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Dropping heavily into her seat and setting her purse onto her lap, Shannon let her head tip sideways to rest against the bus window.
Shifting slightly, she found reluctantly that the “premium” bus Johnny had bought her ticket for was, actually, very nice. The seats were large and spacious, even more so than normal due to her small frame. They were plush and actually seemed clean, and even came with a tray table and small pouch to hold her smaller belongings. Both of her larger suitcases had been stowed beneath the bus, though she had enough space to set them down next to her.
Though, she thought, this wasn’t a common luxury, as Johnny had been so worried about her taking a 3 hour bus ride alone in the first place that when she refused to allow him to accompany her there and take another bus home, he’d insisted on purchasing the seat next to her as well, saying that he would not have her potentially next to some creep in such close confinements.
She’d griped about it at the time, telling him he was being overprotective, but the privacy was nice, now. Although the seats were nice for a bus, they were still bus seats, and she wouldn’t have been half as relaxed as she was now had she been forced next to a stranger for the ride.
She pulled herself slightly up off the seat, rooted through her back jeans pocket and removed her paper ticket that she’d had checked at the door. Unfolding it, she stared for the umpteenth time at the words that she’d looked at dozens of times in the past few days.
Skimming past the date of purchase and price (although seeing the cost in pounds opposed to euros was still a bit odd even all these days later), she looked on to the larger, more important pieces of information.
ADULT SINGLE
DUBLIN, IRL --- BELFAST, NI
Four words and two abbreviations that made up one of the most important decisions she’d ever made.
Okay, maybe that was a little dramatic.
She was going to live with her older brother and his boyfriend for the summer, not joining the circus.
And she was going for a reason, after all landing a prestigious veterinary summer internship in the city her oldest brother happened to live in meant that the logical decision would be to save on hotel costs and just live on his hospitality, obviously.
The idea would’ve been unfathomable just a few years ago, the concept of leaving behind her boyfriend and the life they had built in Dublin to live with her estranged older brother and his boyfriend.
But the idea was much more tangible now, principally because said older brother had since lost the estranged title.
The last few years had allowed them both the time and space to rebuild their relationship on their own terms, one built out of desire and not forged from necessity. Having the chance to get to know him as her brother rather than her father-figure had also changed the very barriers of the relationship, which made it easier in a way. This way, this time, Darren felt more like her peer than her mentor like he had as a child. Although she still went to him with questions and for advice like before, there was a deeper undercurrent of humor and something akin to friendliness beneath it.
Most important to Shannon was the reintroduction of the brother that had at one point had been her emotional confidant.
The very parts of him that had made him such an easy target for their father had simultaneously secretly made him her favorite of her brothers growing up.
Sensitive, observant, and thoughtful, Darren had been who she’d run to in tears after another day of bullying at the hands of the girls she wanted so desperately to call her friends.
The dark, desolate nights following his departure had been colored with the memories of his strong arms around her comparatively tiny body, her head tucked beneath his chin, and his hands wiping tears from her cheeks.
Looking back on it as an adult, her heart hurt not just for the lonely, pained girl she’d once been, but for the young boy who’d known the same pain so deeply that he’d devoted his time to soothing her wounds, desperate to be for her what no one had been for him.
The link for them now, 20 and 27 respectively, to who’d they’d been at 4 and 11, at 7 and 14, at 10 and 17 were the daily phone calls that they’d struck up a few years prior. Every evening without fail, she’d receive an incoming call from Darren around sunset, which just as reliably she’d pick up, and then they’d talk for anywhere from 5 minutes to once over 4 hours, about anything and everything. Neither had ever explicitly let on how much they enjoyed the calls, but the knowledge was there in the way Darren would call her parked on the side of the road on his way home from work, and in the way that when he was a little later than usual Shannon would pick up less than halfway through the first ring, almost as if she’d been waiting for him with the phone in her hand.
But as she watched Dublin fly past through the window, Shannon realized that there wouldn’t be any phone calls for the entire summer. Well, there would be, but this time it would be Johnny clogging up her call log instead of Darren.
The Johnny part of the equation had been the most difficult when making her decision, but the opportunity in Belfast was too good to pass up, and she knew that they’d be able to make long- distance work the way they did when he was off being Ireland’s rugby star.
Everything always worked out nice for them in the end, hell even their planned reunion at the end of the summer was almost something out of a fairytale.
It was almost funny how well things worked out, what with both Darren and little AJ’s birthdays coinciding with the end of the summer, they’d come to the conclusion that the best course of action would be for both birthdays to be hosted in Cork. Shannon would make the drive down with Darren and Alex, they’d all spend a few days down there, then Shannon would drive back up to Dublin with Johnny. It made her feel a bit like a hot potato, being carted around like luggage, but she couldn’t deny the efficiency of the plan.
