Charles26

This is a chapter that has left me truly on edge, waiting to find out what happens next. Perhaps Thomas Pritchard was more than a friend. I don't know. My own guess would be that he was a client; someone Julien was guiding, and that there was an accident. A serious accident. Possibly fatal. Perhaps Julien had legal, but probably not moral, liability. Why else should his insurance company be interested? And now Oliver's accident. What (whose) insurance details did Julien provide at the hospital? But I think Oliver's response to Julien's sense of guilt is right: "And he knew, as Julien didn’t yet, that the search was futile. Some systems failed not because of a flaw but because of conditions no logic could have predicted." and "You carried me down a mountain,” Oliver said. “Both packs. In rain. On a route that doesn’t exist. And you slept sitting up on a sofa because you didn’t want to be in a different room. That’s not what a person who did something wrong does. That’s what a person who did everything right does.” It was a nasty accident, and a painful one for Oliver, but he doesn't blame Julien and he doesn't want Julien to blame himself. This is good and it is one of the greater gifts he can give Julien - partly because he believes it is the truth and also because he loves him.

The previous chapter presented them with a crisis, very much in the sense of a decision point. They seem both to have learned something from it (especially Evan) and perhaps this will be a case of 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. When fear of rejection and ambivalence about control dominate your feelings "...the room held every stop they’d made without one of them turning into an ending." has to be profoundly important. Great chapter.

They still don't understand themselves. Even if the attraction isn't sexual - unlikely given that it's a GA story😁- they so much want to be friends that it's almost painful to observe. I wonder how their team-mates, coaches and other acquaintances manage to say as little as they do. Just too much fun for them to want to spoil it, I suppose. And anyway, I doubt that either of them would listen. Thank you for another fun chapter.

Whoops! Too late to edit, apparently; but what I wanted to say was "isn't necessarily easy to read". There is a lot of pain in this chapter and light reading it is not!

It worries me, too, and I don't know how to interpret it. But I do think that Oliver has found something very important with Julien, and I doubt that he will be prepared to let it go, so I trust that something good will come of this. A nasty accident, though.

Nolan is a poison that Evan has to get out of his system - somehow. But Cian understandably doesn't wish to be used. I don't have the least idea how Evan is going to resolve this but I think Cian will be there for him if and when he does. I hope he does! And this just goes to show that what is well written is necessarily easy to read. Good work, anyway.

What a wonderful chapter. That kiss up on the ledge. The risk - "It was competence in the place where fear should have been, and Oliver had inherited it whole, and the inheritance was the thing that had broken his marriage and was now, if he wasn’t careful, the thing that could break this." But then - "The journey was every morning after this one where he would wake and Julien would be there and that would be walking, and that would be enough" And - "Someone could reach into him now and find the parts he had spent thirty-six years keeping covered, and hold them, and break them. Or not break them. He had never before had to allow for the second one" After several weeks of opening up to each other there is the beginning of trust to go with intimacy and desire, and it is lovely to see. Thank you @Kevin Snell for a great chapter and a great story.

I suppose that either they are both in denial or they are both completely lacking in self-awareness. So, yes, they seem to agree on something!

Just nice to see the guys having fun. And apparently Mannly has one or two things to learn...😉

Lonely, definitely obsessed - stalking, basically - but just maybe would like a real relationship? Hard to tell. Interesting story!

I think I'd say no filter, lonely and almost obsessed with the one person who understands him. The last, perhaps not surprising.

And so they wake up naked in the same bed. Apparently it was right. There's a delicacy about all this. Something is growing between them - being built is obviously the wrong term to use. Oliver is unlearning the habit of construction, as he has been unlearning much of his habitual behaviour. Whatever it is exactly that is growing comes across as powerful but as yet very fragile. Once it is fully grown it will surely be very strong indeed, but at this stage in their relationship I feel that it is still vulnerable.

"Neither of us got in the other's path. Somehow we never did." It's that unconscious, mutual awareness again. Except that it is becoming a little less unconscious. And that has to be progress, no? For a few seconds! But that's progress too. But somehow I doubt that the 'normal team-mate' phase in their relationship will last more than a couple of seconds, when they finally get there, before being overtaken by something more... urgent?

Complex. A very complex relationship. They know each other pretty well now, and increasingly so every day, and they are gradually opening up. But they still have a way to go - especially Julien. I think it's clear that something bad, very bad, has happened to him while climbing. Oliver recognises this and is extremely wisely not pressing. I suspect that when Julien speaks about this there won't be anything else that he holds back, but the moment has still not come. Well and intricately written. Two very strong character portraits. A great story.

I not sure where exactly this is, even before it goes anywhere. But I'm intrigued and definitely want to know more. 2000 miles? Across the street? Hmm.