And Is Never Shaken

Cassian had just sat down at a table for one by the coffee shop window when he saw the boy he loved walk by.

Cassian had a large caramel macchiato—although he'd have died if anyone realized he was drinking such a girly beverage—a new notebook, a fresh red ballpoint and a stack of marking to do. He also had his laptop safely stowed under the legs of his little wooden chair, because he was finished for the day and should really be on his way home. He'd stopped on a whim, thinking that the hustle and bustle of the coffee place might stimulate his brain to some enthusiasm as he looked at a bunch of freshman essays on the inherent eroticism of Shakespeare's sonnets.

And then he saw Adam and forgot all of it.

He was out of his seat before he even realized he was going to move, knocking over a tower of paper cups and ignoring the shout from the barista in his flight for the door. He ran out onto the street, looking around frantically until he spotted that distinctive, gleaming, gold-streaked chestnut hair heading away from him, towards the street market.

It was midday and the street was crowded. Cassian felt like his heart had turned to a stone in his chest, cutting off his air as he struggled through the shoppers, desperate to keep Adam in sight. He couldn't find the breath to call out to him, couldn't look away. All he could do was run, and pray, and finally reach out one hand and catch hold of that thin, beloved shoulder.

Adam turned immediately, unafraid, a look of slightly impatient enquiry on his face. That confident look gave Cassian his first qualm. He pushed it away, because Adam was right there in front of him. Adam was looking up at him with those deep sherry-colored eyes. Adam was breathing.

Cassian folded the small, slight frame into his arms, burying his face in the silky hair, pressing kisses to it. He knew he was shaking, could hear his own voice mumbling out nonsense, whispering how much he loved Adam, that he was sorry, had missed him so much….

Adam had stiffened and was pushing at his chest, trying to get away, but Cassian had expected that. It was the smell that finally made him realize something was not right. Adam smelled—had smelled—of cigarettes and weed and sex. The hair that he was kissing smelled of shampoo, fresh and lemony, with a trace of some subtle cologne. Finally he realized that Adam was speaking to him and made himself listen.

"I need you to calm down, okay? I need you to take a deep breath and let me go. You're not in trouble. Just let go. Now, please."

The voice was all wrong. It was… young. Adam had been young—God, so young—but he had a voice like a debauched fifty-year-old, a voice ruined by drugs and tobacco and not enough sleep or food.

Slowly, as painfully as if he were twisting a knife in his own wound, Cassian forced himself to loosen his grip, to unwind his arms and step back. Adam—Dear God, it had to be Adam, didn't it?—pushed back forcefully and stumbled, catching himself against the red brick façade of the little shop they stood outside. That movement was the final straw.

Cassian felt agony knife through him, tearing out the hope and joy that had sprung up so suddenly inside him. Adam wouldn't have stumbled that like. Adam moved like a dancer, like an athlete. Every movement was graceful and sexy. It had been an illusion, because Adam nearly hacked out a lung if he so much as jogged, but that was Adam. Cassian had loved him despite, or maybe because of, his many contradictions.

"Stay back," the boy said, sidling away slowly. "Just stay there. Who are you?"

"I—" Cassian broke off when the word emerged as a sob. He shook his head, trying to look away from the face that had haunted his dreams all his life. It was the same face. He knew every line, every freckle, knew the shape of the eyebrows and the length of the lashes. He had kissed that face. Come on it. But none of that mattered.

Reason was asserting itself again. Adam would be over forty now, if he had lived. And this boy was barely twenty.

"I'm sorry," he finally managed to say, the words breaking pitifully. "I thought you were someone I…." Someone I loved. Someone I would have given my own life for. Someone who died years ago. There was nothing he could say that wouldn't sound insane.

"I'm sorry," he repeated lamely, and turned away.

He felt like an old, old man, walking bent over with the pain, as if he could protect the wound inside him with cradling arms and curved spine. Behind him he heard the young man's voice call out, a mixture of wariness and concern.

"Hey, wait! Are you—are you all right?"

He didn't look back. He couldn't. He stumbled back to the coffee shop, nearly dragging himself through the door. The barista, kneeling on the floor picking up fallen cups, gave him an angry look that turned into alarm when she saw his grey face, the way he clutched at his chest.

He went back to the table where his things were miraculously still waiting for him. He sat down cautiously, feeling as if sudden movement might tear something loose inside him, looking at the trappings of his life: paper and pen, battered, thumbed paperback of sonnets, coffee. Things that had held him together for over twenty years. Things that had stopped him from following Adam, even when he longed to.

Right at this moment, none of it was enough.

Cassian buried his face in his hands and cried.