Archive of Our Own ^beta

Now
Noel fumbled for his keys with leaden fingers as he got off the bus, missing the last step and wobbling slightly as his right knee threatened to buckle. The sun was out. It was shining. The heat was a physical presence, layered on his face and pressing down on his eyelids with tiny hands, urging him to sleep.

The crosswalk was too far away, all the way down the street, and then back up the other side so he waited for a break in the traffic, eyeing the cars with idle disinterest and then darted across the road to the side gate.

The distant past
It was a fleeting thought. Just as the boys pushed past him in the stairwell. Just a slight shoulder check, not enough for any of the teachers to notice, just them bumping him sideways as they went down and he went up, high schoolers being high schoolers. He tipped a little, the railing dug into his ribs and he caught a flash of the ground below from the corner of his eye before momentum was pulling him to straighten back up.

He kept walking, sketchbook held tight to his chest, head down and chin in. it would do no good to get suspended now. They would pull him from art class and he would miss football. The clock overhead, lording over the hallway ticked on relentlessly. Pushing them onwards, into the classrooms, scrambling to desks, timing them, no pause for such silly thoughts as those. The bell was ringing and the thought was gone. For now.

Now
If it weren’t for the heat it would be an absurdly nice day. Really, actually, it was a nice day. It had been raining the whole week before, but today the sun was out, drying the puddles and making the wet aching damp more of a warm moist enveloping hug. One foot after another, up the stairs to their tiny flat. If he had it in him to hope, or if he were the kind to pray, Noel would have asked whoever was watching that Julian not be home.

He reached the top of the stairwell and paused momentarily in front of the door, turning to look out at the other flats and the bright blue sky. there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Sometimes Noel wondered if it wouldn’t be simpler just to be happy. They had just won a Perrier for Brian Christ’s sake and the sun was out and shining. He could find a peanut, Julian would say he was having a tremendous day. He would smile like he was. The tiredness that tugged at the bottom corners of his eyes was apparently something only he could feel but no one could see.

Noel turned his face to the sun and closed his eyes for a moment. It was warm on his face. Let Julian not be home.

The past
There was a building at Croydon. A modern sort, open layout, instead of walls enclosing musty corridors, all the offices clustered together in the center faced outwards to open-air hallways. It was dug into the ground so the bottom level was in a depression you could look down at from the normal sidewalk walkway. It was six stories tall above ground and there was no elevator.

The building itself was concrete, all gray, and uniform. Boring. Plain. Drab. somewhere where you came to visit all the history PhD professors, who sat in their tiny windowless offices, covered floor to ceiling with books about art and books about theory, but no light or life before leaving quickly to return to the light airy studios. But on the fifth floor in the corner of the building, there was a tiny wooden table and chairs and there were plants. On the ground, and on little plant stands, and a couple on the table. They probably belonged to one of the professors in that pod of offices but this area of the building was quiet and Noel had never seen the owner of the plants.

The wind rustled the leaves around him as he stood at the edge of the balcony, leaning on the hard concrete railing, looking out over the campus. Looking down. It was really seven or eight stories if you counted the lower level.

He didn’t have a professor with an office in this building. He had found the peaceful little corner by accident. The flash of green among all the grays and dirty, dusty faded whites of the building had caught his eye as he had wandered up the stairwell. He would have never heard about the student who had been here. Who had stood one floor up from where he was standing. But they had visited all the dorms to check in on them, to make sure they were doing okay after the news, which Noel would have missed, and the thought had stuck in his head.

He had walked past this building every day for a year and a half. He had never considered. He wasn’t considering. He had just wanted to see, to understand. Had the kid not seen the plants as he had made his walk up the stairwell? A curling vine brushed Noel’s hand and the hard lip of the concrete dug unto his stomach under his ribcage. He leaned out a little further to feel the sun on his face but it was pale and anemic. He couldn’t feel anything. Cloudy. Probably going to rain.

He sighed and turned away, collecting his sketchpad and portfolio. He should go before he got wet. There was homework due for studio tomorrow.

Now
He opened the door and slid inside, toeing off his shoes as he considered the flat. He was alone. There was that stillness to the place that only came when it had been undisturbed for a good amount of time.

“Ju?” he called anyway. Just in case. There was sunlight streaming in through one of the windows, turned golden, dark yellow by the thin blinds. He squished his toes in the carpet and stared for a moment at the dust mites dancing in the beams of light. Poetic? Romantic? Something about the quiet slide into golden hour asking to be painted. He turned away and headed down the hall, dropping his bag on the couch and stripping even before he entered the bathroom.

Noel loved baths, loved to soak, use fancy soaps, pamper himself and scrub his skin till he was soft and smooth. Today was not a bath day. The water in the shower could turn up to boiling and you had to wait, testing it and jiggling the dials gently till it was the perfect hot but not painful temperature. That was a careful feat, not for today. He stepped in as he wrenched the handle all the way over to the left.

