way into his heart from the first time he’d laid eyes on him.
“I asked for three dates. Not even really dates, now that I think about it. I told him how Mormons have to decide if they’re going to break up or date to marry by the third date. I asked to Mormon court him - told him I’d either pledge my life to him or leave him alone forever if he let me see him three times.”
His smile spread impossibly wider, “You can see how that went.”
The blondes smiled back, Aoife huffing a small laugh.
“Anyway,” he continued. “I already knew he was it for me before we’d had our first “date”, so I spent them deciding if I was willing to give him what he deserved. If I could commit to him fully and with every bit of myself. Because that’s the other important thing - patience and commitment. It’s cruel to string people along, especially when they’ve been hurt like that. I don’t doubt that you’re all in with him,” he said, looking at Claire. “But you need to be 100% sure, rock solid, no-doubt-in-your-mind about him. And he needs to feel that way about you. Too many people get stuck in and die in relationships that are “fine” or “good”. Both of you deserve better than that.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed you had all that intensity in you.” Claire remarked, looking a bit amused. “No offense, but Darren’s not exactly the most fired-up guy around.”
Alex snorted, shaking his head. “Believe me, he can be.” he said, “Get him talking about the right thing and he’ll become the most passionate person you’ve ever met.”
“God,” Aoife said, rolling her eyes. “Him and Joey are exactly the same, aren’t they?”
Alex raised an eyebrow, “… They are, aren’t they?”
“He’d die if I told him that,” Aoife snickered, “I just might.”
They sat, smiling, for a few seconds before Claire seemed to realize something.
“Do you think anyone’s wondering where we are? Should we go find the others?”
As if on cue, AJ began to fuss.
Aoife smiled down at him before looking up at her two companions. “I think he’s telling us the same.”
Claire laughed, getting up from the island and walking a few steps across the kitchen before turning back.
“Alex.. thank you. This really helped.” she said, smiling gratefully.
He smiled back at her. “Pleasures all mine, I’m happy I could help.”
Satisfied, Claire turned and left the kitchen in search of the others.
Aoife, still wrangling a fussy AJ, looked at Alex almost appraisingly.
“I really hope Joe and Darren sort their shit out, because I think we could be grateful friends.”
Then, like an apparition, she was gone, and Alex was alone in the kitchen.