Rory and Sebastian

Author's Note: With apologies for the delay, there will not be that long a gap again and to confirm, I know some readers think that this story has "dragged on", but the intention behind this story is to look at a relationship that evolves and changes over many years! Thank you for all your comments.

== From Sebastian's POV ==

Rory stepped into my car as a light drizzle of rain fell over the driveway leading up to his house. He was wearing a gray cashmere roundneck and his hair held a slight residue of the mist-like rain from outside. He gave a sigh of theatrical exhaustion as he sat in the passenger seat, and leant over to kiss me, peck me, very lightly on the lips. It was nice, it felt reassuring, but then that was probably why he had done it - to calm me down. When you love someone like that, I think you get into a weird kind of emotional infinity symbol of knowing how well they know you and they know you know that they know... I don't know. I'm rambling. Anyway!

"Hey," he said, breathlessly, after the kiss. He had dashed from the house without a coat or umbrella. Clearly he assumed we were staying in the car to talk, which was fine with me. There was more privacy that way, in case anyone yelled, cried or, like last night, ended up inside each other.

"Hey," I answered, turning the key. "Who'd you tell your parents you were going out with tonight?"

"You," he answered. "Should I have lied?"

"You told them it was me?" I asked, half-looking at him but keeping my eyes on the dark country road as I turned out of his driveway. "Rory!"

"What?"

"I assumed you'd lie to avoid questions. I thought you'd tell them you were hanging out with Robbie or Virginia, not me! Jesus, Rory, if I'd known you were going to tell the truth I'd've called to the door! Now I look like a d-bag who waits in the driveway and doesn't call up to the door to say hello to your parents. Fuck!"

"Sebastian, they know you. And we're not back together, yet, so... calm down," he smiled, there was an incipit smile in everything he was saying. I hadn't forgotten he could be like this, but I'd forgotten what it was like when he did it; how it made me feel. He had a rare kind of charming condescension, an endearing emotional snobbery, something that arose through an innate and very loveable superiority, when he felt calm, certain and in control. He used it with particular effect when he had to stay calm for both of us. I wondered if he could sense how nervous I was.

It had all happened so quickly, from the accidental meeting in Edinburgh to the totally unexpected sex at the wedding the night before. And now, here I was; so very close to what I had wanted on some level for nearly two years. Having suppressed the desire to be with Rory Masterton for the best part of a year, it had all come flooding back to me and a nervous ticking metronome of panic was clicking away in my head at the thought that, having come so close and reawakened all those old feelings for him, for us, it wouldn't happen. What was he going to say if, or rather, when, I told him about how promiscuous I had been during our separation? Morally, it wasn't as if I had done anything wrong. We had been broken up for a long time when I first fucked somebody else and none of them had even remotely come close to usurping Rory's place in my heart. But we were at different universities now, separated more or less by the full breadth of the United Kingdom, and if Rory thought sleeping around was a compulsion, a habit that couldn't be broken, a cause for mistrust... It wasn't. I knew it wasn't. Zac Efron could have lubed up and begged for it and I'd've shrugged him off if Rory was free for so much as an afternoon coffee, but still, the doubt remained that Rory would know know that. Or not believe it.

"What's wrong?" he asked from the gloom of the car. "You're not as loquacious as usual."

"I'm shitting myself, Rory."

"Aren't you seductive?"

"Seriously. You've no idea how nervous I am. Lame, right?"

"Adorable, actually. Turn left here."

"Isn't straight on quicker?"

"To where?"

"To the grove."

He shrugged, "The left's a better road."

"Maybe twist and turns just make the final destination feel like more of an accomplishment," I said, flashing a grin. He rolled his eyes and laughed, before staring out the window.

"Isn't it a horrible night? Weather-wise, I mean."

"It's December," I said. "That sweater looks really good on you."

"Thank you."

"It'd look better off, though."

"Haha. You left a mark on me, you know, from last night."

"Well, that's just for all those dudes up at Saint Andrew's to know that you're mine now. Again. I dunno."

