Il Confine
Raúl Gonzalez/Fernando Morientes, AU, R. Fernando doesn't know why he's returned to university. Fernando is a "mature student".
Fernando stares blankly at the piece of paper in front of him.
His last scheduled class’ syllabus. As he skims through the requirements for the class, his eyes stop at the words: Six Tutorial Sessions - Mandatory. He groans.
The last two semesters of university, he thinks, just the last two.
He swallows hard, stamping down on the culmination of an entire week with the voice in his head repeatedly questioning, wondering why in the hell he decided to return.
As the professor dismisses them with a request to please read the first three articles assigned, the class files out.
Fernando makes his way to the coffee stand he recalls is in the lobby of the building. Though lectures were dismissed on the hour and it was only three minutes past, the line was already a few dozen people long.
He groans and contemplates skipping it completely when he looks outside. The sky is grey and heavily pouring over the pavement. He resigns himself to the fate of waiting in the queue.
Finally reaching the counter and ordering himself a double espresso, he seats himself down, mumbling to himself, as he tries to dig out his cell phone from his pocket, “Can’t believe I decided to come back.”
The man sitting next to him shifts, “Tell me about it.”
Fernando’s eyes snap up, unaware that he had said anything aloud. The man next to him seems clean shaven, his expression fresh, serious, attentive dark eyes.
“Sorry, I just-I,” the man-kid, really-mumbles. Fernando notices his soft full lips and he looks away, shrugging.
The man relaxes. “Sorry, I just, I recognised you from that lecture.”
“Sorry?” Fernando tilts his head.
“Jensen’s lecture,” the man responds. When Fernando doesn’t reply he presses on, “Development and policy?”
“Oh.” He stirs a packet of sugar into his narrow paper cup, not really comfortable with talking to strangers, and needing something to do. He senses the man expects him to say something. “How, err, how do you find him?”
“Well, he’s a very good professor, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s...not just an academic, he’s got the gift of teaching, you won’t be bored...”
Fernando looks up, curious. “You’ve had him before?”
“Yeah, I had him when-”
Fernando’s phone rings and he snaps it open, “Talk to me.” He shoots the other man a polite but firm look, “Sorry.”
“Yeah, sure, no I’m sorry, yeah...” The man slumps back into the sofa, mumbling.
“What?” Fernando turns away, gathering his things as David speaks on the line, crackly with static.
“Dude, you have got to come back, the new kids are fresh out of university and fucking it all up!”
“Yeah, well, I’d like to but I don’t think I’d be welcome.”
“Just because you punched out Tino’s favourite that doesn’t take away from the fact that you were the best programme administrator out there.”
Fernando sighs, pushing the door open. “Don’t make me yearn.”
“Yearn?” He can practically feel David’s raised eyebrow through the miles separating them.
He mumbles into the phone, almost incoherently, “I’m back to finish my ...degree.”
David starts to crack up. “Oh shut it. I don’t need that right now,” he snaps, pulling the collar on his old leather coat up. “I’m with a bunch of twenty-year-olds and they, I swear, their faces are too fresh and bloody eager for me to deal with.”
“That’s totally not their fault,” David counters, “You left.”
“Yeah, I left because I thought I could do something. And I left because I got offered that job that you’re now doing.”
“Yeah, thanks by the way, my new name cards came out today and it’s great to see my name with Programme Coordinator under it,” David quips.
“I hate you.”
“Speaking of hate, Ronaldo’s coming by for the monthly inspection next week, want me to harass him about anything?”
“He’s still working with you? Even after we got sued by former staff?”
“You’re the one that punched him, and we do have the smart new legal team, so, as long as Tino’s head of the national division, Ronaldo will still be sitting pretty over there in Jakarta, reading through our reports and doing fuck all.”
Fernando sighs. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
“No, I wanted to tell you that these newbies are killing me and I don’t know how you did it three years in a row.”
“Suck it up. Remember, you and I were one of those people,” Fernando reminds him, grumpily stalking down the street.
“Yeah but you were a college drop out and I was not even in this industry and I never wanted to be, so we were less freaking eager, we just wanted to do our jobs and eventually get out.”
Fernando chuckles. “Well, four years later you’re still there, dumbass. And unless I kill myself between now and March, I won’t be a college drop out any more.”
“Alright, Van Wilder,” David mutters. “I’m just going to make Silva handle their eager beaver questions. Do you think that’s acceptable?”
Fernando snorts, “Mate, I think after fourteen months of you, he’s used to it by now.”
“It’s not my fault he’s a people person!”
“And it’s not my fault that you are not.”
“I hate you,” David echoes, mimicking Fernando’s tone of voice. “I gotta go, we’ve got the briefing. Stay in school, son, be good, you hear me?”
“Shut. Up.” Fernando rolls his eyes and cuts the call, stepping into the main library building.
“Here you go,” the bartender places his pint in front of him and takes the money on the counter. “Thanks man.”
Fernando acknowledges him with a nod, pushing aside his half-finished burger and fries, taking out his readings.
Throughout the day he vowed to throw himself into the academics so far and fast that he wouldn’t have time to think about why on earth he’d come back. It’s a Wednesday and the bar, empty, seems like a better place than any to start.
He flips the first page of the Development and Policy reading booklet when a familiar voice plants himself at the other end of the bar, “A pint of the Guinness please.”
He raises an eyebrow and looks up. The man from before is sitting at the bar, staring at him. “Hey.”
He inwardly groans and flips a page, appearing very very preoccupied. “Oh hi.”
“We meet again,” the man gives him a small smile, “do you mind if- ” He gestures at the bar stool next to him.
“I...oh, yeah, ok,” Fernando says, resigning himself to the inevitable. His smile stretches as he takes the glass and scoots down on to the stool next to him. He holds out his hand, “Raúl.”
Fernando eyes his hand before taking it, “Fernando.”
“Starting so soon?” Raúl asks, eyeing his book.
Fernando shrugs, “get it over with?”
Raúl lets out a laugh. It makes him sound like a young boy, Fernando notes.
