001. Love

one. "He's not here," Líadan says. There's nothing about that statement that should raise red flags -- Ciarán doesn't have to be home all the time -- but Líadan's voice is especially gentle, her face sympathetic. Baxter may be naive, but he's not stupid. Something is wrong.

He swallows down the surge of panic. "Um, do you know when he's coming back?"

Líadan shakes her head, doesn't make eye contact. "He packed up and left last night."

Baxter has never been punched in the stomach before, but he is fairly certain this is what it feels like, like someone has forced all of the air out of his lungs and he can't find the capacity to breathe again. "Oh." It's all he can manage to say, scrambling to patch together sentences that actually make sense. "Well. If he comes back… tell him I dropped by? And - and that I'm sorry. I really am."

He apparates away with a pop before Líadan can ask any questions or, worse, see him cry -- he feels the lump in his throat pushing against his vocal chords. Bax knows he's a little bit of a cry baby, knows it's more than a little embarrassing, so he locks himself in his room and lies on his bed, strumming away on his ukulele and forcing back the tears. He's an adult now. Grown men are not supposed to cry.

He stays there for the entire day and then, when no owl or word of any kind arrives, for the entire week, only bothering to get out of bed to bathe and occasionally to accept meals from the servants who come to drop them off, looking very concerned but not asking any questions because they know it's not their place; he can see it in their eyes. Baxter appreciates the discretion.

Portia raps softly at the door every now and then, implores him to come down for breakfast or lunch or dinner or to play with the dogs or something until the end of the week, when she has obviously had it up to here with his feeling sorry for himself and throws the door open,  sending it crashing against the wall. "You are being terribly cliché."

"I feel terribly cliché," Baxter replies, completely sincere, as he strums a random note. "Go away."

"To be perfectly honest, Baxter, I do not really care which awful country song you are currently experiencing," Portia says, absolutely no-nonsense as she throws open the curtains to his floor-to-ceiling windows and filling the dark room with light, making Baxter wince. "Get up. We are going to church. And then you are going to hold my bags while I go shopping."

"But I don't want--"

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you spent a week lounging about in bed when we have orientation in two days."

"Ciarán left without saying goodbye," Baxter pouts.

"Oh, God. I can't believe you're actually mourning losing a hundred and seventy pounds of dead weight." For the first time, Baxter manages a laugh no matter how much Portia's disdain for Ciarán frustrates him. "Come along. We're going to celebrate."

two. When he received his Cambridge acceptance letter, Baxter insisted on having an authentic college experience… which means living in a dorm with a roommate who is a total stranger, despite the alarming number of people he already knew on campus. It's not really a big deal; Baxter's been in boarding school for the past eleven years of his life. He's used to having roommates. Actually, the weirdest part is only having one.

Bax's roommate is "Callum, never Cal," and a Gemini with a Capricorn moon. Baxter doesn't know what that means and he wonders if it's supposed to be a joke or a reference because all of his friends helping him move in laugh, but it goes completely over his head. He just smiles. Callum-never-Cal moves in pretty quickly, probably because he doesn't have a squadron of ten people arguing over his stuff, and spends the rest of the time lounging on his bed and asking Baxter a lot of questions:

"So where are you from?"

"What're you planning on majoring in?"

"Where'd you go to school?"

"Boarding school, huh? Is it crazy?"

He smiles and answers all of them while he puts his clothes in his wardrobe and arranges the books on his bookshelves, but he doesn't really pay attention until Callum gestures at Portia and asks if she's his girlfriend.

"Gross, no," Baxter laughs, shaking his head vehemently, "She's my sister."

"Oh. You got a girlfriend?"

Baxter shrugs. "Not exactly."

Callum seems very interested in that -- he sits up and scrutinizes Baxter with one eyebrow arched so high that Bax wonders if it hurts his forehead. "You got a boyfriend?"

Baxter laughs again, but before he can answer, Portia echoes, "Not exactly." He almost wants to ask her what that's supposed to mean but Aldric throws his arm around Baxter's shoulders, tall and beaming, as he proudly announces that they're best friends and that even though he knows Bax is pretty adorable, Callum needs to keep his hands to himself.

He knows it's all very normal and fun and light-hearted, but his gut reaction is to cut Al off and insist that Aldric isn't really his best friend, his real best friend just doesn't go here, and that's when he understands what Portia means.

Well. Isn't she funny.

"He's not my boyfriend," Baxter tells her later, throws a Sour Patch Kid at her. "Don't be stupid."

"Could have fooled me," she teases, a mischievous little smile playing at her lips as she throws the Sour Patch Kid back at him and pops another one into her mouth. "You did cry when he broke up with--I mean abandoned you."

"I didn't cry!" He didn't. He tried very hard not to cry, thank you very much.

"Oh, I'm sorry. You sat in your room and played sad music for a week when he abandoned you. I'm not sure which is worse."

three. His first class is Principles of Economics, a huge lecture, and Aldric decides their group ought to occupy the entirety of the back row, to which Portia makes some snide comment about how they are not twelve-year-olds at a movie theater… but that's where they all end up sitting anyway, the large group of legacy aristocrats all in a line as some praised Economist lectures.

Baxter learns it is a very, very bad idea for him to sit in the back of such a large lecture hall. He spends the entirety of the class examining the tops of people's heads rather than taking notes, and at the end of class, he almost has a heart attack when his gaze locks onto a tall, lanky male with fiery red hair. He knows it's not Ciarán, that that can't be Ciarán, but it still takes all of the willpower in the world to stop himself from following after him.