I pulled into the grove, a parking lot that on a clear day had a beautiful view over the green trees of the Weald, but tonight it could have been looking into a blackhole once I switched the headlights off. Rory instinctively flicked the car locks on, a tribute to the traumatization he suffered everytime he was forced to watch a slasher movie. He looked over at me and smiled, "Slasher movies," he explained.

I nodded, "I know, Rory."

"So..." he said, angling towards me and unclicking his seat belt. He brought his right leg up to perch slightly on the chair and he stared at me. In the half-light being given off from my radio, his eyes swam with questions and the cheekbones of just-the-littlest-bit-too-thin face were beautifully lit up. Objectively, I knew Rory was never the most perfectly handsome guy in the world, but he had a way with him, maybe only I saw it, maybe only loves see it, I don't know, but he really could take my breath away.

I turned to face him and sighed, "Yeah."

"We have a lot to talk about."

"I love you," I said. "I just wanted to get that out there. You've no idea how nervous and happy and excited and shitting myself with fear I've been since last night, Rory. I can't... I know we have a lot to talk about, but I'm so completely in love with you that I will do anything that needs to be done to make this work and I don't want to play any games, because that's not us, it's not you and I. I just, before anything was said, I wanted to say that." I smiled at him and he kissed me, hard, impulsively and the gearstick certainly got in his way, but he did it and I kissed him back. It wasn't sexual, it was just, well, I'm honestly not entirely sure how to describe it. When he separated from it, the calm he'd been wearing since he got into the car was rattled a little.

"I love you, too, Sebastian. I do, honestly, I know that..." He stopped himself and took a breath. He bit the bottom of his lip slightly. "We need to be able to talk about things though.There are things to talk about." I nodded and he launched straight in with his first question, "The first thing being, I suppose, to ascertain how mad you are at me?"

"I'm not mad at you. Why would I be mad?"

"Don't do that. Don't let's ignore everything unpleasant now until six months down the line it becomes a huge thing that breaks us up a second time round. You know that you are mad at me on some level, you're bound to be angry. I got a little flash of it at the Balmoral when I brought up Evan and Sarah. And when you referred to me as a 'blast from the past.'"

Jesus, he didn't miss a thing.

"So," he continued, "talk to me. How angry are you? Say what you need to say."

I could hear the incipient nerves that he was trying so desperately and masterfully to control. To anyone else, he would have appeared unflappably serene, but I knew this performance was a bit like a swan in motion with its feet paddling frantically beneath the surface.

"There have been times I've been angry at you, yes, of course, but they're not enough to keep me from wanting you. Of course they aren't! But Rory, I guess the thing that's always half-bothered me - and I know it shouldn't, because the rest of the time I know the answer - but, why did you do it? Maybe why's not even the right word; maybe 'how' is. That night, that party, it wasn't, I mean, fuck, I'm not going to say it was assault, but it wasn't consensual. I could barely stand and the guy just launched himself at me and, okay, you're looking down, I can tell you don't like hearing about it or imagining it, and I get that: if someone had done it to you, the image of it in my head would've killed me, it would've made me so fucking angry. But, Rory, the difference is I wouldn't have broken up with you over it, not in a million fucking years. I would've gone after the guy and beat the shit out of him, and that's not bullshit machismo: I would've done it and you know I would have. I could barely fucking stand and he... I just don't understand how you weren't able to see it from my point of view, because it wasn't like I was trying to pretend that it wasn't an awful thing to have happened or that I didn't understand why you were upset. And when you slapped me, punched me, whatever you want to call it and then you were in my arms, sobbing, in my arms because of something I had done, Jesus, Rory, you've no idea what that was like. It was the single most awful moment of my life, it felt like I'd been punched right in the heart, and I was trying so hard over the next few days to get you back, to hold on to what we had, but I just feeling you slip away from me, completely... It was fucking awful. And Rory, I loved you! I loved you so much and we had been through so much. You were my boyfriend, the guy I loved totally, and you were my best friend, too. It just seemed like it was so easy for you, and I know," I held my hand up to stop up when he open his mouth to protest that point, "I know it wasn't so easy, but it was too easy for you. I couldn't have done what you did to us anymore than I could have walked to the moon. And then to cut me out completely... I just, fuck, I don't know. I don't know how you did it and part of me thinks, 'Shut your fat fucking mouth and don't ask any questions that'll stop him wanting to get back together with you again,' but the other part of me needs to know that you won't do it again ... I don't want to go through the rest of our relationship living with this fear that you could ditch me. That I'm an optional or an addition. I don't know." My voice quivered, broke with held-back tears, and I clenched my right fist and lightly thumped the steering wheel with it. "Fuck. This is..."

