#egd

The first time is inconsequential — that’s the word Saha uses on the phone once he explains it all, anyway.

And it’s Saha because…well. He isn’t sure who else to go to about it. Benji’s too deep in his own post-breakup angst

“And then what?”

“Then she asked if I wanted to sneak off and have a smoke.” Maran says. His brow wrinkles as he relates this information. He’s got the phone set on his dresser; he needs his hands to sort through all his (dirty? clean?) clothes, figure out what he ought to wear tomorrow. Even though its a cheap brick of a phone and probably water damaged, even though Saha’s voice comes out the crackly speaker all wrong, he still feels a wash of relief as she walks him through the day’s events.

Well, event. Just one astoundingly fucking life altering event.

“And…?”

Maran pauses, his confused expression deepening. “I said no?”

“Maran.”

“Well, I don’t smoke!”

Saha’s laugh cuts in the middle, volume distorting over the poor connectivity. She’s in London these days, in the middle of her studies — nothing is more indicative of the distance to him than those occasional dropped calls.

“She didn’t care about all that, though. She was just trying to get you alone and suck face more.”

His cheeks heat. Maran drops the trousers clutched in his clammy hand and presses a palm over the warmth. “It wasn’t suckin’ face, Saha, c’mon.”

“Well now it really won’t be! You turned her down.” She laughs. “So it’s inconsequential, right?”

“Is that the rules?” He wonders, edging for humor because the unfamiliar depth of that word makes him anxious. He fumbled, so… — he imagines Raquel dusting her hands, shrugging, flouncing off —

So that’s it?

“S’no rules to it, Maran.” Saha laughs. He can hear her set down her own phone, and the noises of a gas stove switching on. Saha was a shit cook, never had need to learn, so he wonders what’s prompted her to learn now. A girl, maybe. Probably.

Maran sighs and goes back to scrounging in his basket, searching for a nicer shirt. He’d learn to cook for Raquel, if she wanted to kiss again. He could make noodles. Probably.

“‘Sides, why would you want to hang about with somebody who does that and then laughs after? She told you it was a dare.”

“But you just said she was trying to—“

“Yeah, think about it.” Saha insists. Maran snaps his mouth shut and tries to, but whatsoever answer she expects him to formulate must not come quick enough. He hears her shuffle around and then pull out a chair, fall into it with a huff, and then—

Then she goes absolutely off about the whole thing with a clarity that he had never considered. That point she was trying to get him to think of himself, maybe. How Raquel might like him fine enough, might even want to kiss more after all but stealing his first proper one for a laugh. But how she also didn’t have the respect to let other people see her attraction without covering it up under humor. How he deserved better than that.

Maran listens the whole way through, of course. He’s fourteen and a bit lost; he’s been eleven and lost; six and lost. Saha has always been one of the people he felt comfortable slipping his hand into so he could be guided back onto the path. So he listens, and he really does try to think about it—

But the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks about how nice Raquel’s hair had smelled (lavender and coconut) and how soft her lips had been, and any sort of wisdom about worthiness or equity in partnership or whatever else Saha’s prattling on about kinda go in one ear and out the other.

“But what if I go apologize to her—“

“Maran!” Saha laughs incredulously, cut from her sentence midway. “Have you listened to a single word? Oh, bastard — you’re hopeless!”

*

The kisses after that are nice. He’s got a girlfriend (of sorts, loosely, no labels) and then another, another — and then a string of girls because Americans are pretty poor at differentiating accents. Unlike back home, nobody seems to get on him about sounding low-class or rough.

“I really ought to think the One Direction lads should be knighted.” Maran notes to Benji. They’re stood outside a loud house party, watching Maran’s latest girlfriend flounce off with a few of her friends in tow towards a ride share. He waves, but she ducks in without looking over her shoulder. “I mean, what they’ve done for UK-US relations alone—“

Benji’s eyes flick up at him, darkly humored even in the near-pitch black of night. “Knighthood’s a scam, mate. Upholds the empire. Whole thing should be binned.”

“You should be binned.”

“Naw, you.” Benji snorts back. The hand holding his cigarette flicks towards the retreating car, then snubs out the ember on the patio railing. “Fuckin’ dog, you are.”

Maran flattens a hand over his chest. “I’m very respectful.”

“Y’think you’re invisible ‘cuz you’ve got yourself tucked in the corner? Mate, everybody might as well seen your tongue touch ‘er tonsils.”

Maran purses his lips to fight a grin. “A’right, mostly respectful. Most of the time.”

“Hasn’t she got the same name as the last girl?”

He opens his mouth to argue, and then smartly snaps it shut.

*

The truth of it is that Maran hasn’t had a proper committed relationship since before he’d followed Benji stateside. Meeting Fiadh is a fluke and a blessing and, later…

Later, Fiadh’s something worse. Something he feels too guilty to name. He tells himself for a time that it wasn’t her; they just weren’t a proper fit; it was the relationship itself; it was Maran himself. When they meet, everything is washed in a honey-sweet tinge of familiarity and excitement. But when they part, it’s a nastiness — one that he would prefer not to attribute to her.