“You obviously are not accustomed to the university way of life,” he says, stealing a French fry off the plate Fernando’s pushed aside.
Fernando follows the trajectory of his hand from the plate to his mouth. He swallows and looks away, “I’m in my last year.”
“You don’t look like it.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t look like you’re old enough to drink,” Fernando counters, “but I’m not saying anything.”
Raúl swallows and blinks. His lashes brush his cheeks, Fernando’s brain registers. He shakes it off.
“I’m...coming back to finish what I started,” he says, trying to distract his mind.
“Oh...that explains it,” Raúl shrugs.
“Explains what?”
“Why you look spectacularly jaded, exhausted, even in a fourth-year seminar,” Raúl replies, drawing circles on the frosted pint glass.
Fernando follows his finger movements. “I-do?”
“You know, you should take it like the rest of the kids do...First week’s for fun, we’ll think about work when our shit’s due in November,” he says.
Fernando narrows his eyes. The man speaking to him had the facial expression of a doctor, with the serious face and the marks near his nose showing he probably worse glasses. He looked like a young professor. He doubted he’d ever had any fun in his life. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Like this,” Raúl shrugs, his shoulders rolling easily. He gestures at the bartender. “Two shots of tequila.”
“What?” Fernando blinks.
“Trust me, I haven’t done this in years, but I certainly need it after this week and you look like you could use one.”
“I-” He’s cut off when the bartender places the salt, limes and shot glasses with a thud before them.
“Come on, no thinking,” Raúl presses, nudging the glass in his direction, his face encouraging.
And for the first time since he’s come back, Fernando shakes off his first, second and third thoughts, raising the shot glass up to Raúl, “Salud.”
Fuck. He groans, the throbbing behind his eyes greeting him along with the painful slash of sunshine. He rolls over, blindly grabbing a pillow to pull over his head before he smacks into a solid object. What the fuck?
He cracks an eye open.
Holy shi-His other eye flies open and the pain in his head slices across his eyes, but nothing can distract him from the expanse of tanned solid muscle filling his vision.
It moves. He scoots back. His eyes wander up. He takes note of the full, pouting lips, the long aquiline nose. Oh. Fuck. He sees long slender fingers as they move and rub at an invisible spot on the spotless tanned shoulder. Oh fuck, indeed.
He scoots back slowly, as silent as he can, and freezes when a woman’s tinny voice filters through the room, loud and clear. His eyes widen and he notices the clock radio on the other side of the man and wonders if he can make it to the door...if he knows where it is. Where the hell am I?
The face fully turns toward him, the long lashes blinking back sleep as a groan is emitted. Raúl tosses the sheets off of him as he stretches and slams a hand down on the snooze button. “God, mmm, sorry, Fernando,” he mumbles to the air, turning back to him, eyes still shut, reaching in his direction.
Fernando breathes, cringing inside. The man fucking remembered he was in bed with him.
When the silence remains, Raúl blinks his eyes open, the dark brown meeting Fernando’s panicked ones. “Oh, good you’re still he-shit, my brain.” He clutches at his head, the unruly curls flopping into his eyes.
“Um,” Fernando swallows, unable to make words come to his mouth, cottony and dry. “You...ok?”
Raúl lets out a hoarse chuckle, his cheeks staining, “shouldn’t have had that last shot lost night.”
“...Yeah, me too,” Fernando finally blurts out.
Raúl turns on his back, blinking sleepily. “There’s water and aspirin next to you, would you mind?”
Fernando blinks at him before he starts, “oh yeah, sure.” He sits up with difficulty, the sheets falling to his waist, exposing his bare skin. “I-um,” he pulls the sheet up as he grabs the full glass of water and the bottle, the sheet falling down again, as he passes them to Raúl, who is struggling to sit up as well.
“Thanks,” he takes them from Fernando, whose gaze falls but catches a glimpse at the red scratches on the other man’s chest.
“Fernando?”
“What?” He drags his eyes away to where Raúl is holding out the open bottle and the rest of the water, as if in offering to him. “Oh, oh, yeah, thanks.” He takes two out, after a split second of hesitation, tossing it into his mouth and swallowing the cool liquid as if it were mana from the gods.
When he’s finished, and replacing them on the table he turns to find Raúl his slid back down under the covers, and warmth against his waist. He looks down. Raúl’s hand is pressing down on his thigh and he sees the bare expanse of bed space on the other side of him.
He shifts, uncomfortable, and sighs, when Raúl barely stirs. He is about to slide out when another particularly strong flash of pain moves behind his eyeballs. He groans and slides back down into the sheets, succumbing to sleep.
The phone rings somewhere to his left. Fernando jerks awake, blinking. He looks around, confused. Where the hell am I?
The bed is unfamiliar but familiar. He groans. He was still at that...Raúl’s. He takes in the pale yellow walls and bookshelves lining the far wall. He shifts and feels the empty sheets.
He scrambles to sit up, looking around desperately, distantly registering the lack of pain in his head.
The room is devoid of another human being. He sees his clothes, carefully folded up on a desk to the side of the room.
He slides out of the bed, the chill running through his exposed skin, as the sheets fall away, and pads to the desk. There’s a large yellow post it atop his shirt.
Sorry, had to go, had a meeting. There’s fruit & breakfast in the kitchen if you want. Just let yourself out if I’m not back by the time you get up. So sorry. -Raúl, the scrawled note says.
His eyes fall to a hastily added section in the lower corner. A number and a, Call-if you want. It’d be nice.
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. He grabs his clothes, and the note, sinking back down to a corner of the mattress.
He looks around again in silence, at the bookshelves, the books lined up in alphabetical order. The room is small, but cosy. He gets up and tiptoes to the door, opening it and making his way into the hallway.
It is dark and silent as he pads down to where it opens up into a slightly larger room than the one he just left, a door on the opposite side. He barely registers his shoes and bag lined neatly by the door when he turns to take in a couch lined against the wall, a small table, counter space and a kitchen.
