I wrote a Dunkaerion one-shot, so I wanted to post it here!
Aerion and Dunk meet on an Erasmus year in Bilbao, Spain (Basque Country), and immediately hit it off.
A series of vignettes of their year together, until they meet an untimely end.
Aerion stares at the titanium behemoth looming in front of him. What’s he doing here again? And in this hellish drizzle, the kind of rain where it barely seems like it’s raining and yet when you go inside, you’re absolutely drenched.
He sighs and looks over at his flatmate, Borja, who flashes him a cheeky grin. Aerion grits his teeth and tries to smile back, tries to remember why he’s here.
Oh, yes, that’s right. Putting himself out there, like he promised himself he’d do this year. And not just promised himself, promised his brother. Daeron told him he was too buttoned up, too serious, didn’t have enough fun. That he wasn’t being true to himself, whatever the fuck that means (he knows what that means).
He’d told Aerion to take chances, to live a little. Be more himself, to open up. He’d be away from their family, from the weight of their expectations, so he could relax. Try being someone else for a change.
Which apparently means going to events like this, events called Art After Dark, whatever that means.
It sounded terribly pedestrian to Aerion, something for expats and tourists and Erasmus students, but, unfortunately, that’s precisely what he is.
He hadn’t even wanted to do a year abroad, and spending it in Spain of all places had sounded even worse. He didn’t want to talk about how he’d ended up somewhere with wetter weather than London, but he’d landed in Bilbao, which at least isn’t somewhere like Barcelona or Madrid, which may be fine cities, but not somewhere Aerion wants to study for a year, places crawling with Erasmus students who want to pretend they’re somewhere exotic learning Very Important things, when they’re really just getting drunk in a different location from home.
His father insisted, though, and when his father insists on something, Aerion has no choice but to do it.
But as they walk up the stairs and show their ticket, he looks around the cavernous space and he understands that maybe it doesn’t matter where he’s doing an Erasmus year. Maybe it’s all just young people pretending to be enlightened while getting drunk off their faces, no matter the country or the city.
He sighs, and Borja grins, his black hair slicked over his forehead. Aerion had been pleased to find a flatmate from Bilbao, thinking he’d, if nothing else, be able to improve his mediocre Spanish.
But imagine his surprise when he met Borja and the man spoke to him in flawless English, not a hint of an accent, which, of course he wanted to practice. He was also plugged in with other Erasmus students as well as American teaching assistants, ones who are here teaching English, and so their flat has become a non-stop parade of people stopping in for pre-drinks and jello-shots (yes, Aerion had to learn what jello-shots were, bloody Americans).
It was early days still, when people were still solidifying friendships groups and trying to figure out where loyalties lay. Aerion tried best to ignore people unless they spoke to him directly, which was difficult in their tiny flat. He’s been reluctantly learning people’s names, but he wouldn’t say he has any real friends yet.
A group of girls runs up to them, loud and squealing. He doesn’t remember their names. Can’t be bothered to. A mix of Scottish, American, and British, chatting Borja’s ear off and pulling him towards the drinks.
Aerion is left alone. It’s fine, it’s how he prefers it, even though he said he was going to change this year. He’s underestimated how much work goes into changing.
He wanders around the museum, which he’s been to before, but not at night. It’s buzzy, at night, with the alcohol and the energy coming off groups in waves. There’s a different energy when it’s not filled with stodgy old tourists and handfuls of children running around. It’s somewhat cooler, chicer; he has to give it to Borja.
It’s in a cavernous room where giant metal spirals reach to the ceilings where he first spots the gigantic man out of the corner of his eyes. He’s being pulled into one of the sculptures, which Aerion sees you can walk through, as if they were mazes, by a tall woman with blonde hair. But it’s the man who catches his eye. Aerion hasn’t seen him before, at least not at the flat or not out at drinks or at one of the botellons Borja has dragged him to.
He’s a hulking man, broad-shouldered and huge arms. He’s wearing a red and white Athletic Bilbao shirt which makes him easy to find. But it’s his laugh that draws Aerion to him. It’s booming, echoing off the steel, filling the room, which is enormous. It’s unavoidable, and Aerion wants nothing less than to avoid it. He listens to it for a moment, even though he can’t see him anymore.
That’s the last time he sees him until much later in the evening, although not for lack of trying.
Something Borja neglected to tell Aerion is that, as part of the ticket they purchased, they also get entry to a disco out in the warehouse district of Bilbao. Said disco is called, “Fever.” Normally, Aerion would die before he ever sets foot in a place called “Fever,” but he’s had more than one drink, and the booming laugh keeps ricocheting through his mind, and he wonders if maybe the tall man might end up there as well.
