The Ddraig-Cyfrinachau - 10. Chapter 10

Alex, still crying, got up off the bed and went to leave; he needed to escape from the embarrassment.

“Alex, wait.”

Alex ignored Thomas and made a grab for the handle to his bedroom door.

“Alex, please.”

Alex felt a hand on his arm, trying to turn him around, but he shrugged it off.

“Alexander, look at me.”

Alex turned around at hearing Thomas use his full name; he had always been Alex to Thomas, he had never once been called Alexander; until now.

Alex refused to look Thomas in the face; he didn’t want Thomas to know he was still crying. “Thomas, just let me be.”

Thomas placed a hand under Alex’s chin, and lifted it up to face him; the look on Alex’s face was heartbreaking. “Oh Alex, come here.”

Thomas wrapped his arms around Alex, and Alex’s emotional dam, which until now was just about holding, finally burst. Alex’s tears flowed as Thomas held him, while quietly crying his own river. Time passed, Thomas had no idea how long, when he heard Alex’s breathing slow and realised he had cried himself asleep. Thomas laid him in his bed, covered him with the blanket, and kissed him on the forehead.

Thomas was sitting on the bed, looking down at Alex, and was just brushing a stray lock of hair out of Alex’s closed eyes, when he heard a knock on the bedroom door. He looked up just as Alex’s mum entered. She saw Alex asleep in the bed and the look on Thomas’ face, and had a pretty good idea what must have happened.

“Dinner’s ready Thomas.”

“I don’t want to leave him Joanne.”

“Come on Thomas, you need to eat, and I’ll keep Alex’s dinner warm for him.”

Thomas reluctantly went into the dining room and sat down. Joanne had prepared roast beef with Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, roast parsnips and carrots. Although he was hungry and hadn’t eaten properly since breakfast early that morning, he only picked at his plate.

Joanne saw this and asked, “What’s up Thomas?”

“I . . . erm . . . I didn’t handle a situation with Alex particularly well.”

“So, I take it that he told you?”

“Told me what?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about Thomas.”

“You mean you know that he is gay?”

“Of course I know Thomas, a mother knows these things; though I like to think I also know you really well Thomas. I can’t imagine you’d have a problem with Alexander being gay.”

“I don’t. It just . . . it really threw me when he told me that . . . told me that . . . shit, I can’t even say it! He told me he’s in love with me.” He realised there was no sign of surprise on Joanne’s face.

“Yeah, I knew that as well Thomas.”

“How?”

“All I had to do was see the way he looks at you, Thomas. We’ve also discussed it a few times over the past week. I don’t think you realise just how bad he’s got it.”

Thomas’ head was reeling. Not only was he dealing with the fact that Alex had told him he was in love with him, he was now sitting at the dinner table casually discussing it with Alex’s mum.

“I really blew it Joanne. That look on Alex’s face after he told me, God that look will haunt me. I mean, I just sat there, with my mouth open, I didn’t respond at all. I never even saw this coming. How could I have not seen it?”

“Thomas honey, you’re being too hard on yourself. You never noticed it, because you obviously never looked for it. You never saw it coming, again because I don’t think you were looking for it. If you’ve never thought about Alex that way, then of course this is going to be shock. But you need to talk to him, and you need to be honest with him. You need to put any sense of embarrassment about another boy being in love with you aside, you need to ignore your discomfort at your best friend being in love with you, and you need to be honest and open with him.”

They heard the upstairs toilet flush, meaning Alex had to have woken up. “Go on Thomas, now is a good a time as any.”

Thomas had a thousand conversations running through his head; quite how he was going to deal with this, he had no idea. He knocked on the door to Alex’s bedroom.

“Come in.” Thomas slowly opened the door and went in.

“Hey Alex.”

“Why’d you knock? This your room for tonight as well.”

“I didn’t want to just barge in. We need to talk, but first I wanted to say I’m so sorry for the way I reacted earlier.”

“I know I dropped a couple of bombshells on you. You have nothing to apologise for.”

“Alex, I need to you to know that my reaction was not to you telling me that you are gay. You need to understand I don’t care if you are gay, straight, bi-sexual or whatever; who you choose to love has nothing to do with who you are as a person. You are a kind and gentle person, who I have felt honoured to call a friend. We’ve both been there for each other at our happiest moments, but we’ve also been there for each other through our deepest pits of despair. I don’t know how I would have survived after my mum died from pancreatic cancer five years ago without you.”

“Then you have a problem with how I feel about you Tomas. Thanks a fucking bunch for that.”

“Oh, Alex.” Thomas sat down on the bed next to him, took Alex’s hands in his own, and looked down at their hands held together. “I was surprised when you told me, because I’d never even thought about you like that.”

“What are you saying?”