He’s about to try to find a bathroom, turning back to where he came from before red digits catch his eye. He stares at the microwave-fuck is that the time?
He sprints back to the bedroom, putting his clothes hastily on. He grabs his shoes, neatly lined by the door before he comes back, after hesitating.
He hastily does the bed as best as he can and rushes his way back through the flat, shutting the front door behind him.
A piece of yellow post-it flutters unnoticed from his bag as Fernando makes his way down the stairs in a hurry.
He slides, ten minutes late, into his last lecture of the week.
A week has gone by since that day and though he would deny it to anybody that asked, not that anybody would, he had searched everywhere for the note with Raúl’s number on it.
Feeling stupid at getting all worked up over what would turn out to be nothing much anyway, he pushed it out of his mind.
It was only this morning that he had recalled their very first conversation. He wasn’t sure whether it cheered him up or embarrassed him that he knew he would be seeing the other man that day.
The professor doesn’t pause when the door shuts loudly behind Fernando. He ducks his head and slides into the nearest vacant chair.
He tries to keep his desire to look around in check and bends down, playing the role of the diligent student.
He stretches forty-five minutes later, the professor needing break. He turns his head this way and that, consciously searching for a familiar profile and mop of brown curly hair.
When he doesn’t find him, he pushes down the slight feeling of disappointment at the pit of his stomach.
On Tuesday, he is buried over a newspaper in the main library reading room, his stuff scattered around an empty large table littered with his pens and notes and used coffee cups, all the more to scare off potential company. He rustles the newspaper as he turns the page, neglecting the stack of books to his side.
A sensation falls across his spine, feeling like he’s being watched. He looks up, looking around, twisting behind him. He shakes his head and turns back to his paper, when he realises someone has occupied the empty chair at his table.
He tries to brush off the feeling of...surprise, he’s going to go with surprise.
“I guess I shouldn’t be insulted that you didn’t call me.”
“Fuck,” he starts. “Make a noise.”
Raúl colours. “Sorry.”
Fernando sits up, feeling on edge. “Me too.” He falls silent again.
“By the way, about not calling,” Raúl mumbles, as he cracks open his laptop.
“I was-I mean, I would have...if I hadn’t,” Fernando sighs, ducking his head, “I lost your number. And that’s the actual truth.”
Raúl pauses and looks up above his laptop screen at him, gaze unreadable.
“I really would have,” Fernando insists, though a voice in his head wonders why he’s even bothering anyway.
Raúl shrugs, and Fernando notes the almost regal way the shrug falls off his shoulder, the most natural thing in the world. “You knew where I lived.”
“I...” he shuts his mouth before he can continue, “yeah, but that’s...rude.”
He shifts uncomfortably under the other man’s gaze.
“I, uh, didn’t see you in class last week,” he says, to fill in the silence, hoping he sounds casual.
“Had some work to take care of.” Raúl’s tone of voice is distant as his sharp eyes scan the computer screen in front of him.
Fernando frowns, used to being the one to put a close to conversations. “Oh.” He waits a while, but Raúl is silent.
He folds the newspaper up, a little too noisily based on the glares he receives from the surrounding tables, and sighs, pulling the top book down from his pile, cracking it open, his pen poised and ready.
“Aren’t you hungry?” a voice quietly filters through his thoughts.
Fernando blinks, looking up, and wincing as his neck cricks. He stretches, dropping the pen on the table and stretching his fingers and neck.
Raúl is looking at him expectantly, the laptop closed, his side of the table looking clean and tidy as if he’d just arrived.
“What?”
“Dinner?”
“Oh,” Fernando starts, “well...”
“I’m making pasta...” Raúl adds, expectantly.
“At your house?”
“Nothing fancy, but,” Raúl nods, “Student for life, you know, me.”
“Oh, yeah, no, I understand, I wasn’t...” Fernando looks at him and despite his own initial response, he shakes his head. “I think I’m just going to try and finish these,” he gestures at the rest of the books on his table, “and then go home and crash.”
He feels inexplicably pleased when it looks as if Raúl’s face falls. “Oh, well, ok, I’m just...” Raúl grabs his laptop bag and moves to stand up, “I guess I’ll see you.”
“Yeah, see you later,” Fernando says, watching him as he exits the room.
He looks up at the clock, unable to get back to concentrating on the book before him. Its only been a half an hour since Raúl has left him in silence.
He stares at the walls blankly for a little while longer before he sighs, packing up his things, deciding to call it a night.
He unlocks the door to his tiny studio flat, shaking off the wet rain droplets on his coat, as he fumbles in the dark for the light switch. Flipping it on, he blinks to get accustomed to the light.
His eyes fall on the empty living room, the few boxes littering the floor, some opened another still taped shut, and the suitcase in the corner of the room, his clothes spilling out.
He drops his keys on the kitchen counter and makes his way to the fridge. He cracks the door open, taking appraisal of the contents, an untouched six-pack, a half-empty carton of milk and a lonely Chinese take away.
He shuts it with a sigh and eyes the pile of delivery menus next to the fridge. He picks up the top most and stares at the contents, none of it sounding appealing to him.
Before he can think twice, he grabs the six-pack, his coat and keys and exits his apartment.
Fernando takes a deep breath, shivering. In the twenty minutes walk he’d taken, he had sprinted half of it, the rain starting to come down heavily halfway through his walk.
He stares at the brown door with the number 4C on it, raising his fist to knock lightly.
There’s a shuffling inside and the door cracks slightly to reveal Raúl’s wide eyes. “Fernando?”
He smiles sheepishly, holding up the six-pack, “Is it to late to take up the offer of dinner?”
The door closes a little as he hears Raúl fumbling with the chain lock, before the door is opened wide, a soft smile on his face, “No, come in. I’m just about to eat.”
Fernando steps inside. The smell of garlic and tomatoes hit his nose, and his stomach grumbles, hopefully not as loud as it seems to his own ears.
The other man looks different. He blinks and notices his usual attire of sweater vests, Oxford shirts and slacks is replaced by sweat pants and a faded t-shirt, his feet barefoot.