So he says yes to Fever, and he walks with Borja and some girls to the metro, and from the metro to the warehouse.
It’s nearly two in the morning by the time they reach it, and people are still drinking outside. Aerion walks through puddles and tries to keep up with his group until they get inside, where he promptly loses them in the crowd and haze.
It’s multiple levels with multiple dance floors, and it’s a special kind of hell to Aerion. But he tells himself he’ll have one–ONE–drink and have a look around, just so he can tell Daeron he did it, that he went to a Spanish (Basque) nightclub. He won’t believe it.
As he tries and fails to get the bartender’s attention, he hears a familiar laugh to his left. He almost doesn’t want to believe it, doesn’t want to turn his head, doesn’t want to let himself hope.
And then something cold washes over him. He’s drenched.
“Oh, Christ, I’m sorry, here–let me, oh, sorry….”
It’s the tall man, and he’s dumped his entire beer all over Aerion.
“For fuck’s sake….” The music is so loud Aerion can barely hear himself, never mind the other guy, as he stares down at his shirt, which is completely drenched.
“Right, let me….” He reached behind the bar and swipes a towel before the bartender can see and starts dabbing the soaked shirt.
A flush creeps up Aerion’s cheeks, and he’s grateful no one can see it in the darkness of the club. The man’s hands on him are sending jolts of electricity through his entire body, and he wonders if he’s the only one feeling it, he can’t be the only one feeling it, can he?
“I really don’t think this is going to do much,” Aerion says, trying to act like he’s not coming completely undone inside, trying to keep his facade up as he looks up at the taller man whose expression he can’t read, whose slightly crooked teeth are a terrain he wants to probe, to explore with his tongue. More flushing.
“But it’s fine, it’s fine.” A pause. He can’t let this moment melt away, can’t let himself regret it tomorrow. “It’s already raining out. Do you want to have a smoke outside?”
He is taking a big swing, one he’d never make back home. He knows nothing about this person, nothing about his preferences, his interests, his name. But this year is for taking chances, and if he gets turned down, at least he can say he did it.
“Alright,” he says. “Let’s go. I’m Dunk, by the way.”
Aerion is sure he’s miss heard him through the pulsing bass. “Dunk?” They push through the mass of bodies writhing on the dance floor, people sweating trying to get closer to each other as Aerion fights to keep up with…Dunk.
Once they’re outside it’s a breath of semi-fresh air, fresh in that everyone outside is also smoking or vomiting. They move around the building, away from the chaos.
For a minute, Aerion panics that he doesn’t have any cigarettes, and that Dunk will see through his ruse. He’s not really a smoker, not really. He usually grabs a pack on a night out, just to have something to do with his hands. But he feels it in his trousers and relaxes, pulls it out, along with the lighter.
He hands one to Dunk, and their fingers brush. That feeling again, and he’s not making it up. It’s real. Their eyes meet, and Aerion wills himself not to look away.
“You live with that bloke, Borja?” Dunk takes a drag.
“Yeah,” Aerion says. “In Deusto.”
“I’ve been round,” Dunk says. “For pre-drinks, with my flatmate, Lynda. Didn’t see you there.” He pauses. “Woulda remembered.”
“I don’t always make my presence known.”
Dunk nods, and they don’t say anything as they stand there, two solitary figures with their burning embers in the night. The sound of the club covers any awkwardness.
The cigarettes burn down quickly, too quickly for Aerion’s liking. He doesn’t know what it is about Dunk, but he wants the moment to last forever, doesn’t want him to leave, to go back inside or to go home or wherever he’ll be off to next.
They both speak at the same time, making eye contact that burns Aerion from the inside out. He holds it, doesn’t look away, asking a million questions with one look.
Dunk blinks, then answers without saying a word.
He pushes Aerion against the wall of the warehouse, his back up on the wet wall. It’s soaking through his shirt but he doesn’t care, because all he can think about are Dunk’s lips on his, Dunk’s hand in his hair and the other on the wall, the way Dunk towers over him.
His heart is going to beat out of his chest, he thinks, and he wonders if Dunk can feel it through his shirt, they’re pressed so close together. Aerion slides his hand under his shirt, has to feel him, has to touch him, has to make sure he’s real, and he is, and it’s magic, it’s like his brain is being completely rewired in real time.
