Sebastian closed the door to the inn and fumbled with his hands as he walked towards Illyria. He wanted pockets, and had forgotten his old clothes didn't have them. You can hide so much in pockets: nerves, hopes, crossed fingers... all kinds of secret things. He took the path to the seashore, where he could see Orsino's palace clearly.

He looked out to sea and wished away his guilt. He could not have said goodbye to the man who had become his dearest friend. He knew that. Just like he knew that if he said a thing about love these past three months, he'd never be able to let go.

He had been sleeping soundly in Antonio's bed every night for two weeks following the storm, when he started at the sound of a sudden crash. He hadn't slept a wink that night, his mind too awake with wild fantasies, but that crash startled him even out of his indulgent rest. He never did find out what made the sound. He fidgeted, restless.

"You too?" Antonio's pillow muffled his voice.

"I'm sorry I woke you."

"You didn't. You're shaking. Are you cold?"

Sebastian said nothing to that, and Antonio rose from the bed and poked their fire, coaxing the coals out of their dark hiding places. Soft rain on the shutters sounded like his fingertips did, tapping whenever he was nervous... which he seemed to be now. Whether the rain was to blame, Sebastian could not say.

"Why did you rescue me, Antonio?"

"That's a question." One of the flames leapt up and illuminated Antonio's face. The ship on the waves painted on his arm tipped back and forth in shadows that flickered and spun like stormclouds. "Do I have to answer it?"

"I suppose not."

"You deserve to know." He rubbed his eyes.

"I don't. It's fine. Never mind. Come back to bed." Sebastian felt proud for keeping his voice steady. He wouldn't be nearly as cold with his friend inches away, surely. His shivering would stop then. It would.

Antonio sat before the fire for a long time. Sebastian rubbed his arms and gathered the bedclothes tighter around himself, but still he shivered. Watching the man tending the fire didn't make him calmer. When Antonio climbed back into the small bed they shared, Sebastian started when they touched and shook more than ever.

"It's alright. I'm cold too." Then he pulled away. It was only by a few inches, but Sebastian wanted to reach out and close the distance again. The wind whistled outside.

Hold me, please. No, can't say that. Would you come a little closer? Perhaps...? "Would you mind... telling a story or saying anything."

"I don't have many happy stories. And a troubling one doesn't help anyone sleep."

"You know lots of happy stories."

"I've told you all I know."

"Then anything... a dream about the future?"

"I don't like to dream about the future," Antonio said and shifted further from Sebastian.

"Why not?"

"Those dreams don't come true."

"Is this supposed to be one of your lessons in reality?"

"No... I just don't like to dream." The conversation seemed to be over, but after a minute of silence Antonio continued. "It's not a good quality, Roderigo."

"I wish I could change it, then."

"That's a nice thought."

"Do you have no dreams at all?"

"A few... the ones I think about when dreaming can't be helped. But they're just dreams, and I don't want to talk about them." He was still staring into the fire, and Sebastian stopped shivering.

"Antonio?"

"Yes?"

"Would you come a little closer?"

The way the shadows fell, Sebastian couldn't see Antonio's face clearly, and he imagined a dozen scornful expressions that his friend could be putting on in cover of darkness. But after what felt like a full minute, he felt warm breath on his cheek.

"Is this what you mean? Or am I being inappropriate, sir?"

Sebastian sprang up, and yelled down at his friend. "Sir! Why do you call me sir? And always at the oddest times!"

"I didn't – "

"Because the only reason I can think of for you to call me that..." Really, this man ought to have called him "sir" from the start and everything they had done was inappropriate, and Sebastian thought that if he had to sustain the contradiction one more minute he'd – "You don't call a man 'sir' whom you saved from certain death and you don't call a man 'sir' with whom you share... anything! For god's sake, Antonio, I'm sleeping in your bed! And you're asking if sleeping a little closer to me – after I have asked you to – is appropriate? I think it's entirely appropriate." There was only a little rain tonight, but it had not touched him so he feared he could not claim madness.

Sebastian reached out and his hand brushed against stubble. It tickled his palm. His fingers found Antonio's lips, and he kissed them.

When Antonio did nothing in return, Sebastian realized he might respond to his touch with worse than a simple "No." Antonio might think this presumption – that his unspoken dreams had anything to do with Sebastian – warranted a fist to the face. Sebastian had never been punched before, and Antonio's fists could do damage. He cursed himself for not thinking of that before.

Antonio's breathing was coming in starts, but still he said nothing. Perhaps saying nothing was his friend's form of politeness, and Sebastian should take it. He turned away to face the wall, but Antonio pulled him back. He pinned Sebastian to their small bed and kissed him back. Antonio kissed him until Sebastian's bones turned to water, and he found all his limbs twining around the figure above him.

"Roderigo..." Antonio spoke with so much tenderness, Sebastian would have given anything to hear his own name in place of the one he had given, but he knew that confession would end this immediately. "Tell me what you want."

"No! I... I hardly know... anything..."

"But this is something you want?" he asked, cupping Sebastian's cheek.

"Stop asking me about it."

"Why shouldn't I?"

Because I know nothing. Because telling you exactly how little I know would humiliate me. Because "virgin" is a very exotic word, but such an awkward thing. It had all felt wonderful, but... "I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

Of diving too deep into the world, of playing havoc with your devotion, of realizing this is more than a mere distraction...

"Of me?"

"No, never." Sebastian brushed a strand of Antonio's hair from his eyes. His hand lingered. "Of making myself a fool." He still shook and thought maybe that his hands had a life of their own, because he hadn't decided to stroke his friend's face or to run his fingers across his lips. When Antonio spoke again, his lips caressed Sebastian's fingers.

"I'm afraid I can't comfort you about that. Every man who..."

"Every man who... what?"

He shook his head. "It's nothing. I only asked you because... " His arms also shook, surely with the effort of holding himself up. "...because I don't want to take anything from you."

Sebastian's hands laced through Antonio's hair of their own accord, but he decided clearly on each word he spoke. "I want you to touch me. I don't know exactly how..." or why "but I know that's what I want."

"Then I may kiss you again?"

"Please."

This kiss lasted the longest of all, and with hands and with sighs Sebastian guided his lover's hands over his body. This wasn't the sex he had blushed over in natural philosophy tutorials or the crass talk of the sailors below deck. Smooth touches and sounds he had not known he could make carried him higher and higher until he was soaring.

In the weeks that followed they had played out all sorts of fantasies, the greatest one being that this wasn't play at all, but the life that he had missed for nineteen years spent in a gilded, lonely house with a sister he would never see again. That he could afford to measure his life in warmth and passion instead of days and nights.

Until last night, when the play ended entirely.