It just seems impossible. It’s Fiadh, after all.

At first, being with her reminds him of water after mint. She’s sweet and fun and invigorating. She keeps that coiled ball of new relationship excitement high in his chest, tucked just beneath a pounding heart and clammy hands. Being with Fiadh feels like standing out on the school grounds, watching Raquel march up to him with a determined glint in her eye. She feels like a first kiss a thousand times over.

And then she feels like: eugh, told you I could, easiest dare of m’life!

It isn’t Fiadh. Not really. He reasons it out to keep her as far from the blame as possible. Maran knows he has a few hang ups — he knows what projection is, he knows that he —

Well. He hasn’t had a proper committed relationship since he followed Benji stateside. And he knows that might leave a bit of grit, a bit of friction, in any future thing he jumps into.

(Maran thinks he might always, always jump without looking. Hesitating is unfair, isn’t it? Hesitating means he isn’t being trustworthy.)

“Really?” Fiadh exclaims when he tells her.

How funny is it, first girl I’ve properly, seriously dated over here isn’t even American?

“Oi!” He leans over her until she flattens to the grass, his shadow slipping over her to block the afternoon sun. Fiadh looks good in the afternoon sun — she spills all pretty and golden, orange caught in the wispy white edges of her blonde hair.

Maran tucks fingers into her waist, squeezing impishly to tickle. She offers a single reserved laugh (a huff, really, and maybe he hears more amusement in it than really exists) before batting his hands away.

“S’that supposed to mean?” He asks, intensely afraid the second the words slip out of him.

“Ach.” Fiadh dismisses, a flap of her hand and that throaty little vocal filler he loved so much. “Y’know what I mean. It’s just…well, girls talk, don’t they.”

Girls talk.

Fiadh reaches up to tuck the collar of his shirt crisp and neat against his shoulder again, smoothing her hand over it primly before pressing a kiss to his jaw and urging him back on his patch of grass.

Later, once they’ve broken up, he’ll reflect on those sorts of moments. When she’d freshen him up, or recommend a different pair of nicer trousers, or ask when he’d grow out of the dye, or twist her beautiful face into something almost offended when he’d attribute an outfit to the thrift shop.

Like I was a doll, or something, he’d thought exactly once, fresh post breakup phone call with Saha, red-eyed and crying so hard he’d given himself a headache. And then he’d never thought it again. Because the insinuation was cruel, wasn’t it? Too cruel for Fiadh.

As cruel as a dare.

*

The door to the flat swings open. Just in time, too — Maran’s been pacing so hard he had started to fear leaving a sad little track in the hall carpet.

“Hey, dude.” Lark squeezes one sleepy eye shut with a yawn. “You good? It’s like…holy shit. Three am.”

His acknowledgement of the hour seems to wake him up a bit more. Maran watches guiltily as awareness plucks at the sleepy veil making Lark’s under eyes puffy, his shoulders rounded.

“M’sosososososo sorry, mate.” Maran spitfires. He lifts his empty hands from his pockets for just a split second, then shoves them back inside. They’re shaking. “I’m just — I forgot to give— uh. Is Ben asleep?”

Lark tosses a look over his shoulder. “I hear his TV going.”

Maran’s face starts to split into a grin. “So fifty-fifty.” He imagines Benny up at his desk, shoulders hunched with awful posture Maran wants to correct with a soft touch. Or passed out, arm over his eyes, as X-Files reruns blare on as background noise.

Instead of responding, Lark shuffles blearily to the side to make room.

Maran can count on one hand how many times he’s paused outside Benny’s door. Even fewer, when he’d knocked. He should. Everybody’s entitled to their privacy. But that had never felt like a necessity with the two of them. Even before—

Maran lifts a hand, palm wiping over his smiling mouth. It hasn’t even been two hours since their dunk at the pool.

Even before they were together.

His knuckles are about to make contact with the door. But he drops his fist, still trembling, to wiggle the handle instead.

On his bed, Ben’s spread out exactly how he’d get situated right before a nap. Or, considering the time, a proper sleep.

But his eyes are open. Maybe too open, as they land on Maran. He doesn’t seem shocked though, just — they’re awful wide. A pulsing anxiety lodges in Maran’s chest, but it isn’t that new-relationship feeling, the tightly coiled knot, the anticipation of approach.

He takes a step into the room. “I’m sorry.”

“Mar?” Ben asks, brows briefly dropping before he grins. Clearly confused, but — Maran smiles too, feeling it stretch stupid and full across his face.