Raúl takes the six-pack in his hand and placing it on the kitchen table. “You must be cold.”
Fernando looks down at his clothes, “Oh, I...it’ll dry.” He looks up, but Raúl has disappeared. He blinks, toeing his wet shoes off, and pulling his jacket, dripping off, looking for a place to hang it.
“Here,” Raúl reappears, brandishing a towel in his direction, swapping it for the jacket. “We’ll put your jacket on the radiator so it’ll dry.”
“Ok,” Fernando replies, standing awkwardly in the hallway.
“Sit down,” Raúl says, turning back to the stove, grabbing plates, “you can get the utensils in that drawer over there, and the bottle opener is on the fridge.”
Fernando blinks out of his stupor and starts moving, taking his instructions to heart.
Raúl walks toward the table, two platefuls of pasta, placing one before Fernando and the other with himself. “I hope it’s alright.”
Fernando smiles at him, more at ease, “I’m sure it is.”
Halfway through dinner Fernando notices that Raúl is looking at him expectantly. “Yes?”
“Is it alright?”
“Oh-!” Fernando colours, “Sorry, forgot my manners, yes, it’s very good, thank you.”
Raúl’s smile stretches across his face, looking pleased.
They fall back into silence.
“Seriously, it’ll be fine,” Raúl insists, hopping behind him a little nervously. “Just leave it.”
Fernando protests, “You cooked so I’ll wash the dishes, it’s the way it works.”
Raúl looks at him blankly.
“Rules of dinner parties?”
Raúl blinks, “Oh? Is it?”
Fernando cracks an easy grin, “Well, yeah, that’s how we’ve always done it, my mates and I.” He presses on adding, “Not that I have many, dinner parties, that is.”
Fernando turns on the tap. “Seriously, don’t they ever do that?”
He senses the other man hovering behind him and he repeats the question, “Don’t they?”
“Well, not really, I mean, the guys I’ve cooked dinner for generally...don’t offer.”
Fernando frowns, “That’s rude.”
“I don’t really do this...often,” Raúl shrugs, “And, I have my own...routine.”
Fernando scrubs at the pan, “But me? Am I that convincing?”
“You made the bed.”
Fernando turns off the tap, swivelling around to face him, eyes a little unsure and wide at the simple tone that Raúl uses.
Raúl’s cheeks are red again, and by the heat in his own, he is sure he’s feeling the same way.
He takes a step forward as Raúl opens his mouth, “I should tell you, before anything gets-”
He is silenced when Fernando pulls him into a deep kiss.
“Oh!” Raúl scrabbles to grip onto the counter behind him as Fernando pushes.
“Sorry,” he mumbles between kisses. He pulls back slightly, pushing his knee between the other man’s leg, pressing.
Raúl lets out a hushed gasp, his fingers digging into Fernando’s shoulders as his legs buckle.
Fernando holds him up, as he feels warm hands slip under his shirt, still damp from the rain, tugging at it.
He feels Raúl gathering strength and pulling away from him, yanking him from the kitchen toward the bedroom.
His hand slides down Raúl’s thigh.
Raúl scratches at his forearms as he thrusts hard.
Fernando watches him, fascinated. Watches the way his head is thrown back, his hands as they caress his own chest, his lips opening in silent moans.
A few more thrusts and they both come in the dark, one after another.
Fernando falls against Raúl, gasping for breath.
Raúl’s hand at the nape of his neck, he shifts as he pulls away from Fernando, before he feels himself slide out. Eyes closed, he registers a hand gently touching his now limp cock, unrolling the condom. He lets out a low sigh, too spent to do anything.
“The trouble with love is-”The invasive sound disappears when Fernando hears something slam against something else.
Fernando rolls to the side, his nose meeting with the juncture of a neck and shoulder.
“Morning,” someone says, breath tickling his ear.
Fernando opens his eyes to find Raúl looking down at him.
“Morning,” he mumbles.
They lie in silence for a while.
Raúl clears his throat, “I, um, I have a meeting this morning but-”
“Oh,” he coughs, blinking the sleep from his eyes, clearing his throat and struggling to get up, “Uh, me too.”
Raúl’s arm slides across his waist, “Really?”
Fernando sits up, running a hand over his face, looking down at the arm, confused, “No, but you do, so I’ll, I should too.” He swings his legs over the side.
Raúl’s smile fades, his hand dropping from Fernando’s waist. He sits up, “Ok, I didn’t mean that you had-but, well...”
Fernando spots his pants, tangled with some other pieces of clothing, by the bed. He moves off the bed to pick it up off the floor, a dull familiar ache ripping through his thighs.
He feels Raúl’s eyes watching him.
“Is there...can I use...”
“Oh, yeah, the bathroom is down the hall,” Raúl says, hastily.
Fernando grabs the pieces of clothing as he finds them, trailing from the bedroom to the hallway, making his way to the bathroom. He shuts the door and rests his forehead against it.
“No hangover this time, right?”
Fernando tiptoes out of the shower. “What? Oh, no.”
Raúl appears in front of him, his hair still dishevelled; sleep still in his eyes, but a smile plastering his face. The man holds out a cup of coffee before him. Fernando watches the steam rise into the air. “I didn’t know how you take it so...”
“Thanks,” Fernando mumbles, taking it from him. They stand there silently for awhile before he starts.
“Should probably let you-”
“Sugar’s on the table-”
They catch themselves. Fernando cracks a little smile as Raúl’s shoulders shake with silent laughter.
When he finally makes his way out of Raúl’s flat, twenty minutes later, he lets out a breath he doesn’t know he was holding.
He’s not quite sure what happened or why he is so unnerved by it. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, making his way down the stairs.
When he pushes the door open a blast of cold air assails him, welcoming him to the end of autumn.
He puts the thermos in the crook of his arm, jamming his hands into his pockets. His right fist closes on a scrap of paper inside. Frowning he pulls it out.
