This is one of my favorite small fandoms, and it seems to have slowed down lately, so I felt I had to contribute to it. I'm a bit nervous, as these characters are very near and dear to me- hopefully I haven't done anything too bad to them.
Warning for (very slight) consent issues.
The second time Jane kisses Will Stanton is in London, and it's the result of a coincidence, a chance meeting in a SoHo coffeeshop. Jane is the one who sees him first. She's sitting in a corner with a cappuchino and a copy of The Feminine Mystique, and he's asking with characteristic grave politeness for a black tea. Jane is later thankful this is how it happens, because she has a nagging suspicion that if Will had seen her first he might have left to avoid her. In any case, she called out to him, and when he turned to see her he had the most amazing smile, one that wouldn't be particularly dazzling on any one else but on him it lit up Jane's world.
She's determined not to let him slip away, but she's surprised when he actually invites her back to his place, surprised and also impressed, and a bit envious, that he has his own apartment, that he's already so independent. Jane has been out of college for two years and she's still sharing her rent with four other friends, mostly because she refuses to move back in with her parents.
Will's apartment is tiny, but Jane doesn't care. She's been continuously surprised lately. She'd had some image in her head of Will living somewhere anonymous and impersonal. She'd never have thought he'd be the kind to reflect himself upon his surroundings. This tiny apartment is full of plants, big trailing things. There are maps on the walls, nice ones, and everywhere there are shelves of books. It's all very neat and orderly, of course.
Will makes her tea and biscuits in his tiny kitchen, and they go and sit on the metal grating that serves as a balcony. There's nothing like a view, of course, just a back alley, but it's outside on a warm
summer's evening, and Will is there, cross-legged and relaxed, close enough to touch.
They talk. Will's halfway to anthropology professor already, it turns out. This has shocked absolutely no one, least of all his family, who always knew the youngest child was destined for a life of academia. Will laughs when he says this, and tells her he doesn't intend to spend his life inside Oxford's ivory walls. He seems more interested in Jane, though, Jane who is feeling very self-conscious of her own ordinariness.
He offers to come with her on the subway, but she says she's fine on her own. There's still some light out, and so she can see every detail of his face in the second before she leans forward and closes the distance between their mouths.
He makes a small noise, not quite surprise, and then relaxes into it. Jane leans further. She takes his soft hands and places them on her hips, hoping she's not being too forward. Slowly at first, and then quite quickly, his hands creep up her back and begin to unfasten her bra. Jane's heart thuds in excitement. This all feels so right, like it was something that was always meant to happen. The thought of Will- cheerful, strangely reserved Will- focusing entirely on her agitates her further. Come on, she thinks, please, and she grabs at his jeans. Will groans, which Jane takes as encouragement. "Oh," she mumbles, aware of how silly she sounds but unable to stop herself, "oh, thank you, thank you, thank you so much-"
His hands slow, and stop. Gently, he pulls away from her. Jane stares at him for a moment before turning away sharply, and tugging her shirt down, tears of embarrassment springing to her eyes.
"Jane," Will says. He's fastening up his jeans, straightening his clothes. "Jane, I'm sorry. I just can't."
"S-say it," Jane says, trying to keep her voice steady and mostly failing. "Say y-you don't like me." With every quaver she despises herself a little bit more. "You're unattached, and I know you're attracted. There's no other reason not to. We don't have anything to lose by it." She swallowed. "You wouldn't even have to call me in the morning if you didn't want to."
"You'd hate me forever if I did that," Will says gently.
"Then you don't like me."
"Of course I like you." He's looking at her very earnestly, with his stupidly beautiful gray eyes, and he's not calling her silly, at least.
A thought occurs. "I'm on the pill, you know, so we don't have to worry about that." Another thought, horribly embarrassing. "It's not- you've done this before, haven't you?"
"Yes." He takes her hand. "Jane. Can't I just say no, right now?"
And of course that makes her terribly guilty. She takes deep breaths, trying not to burst into tears. "If I go home tonight," she says, "can you promise you won't disappear from my life?"
His silence is answer enough.
"Well, then," she says. "I'm not going home."
Will looks at her for a moment, irritated and amused in equal measure, but apparently he can see her determination because after a moment he goes and gets some extra blankets for the couch.
The first time Jane kisses Will Stanton is on a train platform, with the wind of the approaching train tangling her hair and making her eyes water. They're both fifteen. It's almost chaste and certainly amateur. It's only the third time she's ever kissed a boy, and she's still not exactly sure how you do it. It's over quickly, in any case, so she's not sure if he responded at all, and then they're just looking into each other's eyes. Will's long fringe of brown hair is falling into his eyes as usual, and he's got such a grave expression. Jane wants to reach up and smooth it away. Instead she takes his hands- they're only slightly bigger than hers- and asks him, very seriously, "I will see you again, won't I, Will Stanton?"
He finally smiles, small and soft, and replies, "I'm sure you will."