When he gets to the bottom of the stairs, he realizes he doesn't have to, anyway. Ciarán's eyes are blue.

But after that he sees Ciarán everywhere, any time there's a tuft of bright red hair or someone lazily leaning against a tree, idly flipping through a book they don't want to read, any time he hears an Irish accent. The worst is when he hears or sees something amusing and instinctively turns to tell his best friend only to find that he isn't there.

It's not until Charmaine laces her fingers with his and asks, giggling softly, "What are you always looking for?" that Baxter realizes he maybe has a problem. Ciarán does not go to Cambridge, he reminds himself. You are never going to run into Ciarán at Cambridge.

Instead, he takes up compulsive letter-writing, poring over pages and pages of all of his thoughts and feelings and cares and concerns and the current events of his life and owling them off, which is actually very difficult when you live on a campus rife with muggles and there's that pesky Statute of Secrecy to worry about. Fortunately, Baxter's always been good at disillusionment charms.

Writing with a pen on loose-leaf paper feels alarmingly foreign.

If he's completely honest with himself, it hurts when months pass and he receives no response. But Bax has never been very good at being honest with himself, and he learns to ignore the dull ache in his chest, smiles at everyone like he always has. He doesn't bother trying to convince himself that Ciarán is not still upset with him.

He doesn't hear back until halfway through his junior year, when he doesn't bother living at school anymore, when he's gotten so accustomed to the constant ache that he doesn't even think about it until he sees an owl -- always delivering a letter from someone else -- and it flares up again.

I'm fine. Don't worry about me.

Baxter never thought receiving a response would be worse than none at all, but it is, and he has that sensation of being punched all over again as he crumbles, slides down against his door and, yes, cries. Because Ciarán doesn't want him to write anymore. Because Ciarán doesn't care anymore. Because Ciarán doesn't want to be part of his life anymore.

Well, unfortunately for Ciarán, Baxter has been spoiled his entire life. He doesn't know the meaning of the word 'no.'

four. "Baxter, darling," his mother begins, her voice serious in a way it usually isn't as she sits him down in their formal living room, "I've been thinking a lot lately."

The last time his mother sat him down in the formal living room for a "chit chat," it was to tell him that his dog died while he was at school -- in other words, not very much of a chit chat at all. Baxter is wary. "Yeah? About what?"

His mother's finger runs over the elegant family heirloom encircling her left ring finger. "You and Charmaine have gotten very close since you've been going to school together," she says, trying to sound nonchalant but with something underneath that Bax can't quite figure out.

"Haven't we always been close?" He tries not to ask if something happened because he knows he's not really prepared for an answer if it's negative.

"Of course," she smiles, visibly relaxing. "But I think you two are close enough now that it would be appropriate to take your relationship to the next level." She looks down at her wedding ring for the first time, beaming at it. "Don't you think the family ring would look lovely on her?"

"Ciarán hasn't approved of her yet," Baxter blurts out immediately. He still wants Ciarán to be the best man at his wedding, after all. He can't propose if Ciarán hasn't given him permission to. Even if Ciarán still isn't talking to him, still doesn't respond to any of his letters, Baxter just can't propose without Ciarán knowing. He's only met Charmaine once. And that was years ago.

Except he feels sort of sorry for saying it when his mother's bright smile, the one he inherited, visibly falters some. He wishes he could melt into his seat. "Oh," she replies, "I didn't know you two were still friends. Ciarán never comes over anymore." She pauses, looks like she's weighing her words. "I'm still terribly fond of him, you know."

"I know," Baxter nods. "It's complicated."

That, apparently, is enough for Sophia Bancroft, who sends him off with word that he should really think about her suggestion. And he should, he knows he should. It's only fair; Charmaine sticks around because she expects that he's going to marry her. He's always planned on marrying her.

He sends Ciarán another letter, prays it's maybe enough incentive to bring Ciarán back to him.

And he waits, despite the prodding from his sister and his mother and his father and his friends and effectively everyone except Charmaine, until he receives another, even shorter and more ambiguous note: Don't do it.

Baxter has had just about his fill of people telling him what to do.

five. "Goddammit, Bax, because I love you! Okay?! Dammit… I love you."

Oh.

Baxter has that sensation of getting the wind knocked out of him again, but it's not quite the same as being punched in the stomach. It's dizzying, though, and he can feel--hear, even--his heart slamming against his ribcage and his head must be spinning because he sees Ciarán's mouth moving but has absolutely no idea what he says until his voice drops low and he mumbles, "Tell me you don't care--tell me you don't love me, and you can marry whoever the fuck you want. I'll leave for good and leave you to your happy life."

He cannot think of anything, not one thing, he has ever wanted less in his entire life. He may not be much of a man of action, willingly following everything that he was told to do and everything that he was expected to do, but this is the first time he's seen Ciarán in three years and he has no intention of losing him again. And everyone says that actions speak louder than words.

Which is the only explanation he has for why, after a beat, he slams Ciarán up against the wall and kisses him hard, greedy and needy and hungry like it's all he's ever wanted to do, in all the passionate, fervent ways he has never, could never kiss Charmaine.

"I love you," he says back, wide-eyed and desperate, when they finally break apart. His fingers dig into the fabric of Ciarán's jacket, just to make sure Ciarán can't abandon him again. "God, I've always loved you."