A familiar scrawl on yellow paper, Thanks for doing the washing up. Call me. No excuses this time. - Raúl.
>>>
Fernando stares blankly at the piece of paper in front of him.
His last scheduled class’ syllabus. As he skims through the requirements for the class, his eyes stop at the words: Six Tutorial Sessions - Mandatory. He groans.
The last two semesters of university, he thinks, just the last two.
He swallows hard, stamping down on the culmination of an entire week with the voice in his head repeatedly questioning, wondering why in the hell he decided to return.
As the professor dismisses them with a request to please read the first three articles assigned, the class files out.
Fernando makes his way to the coffee stand he recalls is in the lobby of the building. Though lectures were dismissed on the hour and it was only three minutes past, the line was already a few dozen people long.
He groans and contemplates skipping it completely when he looks outside. The sky is grey and heavily pouring over the pavement. He resigns himself to the fate of waiting in the queue.
Finally reaching the counter and ordering himself a double espresso, he seats himself down, mumbling to himself, as he tries to dig out his cell phone from his pocket, “Can’t believe I decided to come back.”
The man sitting next to him shifts, “Tell me about it.”
Fernando’s eyes snap up, unaware that he had said anything aloud. The man next to him seems clean shaven, his expression fresh, serious, attentive dark eyes.
“Sorry, I just-I,” the man-kid, really-mumbles. Fernando notices his soft full lips and he looks away, shrugging.
The man relaxes. “Sorry, I just, I recognised you from that lecture.”
“Sorry?” Fernando tilts his head.
“Jensen’s lecture,” the man responds. When Fernando doesn’t reply he presses on, “Development and policy?”
“Oh.” He stirs a packet of sugar into his narrow paper cup, not really comfortable with talking to strangers, and needing something to do. He senses the man expects him to say something. “How, err, how do you find him?”
“Well, he’s a very good professor, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s...not just an academic, he’s got the gift of teaching, you won’t be bored...”
Fernando looks up, curious. “You’ve had him before?”
“Yeah, I had him when-”
Fernando’s phone rings and he snaps it open, “Talk to me.” He shoots the other man a polite but firm look, “Sorry.”
“Yeah, sure, no I’m sorry, yeah...” The man slumps back into the sofa, mumbling.
“What?” Fernando turns away, gathering his things as David speaks on the line, crackly with static.
“Dude, you have got to come back, the new kids are fresh out of university and fucking it all up!”
“Yeah, well, I’d like to but I don’t think I’d be welcome.”
“Just because you punched out Tino’s favourite that doesn’t take away from the fact that you were the best programme administrator out there.”
Fernando sighs, pushing the door open. “Don’t make me yearn.”
“Yearn?” He can practically feel David’s raised eyebrow through the miles separating them.
He mumbles into the phone, almost incoherently, “I’m back to finish my ...degree.”
David starts to crack up. “Oh shut it. I don’t need that right now,” he snaps, pulling the collar on his old leather coat up. “I’m with a bunch of twenty-year-olds and they, I swear, their faces are too fresh and bloody eager for me to deal with.”
“That’s totally not their fault,” David counters, “You left.”
“Yeah, I left because I thought I could do something. And I left because I got offered that job that you’re now doing.”
“Yeah, thanks by the way, my new name cards came out today and it’s great to see my name with Programme Coordinator under it,” David quips.
“I hate you.”
“Speaking of hate, Ronaldo’s coming by for the monthly inspection next week, want me to harass him about anything?”
“He’s still working with you? Even after we got sued by former staff?”
“You’re the one that punched him, and we do have the smart new legal team, so, as long as Tino’s head of the national division, Ronaldo will still be sitting pretty over there in Jakarta, reading through our reports and doing fuck all.”
Fernando sighs. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
“No, I wanted to tell you that these newbies are killing me and I don’t know how you did it three years in a row.”
“Suck it up. Remember, you and I were one of those people,” Fernando reminds him, grumpily stalking down the street.
“Yeah but you were a college drop out and I was not even in this industry and I never wanted to be, so we were less freaking eager, we just wanted to do our jobs and eventually get out.”
Fernando chuckles. “Well, four years later you’re still there, dumbass. And unless I kill myself between now and March, I won’t be a college drop out any more.”
“Alright, Van Wilder,” David mutters. “I’m just going to make Silva handle their eager beaver questions. Do you think that’s acceptable?”
Fernando snorts, “Mate, I think after fourteen months of you, he’s used to it by now.”
“It’s not my fault he’s a people person!”
“And it’s not my fault that you are not.”
“I hate you,” David echoes, mimicking Fernando’s tone of voice. “I gotta go, we’ve got the briefing. Stay in school, son, be good, you hear me?”
“Shut. Up.” Fernando rolls his eyes and cuts the call, stepping into the main library building.
“Here you go,” the bartender places his pint in front of him and takes the money on the counter. “Thanks man.”
Fernando acknowledges him with a nod, pushing aside his half-finished burger and fries, taking out his readings.
Throughout the day he vowed to throw himself into the academics so far and fast that he wouldn’t have time to think about why on earth he’d come back. It’s a Wednesday and the bar, empty, seems like a better place than any to start.
He flips the first page of the Development and Policy reading booklet when a familiar voice plants himself at the other end of the bar, “A pint of the Guinness please.”
He raises an eyebrow and looks up. The man from before is sitting at the bar, staring at him. “Hey.”
He inwardly groans and flips a page, appearing very very preoccupied. “Oh hi.”
“We meet again,” the man gives him a small smile, “do you mind if- ” He gestures at the bar stool next to him.
“I...oh, yeah, ok,” Fernando says, resigning himself to the inevitable. His smile stretches as he takes the glass and scoots down on to the stool next to him. He holds out his hand, “Raúl.”
Fernando eyes his hand before taking it, “Fernando.”
“Starting so soon?” Raúl asks, eyeing his book.
Fernando shrugs, “get it over with?”
Raúl lets out a laugh. It makes him sound like a young boy, Fernando notes.