Noel stared at the tiles as the water beat on his shoulders. Afternoon showers were something interesting. Just the change in time made them feel so much more surreal. Liminal. You lingered in night showers or baths. You hurried through morning showers to get to where you needed to be. But afternoon showers? Those were strange things that ought not to exist.

The future
Noel played with the wetly peeling wrapper on the beer bottle, the condensation making his fingers slippery against the glass. Julian next to him was a steady presence, vaguely comforting in his own dependable way. Nothing was really comforting when the world was like this. But in their boxers on the stairs looking up at the moon, Noel could pretend that he couldn’t hear the whispering that had started in the back of his brain who knows how long ago. That gentle urging that he would never listen to, but nonetheless still existed with every day.

Julian took his beer from him and handed Noel his own empty bottle in exchange. Noel tilted slightly so he could rest his head on Julian's shoulder as Julian lifted the drink and took a gulp. Noel hadn’t had any, not that Julian would have cared about swapping spit even if he had. He contemplated telling Julian about it. About the high schoolers or the building at Croydon that had lodged in his brain, that he had never been able to look at the same. He breathed. He didn’t say anything. Julian's shoulder shifted under his cheek. He was as warm as he had been when he crawled into bed with Noel, lying there quietly with him till he eventually coaxed Noel out.

Sometimes Julian seemed to know. It often felt like it was written on his face, or on his forehead like people could look at Noel and guess at this thing that he carried with him as dedicatedly as he held his sketchbook. But then on the other hand nobody ever really stopped to look so maybe they didn't notice. Julian did though. Ju had his own days when Noel would let him rest his head on Noel’s chest and card his fingers through Julian's hair. He didn't question Ju, though maybe he should, and Julian didn't question him. If Ju asked, for him and only him, Noel would try to answer.

Julian finished Noel’s beer and leaned back on the stairs. He put an arm around Noel and they contemplated the moon.

Now
Noel toweled off, even the soft terry cloth rough against his red prickling skin before dropping it on the counter and traipsing to the bed. The duvet and sheets were blessedly cool as he slid between them and lay on the bed, on his stomach, arms spread, limbs heavy and twisted. Noel imagined. He considered. Somewhere between thinking about it and thinking about one of many possible aftermaths he fell asleep.

He woke to Julian, equally undressed, pulling him to lay on top of his chest. Julian was warm and his skin was soft and familiar and Noel closed his eyes and let himself be manhandled till Julian was comfortable. He still felt heavy, tongue too thick to speak and brian too slow to make words so he just lay and let the slow rise and fall of Julian's chest and the steady drum of his heart lull him into a soft kind of stupor.

Eventually, Julian’s stomach growled and he rolled them both up to sitting. He found pants for them both, waiting patiently till Noel pulled his on and then walked them to the couch. Noel sat while Julian got food but slid back down to lie with his head on Julian's thigh. He opened his mouth and ate mechanically for the few chips Julian offered him from his hand but eventually turned his face away and slipped into a doze.

Julian woke him with the touch of a cold beer bottle to his back. Noel wrapped his fingers around it, the paper damp against his palm, and followed Julian outside to sit on the stairs. Why the stairs. Always the stairs. It was still warm outside. It was dark and there were crickets chirping, and the hot humidity of the day had become the warm wet of night. There were stars out. They were shining.

The distant future
“Slow down or you’ll fall!” Noel was fully ignored as Dali and the twins raced past him down the stairs, chasing the ball they had dropped from the top floor down the middle of the stairwell. He followed them more sedately, one hand trailing down the railing the other clutched around a thermos of tea.

Julian was waiting for him as he stepped out of the building, the children already long gone running off towards the heath. The sun was out. It was warm but there was a pleasant brush of wind that ruffled their hair and kissed their faces. It spoke of cooler days to come before the harsh bite of winter. Julian smiled at him and Noel bumped their shoulders together as they started walking in the direction the kids had run. Between the folds of their coats, hidden from any prying eyes or sneaky cameras, Julian took his hand. This was new. Something delicate and tentative growing within new bounds of family and other partners whom they both loved. But they had never been ones to follow heteronormative norms that men couldn’t hold hands, and they would eventually explain. And they were both too old to deny themselves the extra comfort.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky. The lure of the stairwells had faded somewhat over the years as other voices -- Birdy, Dali, the boys, Julian’s again -- had come to fill its place. Julian jerked him out of the way of a rogue football and Jean grinned cheekily up at them as he raced past chasing it. It would have been unimaginable back then. Fully unfathomable, the life that was waiting. They found a spot on the hill to sit and watch the kids play and Noel leaned his head on Julian's shoulder for the briefest of moments. The sun was out. It was shining. The heat was a physical presence, layered on their faces, and warm on their backs. But it wasn't pressing with the call of… sleep. It was warm and comforting and full of love and light and life.

Against all odds, Noel was still here. Existing. And now he could see the people surrounding him. Buffering him from the railings. Surrounding him. Supporting him. In the stairwell, on the stairs.