Watching the Dublin city sign float past her, she sighed softly, pulling her purse closer and digging through it for her earbuds. Slipping them in, she let herself float away into musical nothingness for the rest of the ride.
Some three hours later found Shannon digging through her purse again, this time making sure she had all her things as the bus lurched closer to the station. Pulling out her phone, she sent Darren a text letting him know she was about five minutes out, to which he immediately responded, telling her that they were waiting for her.
She smiled despite herself, amused at her brother’s somehow perfect planning. When she’d originally asked about staying with the two of them during one of their phone calls, Darren had taken to the idea immediately. Although she hadn’t even been accepted to the internship yet at the time, he’d told her that when she did (because he was always so sure that she was the best, most qualified candidate for every endeavor she under took, a trait he shared with Joey that she’d taken to naming Older Brother Bias), she’d absolutely be welcome at their apartment.
After her acceptance letter came and the real planning had started, she’d originally suggested that she’d take a cab from the bus station to the apartment, afraid of wearing out her brother’s hospitality before she’d even stepped foot into his home. Much to her chagrin at the time, her idea had been shot down by both Johnny and Darren, as neither liked the idea of her getting into a car with a strange man with half her belongings in a city she’d never been to before.
She hadn’t heard much else about it until a few months ago, as most of the transportation and actual travelling logistics had been headed by Johnny, who wanted the trip and experience to be as perfect and seamless as possible for her. One day, over lunch, he’d referred to the bus station off-handedly, mentioning that both Alex and Darren would be there to get her. The news had come as a bit of a shock to her, as she’d be getting off the bus at about ten in the morning on a Friday.
She’d practically been buzzing all afternoon that day, catching Darren’s call on the first ring and immediately giving him the third degree, near drowning him in questions on how he and Alex were possibly both going to be at the bus station in the middle of the work day.
To his credit, Darren had patiently waited for a break in her questions before explaining that the both of them would take the day off to collect her, get her settled, and figure anything else out (and they’d already asked and gotten the day off so there would be no changing either his nor Alex’s minds so don’t even think about it).
Now, though, she felt extremely comforted at the notion that there would be not one but two decently sized men waiting for her amidst the throng of strangers. She wasn’t sure if it was a commonality of bus travel or just the trip she’d taken, but the men vastly outnumbered the women, and although she’d gotten better about men in general over the last few years, old habits die hard.
After the bus pulled in, she waited for the majority of people to get off, knowing that she was in no rush to get anywhere.
After the crowd had shrunk a considerable amount, she disembarked, thanked the bus driver, and collected her luggage from where it had been stowed away.
Bags in hand, she dragged them behind her as she tried to look for familiar faces in the crowd, cursing her short stature.
Suddenly, she was shocked out of her thoughts when a large hand dropped onto her shoulder.
She whipped around, before connecting the now-familiar hand with a very familiar face.
Feeling her own face split into a large smile, she released her bags at her sides and launched herself forward, getting up on her toes to wrap her arms around her brother’s neck.
“I was looking for you!” She sank back slightly to look into his face as she spoke.
“Yeah, I know. We could see you looking around like a lost puppy.” He joked, inclining his head back to the man standing behind him.
Releasing Darren, she stepped up to Alex and accepted the hug he was offering her.
“It’s so good to see you,” She told him after pulling back.
“Same to you,” Alex told her, tugging softly on a strand of her hair.
Looking around, Shannon noticed that although the crowd had somewhat thinned out, there was still a large amount of people trying to get in and around them.
“We should get out of the way,” She said, reaching out her hands for the handles of her suitcases.
Before she could get there, however, she found that there was a large, masculine hand on the handle of each.
She couldn’t even draft up a possible response as Darren and Alex each pulled their respective suitcase towards themselves, looking around for an opening to leave through. Jealously, she thought that it went much better for two 6’0+ men than it had for her, a 5’3 woman. However, she had to admit as the two of them led her through the station, Darren’s opposite hand around her shoulders, that it felt almost like having two body guards.
Between her boyfriend, her friends, and her brothers, Shannon was around so many tall men that she often forgot that most of the guys in Ireland were not hulking beasts of men.
Darren and Alex weren’t even the largest guys she knew, but they still were large enough to part the crowd without having to do much. Compared to Johnny, they had always seemed sort of average-sized, but now she could see that she mostly just had a skewed perception of male height.
Darren, if she had to guess, would be about 6’2, which was an inference that came mostly from the fact that she knew he was a little taller than Joey, who she knew for a fact was 6’1.