“You obviously are not accustomed to the university way of life,” he says, stealing a French fry off the plate Fernando’s pushed aside.
Fernando follows the trajectory of his hand from the plate to his mouth. He swallows and looks away, “I’m in my last year.”
“You don’t look like it.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t look like you’re old enough to drink,” Fernando counters, “but I’m not saying anything.”
Raúl swallows and blinks. His lashes brush his cheeks, Fernando’s brain registers. He shakes it off.
“I’m...coming back to finish what I started,” he says, trying to distract his mind.
“Oh...that explains it,” Raúl shrugs.
“Explains what?”
“Why you look spectacularly jaded, exhausted, even in a fourth-year seminar,” Raúl replies, drawing circles on the frosted pint glass.
Fernando follows his finger movements. “I-do?”
“You know, you should take it like the rest of the kids do...First week’s for fun, we’ll think about work when our shit’s due in November,” he says.
Fernando narrows his eyes. The man speaking to him had the facial expression of a doctor, with the serious face and the marks near his nose showing he probably worse glasses. He looked like a young professor. He doubted he’d ever had any fun in his life. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Like this,” Raúl shrugs, his shoulders rolling easily. He gestures at the bartender. “Two shots of tequila.”
“What?” Fernando blinks.
“Trust me, I haven’t done this in years, but I certainly need it after this week and you look like you could use one.”
“I-” He’s cut off when the bartender places the salt, limes and shot glasses with a thud before them.
“Come on, no thinking,” Raúl presses, nudging the glass in his direction, his face encouraging.
And for the first time since he’s come back, Fernando shakes off his first, second and third thoughts, raising the shot glass up to Raúl, “Salud.”
Fuck. He groans, the throbbing behind his eyes greeting him along with the painful slash of sunshine. He rolls over, blindly grabbing a pillow to pull over his head before he smacks into a solid object. What the fuck?
He cracks an eye open.
Holy shi-His other eye flies open and the pain in his head slices across his eyes, but nothing can distract him from the expanse of tanned solid muscle filling his vision.
It moves. He scoots back. His eyes wander up. He takes note of the full, pouting lips, the long aquiline nose. Oh. Fuck. He sees long slender fingers as they move and rub at an invisible spot on the spotless tanned shoulder. Oh fuck, indeed.
He scoots back slowly, as silent as he can, and freezes when a woman’s tinny voice filters through the room, loud and clear. His eyes widen and he notices the clock radio on the other side of the man and wonders if he can make it to the door...if he knows where it is. Where the hell am I?
The face fully turns toward him, the long lashes blinking back sleep as a groan is emitted. Raúl tosses the sheets off of him as he stretches and slams a hand down on the snooze button. “God, mmm, sorry, Fernando,” he mumbles to the air, turning back to him, eyes still shut, reaching in his direction.
Fernando breathes, cringing inside. The man fucking remembered he was in bed with him.
When the silence remains, Raúl blinks his eyes open, the dark brown meeting Fernando’s panicked ones. “Oh, good you’re still he-shit, my brain.” He clutches at his head, the unruly curls flopping into his eyes.
“Um,” Fernando swallows, unable to make words come to his mouth, cottony and dry. “You...ok?”
Raúl lets out a hoarse chuckle, his cheeks staining, “shouldn’t have had that last shot lost night.”
“...Yeah, me too,” Fernando finally blurts out.
Raúl turns on his back, blinking sleepily. “There’s water and aspirin next to you, would you mind?”
Fernando blinks at him before he starts, “oh yeah, sure.” He sits up with difficulty, the sheets falling to his waist, exposing his bare skin. “I-um,” he pulls the sheet up as he grabs the full glass of water and the bottle, the sheet falling down again, as he passes them to Raúl, who is struggling to sit up as well.
“Thanks,” he takes them from Fernando, whose gaze falls but catches a glimpse at the red scratches on the other man’s chest.
“Fernando?”
“What?” He drags his eyes away to where Raúl is holding out the open bottle and the rest of the water, as if in offering to him. “Oh, oh, yeah, thanks.” He takes two out, after a split second of hesitation, tossing it into his mouth and swallowing the cool liquid as if it were mana from the gods.
When he’s finished, and replacing them on the table he turns to find Raúl his slid back down under the covers, and warmth against his waist. He looks down. Raúl’s hand is pressing down on his thigh and he sees the bare expanse of bed space on the other side of him.
He shifts, uncomfortable, and sighs, when Raúl barely stirs. He is about to slide out when another particularly strong flash of pain moves behind his eyeballs. He groans and slides back down into the sheets, succumbing to sleep.
The phone rings somewhere to his left. Fernando jerks awake, blinking. He looks around, confused. Where the hell am I?
The bed is unfamiliar but familiar. He groans. He was still at that...Raúl’s. He takes in the pale yellow walls and bookshelves lining the far wall. He shifts and feels the empty sheets.
He scrambles to sit up, looking around desperately, distantly registering the lack of pain in his head.
The room is devoid of another human being. He sees his clothes, carefully folded up on a desk to the side of the room.
He slides out of the bed, the chill running through his exposed skin, as the sheets fall away, and pads to the desk. There’s a large yellow post it atop his shirt.
Sorry, had to go, had a meeting. There’s fruit & breakfast in the kitchen if you want. Just let yourself out if I’m not back by the time you get up. So sorry. -Raúl, the scrawled note says.
His eyes fall to a hastily added section in the lower corner. A number and a, Call-if you want. It’d be nice.
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. He grabs his clothes, and the note, sinking back down to a corner of the mattress.
He looks around again in silence, at the bookshelves, the books lined up in alphabetical order. The room is small, but cosy. He gets up and tiptoes to the door, opening it and making his way into the hallway.
It is dark and silent as he pads down to where it opens up into a slightly larger room than the one he just left, a door on the opposite side. He barely registers his shoes and bag lined neatly by the door when he turns to take in a couch lined against the wall, a small table, counter space and a kitchen.
He’s about to try to find a bathroom, turning back to where he came from before red digits catch his eye. He stares at the microwave-fuck is that the time?