There was a long silence that was only broken when I said, "Will you please say something?" In response, he just shook his head and wiped his cheek. "Don't cry, Rory," I said, reaching over and taking his hand. "I'm not... I don't know where that came from. Don't cry."

"I'm fine. I'm dealing with trying to repress that for eighteen months, Sebastian, so give me a minute."

Another pregnant silence settled over the car, broken only by the rain as it evolved from a drizzle into a shower. The fingers of Rory's right hand were beating nervously against his leg, in an increasingly fast pace until they stopped and he lost the battle for self-control; a sob broke from his throat and his shoulders sagged. In a few minutes, the entire dynamic had changed and his calm, poised self-assurance had finally been irrecoverably shattered.

"Oh, Rory, don't," I reached over to him and putting my arm around his shoulder, pulled him in towards me. I felt a second of hesitation and then he went with it, allowing himself to be awkwardly guided over towards me. Instinctively, without thinking about it, the first endearment of the evening slipped from my mouth, "Baby, shhh... come here." His face pressed into the crook of my neck and I could feel the tears on his cheek. "Baby... Rory. It's... I love you."

"I love you so much," he cried, softly. "I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything."

"I do and you know I do!"

He moved back to his seat and I rubbed his shoulder.

"I'm not saying this to make you feel worse, sweetheart, but you were weird, uneasy, I guess, about us going away to different colleges beforehand and I've always been worried that you - I don't want to say 'used' - but that what happened at that party sort of gave you an excuse, a reason, a legitimization, whatever, to..."

Rory shook his head. "No, Sebastian, that's not what it was, at least not consciously. You're so much better looking than I am that I was worried that when you went to uni there'd be people throwing themselves at you, left, right and centre, but I knew I was just going to have to get used to that idea and to trust you. And I did. I do. But when that happened, that kiss, something just snapped inside of me and I can't fully explain what that was, although I suppose I should try to. Everything just went into a kind of slightly manic overdrive. I was in therapy then, remember, counselling for my stupid eating thing..."

"Rory, that's not stupid, by any stretch of the imagination..."

"Anyway, it was a good thing to go through, but when you're in it, it kicks a hornets' nest. It strings you out while you're looking for answers and that stringing out gives you less of an even keel. To extend and distend the metaphor." A ghost of smile played on his lips at his inarticulateness, but it faded quickly as he tried to explain why he had behaved that way, though, as I'd said, a part of me already knew why. "I was so fragile, panicky, I suppose, that when I heard about you and that guy I knew that if we went to university with that still hanging over us, it would drive me mad. And it would have, Sebastian. I can't tell you that it was the right thing to do morally, but pragmatically, on some level, I think it was. It was a reasonable reaction to a really shitty string of circumstances and I wish I could tell you that it hadn't been and I wish that I was half the boyfriend you are, were, will be, but I dropped the ball because I just didn't know how to play the game. I'm so sorry; you are..."

"What?" I prompted.

"The love of my life. You are. I think about you all the time and it took so much self-control not to text you or call you or Facebook you anytime I was down or upset or really happy. Even now, I just want your arms around me and to love you and make you happy. But I feel as if you need to shout at me, so that you can get these things off your chest?"

"I don't want to shout at you, Rory, but before we go any further you should know that there were other guys at college. Quite a few."

"I know that," he said.

"How? Because you always thought I was a bit of a slut? I guess I've no reason to get pissed off about that, now."

The rain was getting much heavier outside. Driving back would be a nightmare.

"I know because people talk," Rory said, gently, "and because I assumed you'd have... fun... at university, Sebastian, if you were single."