Dunk pulls away for a moment, gasping, panting, searching Aerion’s face. “Sorry–er…was that–I didn’t mean to–”
Aerion doesn’t answer, just reaches a hand around Dunk’s neck and tugs him down again, crashing his lips against him.
“Come back to my flat,” he murmurs, still not pulling away, not able to pull away, not yet, maybe not ever.
Dunk nods, like he’s not trusting himself to speak, and Aerion knows how he feels, because he risked popping the moment just saying the words himself.
As they sit beside each other on the metro, hurtling towards god knows what, Aerion wonders yet again what he’s doing. He’s never acted this way, not with women, and certainly not with men. Any time he’s taken anyone home it’s been more…orderly, more systematic. Nothing spontaneous or impulsive about it, because that’s never been a word that describes Aerion. Precision, yes. Keeping things managed, also yes. Whatever he’s doing with Dunk right now?
He struggles to put the key in the lock, his hands are shaking, and he can’t tell if it’s nerves or excitement or anticipation or a mix of all three, it’s probably all three, and he’s biting his lip because he needs the pain to focus, he just needs to focus so he can get upstairs, so they can get upstairs.
And then they get to his room and he wonders if they’ll even fit on the twin bed he’s been sleeping on for the past couple of weeks, but then Dunk pulls him close again, holds his head in his hands, kisses him again, and he doesn’t think about the bed again, except that he really, really needs to get Dunk out of his clothes and into it.
It’s all heat and sweat and hands, and bodies colliding in a way that makes Aerion lose his mind, lose himself in Dunk’s touch, makes him never want to resurface, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing, not exactly, but Dunk does, and he helps him, he shows him, and they’re laughing and he makes him feel so damn good, Aerion never knew he could feel this good, the way he clutches at his back, claws at his skin, begs him to stop, begs him for more.
It makes him never want to surface, never want to come back to reality, until they’re both spent and wrung out, laying on Aerion’s bed, panting and sated.
“I think…” Aerion said, resting his head on Dunk’s still-heaving chest, “that I’d like to do that again sometime.”
“Yeah,” said Dunk, running his fingers through Aerion’s hair in a way that made him shiver, in a way that made every last part that he’d built up around himself finally fall away. “ Me too.”
Dunk stays the night, which surprises Aerion. Even back home, when he’s had one-night stands with girls, he’s never stayed, always had excuses ready to leave the second things were over. Why would he stay? He likes sleeping alone, he likes having a bed to himself.
But when he wakes up with Dunk’s arm slung over him, his deep breaths even and regular, like he doesn’t have a care in the world, it dawns on him.
Oh. This is why you stay.
There’s no awkwardness, no fumbling for clothing or avoiding eye contact, no wondering whose going to text who first, because they start texting and they just…never stop. They move like they’re connected by an invisible string, like it’s the most natural thing in the world for both of them. It all…slots into place, like they were never not Dunk and Aerion.
Somewhere inside his head, Aerion hears a clock start a countdown.
They go to pre-drinks at a flat in Abando, a flat occupied by two Americans, a Brit, and their Basque roommate who is never around. Aerion doesn’t know their names, he assumes Dunk does, because Dunk knows everyone.
The flat is small and packed, high heels clicking on parquet floors. There are jello shots, oh are there jello shots. Aerion rebuffs them at first, but an American girl with shoulder length blonde hair harasses him until he takes one. It’s quite unseemly, the method, using one’s tongue to swirl them out. But deep down, he has to admit, it’s a bit of fun. Americans do know how to how to party.
She drags him into the small kitchen and hops up on the counter and pours him a rum and Coke from the pre-packaged sets they come in at the Eroski.
“So, how long have you and Dunk been together?” She says, a suggestive tone to her voice. “You’re like, a really cute couple.”
Aerion shrugs, trying to play it nonchalant. “Since that first Art After Dark, I suppose.”
Her eyes widen. “Only since then? Wow! I thought you’d been together forever! You act like an old married couple, but like, in the best way!”
Are all Americans this expressive about everything, Aerion wonders. It seems exhausting.
“I came here with my college boyfriend,” she goes on, “but you two are just…ugh. So cute. Adorable.” She takes a sip and hops down off of the counter. “Are you coming out later? We’re gonna do karaoke at El Buho.”
Aerion has no idea what they’re doing, but he knows Dunk loves karaoke, and sure enough, an hour later, they’re in a dingy bar while he belts out “My Way” and the crowd goes wild for him. An older man who looks like he could play Willie Nelson in a lookalike contest mumbles in Spanish about Dunk’s “angelic” voice, over and over to anyone who will listen.