He sprints back to the bedroom, putting his clothes hastily on. He grabs his shoes, neatly lined by the door before he comes back, after hesitating.
He hastily does the bed as best as he can and rushes his way back through the flat, shutting the front door behind him.
A piece of yellow post-it flutters unnoticed from his bag as Fernando makes his way down the stairs in a hurry.
He slides, ten minutes late, into his last lecture of the week.
A week has gone by since that day and though he would deny it to anybody that asked, not that anybody would, he had searched everywhere for the note with Raúl’s number on it.
Feeling stupid at getting all worked up over what would turn out to be nothing much anyway, he pushed it out of his mind.
It was only this morning that he had recalled their very first conversation. He wasn’t sure whether it cheered him up or embarrassed him that he knew he would be seeing the other man that day.
The professor doesn’t pause when the door shuts loudly behind Fernando. He ducks his head and slides into the nearest vacant chair.
He tries to keep his desire to look around in check and bends down, playing the role of the diligent student.
He stretches forty-five minutes later, the professor needing break. He turns his head this way and that, consciously searching for a familiar profile and mop of brown curly hair.
When he doesn’t find him, he pushes down the slight feeling of disappointment at the pit of his stomach.
On Tuesday, he is buried over a newspaper in the main library reading room, his stuff scattered around an empty large table littered with his pens and notes and used coffee cups, all the more to scare off potential company. He rustles the newspaper as he turns the page, neglecting the stack of books to his side.
A sensation falls across his spine, feeling like he’s being watched. He looks up, looking around, twisting behind him. He shakes his head and turns back to his paper, when he realises someone has occupied the empty chair at his table.
He tries to brush off the feeling of...surprise, he’s going to go with surprise.
“I guess I shouldn’t be insulted that you didn’t call me.”
“Fuck,” he starts. “Make a noise.”
Raúl colours. “Sorry.”
Fernando sits up, feeling on edge. “Me too.” He falls silent again.
“By the way, about not calling,” Raúl mumbles, as he cracks open his laptop.
“I was-I mean, I would have...if I hadn’t,” Fernando sighs, ducking his head, “I lost your number. And that’s the actual truth.”
Raúl pauses and looks up above his laptop screen at him, gaze unreadable.
“I really would have,” Fernando insists, though a voice in his head wonders why he’s even bothering anyway.
Raúl shrugs, and Fernando notes the almost regal way the shrug falls off his shoulder, the most natural thing in the world. “You knew where I lived.”
“I...” he shuts his mouth before he can continue, “yeah, but that’s...rude.”
He shifts uncomfortably under the other man’s gaze.
“I, uh, didn’t see you in class last week,” he says, to fill in the silence, hoping he sounds casual.
“Had some work to take care of.” Raúl’s tone of voice is distant as his sharp eyes scan the computer screen in front of him.
Fernando frowns, used to being the one to put a close to conversations. “Oh.” He waits a while, but Raúl is silent.
He folds the newspaper up, a little too noisily based on the glares he receives from the surrounding tables, and sighs, pulling the top book down from his pile, cracking it open, his pen poised and ready.
“Aren’t you hungry?” a voice quietly filters through his thoughts.
Fernando blinks, looking up, and wincing as his neck cricks. He stretches, dropping the pen on the table and stretching his fingers and neck.
Raúl is looking at him expectantly, the laptop closed, his side of the table looking clean and tidy as if he’d just arrived.
“What?”
“Dinner?”
“Oh,” Fernando starts, “well...”
“I’m making pasta...” Raúl adds, expectantly.
“At your house?”
“Nothing fancy, but,” Raúl nods, “Student for life, you know, me.”
“Oh, yeah, no, I understand, I wasn’t...” Fernando looks at him and despite his own initial response, he shakes his head. “I think I’m just going to try and finish these,” he gestures at the rest of the books on his table, “and then go home and crash.”
He feels inexplicably pleased when it looks as if Raúl’s face falls. “Oh, well, ok, I’m just...” Raúl grabs his laptop bag and moves to stand up, “I guess I’ll see you.”
“Yeah, see you later,” Fernando says, watching him as he exits the room.
He looks up at the clock, unable to get back to concentrating on the book before him. Its only been a half an hour since Raúl has left him in silence.
He stares at the walls blankly for a little while longer before he sighs, packing up his things, deciding to call it a night.
He unlocks the door to his tiny studio flat, shaking off the wet rain droplets on his coat, as he fumbles in the dark for the light switch. Flipping it on, he blinks to get accustomed to the light.
His eyes fall on the empty living room, the few boxes littering the floor, some opened another still taped shut, and the suitcase in the corner of the room, his clothes spilling out.
He drops his keys on the kitchen counter and makes his way to the fridge. He cracks the door open, taking appraisal of the contents, an untouched six-pack, a half-empty carton of milk and a lonely Chinese take away.
He shuts it with a sigh and eyes the pile of delivery menus next to the fridge. He picks up the top most and stares at the contents, none of it sounding appealing to him.
Before he can think twice, he grabs the six-pack, his coat and keys and exits his apartment.
Fernando takes a deep breath, shivering. In the twenty minutes walk he’d taken, he had sprinted half of it, the rain starting to come down heavily halfway through his walk.
He stares at the brown door with the number 4C on it, raising his fist to knock lightly.
There’s a shuffling inside and the door cracks slightly to reveal Raúl’s wide eyes. “Fernando?”
He smiles sheepishly, holding up the six-pack, “Is it to late to take up the offer of dinner?”
The door closes a little as he hears Raúl fumbling with the chain lock, before the door is opened wide, a soft smile on his face, “No, come in. I’m just about to eat.”
Fernando steps inside. The smell of garlic and tomatoes hit his nose, and his stomach grumbles, hopefully not as loud as it seems to his own ears.
The other man looks different. He blinks and notices his usual attire of sweater vests, Oxford shirts and slacks is replaced by sweat pants and a faded t-shirt, his feet barefoot.
