The Tor - 3. Chapter 3

Christopher woke feeling as though he had not properly slept at all.

Grey morning light pressed dimly through the curtains. Rain still tapped softly against the windows, though the storm had weakened sometime before dawn into a steady coastal drizzle. The radiator clicked unevenly beneath the window while somewhere downstairs the bakery ovens had already begun their daily thunder.

Christopher stared at the ceiling for a long moment without moving. The dream itself was already dissolving at the edges, not the feeling of it. That remained intact with disturbing clarity.

Warm breath near his throat. Grief tangled so tightly with desire he could no longer tell them apart.

And that voice. Low and intimate beside his ear.

Redi ad me.

The phrase circled endlessly through his thoughts now like a song fragment he could not stop hearing. Christopher dragged one hand down his face with a quiet groan and sat upright.

Bad idea.

His chest still felt strangely tight. Worse, the skin along his throat remained unpleasantly sensitive, as though someone had actually touched him there hours earlier. He rubbed absently beneath his jaw and immediately stopped. Ridiculous. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached automatically for his phone.

Rain moved softly against the harbour outside. A gull screamed somewhere beyond the rooftops. Christopher unlocked the screen, opened the browser, and typed:

redi ad me

He stared at the search results for perhaps half a second before the translation registered.

Come back to me.

Christopher shut the phone so fast the sound cracked sharply through the flat. In the silence that followed, someone laughed faintly in the bakery kitchen downstairs. Christopher remained motionless at the edge of the bed with heat crawling slowly up the back of his neck. “No,” he informed the empty room firmly. The word sounded unconvincing even to him. People dreamed strange things all the time. His subconscious had clearly stitched together fragments from yesterday’s conversation with Marco, the Roman Britain lessons, the increasingly questionable amount of time Christopher spent wandering around the tor behaving like a man auditioning for a coastal haunting.

That was all. Absolutely all. Still, unease lingered low in his stomach.

He stood eventually and crossed towards the kitchen, where he made coffee strong enough to border on medicinal. Rain blurred the harbour outside the small window above the sink. Fishing boats rocked gently against their moorings beneath the grey sky while cormorants and guillemots drifted low over the water. Christopher drank half the mug standing there barefoot in yesterday’s T-shirt while trying very hard not to think about Marco.

Which unfortunately meant he thought about Marco constantly. The roughness of his hands around the coffee cup. The careful precision of his voice. The way relief had crossed his face simply from seeing Christopher sitting across from him.

That part unsettled him most. Not attraction... Relief. As though Marco had spent a very long time afraid of finding him gone.

Christopher rubbed tiredly at his eyes. “You spoke to him for thirty minutes,” he muttered aloud.

The harbour offered no useful response.

By eleven he had successfully decided not to return to the café. By half past eleven he had begun defending the decision to himself in increasingly elaborate internal arguments. It would be strange to go back immediately. Marco was probably gone already anyway. Even if he was still there, Christopher was not obligated to continue whatever bizarre emotionally exhausting interaction that had been.

Besides, he had essays to mark. Laundry to do. Several entirely reasonable activities available that did not involve obsessing over an attractive Italian stranger with the emotional energy of a cursed lighthouse.

Christopher lasted another forty minutes.

At twenty past twelve he found himself pulling on his coat while muttering defensive explanations under his breath. “I just want coffee.”

The fact he already had coffee at home did not seem relevant enough to stop him.

Rain drifted lightly across the harbour as he stepped outside. The sea rolled dark and heavy beyond the harbour wall. Christopher shoved his hands into his coat pockets and headed downhill towards the waterfront. The entire walk there he remained painfully aware of one humiliating truth.

Part of him already hoped Marco would be waiting.

Clouds still covered most of the sky, but the rain had broken apart beyond the headlands, leaving sharp autumn light across the harbour. Everything looked scrubbed raw by weather.

Wet stone gleamed beneath Christopher’s boots as he crossed the promenade. Gulls wheeled overhead while seawater slapped against the quay walls below. Diesel, salt, and rain-soaked rope hung in the air.

The tor stood sharply visible again after two days hidden behind rain, dark stone rising from pale silver water.

His chest tightened at the sight of it. Not fear exactly, more recognition.

Movement farther along the quay caught his attention. A white excavation van stood beside the harbour wall with its rear doors open, equipment cases stacked beside it while workers wrestled survey frames in the wind.

