gate c23 | excerpt | aelenko
ID under the cut!
“You want the forever after,” Kieran says quietly, looking contemplative.
“I mean.” Zach wants to start squirming in his chair. “Ideally. What about you?”
Kieran sighs, looking down at the table, and for the first time that night, Zach sees a shadow lurking under that practiced calm. “I don’t know. I’ve never had an opportunity to know whether forever was an option.”
Zach has no idea what Kieran means by that, but he nods anyway.
“I’ve been told I’m aggressively loyal, though,” Kieran says. “I think that would extend to future potential partners.”
He doesn’t look at Zach when he says it, instead his eyes stay downcast.
There’s a moment of silence between them where Zach looks down at the table, absorbing the dull chatter in the air and the direction the conversation is heading.
Future potential partners.
Zach feels a horrible pang of something that’s both wistful and nostalgic at once, which he squashes down by throwing caution to the wind and asking, “What are you... where are you at right now? With what you want?”
Kieran’s small smile spreads slowly, and he doesn’t look up at Zach. “And here you were saying you weren’t brave.”
“I wasn’t—” Zach stammers, feeling his cheeks burn, flattening both palms on the table in horror. “I’m not suggesting—I was just—”
Wordlessly, Kieran extends his hand across the table until his fingers touch the tops of Zach’s, and Zach—
Well. Zach shuts up.
For a moment, it’s as though the air between them vanishes in a vacuum.
“I’m open,” Kieran says, “to possibilities.”
Zach becomes distantly aware that his mouth is hanging open, and so he shuts it.
“Like I said,” Kieran continues. “It’s been wrong people, wrong time. Who knows. Could be the right time. Just about getting to know the right person.”
Then he presses down on Zach’s fingers, just lightly, and withdraws his hand.
Zach is ninety percent confident that this interaction has cost him several working brain cells.