Alex was in turn just a smidge taller than Darren, no more than maybe half an inch. She also supposed that they seemed smaller because they were much leaner than the rugby-heads she spent so much time with. It was the same logic that occasionally made Joey and Patrick seem so much smaller than Johnny and Gibsie, even when she knew realistically that they were all relatively the same height.
It also didn’t help matters that Darren apparently didn’t own a single pair of pants that fit him properly, given that she only ever saw him in pairs that looked like they’d fall around his ankles like in the cartoons if you looked at his belt the wrong way. Often cold, which Alex constantly teased him for, he was also very fond of long-sleeved shirts and hooded jackets, which further made him seem smaller than he was (Alex used “twink-like”, a term which she was sure no one else could get away with saying to or about her brother).
The more time that passed, the more she was astounded with the things that Alex could get away with doing and saying to Darren. Sometimes she’d watch him poke Darren in the ribs or say something absolutely outrageous and each time she thought that he’d finally hit a breaking point, Darren would smile bemusedly, huffing out air through his nose and shaking his head simultaneously.
It was something that warmed her heart to see, as it was so different from the Darren he had been as a teenager, so sensitive to rejection and criticism that she could see his heart break apart each time their father had attacked yet another part of him.
As a child, even before becoming aware of her brother’s sexual orientation, she’d always feared that there would never be another person that loved as gently as Darren did. To her, he’d always been the very pinnacle of kindness, someone so sweet and thoughtful that she couldn’t imagine him dating anyone, likely because her concept of love was what her parents had, and the thought of her brother being treated like her mother (because it had never occurred to her that Darren could ever be the man who threw things and shouted), it broke her soul into pieces.
But every time she saw Darren and Alex, she was reminded that he had somehow managed to find the one man who was capable of loving him back the way he loved everyone else. Because amidst all the teasing and laughter, there was a man who stared at Darren when he spoke like he’d sculpted the sun and the moon with his own two hands. She saw the way that he would watch Darren speak, his eyes soft and pupils blown wide as if he were high purely on his love. On the quieter nights, she’d watch the way Alex would take Darren’s hand into his lap, holding his fingers and tracing his skin as if there were a map that only he knew, their voices low as they spoke about something that probably only made sense to the two of them.
And now, she was going to somehow go deeper into what they had.
She was going to spend the summer right deep in the middle of the lives that they lived, six hours north of whatever versions of them lived in Cork.
Following them out now into the parking garage as they weaved through the people coming and going in all directions, she wondered what exactly it was that she’d gotten herself into.
Maybe she was out of her depth.
The second they clambered into Darren’s blue Volvo, the two men were off arguing good-naturedly over what music to play.
Clearly, this was being reprised from earlier, as they fell into the rhythm as if it came as easily to them as breathing.
“I’m not listening to that shit! You put on your suicide-rock or whatever and I’ll jump out of this car,” Alex protested.
“You fucking pick it then!” Darren said, taking his left hand off the wheel to gesture to the glove compartment.
Alex obliged, clicking open the glove compartment and rummaging through what, from Shannon’s perch in the backseat, looked to have nothing in it except for a bunch of CDs, which sat on a bed of what she assumed was the car’s registration.
Alex picked up and discarded disc after disc, kissing his teeth each time in exasperation.
“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” He asked, shaking his head as he continued to flip through the collection.
“Keep complaining and I’ll leave your ass on the side of the road,” Darren quipped, and even without looking she could hear the smile in his voice.
Alex laughed under his breath, and apparently finally found something suitable to his tastes as she heard the mechanical sound off the car’s disc reader extend.
It clicked shut, and a second later she heard the soft sounds of a song start.
The thrumming of the electric guitar was unfamiliar to her, though looking forward she could see recognition in the eyes of both men.
When the high, sweet voice began, washing over her completely in a way few songs ever had, she couldn’t stand another second without knowing what it was.
“What song is this?” She asked, not particularly caring who answered as long as someone did.
Darren tilted his head back towards her when she spoke, not taking his eyes off the road.
To his left, Alex had looked at her through the rearview mirror.
“Sweet Disposition, The Temper Trap.” Alex answered, taking his hazel eyes off of hers and looking to the road himself.
She nodded, feeling herself fade back into the music.
She was jolted out of her thoughts a few seconds later when Darren’s laugh broke their otherwise silent surroundings.
“You like it, do you?” He asked.
“Yeah, it’s… I’ve never heard anything like it before.” She responded, feeling oddly… hopeful?
The song had this almost uplifting quality to it, like one you would hear at the end of a resonating movie.
“Well, don’t be drifting off back there,” Alex chimed in. “Flat’s only a ten minute drive from here.”