"It was just sex," I said. "No one could ever replace you. Last night, when you were lying in front of me, naked, Rory, I couldn't believe how happy I was that you were there. I realized how much I'd missed it, you, how stupid it was to think that anyone could ever replace you. You're my guy. You always have been. Evan used to say that he knew him and Sarah were meant to be together after they broke up when he figured that random hook-ups meant nothing to him anymore, that they left him feeling a bit sickened, and wanting nobody but her. I feel that way and then some, now. I don't think what I did was wrong and I don't hate the guys I did it with, but even during it, there were times I was comparing it to you and nobody ever rose to the challenge of even seeming like a disadvantaged competitor. I love sex, but I love it with you more than anyone else and I love you more than it, me and pretty much anything else combined. I need you to trust me, because I want this to work and I want it to work in a way that makes you as happy as I can. I don't want you sitting in Saint Andrew's worrying about some guy throwing himself on me in London because, believe me, no matter how drunk I get I won't let that happen again and it'll always be you that I want. If you are ever in my arms sobbing again, Rory, I swear to God that I want to be sure that I didn't cause it. I want to be the one that wipes away your tears, not fucking causes them. And that sounds like something from a Ryan Gosling movie, but I do mean it and you know that. Don't you?"

He nodded.

"Anyway," I prompted, "you said last night that there had been other guys that you'd..."

I paused, why couldn't I finish the sentence? I wasn't a prude, I had a very matter of fact attitude to sex, particularly with him. I'd joked about it right after he got into the car. I'd just told him about my own sex life. But the words stuck in my throat; on some instinctive level I just could not bring myself to say "had sex with" in relation to Rory and somebody else.

"Had sex with?" He finished, interlacing his fingers with mine. I nodded tersely. "Yes," he said. "There were two. The first one was awful. It wasn't you and it just felt... awful. I hated it. The second guy, it happened more regularly, obviously. I was actually on top for most of that one, which..."

"For fuck's sake, Rory, I don't need the details."

"Sorry," he said, looking surprised by my tone. Which, I'll admit, was aggressive. Far more than I'd intended it to be, it just sort of fell out of me. I hated the idea of him with anyone else.

"I didn't give you details or numbers," I said, defensively.

"Well, that's probably because you couldn't count that high," Rory shot back. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said. Why are you being so weird?"

"The idea of you having sex with anyone else makes me really unhappy."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, the second guy, the regular one, wasn't a fuck-buddy or anything else. We were dating at the time."

I think he knew as soon as he'd said it that it had made things a million times worse.

"You dated somebody else?" I said, turning to look at him in full. He nodded and opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off by repeating my original question.

"Yes."

"For how long?"

I didn't know what he was going to say but I certainly didn't expect the answer, "Four months." It was like being punched in the gut and I was very nearly shouting at him, even though I knew I was being totally hypocritical and very rude.

"Four fucking months?! Rory, how is that even fucking possible? When I ran into you in Edinburgh - fuck it - when I ran into you in Edinburgh, I had kind of been seeing someone in London and when I say 'kind of being seeing someone', I mean that I had been occasionally going for dinner with him on a fairly fucking infrequent basis and that was the first time I'd been in any kind of regular even faintly romantic setting with anyone in the last eighteen months. I was still referring to you as someone I'd 'just broken up with' for about 9 months after you dumped me. And obviously my heart was never really in it with Daniel. The minute I saw you at the hotel, it was sayonara for him and me. I don't care if I never see him again and the second I got back to my friend's apartment in Edinburgh and he found out that it was you I'd ran into, even he knew that there was no way anyone could compete with you. That's the level that people at my college know about you, and they've never even met you! I never ... Rory, how could you date someone for four months? Date someone! What was the little fucker's name?"

"You said you didn't want details," he said, firmly. I started to falter, my tone began to lose its belligerence; it wasn't fair the way I was reacting, especially when he'd taken the news that I'd fucked all around me with such comparative grace and tact. But this was worse, much worse; the idea of him snuggling into someone the way he used to with me, kissing them, smiling for them like we used to smile at each other, sharing jokes. It was primal and caveman-like, sure, but I felt so possessive and upset by the thought of it.