Aerion shakes his head as he sits at the bar sipping a whisky, but he can’t help but smile every time Dunk catches his eye.
~
Aerion has decided they’ll take a daytrip to San Juan de Gatztelugatxe. Dunk, who, of course, is down for anything, is happy to go. It’s an old hermitage situated on an islet connected by a winding stone bridge, and is supposed to have fantastic views.
Aerion heard they’re shooting a popular television show there soon, and wants to go before it’s overrun by tourists wielding fake swords and bad wigs.
“This part of the coast, it’s wild, like Ireland,” Dunk says. “Makes me miss home. My family.”
“Are you close to them?” Aerion finds he genuinely wants to know, which is new for him. He’s not used to actually caring what comes out of people’s mouths, caring about their family, about whose waiting for them back home.
“Really close.” Dunk stops to bend down and look at a donkey on the other side of the fence. “It’s just me, Ma, and my Da. I’ve never been away for this long, for a year before. Dunno what they’ll do without me, my ma always wants to know what I’m up to, who I’m seeing, talks my ear off about any new friends and dates I’ve had, and my Da owns a pub in the village, so I’m always there when I’m not at uni, going round to help him with the kegs since he’s getting older now.”
Aerion wonders what that’s like, to wonder if your family will miss you for anything besides what shareholder value you can provide to them, but he doesn’t say that outloud. He seizes on a different part of the statement.
“Your mother…she knows you date men?”
Dunk nods like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like it’s not something that would cause a bomb to go off in his family if he lobbed it towards his father.
“She’s known since I was young, before I did, I think. Never mattered to her. Always said I could be with whoever I wanted to and she’d love me just the same.”
Something twists inside Aerion, and he pushes it down like he pushes every other uncomfortable feeling down, like he has his whole life.
“Your family…you’re not out to them?”
“My father has…high expectations for me,” Aerion says as he hikes up the hill. It’s easier to talk about when he doesn’t have to look Dunk in the eye. “He owns a high-profile finance business in the city, something he wants–expects–to pass on to us. My brother, Daeron is the oldest, but he’s a fuck up, doesn’t take anything seriously. He’s not going to take over anything, my father would rather die than turn anything over to him. So, it has to be me. I have to be the one.”
“That’s a lot of pressure.”
Aerion shrugs, looking straight ahead. “I don’t mind. It gives me something to focus on. But any variation from the plan is met with…displeasure.”
“And this–” Dunk gestures between the two of them – “would be a variation in the plan.”
“And so you’ve never told him.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” It comes out shorter than Aerion would like. Dunk’s shoulder’s sag, just a fraction, and he reevaluates. “There’s been nothing to tell, before this.” He doesn’t mention he won’t be telling his father about Dunk regardless. When the year is over, when he goes back to London, he’ll be going back as the old Aerion, poised and managed and ready to take over the family business. He’ll be going alone.
They do the rest of the hike in silence, winding their way up the stone staircase, over the ocean, where the crashing of the water would drown out any conversation anyways.
The whole thing is a fantastical, magical place, and Aerion is strangely taken in by its beauty, by how solitary yet strong it looks, a place of refuge that’s sat there for years, unchanged by the elements. He wonders what that would be like, to be so sure of oneself that any and all storms and gales thrown at it do no harm, are nothing more than phenomenon that simply…occur annually, something to brush off like a irritating mosquito.
Aerion is jealous of a hunk of rock.
He realizes as he’s stands at the top of the hermitage, looking over the sea with the waves wild and breaking against the stone, that he never actually answered Dunk’s question, not really.
They take the metro out to the beach, even though Aerion hates the beach. The walk from the metro is long, and they have to go through a town and over hills to get to the sandy dunes. It’s not warm enough to swim, but there’s a small cafe that serves beer and sandwiches that overlooks the beach, so they decide to partake, and after they’ve had a few, Aerion decides he would like to go down to the water, just to look.
“Let me bury your feet in the sand,” Dunk says, laughing.
“You’re mad,” Aerion replies, but he’s already taking off his shoes and sitting down in the damp sand, and he’s surprised how cold the water is when it rushes over his bare feet, and he gasps, but Dunk sits down next to him with the intent to pile sand on him, but instead he kisses him and and his lips are salty, and Aerion pushes into his chest, and can he get even closer?