She laughed softly at his joke and settled back further into her seat, soaking up what was sure to be her last few minutes of peace for the next few hours.
A short while later Shannon was bumped out of her thoughts - literally.
Her head resting against the window rocked forward as Darren pulled the car against the curb, knocking her forehead against the glass.
Picking her head up, she looked around the streets, which were almost entirely comprised of apartment buildings.
In the front seat, Alex leaned forward and drummed his hands against the dashboard before turning around to look at her.
“Are you excited to venture into the depths of the homo-cave?” He asked her, which was a case of what the family referred to as Alex-isms.
Officially Alex-isms were absurd statements that he somehow said in a way that made them sound normal, though to her they also encapsulated some of the absolutely insane things he got away with saying to Darren all the time.
Speaking of which, her brother clicked his tongue at Alex and said, “They’ll kill you for saying that,” as he pushed open his car door and stepped out, walking around the back of the car to pull her suitcases out.
Alex, still turned around in his seat, watched Darren go through the windows before turning his gaze back on her and winking, then clambering out of the car himself.
Grabbing her purse, she shifted to the right side of the car and pushed the door open, sticking her legs out until she felt the bottom of her Converse hit the pavement.
Walking around to the back of the car, Darren was waiting with one of her suitcases while Alex pulled out the other.
Slamming the car shut, he turned to her and asked, “Are you ready for your workout?”
One of the more… interesting things that she learned while sorting through the logistics of the stay was that Darren and Alex lived on the seventh floor of an apartment building with no elevator.
Well, technically there was an elevator, but as Darren had put it, you’d be waiting all day for a lift that held about half a toddler.
Turning back to Alex she shook her head and said honestly, “As I’ll ever be.”
She was not ready.
The seven flights of stairs seemed to stretch on impossibly long and she felt like she was on the verge of collapse by the fourth.
It didn’t help that the two men ahead of her were so well conditioned after seven years of living there that even with a large suitcase each they made quick, easy work of the steps.
At least by the end of the summer she’d probably have some very well-muscled legs.
Finally conquering the monster of a walk-up, she followed the two of them as they turned right off on the landing.
They led her through the carpeted hallway before coming to stop at one of the doors.
Looking around, she couldn’t see anything different about the doors, they were all uniformly painted white with no differences except for the plaques denoting the apartment numbers.
Darren stood the luggage by the door, reached into his jeans pocket and fished out a set of keys on a black lanyard with some sort of print on it, though she was too far to see what exactly was on it.
Flicking through a few of the keys, he found the correct one and put it into the keyhole of door 708.
Using his shoulder to push the door open, he reached for the suitcase and rolled it in after him.
Following after Alex, Shannon stepped into the room.
The door directly faced a wall, on which hung a massive poster of the movie Cabaret.
Turning left, there was a kitchen, which had the appliances lined up against the two walls of the corner it was in.
Between the door and the kitchen was the small dining room table.
Further on was the sitting room, where there was an armchair and a larger couch facing a television, which was on a stand.
The couch was bracketed by windows on either side, and to its left was a decorative cabinet.
There were three doors which were shut and had no kind of window to show her what was inside of them.
“Do you want a tour?” Alex called, the abrupt introduction of his voice startling her.
She looked over to where he was standing in the middle of the open part of the apartment, leaning on the handle of the suitcase.
“A tour would be great, actually,” She said, returning the smile he gave her.
Alex turned to look at Darren who was standing further back, closer to the couch.
“Start now, do you think?” He asked, and Darren nodded.
“Do you want to see your room first?” He asked, addressing her. “Put your things down?”
“Yes,” She told him, and he moved for the door behind him.
“It’s here,” He called over his shoulder, turning his head to the side rather than completely turning around.
Crossing the room, Shannon followed her big brother as he pushed open the door and stepped into the room.
“It’s, ah, a bit small,” He said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand.
Side-stepping him, she walked around the cramped perimeter of what was to be her bedroom for the next two-ish months, trailing her hand over the furniture.
“It was kind of like an office before, and we, uh, y’know, didn’t imagine anyone would be sleeping here…” He trailed off, his dark blue eyes locked on her.
“I love it,” She surprised him by saying - and surprised herself more by meaning it.
It was nowhere near as glamorous as her room at the Kavanagh mansion in Cork, or the apartment she lived in with Johnny in Dublin, but there was something about it that charmed her in a way.
The single bed somehow took up about half the room, and the blinds and side table were placed in such a way that there was hardly any room to maneuver around them, but looking around all she could think about was the care that had clearly been put into making the room suitable for her. There was a butterfly print pillow lying on top of the regular one, and a butterfly themed decoration above the bed. There was an alarm clock, a lamp, and a candle on the bedside table, and there was another lamp already set up on her desk.