Christopher recognised Vale immediately, distracted as ever, papers tucked beneath one arm while he spoke to a council worker.

Then he saw Marco.

The reaction bypassed thought. Heat moved through him, immediate and unwelcome, followed at once by irritation.

Marco stood near the wall lifting equipment cases from the van, wearing a dark wool jumper with the sleeves rolled back as the wind tugged damp hair across his forehead.

Christopher became helplessly aware of him anyway: the capable hands, the tiredness beneath his eyes. Ridiculous.

He should have kept walking. Instead he stopped beside the railings with one hand still gripping his satchel strap.

Marco looked up.

Relief crossed his face so openly it unsettled Christopher at once.

Not surprise... Relief.

Why should seeing me matter that much?

Marco smiled then. Small. Tired. Real.

Longing struck Christopher with humiliating force.

Exhausting man.

“Try not to drop those,” Vale called to one of the workers. “Some of the fragments survived nearly two thousand years before meeting your coordination.”

Vale noticed Christopher a second later and lifted a hand. “Mr. Edwards. Skipping school responsibilities to stalk archaeologists?”

“Professional development.”

Vale smiled politely, then glanced back at Marco. The air changed again.

Old tension lived there, heavier than academic disagreement.

Christopher forced himself forward. Closer now, he could hear ropes knocking against masts and water shifting beneath the quay stones. Marco watched him approach with quiet attentiveness.

“You survived the weather,” Marco said.

“Barely.”

Vale snapped a folder shut beneath one arm. “So. You know each other already.”

“We met yesterday,” Christopher said.

Marco glanced towards him at the wording. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Yesterday.”

Vale gestured towards the stacked equipment cases. “We’re finally getting access to the lower shoreline trench now that the council has stopped panicking about the storm damage.”

“The timing is unfortunate,” Christopher said, glancing towards the rough water below.

“Archaeology rarely accommodates weather.”

Christopher noticed Marco never held Vale’s gaze longer than necessary.

Unease settled quietly beneath his ribs.

Vale rose smoothly. “The survey team needs me before someone accidentally carbon dates a sandwich wrapper.” He inclined his head towards Christopher. “Enjoy your afternoon.” Then, after a beat: “Marco.”

The name landed strangely.

Marco nodded once. “Adrian.”

Vale walked back towards the excavation tables.

Christopher watched him go. “You two seem weirdly tense for archaeologists.”

Marco exhaled softly. “You think archaeologists are peaceful people?”

“I assumed there were fewer murder opportunities.”

“That depends entirely on the century.”

Christopher snorted despite himself.

Marco adjusted the sleeve of his jacket. “You are working today?”

“Half day.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m apparently standing in cold wind interrogating archaeologists.”

Wind rushed hard along the harbour wall. Christopher shoved his hands into his coat pockets automatically. Marco’s gaze flicked towards the motion, to Christopher's wrists.

A strange chill moved through him.

Rope. Wet fibers. Hands pulling too tight.

Christopher inhaled sharply. The sensation vanished immediately.

Marco had gone still.

Their eyes met across the harbour wind. Marco’s expression turned ancient and exhausted before he looked away towards the sea.

Christopher should have left after Vale walked away.

Instead he stayed beside the harbour wall while workers carried equipment around them.

“So what exactly are they digging up?”

“Mostly fragments so far. Pottery. Bone pins. Pieces of worked stone.”

“You sound underwhelmed.”

“Archaeology is usually less dramatic than people hope.”

Christopher leaned one shoulder against the wall, telling himself he stayed because Roman excavation genuinely interested him.

Not because leaving suddenly felt impossible.

“And Vale’s running the project?”

“Yes.”

The answer arrived carefully neutral.

“You don’t sound thrilled about that.”

"Vale and I have worked together before.”

Again that slippery carefulness. Not a lie. Just missing pieces.

“You’re an archaeologist too?”

Marco laughed softly. “Not exactly.”

“That sounds suspicious.”

“It is only complicated.”

“That’s usually what suspicious people say.”

Marco looked amused by that.

Wind pushed sharply off the sea. Marco rested one hand against the edge of the crate while looking towards the tor again.

“You keep doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking at the tor like it owes you money.”

A surprised laugh escaped Marco. “I did not realise it was so obvious.”

“It is a little obvious.”

Marco’s expression shifted again as he looked towards the dark shape beyond the harbour.