“What I’m saying Alex is that I’m gay as well. I never thought about you like that, not that I didn’t want to, but I wouldn’t let myself. You need to understand I didn’t want to complicate our friendship by even thinking about going down this route; your friendship means more than anything to me. I would never want to do anything to risk losing your friendship.”

“Thomas you don’t need to tell me a load of lies to try and placate me. You’re no more gay than I am straight!”

“Then perhaps this will convince you.” Thomas placed his hands on Alex’s face and leaned in. He slowly licked Alex’s lips, rubbed their noses together, and then kissed him tenderly on the lips.

Thomas could feel Alex trying to suppress a tiny grin as the corners of Alex’s mouth turned up during their kiss, and thought he could hear a quiet moan.

“Thomas, that’s not going to convince me.” But the huge grin on Alex’s face told Thomas a completely different story.

“Then I’ll just have to try something else.” Thomas placed a hand on the back of Alex’s neck and pulled him in for another kiss. After giving Alex another gentle kiss on the lips, Thomas forced his tongue into Alex’s mouth, and pulled Alex down on top of him. The pair swapped saliva, their hormones raged and time ceased to have any meaning; each gave everything of themselves over to the other in that kiss. Thomas ran his fingers through Alex’s hair and then slowly worked his hands down Alex’s back.

Alex forced his tongue into Thomas’ mouth as they duelled for supremacy, and he grabbed two handfuls of Thomas’ thick jet black hair. Alex felt Thomas’ hands getting lower and lower, until he felt them slip inside the waistband of the tracksuit leggings he was wearing, and then inside the waistband of his boxers. Alex was so surprised as Thomas took a firm hold of each of his butt cheeks, but he couldn’t help responding to Thomas’ advances. He could feel Thomas’ erection grinding into his own and -

Thomas couldn’t believe he was being this bold, this sexually aggressive, not just with another boy, but for Christ’s sake this was Alex. It was that simple realisation which forced him to reign himself in and prevent himself going any further.

Thomas pulled his hands out of Alex’s underwear, and pulled away from their kiss. He was panting heavily, the blood was still pumping, and his endorphins were still flooding his brain.

“Alex, we have to stop.”

“Thomas, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Alex. But I don’t want us to do it like this. I don’t want us to rush blind into this . . . whatever you want to call it. This is why I said earlier I tried not to fall for you; I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”

“Thomas, I want this. You have no idea how much I want this, and how much I want this from you.”

“Alex, you said you loved me. Do you really love me? With all your heart?”

“Yes, I do Thomas. I am so deeply in love with you, this last week without you has been hell on Earth. I need you, like I’ve never needed you before.”

“Then tell me this. Do you want us to be tender with each other, to make love to each other and to share our passion and our hearts with each other? Or do you just want me to bend you over and fuck you? Because right here, right now, if we carry on that’s all this is going to be. Right here and right now, my dick and not my heart, is running the show.”

“Thomas, I love you. I want you to love me, and of course I want our time together to be filled with love and passion, I want to be able to feel your love for me when we are together. You’re right, we need to stop this. We need to wait until we can do this in the way we both want to do this.”

“I’ll be honest with you Alex, I don’t know if I love you or not. What I do know, is that I care more deeply for you than for anyone in my life. I can see myself falling in love with you, but I don’t want to rush this. I’d much rather take my time, whether it be six months, a year or however long, and make sure we both know that is what we really want and what really feel for each other is love. If you can’t agree to take it that slowly with me, then let’s call it quits right now.”

“Thomas. I’ll . . . no we’ll . . . we’ll take this as slowly as we need to. I know you want to take your time, to allow us to properly explore our feelings, to make sure we really do love each, and you have no idea how much that means to me.”

“Alex, there is another reason why I’ve tried not falling for you. My life is complicated. There is a secret I have kept from you for as long as I’ve known you.”

“Come on Thomas, you know you can tell me anything.”

“I know Alex. Believe me I wish I could simply tell you, but I can’t. There is a way for me to be able to tell you. I want you to keep an open mind about what I’m about to tell you.” Thomas proceeded to tell Alex about the ritual he and the First Servant had discussed.

“So you need us to undergo this ritual so you can tell me this secret of yours? But you can’t tell me why this ritual. I’ve heard about similar rituals and they are from cults and stuff.”

“Alex, I promise you that I would never do anything to harm you. You need to decide if you are willing to undergo the ritual or not. All I can tell you, is that if you knew what my secret was, you wouldn’t hesitate about the ritual. But I can’t make this decision for you. I know all I’m giving you to go on is my promise, but you need to decide if my promise is good enough for you.”

Without hesitation Alex said, “Yes. Yes, I’ll undergo the ritual. When?”

“I’ll need to make some arrangements, but probably the day after tomorrow.”