And the kiss deepens, and he wants more, he wants more of Dunk, because he can’t get enough of how he feels when he’s with him, how he feels whole, how he feels put together, how he feels…pure. And Dunk’s hand is around the back of his neck, brushing the hair on the nape, working it between his finger and his thumb, and he never wants him to stop, because if he stops he has to think, and if he thinks, he has to be, and he never want to be. That’s what he likes about Dunk, he just is when they’re together. He’s not a son, he’s not a brother, he’s not anything but his.
And then a large black dog runs up to them and inturrupts them and they’re laughing and the owner comes up and apologizes and is so embarrassed, but Dunk chats to him in his pretty good Spanish and charms him, like he charms absolutely everyone he comes in contact with, and Aerion just watches in awe, because he can’t believe out of all of the people in this city, he had the good fortune to spill his beer on him, and that on top of everything, he chose him, and not only that, he chose to stay.
It’s the kind of afternoon where time stretches out so long and luxuriously that Aerion thinks it may have actually stopped. The two of them are at Parque Doña Casilda Iturrizar, laying on a blanket Dunk nicked from his flat after he convinced Aerion to skip his last class because the weather was so nice.
Half of the city has had the same idea. A group of teens kick a ball around next to them, and it veers off and almost knocks Aerion in the head.
Instead of screaming at them like he would if he were in London, he scoops it up and kicks it back to them, giving them a hearty “cheers!” before he lays back down next to Dunk, who is tempting fate by exposing his Irish skin to the elements.
“Everything kind about me comes out when I’m with you,” Aerion says, drawing lazy circles with his finger on Dunk’s back. The sun is hot, rare, even in the late spring.
“Nah,” Dunk murmurs, head in his arms. “You have it in you, you just don’t know it.” He looks up at Aerion and smiles, that crooked grin that melts Aerion every single time.
He wants to bottle the moment, save it forever, so he can pull it back out when he’s home, when things get dark again, because they will get dark.
He can’t bring Dunk into that darkness. Someone like Dunk shouldn’t be with someone like him, someone who will drag him into the darkness, someone who will grind him down until there’s nothing recognizable about him. Aerion knows because he’s done it before and he’ll do it again; he can’t help himself. He breaks the things he loves, he breaks the people he loves
He won’t let himself do it to Dunk.
He’ll want to return to this moment, he knows it. But that’s all it can be—a memory. He can never allow it to crystallize into something real, into something tangible.
He can never bring it back to London with him, and he’s going to have to tell Dunk that sooner rather than later.
But today is not that day, so today Aerion feels the sun on his face and he feels the skin under his fingers and he feels the love of a man who he certainly doesn’t deserve.
Aerion asks Dunk to meet him at a café across from the Indautxu metro stop. Dunk doesn’t notice Aerion’s luggage stashed behind the pillar next to the table. He doesn’t notice Aerion didn’t order a drink. Doesn’t notice he doesn’t tell Dunk to sit down.
“Why’d you want me to meet you here?” Dunk asks. He pulls a cigarette out and lights it, takes a drag and offers it to Aerion, who accepts it.
“I’m leaving,” Aerion says without preamble. He feels his walls start to go up, feels his armor snap on, feels the old Aerion returing. “I’m going home.”
“Today?” Confusion clouds Dunk’s face, and Aerion nods, sharp, direct.
“I’ve finished my course early. My father needs me back. Family business. My flight leaves in two hours.”
He watches different emotions make their way across Dunk’s face, and he has to work to keep his own in place, has to work to stop himself from telling him it’s just a joke, that they should go back to his flat and fall into bed like they have a million times before. “But…why…I…I guess we’ll meet up when I’m back, then?” The question hangs in the air before Aerion cuts it down, passing the cigarette back to Dunk.
“Don’t call me when you’re back. Don’t call me ever. I won’t have this number. Whatever we had here…it’s over now. This year…it’s been great. It’s…it’s been the best year of my life.” His voice breaks, and he hopes Dunk doesn’t notice. “But I can’t bring it home with me. It doesn’t work that way.”
“We could make it work, though,” Dunk says, frowning, realizing what’s happening. “Back, you know, home.” He takes a drag and hands it back to Aerion. “It’s not like it’s anything different. I’ll move to London, I’ll get a flat. We can have what we have here—“ he gestures around—“there. It can be real.”
“Oh Dunk,” Aerion whispers, rubbing a thumb across his cheek, knowing it’s the last time, knowing he’ll never look into those eyes again, steeling himself to put his shields up again; for good. “There’s not a place or time where I’m good for you.” He pauses. “I’d ruin you completely.”
He grinds the cigarette into the ground and walks away.
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