Darren had just said that they’d used the room for something else before she’d gotten her internship, and she could only imagine how much work it had been to completely gut even a small room like this one. And what were the odds that they just had a loose single bed lying around? Or a desk? Regardless of how embarrassed or inadequate Darren seemed to feel about it, the effort that he had put in was palpable, and that was enough for it to feel like a suite at the Four Seasons.
Turning around to look at him (and Alex, who had followed them in without her noticing), she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck in a quick hug.
As his hands came up to rest on her back she said quietly but emphatically, “It’s great.”
The apartment wasn’t especially large, so the rest of the tour didn’t take long.
Exiting her room, she found that the door to the left led to Darren and Alex’s bedroom, which had a bathroom connected.
Thankfully, the third closed door led to a second bathroom, which, although smaller, came as a relief.
At least she wouldn’t have to creep through her brother’s bedroom in the dark while he was asleep to pee in the middle of the night.
The bathroom was also a full bath rather than a half, also containing a shower, which also meant that she wouldn’t have to slip in and out of the master bedroom for a shower, either.
Although both Darren and Alex reiterated at separate points that she could enter their bedroom whenever she needed, she was sure that they also understood that she would be avoiding it as best as she could.
Darren and Alex had gone to pick up something for lunch, leaving her alone in the apartment to unpack and explore, and she took full advantage of the freedom
She set down both suitcases between the side of her bed and the wall, looking appreciatively at the butterfly decor for a second before stepping out of the room.
She took a right out of the door to start her exploring in the sitting room, which was partitioned from the kitchen by the television and its stand.
The stand was bare except for a DVD player and an odd bust sculpture of a man’s torso?
The weirdest part, she thought, was more so that it sort of fit the decor. The black television, black DVD player, and the black metal sculpture all matched in a way, so it didn’t stick out necessarily.
It was also set against a backdrop of a poster of The Sound of Music, which contrasted hilariously with the black mass in front of it.
She knew from holidays and passing conversations that Alex loved movies, but she hadn’t realized quite how much it was true until now, standing in his apartment.
The walls were covered in posters, so that it seemed that the Cabaret one had been strategically placed in front of the door almost as an omen of what was to come.
On top of The Sound of Music, King Kong, It’s a Wonderful Life, and James Bond, also occupied the corner by the television.
To the left of the posters was a framed photo of the Beatles performing for some show, which was situated beneath the first of two bookshelves, which she was pleased to see.
She was always looking for a new book to read, and these two shelves would provide books that she could borrow rather than buy herself.
Although she had gotten better about spending money the way that Johnny and Edel were constantly trying to get her to, it still made her a bit antsy when she felt that she was spending an exuberant amount.
Reaching out, she picked up the member of the family that she had not been introduced to prior to the tour. The “member” was a stuffed penguin - reportedly named Mario - that apparently lived on the armchair by the couch.
He’d rapidly proved to not be the only example of… eclectic taste in decor as not only were there two navy throw pillows with tigers on them, there was also a light blue one with sock moneys on it.
But easily the crown jewel of the couch nation was the stuffed Lightning McQueen tucked behind the back of the couch.
On the left side of the couch - McQueen’s side - was also this great big lamp that was fashioned to look like a movie camera. Although she didn’t know much about movies or cameras or lamps, she had to admit that it was a very cool piece of furniture.
The decorative cabinet that she had seen upon entering was also much more interesting up close, as it actually held framed photos of the family, which she realized upon looking inside and seeing a photo of, well, her.
There was a photo of the three younger boys, taken the previous summer, as well as one of AJ and Joey from that past Christmas.
She smiled upon seeing, thinking about how far her two oldest brothers had come in the last few years.
A large argumentative blow out had resulted in, to absolutely everyone’s surprise, an actual form of reconciliation. The fight, which had taken place outside, had been so private that only three people in the world knew the exact contents of what had been said - and she happened to be one of them.
When she had seen things going from bad to worse in the Kavanagh’s kitchen, she’d mustered up some of her newly discovered assertiveness, grabbed each of her older brothers by an elbow, and dragged them outside, telling them that they could rip each other’s heads off if they wanted, but they were absolutely not going to wake the younger boys, who had been asleep upstairs.
The resulting conversation that had resulted (which had thankfully been much calmer) had been eye opening for the three of them. It was the first time, she had realized, that they had ever really been able to talk like siblings. She had learned a great deal of things about both of her brothers, but especially the things that Darren had finally allowed to be brought into the light had completely changed the perspective she held on him, though she knew that her revelation had been nowhere near the magnitude of those that her brothers had had for each other.
