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the-age-of-aquaria-blog · 7 years ago

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Blue Mornings

It was six am and Benjamin had one eye open. He was usually a sound sleeper and nothing short of an earthquake could wake him before eight, but he found himself sleepless. All the remnants of last night starting to stir up inside him like silt in a river, flushing the length of his nerves and veins, settling heavy in his stomach. There, on the sofa in his living room he lay with Sebastian asleep on him. It was nothing out of the ordinary. Sebastian was his best friend and he was staying with him for a few days. The TV was still on from last night, breakfast news now, the volume too low to hear. He should turn that off In case it disturbed Sebastian and roused him from his slumber. Benjamin couldn’t move. He didn’t want to move because time was sweeping on, moving in a big arc with the sun. Not much left for this; the warmth of Sebastian’s body and the way Benjamin’s arm rest possessively across his shoulders, holding him against his chest. It was the best feeling in the world but thinking about it now made him nervous.

But soon Sebastian would wake up, soon he’d be telling him how it was nice that, a bit of fun but it was a mistake. Just something that happens within the blurred boundaries of night when Benjamin could’ve been anyone. Sebastian following a feeling hitched in him like tugging on a rope. Like a blind animal instinct. Benjamin was already rehearsing what he’d say, how he’d be - calm, steady and appropriate. How he’d tell Sebastian it was alright. He was right, he was. It’s better to be friends. You don’t know what’s on the other side do you? Can’t just get in to it like jumping off a cliff and hoping for the best, hoping there were no sharp rocks to dash yourself on and anyway the view from up here is beautiful. He tried to convince himself that he believed the words he was planning to say to his friend.

The morning came like the tide, like the rising flood to sweep away the sofa in oceans of blue grey light. Through all the watchful hours Benjamin had waited, dozing fitfully, Sebastian still there, head on Benjamin’s chest and his expression squished between comic and open-mouthed vulnerable. His arm a dead-weight across Benjamin’s stomach as Benjamin’s mouth got dry and he regretted the sixth, the seventh pint. Headache rolling in like the dawn, throbbing as the birds started haranguing each other. It was June and the summer had been unfolding itself, soaking every drop of sun out the big northern sky. The light was coming on now, teasing, promising what a fine day it was going to be if only Benjamin would get off the sofa. He could try again but something held him back in his place, but he finally managed to extract himself.

In the kitchen he walked slowly, aimlessly, opening cabinets with no sense of what he was looking for, rubbing his back, head feeling fragile and papery. He’d left Sebastian on the sofa, on his front, arm caught under his body in a way that’d probably hurt when he woke up but Benjamin didn’t dare move him. Just watched him for a minute, like he was taking his fill of that too. Benjamin opened the back door and sat on the doorstep, looking out on the garden, the shifting light climbing the fence, marching through blades of grass. Sebastian was going to wake up, he was going to come in to the kitchen and Benjamin could already feel the excruciating awkwardness of it, spread through the pins of his shoulder blades, gathered and hunched there. His feet rest on the cool concrete, behind his back, for now, only the empty kitchen. The provisional quiet, cupboards, sink, cooker, table and chairs filling the space in their own way but no Sebastian. Not yet. Just now, just at this moment there was time to hold it all inside himself; the brush of their lips against each other, the stumbling hesitant start, how his cold fingers had made Sebastian shiver up under his t-shirt. You could catch your breath on a feeling like that. He stretched his legs out to touch grass wet with dew, it couldn’t be later than seven am.

When Benjamin was twenty-six he’d made Sebastian a mix tape. It wasn’t even a mix tape, it was a mix-CD, that was the problem. It wasn’t like when he was a teenager, not like the old days, the devotional whirring of the tape deck, the manual labor of pressing buttons with a satisfying mechanical click, getting a perfect pause between tracks. Run it on, wind it back. Even better if you used a record player, all that delicate hovering, timed needle drop and hit record. Dragging and ordering mp3 files into a playlist you ended up feeling like really you’d made nothing at all. Not surprising then that Sebastian had reacted the way he did, with a sort of polite bafflement, oh, thanks Ben. Benjamin couldn’t remember why he’d even done it or why it seemed so important to give him something, like he was trying to make something manifest. How Sebastian made him feel dislocated somehow. How he’d talk to him and then after not quite remember what they’d been talking about, but he’d think about his strong freckly arms and it would make a kind of sense. You could be bisexual even you’d not often heard anyone say the word out loud. Maybe it was like with Sebastian, looking was enough until it wasn’t, like surfacing and taking big gulps of air, only so long you can keep your head under water.