“Sorry,” he says again, making himself laugh. “Not for anything — well for barging in. But I can’t…you dropped me off and I just can’t—“

Ben stands from the bed, bare legs swung over the side. Maran had spent the better portion of the evening looking at him (and touching and tasting), but he finds it hard to fight the stray of his eyes across black ink. There’s the faint smell of chlorine clinging to him. Or to Maran. Or to both of them.

He stands in place, letting Ben close the distance.

“Couldn’t s-sleep?”

Maran swallows, teeth sinking into his lip. He can’t do anything but stare at Ben; the soft texture of his hair where it hangs in front of an icy stare, the gentle smile lines around his mouth, the pitchfork crinkle spread out from the corners of his eyes.

Ben doesn’t feel golden like sunlight or guilty when they press together, chest to chest and hips bumping. An arm slings around Maran’s back, notched right where his spine ends. He shivers.

“Me either. Wanna stay here?”

Maran does his best to make sure the kiss he plants on Ben’s shy, smiling mouth leaves nothing up to a delayed interpretation. It’s everything but inconsequential.

*

They don’t really announce it. Not right away, anyhow.

The next evening, at an illegal bonfire on some rich somebody’s lawn, Maran drops himself into Ben’s lap.

Chatter lifts and ebbs around them, akin to the buzz of beach flies and summer lightning. In his immediate vicinity, Matilda and Benji’s conversation silences.

Maran is quiet, too. He hadn’t been anticipating the feeling that came with doing this. He’s plenty affectionate with everyone. He’s used to an arm slung around his shoulders or Xavier lifting him around the waist, creating a space-reaching beast when Maran scrabbles up around his shoulders.

But Ben’s thigh beneath his is a different sensation entirely. A different sort of kind, gentle warmth. He wraps an arm around Maran, fingers digging into the ticklish spot along his flank. He knows it’s there. But he squeezes anyway, maybe just to make Maran yelp and laugh — and then the arm gets tighter.

He laughs until it comes out a bit too breathy. Then Maran quiets.

It doesn’t feel like a laughing matter. It feels like— he can’t —

He’s held.

*

The next morning, he catches a bus to campus and sprints across with only moments to spare, only to realize: there’s someone in Ben’s lab.

Maran lifts his face away from the glass with a pout. He leans back to double check the label next to the door — yes, right number — and then peers inside once more.

And then, like he’d heard Maran’s desperate little thoughts, Ben appears from the blind spot in the corner of the room. The other person (his lab partner?) tosses their head back and laughs at something he says.

Maran wrenches the door open.

Both students whirl around to stare as he dances into the room, bag of take-out held aloft and balanced on his head. He’s causing a commotion, he knows. Probably interrupting something important. Maran thinks of a constant needle from Fiadh — childish — but only for a brief moment. He forces the grin bright once more and slips over to a desk.

It’s strewn with papers and diagrams, but nothing that looks important — or breakable. Ben’s bag, simple black canvas with several patches and hand-sewn designs, rests atop another he doesn’t recognize.

Maran sets the take-out down and taps the shiny silver strap.

“I like this color,” he lies, smiling big and charming at Ben’s lab partner.

They don’t speak. He frowns, glances at Ben.

“Is th-that from the pho place?”

The smile returns. “You forgot your lunch in the fridge.”

Ben pushes his safety goggles up, making blond hair spring everywhere, as Maran approaches in a zig-zag. His blue eyes follow the movements, clearly humored by the display. And the amusement makes him look less tired. Less stressed.

“You c-c-could have just brought it to me?”

Maran shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. But you like this stuff.”

Ben’s lab partner interjects with a short laugh, but when both their heads turn they look deadly serious.

“Something funny, Gee?”

They flap a hand in the air, lips parted as if they plan to respond to Benny’s needling. But — then their eyes stray towards Maran and go a bit wider.

They don’t know?

Maran thinks of sunlight in hair, of plain chapstick briefly touching his mouth, a body against his at a party who he can never name, a string of girls he probably didn’t treat as well as he could have, and —

He thinks of Raquel, her laugh; he thinks of her offer for a smoke. In private. The back of a girl’s head as she ducks into a car.

“Gigi,” Ben says, startling Maran a bit with how close his voice is. “This is M-Maran.” He tucks a strong arm around Maran’s waist (held, smaller, vulnerable, held) and shuffles him closer. “Mar, this is Eugene. We’re carrying each other this s-s-semester with a hope and a fuckin’ dream.”

Maran and Gigi blink at each other. Then Gigi offers a curling, hesitant smile.

“And science.” Gigi adds.

Ben snorts, puts the fist not squeezing unapologetically at Maran’s hip into the air. “And science.”

“I thought Benson was making you up.” They say. Their voice isn’t soft or waifish, just quiet. Maran likes that he’d got to lean closer to hear. “At some point you’re just like — wow, nobody has that many stories and is telling the truth.”

“Fucker.” Benny sneers fondly, although there’s a suspicious flush to his cheeks when he looks down at Maran.