The end result had been that Darren had finally been allowed to meet his nephew, nine months after he’d been born.
Much to Joey’s chagrin, he and the rest of the family also learned that AJ had apparently been preprogrammed with a deep admiration and love for his uncle.
Now, four years on, that love had only grown, as AJ pestered his parents nearly daily asking when he’d get to see Darren again. They were constantly fighting a losing battle, as not giving a concrete date would lead to whining and begging, but giving an actual day would result in AJ scrawling tally marks on sheets of paper like he was counting down his days in prison.
But Shannon had never seen a look on Joey’s face quite like the one he had when AJ would sprint across the Kavanagh’s yard into Darren’s arms when he did finally get to see him again.
She supposed she couldn’t quite imagine it until she had a child of her own, but she could vaguely put together how it must feel to watch your child worship the man who had raised you the same way you once had. (And although he’d never admit it, maybe still did.)
It was also, she was sure, great for Joey and Aoife, as whenever Darren was home they had a babysitter readily available.
Moving out of the sitting room she turned into the kitchen, ready to inspect that next.
The actual appliance side of everything wasn’t anything to write home about, mostly tidy and neat - except for a lamp shaped like a cat but given the inhabitants of the space, it was almost normal decor.
The most interesting part of the kitchen/dining area was by far the table, which had obviously not originally been meant for three.
Consequently, there were two matching chairs pushed in across from each other, and a flower-themed stool of sorts pushed in on the other end.
It didn’t fit in, but it was oddly endearing, and seemed decently comfortable.
Moving past the enormous amount of artwork on the walls, Shannon moved to the bathroom, which also served to separate the kitchen from the living area.
The bathroom was a bit small, but wanted for nothing.
There was a glass-doored shower built into the left corner, next to the trash can and toilet, above which hung this odd wrestling/boxing themed painting. On the next wall was some painting by Andy Warhol, which Alex said was a requirement for all homes owned by gay people, which Darren had rolled his eyes at.
Opposite the Warhol wall was the sink and a cabinet, and there was nothing else inside the room except for a crocodile-themed bathmat.
Exiting the room, she found herself face-to-face with the only door she had yet to open - and the one she’d sworn to herself she wouldn’t.
She contemplated skipping it, just going back to her room and unpacking, but Darren and Alex still wouldn’t be back for a good long while, and there was this little voice in the back of her head, one that sounded oddly like her younger self, telling her that it was important to know all the cracks and crevices of her living space.
Eventually, she reached out and turned the doorknob.
Similar to the front door, the bedroom also opened opposite another wall, though this one was not adorned with a life-sized poster of a movie about exploring sexuality during the rise of the Nazis.
Stepping further inside, there was nothing about the room that stuck out necessarily.
There was a small mirror shaped like a dove that hung next to the desk, which held a laptop, radio, lamp, and a pair of headphones.
The biggest contributor to the room was by far the bed, which was a king to accommodate the two longer-than-average men that slept in it every night.
There was a blue throw blanket folded across the foot of the bed, and a pillow with two giraffes kissing on it, which was a choice, for sure.
It also complimented the photo of a cow that had been placed directly above the bed.
The laundry hamper sat at the foot of the bed, next to the dresser, which was beneath a Casablanca poster, which she recognized purely because of how much Alex loved the movie.
The closet had no doors, just a simple doorway, one side of which was adorned with a poster of Vertigo.
The only other thing substantial about the closet was the safe sitting on the floor on the right side.
Moving out of the closet, she moved into their bathroom.
It was slightly larger than the one she would be using, though not by much. It was mostly the same, though this one had both a bathtub and a shower. Rather than the Andy Warhol painting or the boxing art, there was a painting of a water gun, which she was sure was symbolic of something, she just wasn’t sure what.
Having satisfied her subconscious, Shannon walked out of the master bedroom and went back into hers, closing the door behind her and flopping onto her bed.
Oddly, lying there on her bed in a tiny room, she was reminded of Elk’s Terrace. But it was different, she reasoned with herself, swinging her legs to hang off the edge of the bed.
She was not trapped in this room, hiding from her father.
She was here by choice, choosing to further her studies in a new city.
While she and her brother had had their differences throughout their lives, she knew principally, before anything else, that he would never hurt her, and that was the difference between then and now.
The first night and the next few days were both extremely busy and largely uneventful.
She succeeded in both getting her internship sorted and unpacking her bags, spreading her things all over the small room.
She’d gone shopping with Darren on Saturday, buying the small toiletries that she hadn’t bothered to waste space bringing, like a toothbrush and things of that nature.