Benjamin was up now. Up and dragging parts of last night around the kitchen with him. The first part; Sebastian driving him home, thoughts of how he shouldn’t drink around him, it only made it worse - the wanting. Watching Sebastian’s face as he drove, light sluicing across it from passing cars or streetlights, yellow and orange and making running shadows. It had been raining and Sebastian’s body was held slightly taught, narrow shoulders and careful, clever hands on the wheel. Drinking dulled the guilt Benjamin would feel sober, flattened it right out and left him alone with all his helpless scurrying feelings. The second part; falling asleep on the sofa together watching football and waking the wrong side of midnight to eerie flickering TV light and Sebastian’s head heavy on his shoulder. He’d carefully nudged Sebastian up, whispering hey, Sebastian, wake up. Sebastian had slowly lifted his head and he’d looked that beautiful just then, on the cusp of waking, like a faint transmission filtering in, getting stronger and more distinct. The magic of some jumpy little in-between state in Sebastian’s soft mouth and his sleepy eyes. So Benjamin had kissed him. Gently, so aware of every sound, the TV, Sebastian’s breathing, his own.

In the kitchen he leant against the countertop, stirring milk into coffee, watching a bird on the fence out in the garden and thinking about the third part. Kissing, the taste of Sebastian’s mouth and t-shirt almost off and half-asleep we were, got all tangled up. Stirring his coffee and thinking what if I went back in and kissed him awake? But also thinking god I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one day.

***

Sebastian came in eventually, inevitably, shuffling feet when the sun had snuck up higher, quiet as a church mouse and wrapped in the blanket off the sofa. Quiet enough that Benjamin - returned to his back doorstep - didn’t realize until Sebastian was right behind him, startling him. He couldn’t quite make his face settle into one expression, jittery heartbeat and words coming out like he’d rarely spoken before.

‘Oh! Sebastian.’

‘Well identified,’ Sebastian said, sitting down. Sat right next to him, close enough that his knee pressed to Benjamin’s, looking at him and smiling, little half-smile, the blanket up around his shoulders protectively, considering.

In the garden the bees were waking, buzzing in their wavery way from flower to flower. Later on in the day they’d be wobbling, making drunken laden loops.

Benjamin nudged him.

‘You want some coffee?’ he said quietly, waving his mug, eyes slowly slipping the perfect long line of Sebastian’s nose to his mouth. Sebastian shook his head.

‘I’m alright for now.’

He nudged Benjamin back and stayed there, almost but not quite leaning against him.

‘So-’ Sebastian said and he was grinning at Benjamin now, ‘last night.’ He raised his eyebrow. Big beautiful smile he had, Benjamin sort of dazed and worried in equal measure. Those long eyelashes too, huge eyes, everything made Benjamin feel sticky and stupid. All those greedy looks he’d been taking at Sebastian’s face.

‘God, yeah, sorry- ’ Benjamin said quickly, smiling back a bit helplessly.

Sebastian shook his head, big grin still. ‘No. Last night you said you were a bit in love with us but didn’t have to do anything about it.’

Benjamin slowly lowered his head to his knees, blood draining and pooling rapidly in his feet as Sebastian started to laugh. ‘Oh God -’ he mumbled.

‘No! Oh no, Ben, I thought that was sweet of you, that was, very considerate-’ Benjamin felt Sebastian’s arm come to rest on his shoulders, drawing the blanket around him, pulling him in, ‘I do enjoy being propositioned in a very polite way.’ Sebastian was still laughing.

‘Can you not just go away and leave me to my shame?’ Benjamin said into his knees, laughing too in spite of himself. But Sebastian was leaning in, laughing and pressing his nose against Benjamin’s cheek.

‘You’re an idiot,’ he said quietly and Benjamin nodded, heart sputtering as Sebastian carefully kissed his cheek then his temple.

‘I am,’ Benjamin said, Sebastian’s hand stroking his back and Benjamin was lifting his head slowly to Sebastian’s quickening breath. Sebastian kissed his forehead and he felt like he was sinking, giving in but pulling back just in time to remember:

‘The neighbours,’ He gestured vaguely across the way to the houses overlooking his garden and Sebastian pulled the blanket up over both their heads, trapping them in a stale darkness. Benjamin laughed, hands on Sebastian’s body to orientate himself, finding his face and a sharp breath in when Sebastian kissed his fingers.

‘Not sure this looks any less suspicious,’ Benjamin mumbled, stroking Sebastian’s jaw, stubble scratching his fingers.

‘Don’t care. Not our fault your neighbours have got dirty minds.’ Benjamin could hear the smile in his voice, he felt full of cracks, open and tender with light. Sebastian kissed him then, plucking any last settlings of anxiety right out of his body. Firm and pressing him up against the doorframe, hard line aching his back and their fast breathing dragging the oxygen from the air until Benjamin felt dizzy with it. Tugged the blanket off their heads on to the kitchen floor, Sebastian’s face appearing, all wide eyed and flushed.

Not like Benjamin had never noticed how good looking Sebastian was before but he’d always tried to make it stay in the part of his mind for neutral observations. The knowledge kept creeping out though. When Sebastian was in his kitchen, holding a glass of orange juice and now it was summer the evening light could just skip across him, hit the glass and set it to glow. Leaning more on one leg than the other. That freckle he had on his cheek like a map marker, come right here and kiss me. He should’ve. He knew that now, hindsight, twenty-twenty, all that. And then it crept out in public when Sebastian was horsing around, the way he could just bend everything around him, make everyone keep the same manic beat. Even someone as determinedly dour as Benjamin. Most of all it was there in the gaps, in all of what was lurking beneath the surface, all the soft-bellied vulnerability. The doubts and the flickering.