Good, she thinks, and then she has to run to catch the train, and he has to help her with her suitcase, but there is time enough for hastily shouted "Goodbye!"'s, and the last sight they have of each other is when they're waving, as the train pulls away, waving until they're out of sight and they have to stop, suddenly, feeling somewhat silly.
(Jane gets four letters a year from Will, every year since the summer in Wales when they were twelve. They're very long, detailed, and personal letters, somehow reassuring, as though Will's solidness is contained within them. He also sends her jewelry, sometimes, plain bracelets or pendants of metal stamped with odd patterns. Jane keeps everything he sends in a box under her bed. She forgets it when she leaves for college, and agonizes over it for days, in the end calling up her parents and informing them that under no circumstances are they to throw out anything found in her room.)
Things go very differently with Bran. Bran is different, himself. Exciting. Aggravating, sometimes. He comes to London the summer before she gets her A-levels. She learns later there'd been a row with his father, though she never brings herself to ask what about. She doesn't want to question his miraculous appearance on the porch of the very old Marylebone town house that contains the Drew apartment. She just wants to reassure herself that he really is here, all thin sharp angles in a black turtleneck sweater and gray skinny jeans, golden eyes roving restlessly behind the usual darkened shades.
They fall to arguing with the ease of siblings, Bran lounging on Jane's bed idly smoking a cigarette out her window, and she drags him outside so they can argue in more interesting surroundings. She can see it even past his sunglasses, how unnerved the Welsh boy from the hills is by the lack of horizon, the cars and the people and the speed, but he adapts more rapidly than she could have hoped. London is an excellent place for two adventurous teenagers, and they spend the first few weeks of the summer discovering unusual parks or bits of castle with the city built over or the best places to get curry. As it turns out Bran is able to buy cheap bottles of wine with ease- everyone's so guilty for their stares that they quite forget to card him. Which is how Jane and Bran end up having a midnight picnic in Kensington Gardens, during which they get well and truly smashed. Somehow a half-hearted fight turns into a bit of mutual groping, and finally a rather messy and uncoordinated union. Jane is terrified in the morning and watches herself carefully for weeks, but nothing ever happens, and after that they make sure to have a steady supply of condoms on hand whenever they go on long walks to debate Margaret Thatcher's fiscal politics.
One thing they never mention is a country boy in Buckinghamshire, and why neither of them has replied to his letters in the past year.
Jane often daydreams about Will Stanton. She imagines him as chivalrous (something she has no evidence of) a knight in shining armor. He's exactly the kind of boy she always imagined marrying. He's intelligent, kind, and not bad looking, in a stocky kind of way.
She fantasizes, guiltily, about Bran Davies. He's arrogant and beautiful, and he demands, in a way Will never has and never will. She suspects it has to do with how they grew up. Will says he's the youngest of nine children, which is probably what gave him his calm and peaceable manner. Bran, on the other hand, knows he stands out no matter what, and so he ensures that people look at him with fear, admiration or irritation, because to have them look at him with pity or revulsion would be unbearable.
Jane doesn't think about marriage with Bran, doesn't imagine a picket fence and a dog and kisses each morning at the door. She just lets her feelings wash over her, reacts, lives in the moment. It's a good way to live.
Bran calls her Jenny-oh, and cariad, and sometimes throws things at her and sometimes goes to films with her, and does all the other things Will Stanton will never do, and that's why, a year after Bran reappears in London working for the Labour party, Jane moves her box of twisted silver earrings and eighteen-page letters into the dustiest part of the attic, and the next day mentions offhandedly that perhaps they ought to consider making their relationship into something more permanent.
It's Bran who contacts Will first to tell him the news. It's Jane who first suggests he should be Bran's best man. Will's voice crackles tired but amiable down the phone line, and he tells them he'll be flying back from Argentina at Midsummer.
They're there to meet him when he steps off the plane, and Bran sees him first. Jane is watching as the two men make eye contact. She can feel an electric shiver between them, neither taking their eyes off each other, and then Bran walks up to Will and for a single terrifying moment Jane thinks he is going to kiss Will, in the middle of a crowded airport, in front of all those people, and she freezes, remembering that it's been legal for several years now, but not in public, and then Bran simply rests his hand on Will's shoulder. Will smiles, small and brilliant, and Jane finds herself gasping for breath. Oh, she thinks to herself, oh, oh-
-and Will turns, closes the distance in a single long stride, and kisses Jane, long and sweet and deep. Jane feels as though her heart is going to explode. At last she is in the perfect state of being kissed by Will Stanton, and of course it's not everything she ever imagined but it's rather damn close, and all the better for being real, warm and solid and actually 're in an airport, and so they break apart after a moment, and smile at each other, Jane flushed and happy, eyes shining. Will takes her hand, so they don't have to stop touching. His other arm slides across Bran's thin shoulders for a second to wistfully trail across his back, and then Bran takes Jane's other hand and picks up Will's battered old suitcase and they walk out together like that into a day of uncommon English sunlight.