Raúl takes the six-pack in his hand and placing it on the kitchen table. “You must be cold.”
Fernando looks down at his clothes, “Oh, I...it’ll dry.” He looks up, but Raúl has disappeared. He blinks, toeing his wet shoes off, and pulling his jacket, dripping off, looking for a place to hang it.
“Here,” Raúl reappears, brandishing a towel in his direction, swapping it for the jacket. “We’ll put your jacket on the radiator so it’ll dry.”
“Ok,” Fernando replies, standing awkwardly in the hallway.
“Sit down,” Raúl says, turning back to the stove, grabbing plates, “you can get the utensils in that drawer over there, and the bottle opener is on the fridge.”
Fernando blinks out of his stupor and starts moving, taking his instructions to heart.
Raúl walks toward the table, two platefuls of pasta, placing one before Fernando and the other with himself. “I hope it’s alright.”
Fernando smiles at him, more at ease, “I’m sure it is.”
Halfway through dinner Fernando notices that Raúl is looking at him expectantly. “Yes?”
“Is it alright?”
“Oh-!” Fernando colours, “Sorry, forgot my manners, yes, it’s very good, thank you.”
Raúl’s smile stretches across his face, looking pleased.
They fall back into silence.
“Seriously, it’ll be fine,” Raúl insists, hopping behind him a little nervously. “Just leave it.”
Fernando protests, “You cooked so I’ll wash the dishes, it’s the way it works.”
Raúl looks at him blankly.
“Rules of dinner parties?”
Raúl blinks, “Oh? Is it?”
Fernando cracks an easy grin, “Well, yeah, that’s how we’ve always done it, my mates and I.” He presses on adding, “Not that I have many, dinner parties, that is.”
Fernando turns on the tap. “Seriously, don’t they ever do that?”
He senses the other man hovering behind him and he repeats the question, “Don’t they?”
“Well, not really, I mean, the guys I’ve cooked dinner for generally...don’t offer.”
Fernando frowns, “That’s rude.”
“I don’t really do this...often,” Raúl shrugs, “And, I have my own...routine.”
Fernando scrubs at the pan, “But me? Am I that convincing?”
“You made the bed.”
Fernando turns off the tap, swivelling around to face him, eyes a little unsure and wide at the simple tone that Raúl uses.
Raúl’s cheeks are red again, and by the heat in his own, he is sure he’s feeling the same way.
He takes a step forward as Raúl opens his mouth, “I should tell you, before anything gets-”
He is silenced when Fernando pulls him into a deep kiss.
“Oh!” Raúl scrabbles to grip onto the counter behind him as Fernando pushes.
“Sorry,” he mumbles between kisses. He pulls back slightly, pushing his knee between the other man’s leg, pressing.
Raúl lets out a hushed gasp, his fingers digging into Fernando’s shoulders as his legs buckle.
Fernando holds him up, as he feels warm hands slip under his shirt, still damp from the rain, tugging at it.
He feels Raúl gathering strength and pulling away from him, yanking him from the kitchen toward the bedroom.
His hand slides down Raúl’s thigh.
Raúl scratches at his forearms as he thrusts hard.
Fernando watches him, fascinated. Watches the way his head is thrown back, his hands as they caress his own chest, his lips opening in silent moans.
A few more thrusts and they both come in the dark, one after another.
Fernando falls against Raúl, gasping for breath.
Raúl’s hand at the nape of his neck, he shifts as he pulls away from Fernando, before he feels himself slide out. Eyes closed, he registers a hand gently touching his now limp cock, unrolling the condom. He lets out a low sigh, too spent to do anything.
“The trouble with love is-”The invasive sound disappears when Fernando hears something slam against something else.
Fernando rolls to the side, his nose meeting with the juncture of a neck and shoulder.
“Morning,” someone says, breath tickling his ear.
Fernando opens his eyes to find Raúl looking down at him.
“Morning,” he mumbles.
They lie in silence for a while.
Raúl clears his throat, “I, um, I have a meeting this morning but-”
“Oh,” he coughs, blinking the sleep from his eyes, clearing his throat and struggling to get up, “Uh, me too.”
Raúl’s arm slides across his waist, “Really?”
Fernando sits up, running a hand over his face, looking down at the arm, confused, “No, but you do, so I’ll, I should too.” He swings his legs over the side.
Raúl’s smile fades, his hand dropping from Fernando’s waist. He sits up, “Ok, I didn’t mean that you had-but, well...”
Fernando spots his pants, tangled with some other pieces of clothing, by the bed. He moves off the bed to pick it up off the floor, a dull familiar ache ripping through his thighs.
He feels Raúl’s eyes watching him.
“Is there...can I use...”
“Oh, yeah, the bathroom is down the hall,” Raúl says, hastily.
Fernando grabs the pieces of clothing as he finds them, trailing from the bedroom to the hallway, making his way to the bathroom. He shuts the door and rests his forehead against it.
“No hangover this time, right?”
Fernando tiptoes out of the shower. “What? Oh, no.”
Raúl appears in front of him, his hair still dishevelled; sleep still in his eyes, but a smile plastering his face. The man holds out a cup of coffee before him. Fernando watches the steam rise into the air. “I didn’t know how you take it so...”
“Thanks,” Fernando mumbles, taking it from him. They stand there silently for awhile before he starts.
“Should probably let you-”
“Sugar’s on the table-”
They catch themselves. Fernando cracks a little smile as Raúl’s shoulders shake with silent laughter.
When he finally makes his way out of Raúl’s flat, twenty minutes later, he lets out a breath he doesn’t know he was holding.
He’s not quite sure what happened or why he is so unnerved by it. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, making his way down the stairs.
When he pushes the door open a blast of cold air assails him, welcoming him to the end of autumn.
He puts the thermos in the crook of his arm, jamming his hands into his pockets. His right fist closes on a scrap of paper inside. Frowning he pulls it out.
A familiar scrawl on yellow paper, Thanks for doing the washing up. Call me. No excuses this time. - Raúl.
>>>