They ate their meals together at the small dining room table (she was pleased to find that the odd flower stool was more comfortable than it looked), and spent a fair amount of time together those first few days
She got used to some of their little idiosyncrasies, such as Alex’s tendency to sing in the shower and Darren’s desire to play music in Icelandic during dinner.
She had to admit it was nice music, and it created a nice atmosphere.
They also owned about half a million lamps and never touched the actual overhead light switch, so the apartment was either illuminated by daylight, moonlight, or bathed in the glow of lamps from every direction.
Today, however, was Monday, which meant it was the first day that the three of them would be operating on the schedules that would dictate them five days a week for the rest of the summer.
Or, well, she would, as the two of them would be on the same schedule they’d been on for God knows how long.
During one of their dinner conversations she’d learned that Alex had apparently been working night shifts when they’d met in 2005, and he’d only started working during the day after New Year’s.
He’d said that it had been nice working nights because they paid more, though he also said that it often meant that he and Darren would only be around each other about an hour or two a day during the week, which he’d grown tired of.
Fortunately, his schedule now aligned relatively closely with Darren’s, and Shannon’s summer schedule fit in nicely among their preexisting ones.
Her own alarm rang that morning at 6:30, and she pulled herself into a sitting position, her legs dangling over the side of the bed.
She wiped the sleep from her eyes and listened to the sound of the shower running in the other room, signifying that she was not the first one up.
Slipping on her bathrobe over her pajamas, she made the trek across the cold hardwood floors to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
Sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea in her hands, her hair slightly damp where it lay across her shoulders, she was reminded of the early mornings before secondary school.
Even more distantly, she could remember mornings before primary school, which were perhaps more similar to the situation at hand given Darren’s presence.
Regardless of what this was most similar to, she was sat in her brother’s kitchen with a cat-themed mug held between her hands, the soft rays of morning June sun streaming through the blinds, which had been pulled up by Alex immediately following his exit from their bedroom.
She learned, as Alex had made their tea, that apparently Darren woke up earlier than he did, but spent about an hour lying on his back in the dark psyching himself up to go to work.
It was a funny thought, her older brother spending an hour trying to wake up - the exact thing that he used to get on her about doing as a kid.
Though, she supposed, it was a different circumstance now, and he actually had the time to account for it.
Speaking of time, she had a little more than an hour before she needed to leave, which left her ample time to laze around a little and take her time eating breakfast.
She was going to be the last one to leave, though you couldn’t tell based on the fact that Alex was still in his pajamas where he leaned against the kitchen counter.
Looking over at him, she watched his eyes flick up at something behind her, his entire face morphing as he smiled.
Looking over her own shoulder, she could see Darren leaning against the open bedroom doorway, adjusting the laces on one of his dress shoes.
The navy suit he was wearing was nicely tailored to the contours of his body, which she thought privately reeked of a Mrs. Edel Kavanagh.
Certainly, the suit he’d worn at her bedside in the hospital hadn’t fit him like this one did.
He walked over to the kitchen, apparently having satisfied whatever issue he’d had.
“You look nice,” He told her, smiling as he took her in.
“Do you think so? You don’t think it’s too much?” She asked him, anxiously adjusting the sleeve of her blouse.
She’d liked the outfit when she’d conceptualized it, but now having it on she was a bit worried that it wasn’t suited for the occasion, and she’d been half-contemplating sifting through her other clothes and piecing together something else.
Walking closer to her, he reached out and gently tugged on a strand of her hair.
“No,” He said, “You look really nice.” His voice was gentle, and she was reminded of the soft-spoken boy who had braided her hair in primary school, behind her in the kitchen and firmly repeating over and over that she was beautiful and that the other kids at school were just stupid because they couldn’t see that.
His efforts hadn’t solved anything, and she was sure he’d known that, but it had made her feel a bit better that he’d tried to fix it all the same.
He moved past her, leaning his hip against the edge of the counter and checking the silver watch on his right wrist.
She’d also learned that the watch - the same one that had drawn her attention upon his resurfacing nearly half a decade ago - had been a gift from Alex the previous birthday, which he’d bought because Darren had point-blank refused to buy one himself.
Alex had conspiratorially told her later when Darren wasn’t listening that he would have to scheme a way to replace it sometime in the coming years, as there would be no other way to get him to wear another nice watch.
“Time to go?” Alex asked Darren, his eyes on his wrist before flicking up to look into his face.
“About,” He responded, nodding.
He reached up, pulling at one side of his collar, before reaching over and taking Alex’s jaw in his hand, his fingers on one side and his thumb on the other.
Gently tugging him closer, they met in the middle in a soft, chaste kiss.