Jane wishes they could just go to the park and lie out in that bright greenness. They rent a hotel room instead, in some anonymous part of town, put down fake names and fall over each other entering, collapse on the wide bed giggling nervously like guilty children. Will kisses her again, on the forehead and then on the lips, while Bran twines their fingers together, their matching rings warm gold against their skin. Jane laughs and settles back to watch as Bran rolls Will off of her, pins him to the mattress. Will's hair is spread on the sheet, soft and fine as summer grasses. Jane can't take her eyes off them, the pale, colorless curve of Bran's skin against Will's sun-darkened neck, the way Bran kisses the hollows between his throat and his collar bone. It's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.
There's a strange sort of nostalgia to that thought. Jane has the idea that she might have seen things as beautiful, many years ago, when she was small. She can't remember, and the mere act of trying is impossible when her men are reaching for her with desire in their contrasting eyes.
Jane unbuttons Bran's shirt while Will works on his pants. When they are almost finished Will suddenly moves, catches up Bran's hand and examines the simple band. Jane doesn't breathe until Will says, "I can make you much better ones than these, you know."
"Don't-talk, you insufferable- Englishman," Bran moans, and lunges for him.
The wedding is in September. Jane takes the memory of Bran's face the first time he sees her in her grandmother's dress, puts it in her pocket to save for later. Will's eyes are warm as he slips the new rings onto their fingers. Later, at the reception, he stands to make the traditional first toast, looks around, regarding all the guests, the Drew extended family, and Evan Davies straightbacked and lonely, John Rowlands in an ill-fitting and very old suit, awkward and out of place but with deep love for Bran shining out of his honest face. There are other people as well, meaningless faces of politicians and diplomats and secretaries, a surprisingly affluent crowd for the wedding of a lowly official, which strikes Jane as odd- Will looks at them too, fondly, as though he knows them well, and wishes them all the best. He speaks, tells them of the changing world, the new generation, children grown to adulthood. He tells them these children must decide, now, what kind of world they want to make. He reminds the audience to make their lives happy, to love their family and friends, he tells them that every bit of joy in the world makes a difference. "And there is no more joyous occasion, for me," he finishes with a smile, "than to see my dearest friends in all the world begin their new life together."
The honeymoon is easily explained away- Bran's far too busy, with the elections and everything. So the newlyweds simply retire to the apartment downtown they're going to share until they can afford something better. Sometime later, when the sky is beginning to darken, Will opens the door with the spare key under the welcome mat. "Congratulations, Mrs. Davies," he says, a bottle of wine under his arm, and Jane replays that in her head: Jane Davies. Mrs. Jane Drew Davies. She's turned into someone else without even realizing. It wasn't exactly a bad thing, though.
They drink the wine lying in their new bed and Jane realizes with a strange shiver of relief that she's more than Mrs. Jane Drew Davies. She's an integral part of something astonishing. There's that feeling again, the one she only gets when all three of them are touching, the electric feeling of storms and hillsides, great waves of men, or maybe water, sweeping over the island, obliterating all in their path. It's the feeling of sweet harp music, or the high unearthly singing of a boy on a cliff, or a beach at sunrise.
Christmas for Will is always spent at the legendary annual Stanton family gathering in Buckinghamshire, but Boxing Day is Jane and Bran's. They are never quite sure how he arrives at their house in the suburbs, as there is never any sight of a car or taxi. Will simply appears, as though he has walked the earth just to show up outside their white painted gate and stand among the trailing wisteria and jasmine, a backpack on his shoulder, in generic dull clothes that somehow give him an antique look.
They sit in the parlor, Jane and Bran, waiting for him. They would sit out in the garden, but it's always too cold. Bran is always reading, reports and policies and things that make his forehead wrinkle, just slightly in the center. Jane has taken to drawing recently, though she hasn't a scrap of her brother's talent. She works with graphite pencils, scribbling swirling shades of dark and light, and little boxy patterns. Jane presses hard as she fills in the boxes with crosshatching. She's been having doubts, lately, about how much she is really enjoying the role of politician's wife. She misses her long hair, her jeans. She's thinking about maybe going back to school, and Bran doesn't know that she is thinking this.
They hear the small sound of the gate latch and tense in anticipation. The door is unlocked, and the room is so still they can hear the doorknob turn. Will walks in. He smiles at them.
Sometimes Jane wonders where they each went wrong in their lives. Will gives too much, and takes too little, as though he is terrified of having a self that might be hurt; she is driving herself unhappy for the sake of an unworkable love; and Bran- Bran wants to rule the world. Worse, he might actually do it. And Will and Jane will follow him, to the ends of the earth. She thinks perhaps Will might escape, someday, might simply negate himself to nothingness and thus be free of earthly bonds. She doesn't think she ever will. Jane defines herself too much by other people.
Right now the room is warmed by a crackling fire and Will's smile, and he has something in his arms, something wriggling and soft, and Jane can see Bran's harshness crack. "I think his name is Eirias," Will says, and Jane replies, "of course it is." Bran just strokes the puppy's soft ears and hums some nameless tune of love and home.