They'd celebrated with cheep proscetto poured into even cheaper plastic tumblers.
Ian had laughed so hard at the fact, proclaiming through the mirth that they'd truly made it and, as always, he'd been buoyed the levity.
Smiled hard enough to stretch muscles and laughed until his stomach was complaining in kind.
The soft sound of plastic against plastic and the phantom ache of that joy haunt him as much as…
…Sky eyes fixing him a look he'd never seen before, a tight bind that has him drifting closer…
…the stale warmth his breath, the slight sting of the drink there on tongue…
…that voice whispering over and over that there is nothing more than the drink to blame the action no matter how little they've consumed, that they should stop…
…the feel of his hands against the bare skin of his back, the solid weight of him between his legs…
…the noise somewhere in the garden that'd had him starting as though shot, swallowing in the reality of everything and bolting so, so, swiftly the safety his own room that there is no chance to stop him.
He can remember also the grimacing face that'd met him across the breakfast table the next day, the shaky, plaster facade, smile as Ian had uttered the words that'd sealed everything,
"Seems like I've become a lightweight in my old age," a laugh, as fragile everything else, "I seriously can't remember anything past that first cup."
There'd been a plea in those eyes and he'd tied everything the tighter by answering it, laughing in kind as he'd given some ridiculous story of drunken antics and complained about his back being broken in the good natured ribbing that'd always defined their friendship.
He'd wanted to call him out, wants it still no matter the years that've passed between then and now, the simple fact that it is too little too late.
Over and over in his mind he plays what might have been if only he'd taken courage and chased after the other.
Had taken an immovable stand at his door, filled some impossible cockyness and made the vow that he knows would have changed everything.
A firm assurance that, no matter what, they'd be ok.
He would still have been uncertain, so much more than simply the future of a love connection at risk, but he would have had faith even more that vow.
Would have stretched for him in the darkness and given, at last, the wanting.
He knows, body and soul, that they would have been happy together, that relenting then would have made them all the stronger…
…can see so clearly the shape of what they might have been in the heavy look those eyes send him still, in the simple domesticity Ian has built together with Melanie.
His heart aches for the sight of it sometimes, the bitterness of regret so strong that he feels almost that the words shall tumble from him on impulse.
That it is far, far,to late, that they have both of them built lives upon the reality created their shared cowerdess, has always, always proves imperturbable barrier and yet tonight…
Tonight he has been left his own devices the caverness expanse another new house, boxes clustered close together the edges of his periphery and the sour after taste of a celebratory drink on his tounge.
A part of him wants to ring Ian, to bridge the gaps they've begun, surreptitiously to build between one another and simply confess all.
To bleed himself the poison of unconditional, unrequited, love with unflinching honesty and laugh it off drunken mistake in mornings light.
He knows that compulsion nothing more than spiteful want the hurt the other a little, a useless lashing out in the even more useless hope that perhaps this way he might make reality something other than it was.
Still surrounded the ghost of that night, the choking need to give at least some voice the maelstrom of conflicting emotions and so he types the simplest twitter status, playing at notulance and voicing again the lie that drink had been the main impidus the act.
A breath and then he sends it into the world, mentally pushing as much the baggage of the thing out along with it.
It is not the end, he has lived too long now everything to think it so simple and there will be small ramifications the choice to expose even a little the truth no matter if most of their fans write it off as strange, off handed, joke.
Still it feels as something and, for the first, he believes one day there shall be an end.
One day he shall be able to look at Ian and see him again simply as his friend, partner and brother in all but blood.