“Bye, I love you,” He said as he pulled away, which Alex returned.
Walking behind Shannon on his way to the door, he touched her shoulder lightly and said, “I’ll see you later,” as he did so.
Bidding him goodbye, she watched her brother pull his keys from the hook by the door, shove them into his pocket, and let himself out.
The first few weeks were an interesting change of pace from the life she’d grown used to living while in university.
The evenings were best, warmly-lit dinners and adult animated TV shows. Laughter that reverberated through the nights and absurd conversations that really recontextualized a lot of the odd things that Alex, and sometimes even Darren, would say. The more time she spent around the two of them, the more it seemed that virtually everything was a euphemism or innuendo or double entendre. Nothing was ever what it seemed, and she had never had to watch her wording around two people quite like she did them, not even Gibsie.
The suggestive humor was also a far cry from the man that had filled the spot in her head marked for her oldest brother.
Although he was much less uptight than he had been upon his initial return to Cork, he apparently had been harboring many more inhibitions than she’d realized, as his general manner here in Belfast was sharper and almost lewd in nature.
She almost would have believed that it was a front he was putting on for her sake had Alex not bounced off of the things he said in such a way that proved to her that this was very normal for the two of them.
Outside of their quick-fire humor, the close quarters also made her privy to the deeper intricacies of their relationship. Principally, she was exposed even more to Alex’s affinity for physicality.
She knew, had always known, that Alex was very physically affectionate. It was part of what had acclimatized her and the rest of her family to him so quickly, the easy manner with which he moved his body, which was present in everything from his loping gait to the way he gesticulated when speaking. Often, especially at the beginning, she’d found it extremely odd to imagine how a man with such a penchant for touch could be with someone like her brother, who had a certain rigidity to his muscles at all times.
He’d lost a lot of that tension almost time, enough that he was almost relaxed over the weekends that they spent down south. Though she was learning now that almost was the operative term there.
Compared to the version of him that arm wrestled Alex on the floor of the sitting room and laid flat on his back on the kitchen floor, she almost couldn’t reconcile the two in her mind.
Case in point, the cozy position the two of them were in now.
Curled up in the single armchair by the couch, she was in prime viewing of whatever the hell it was that Darren and Alex were doing on the couch.
It was almost cuddling, the two of them lying on their left sides facing the television, Darren in front and Alex behind him. Darren’s left arm was folded under his head like a pillow, and Alex rested his own head on the arm rest of the couch, his right arm draped over Darren’s waist.
It was a much quieter and calmer situation compared to earlier, when there had been almost no break in Darren’s high, clear laughter throughout a rerun of some South Park episode. She admitted that the episode itself was pretty funny, but her own laughter had been almost entirely in response to Darren’s, unrelenting and almost excessive.
Hers had also held an element of relief, recalling all the times as kids that their father had torn him down for having a “girl’s voice”, criticizing him for the pitch of his laughter and voice.
She hadn’t understood it then, and she really didn’t get it now. His voice sounded like any man’s voice, deep with a bit of a husky quality.
Actually, this was the only time she’d realized that his voice could ever possibly be considered “high” or “feminine” and that was entirely because the Cork accent was just generally higher than most of Ireland, especially Northern Ireland. His voice was “high” in this context the same way Joey’s or Tadhg’s would be.
In the last few years, even, Darren’s voice seemed to have dropped multiple notes, becoming this blend of southern and northern Irish due to his background and time spent in the North.
But all traces of speaking were gone now, replaced with the quiet episode of some old television show playing in front of them. Shannon’s eyes, however, were trained on the entangled bodies on the couch to her left.
Looking closer, she realized that at some point Darren seemed to have fallen asleep, his eyelashes brushing his cheeks.
It seemed like Alex noticed around the same time she did, as she watched him carefully shift himself backwards tighter against the back of the couch before gently pulling Darren closer to him, further from the edge.
It was such a far cry from the last time they’d lived together, when falling asleep on the couch seemed like one of those things that only happened in movies and books. It was a display of vulnerability and trust that wasn’t viable in an environment that demanded as much from them as it did.
This, something so simple as her brother asleep in his own living room, was another one of those moments that reminded her that they’d made it out. That none of them would ever have to fear for their lives in their own home ever again. Never again would they barricade their bedroom doors, or cover each other with their own bodies, or wonder where their next meal would come from. That fear, which had stretched through their blood for more than twenty years, wasn’t active anymore. They, all six of them, were free to live whatever lives they wanted, and, as she watched Alex stroke the back of his hand against the side of Darren’s face, the light from the television exposing his pupils - blown wide as if he were drunk on his own love - she felt that she could say for sure that this brother had done a pretty good job of it.