But here they were and Sebastian was back on his sofa and Sebastian was saying how actually he’d always liked Benjamin. Looked up to him but also collected his praise and attention like going through their conversation with a metal detector, pulling great treasures and mundane artifacts out of the soil. Only natural after all that you’d want to go straight to the source. He’d thought about kissing him, actually.

“You don’t have to be surprised that I like you too.”

Benjamin made a dismissive noise and then he kissed Sebastian’s neck. For all that neither of them were particularly fresh from having slept in their clothes, Sebastian tasted good, salt skin and fidgeting nicely under Benjamin’s body. Especially when he kissed the hinge of his jaw.

‘What about-’ Sebastian said, recovering himself, ‘what about that girl you said you were dating a while back?’

‘Shh - shut up,’ Benjamin said grinning and clamping a hand over Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian kissed his palm and pushed his tongue between Benjamin’s fingers until he took his hand away and pressed his lips against Sebastian’s instead, settling next to him on the sofa. Sebastian stroking his hair back off his face and Benjamin telling him to leave off.

‘It’s in retreat - my hairline - it’s retreating.’

Sebastian shook his head, laughing. ‘No - it’s like very dignified, that.’

‘That’s what happens when you get old. All the grey hair starts coming out and your hairline starts creeping back up your head.’ Benjamin waved his hand as if to indicate the kind of cycle this was working on.

Sebastian held Benjamin’s face in both his hands and looked at him in as serious a way as he could manage. ‘I know what you look like. None of this is a surprise to me.’

***

They’d gone to bed eventually, in the worn out middle of the day when it seemed like it might be afternoon forever. Benjamin had shut the curtains and now the sun was raging at the corners in protest at this show of ungratefulness. Sebastian was laid next to him, come to a rest in the crumpled sheets and Benjamin was looking at the ceiling and telling about how he’d always known but he’d never done anything about before, beyond a sort of fitful yearning for the man.

And now it was the way it always was when you’d got someone into your bed. Benjamin was trying to close the gap, shift his memories into a new progression to make sense of it. How did we get here? From Sebastian, his friend, lying on the sofa watching a game, restless limbs to this Sebastian, sheet wound half off his body, head dropped to the pillow and hand stroking Benjamin’s hair. This Sebastian who he leant to kiss now, who he pressed into the bed bodily, daring bare skin against skin, a wholly different Sunday afternoon. He’d never known fear could ride around in your veins long enough to turn in to raw electricity at the point of contact. The potential for something else, excitement or joy. Joy like the buttery light spread briefly on Sebastian’s body when the curtains were blown about by the wind, slipping his fingers down into the warmth, down low on Sebastian’s belly. Kissing and stopping dizzily to mumble okay? This alright? and Sebastian’s quiet smile and nodding and saying yeah it’s good yeah. Sebastian’s body was all map edge, uncharted. Benjamin all pulled into focus like this, every thread of him liable to be examined, trousers unzipped and white thighs and bony knees, every awkward angle. There was no accounting for what someone else would find attractive about you. Sebastian pulling him closer and muttering ‘Me too, you know - last night, what you were saying about being a bit in love with us-’

‘Oh you’re a bit in love with yourself too?’

‘You know what I mean!’

After, Benjamin stopped with his head on Sebastian’s chest, hearing the little thud of his heart echoing through his ribs, stroking his side and Sebastian pressing his lips into Benjamin’s hair and mumbling, ‘Want to eat? I’m hungry. Is it time for dinner yet?’

‘I don’t know,’ Benjamin said while Sebastian scrabbled for his phone on the side table.

‘Near enough,’ he declared. ‘Food? You in?’

‘You going to cook for us?’

‘Yeah, I am actually.’ Sebastian said, looking through his phone.

‘You are?’ Benjamin said, skeptically, raising his head and trying to see what Sebastian was up to on his phone but Sebastian pushed Benjamin’s head back down and held the phone up to his ear.

‘Who’re you calling?’

‘My mom. Hi, can I order two large pizzas? Pepperoni and meat lovers with bell peppers, hold the olives.’

Benjamin laughed and whispered, ‘That’s no way to speak to your mom!’ And Sebastian stroked his hair and went about ordering two large pizzas.

Behind the curtains the sun showed no sign of giving up its grab for attention, although there was a sense of rain on the way, something carried on the wind. It probably wasn’t quite time for dinner. The game was almost over and the excitement had come to a climax, then dipping as the final goal was scored. The sounds of the crowd were sifting through the air. Benjamin lay back on the bed and pulled Sebastian up against him, kissed Sebastian’s head and let his eyes slowly shut. It was fine, he’d wake up in time to stumble downstairs and get the pizzas or else Sebastian would.

‘Don’t go to sleep,’ he mumbled but Sebastian didn’t really reply, just tightened his arms around Benjamin, and Benjamin thought he could hear the sound of a particularly stupid bee who had managed to navigate the curtains and was now buzzing around low to the floor. And he lay there, holding Sebastian, ungodly happy and working up the energy to rescue it, while outside it started to gently rain.

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