Christopher felt an irrational flicker of possessiveness low in his chest.

“You’ve never been here before?”

Marco hesitated too long. “No.”

There it was again. That sense that Marco crossed every question like unstable ground.

Carefully.

One of the workers called farther down the quay. Marco answered automatically in Italian without looking away from Christopher.

The language struck Christopher oddly.

Not unfamiliar exactly.

For half a second another sensation flickered through him. Firelight. Wet stone. A voice speaking rapidly beyond understanding.

Then it vanished.

Christopher rubbed absently at his wrist.

Marco noticed immediately. “You are injured?”

“No.”

Too fast.

Marco studied him for another second before letting it go.

“You teach history.”

“Vale told you?”

“You speak like someone who loves dead people professionally.”

Christopher laughed despite himself. “That might genuinely be the nicest description of my job anyone’s ever given.”

Marco smiled again, softer this time.

Christopher felt irritation flare immediately beneath his ribs.

Every time Marco’s attention settled fully on him, Christopher experienced the same impossible contradiction.

He wanted to step closer.

And leave immediately.

-----------------------
By the time afternoon classes began, irritation had settled into a heavier emotion.

Year Ten history should not have required this much concentration.

Christopher stood at the front of the classroom explaining postwar reconstruction policies while part of his mind replayed Marco saying his name beside the harbour wall.

That tone again. Quiet. Familiar. Grief wrapped carefully in restraint.

“Sir?”

Christopher blinked.

Twenty-eight mildly confused students stared back at him.

“What?”

Ella Morgan raised her hand cautiously. “You wrote the wrong date.”

Christopher turned.

1944 stared back at him from the whiteboard beneath notes about eighteenth-century economic reform.

A chill moved through him.

For one disorienting second he saw smoke instead of fluorescent lighting. Mud. Firelight. Someone shouting in another language.

Then it vanished.

Christopher erased the date too quickly. “Right. Sorry.”

Several students exchanged amused looks.

“Bit early for a breakdown, sir,” somebody muttered from the back.

A few quiet laughs followed.

Christopher forced a thin smile and continued the lesson, but concentration refused to settle. His thoughts kept drifting sideways.

Later, Christopher looked back at the essays spread across his desk.

One student had written three pages about industrial decline without using a single paragraph break. Normally that would have irritated him immediately.

Instead he found himself remembering Marco beside the harbour wall saying softly, Belonging is complicated.

Christopher closed his eyes briefly.

Then, with deep irritation, realised he already knew exactly where he would walk after work.

The harbour.

By the final lesson of the day Christopher had developed a growing suspicion that his own mind was sabotaging him.

He stood beside the whiteboard discussing eighteenth-century proxy wars while his attention drifted helplessly elsewhere.

Every time his concentration slipped, it slipped towards Marco automatically.

Attraction was one thing.

This was becoming something else.

By the time school emptied into cold late-afternoon light, a restless energy had settled fully beneath his skin.

Christopher gathered his satchel mechanically.

His thoughts had already moved ahead of him.

Outside, the rain had finally stopped. Wet pavement reflected fading sunlight while terns and kittiwakes wheeled overhead in the wind.

Without consciously deciding to, Christopher glanced downhill towards the waterfront, searching for a man who was nowhere visible from here.

Disappointment arrived immediately.

Jesus Christ.

The harbour streets glistened beneath fading light. Shopkeepers dragged signs inside while fishing crews prepared for evening tides. Diesel drifted through cold air mixed with seawater and fried food from the chip shop near the arcade.

Christopher kept telling himself he always walked this route after work.

Which was technically true, just not every day, and certainly not with this taut anticipation tightening low beneath his ribs whenever he turned a corner.

His attention kept orienting unconsciously towards Marco's possible location like a compass needle towards true north, the excavation site or the harbour wall. Maybe the narrow paths below the tor.

This was becoming dangerous. Emotionally.

Christopher barely knew this man, yet already the possibility of Marco disappearing again felt strangely unbearable.

Wind rushed cold against his face. Somewhere farther along the harbour road someone laughed. A gull screamed overhead.

Christopher closed his eyes briefly as another sensory fragment surfaced against his will, then, despite every rational instinct warning him this entire situation was spiraling into something deeply unhealthy, he found himself looking once more towards the excavation site beyond the curve of the harbour wall.

Still hoping.
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