Part the Ninth

Thom couldn't sleep that night, either.

For some reason, he couldn't stop thinking of what Wesley had said about Colin. About how Colin hadn't ever seemed as though he was seeking an emotional engagement, a real relationship; Wesley had said Colin had fucked him, but hadn't even gotten off on it. That Colin hadn't been looking to get off, that for him, the simple act of control had been quite sufficient.

That explained his and Colin's arrangement. He'd brought Thom to climax with hands and mouth, he'd made other boys come in front of him, and he'd never once asked for anything in return other than Thom's utter compliance. He'd let Thom know that he could back out at any moment, and Thom was fairly certain that Colin had known even then that Thom wouldn't be able to say no. He felt like a puppet, movements dictated by Colin alone, and even though the means for cutting the strings had been presented to him, he'd chosen to continue in captivity.

The rest of his thoughts were reserved for Wesley, and Jonny.

He couldn't decide whether Wesley was the most open person he'd ever met, or the most closed. He'd realised that he couldn't be certain that he knew what Wesley was feeling or thinking; whether Wesley's devil-may-care attitude was as simple as pure hedonistic indulgence, or something more sinister, pathological; or whether anything the other man had told him was actually true. Had he really fucked Jonny over a school piano when he was fifteen; had he initiated Jonny into that world in much the same way as David had initiated Colin? More precisely, what was it about the Greenwoods that made other boys want to throw them over the nearest available surface and take them?

And that brought him round to Jonny.

He was starting to feel that however complex he'd thought Colin was, Jonny had him beat on every count. At least with Colin he had a vague idea of where he stood; Colin's little explanation of their 'terms and conditions' had confused him and enlightened him in equal measures. And with Colin he felt that he was getting the truth, or an accurate imitation of it; with Jonny it was easy enough to tell that he was lying about something, but he had so many things to lie about that Thom couldn't pinpoint which ones were true and which weren't. Thom wasn't prepared to believe that Jonny had fallen over a box of records in his own home, which begged the question: what was he trying to cover up? And, more pertinently, had Colin's supposed guess that Jonny had fallen been simply fortuitous, or had Jonny asked Colin to lie for him? And if he had... that meant that Colin knew what was really happening.

Colin's warning about staying away from Jonny had been more startling than anything else. If it hadn't been the Greenwoods, Thom would have thought it was unusual for an older brother to be so concerned about his sibling's romantic liaisons, but they'd always been strangely close to each other – much closer than Thom had ever been to Andy. And Colin knew what he and Wesley had been 'up to' behind his back. He wasn't sure why Colin had phrased it like that; as far as he was aware, Colin had never forbidden him from engaging with other members of the Club, even if he'd staked a claim on him, so what he did with Wesley was none of Colin's business. Well. He was trying to convince himself that it wasn't, but the wording of their agreement made him think twice; if he had rendered up his soul, as it said, to Colin, then perhaps Colin had every right to object. What Thom was more concerned about was how Colin knew about it in the first place. He couldn't have known what had happened between him and Wesley that morning unless he'd been standing right outside the window squinting through a gap in the curtains, which was highly unlikely... which left only one other option.

Wesley had told him.

He was so confused. In the dark of his room, he pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed up his eyes, feeling the beginnings of a headache. Jonny had flirted with him: that much he knew. Jonny was keeping secrets from him: that much he almost certainly knew. Wesley had betrayed him to Colin: that much he was almost positive of. And Colin had acted accordingly. Was he jealous? Because he saw Thom as his possession, and he was resentful of Jonny for so easily drawing Thom's attention away? Or was it just that he was protective of Jonny and thought Thom would be a bad influence? The Greenwoods' mother had thought Thom was a bad influence on her sons from the outset, so it wasn't such a stretch of the imagination to think that Colin might have taken after her.

Inevitably, his mind circled back round to Wesley, and to Jonny, or rather to the more specific matter of Wesley and Jonny. As far as he could remember, he hadn't even known that Jonny might have been inclined that way until Wesley had put the thought in his head; now it just wouldn't go away. He knew Jonny had had a couple of girlfriends when they were in school – they'd occasionally shown up to the band's gigs, or hung around while they rehearsed, but they'd never been long-term fixtures. In fact, Thom was fairly certain Jonny hadn't actually had a girlfriend since Thom had left Abingdon, or at least not one that Thom had been introduced to. By that time it hadn't been anything out of the ordinary for the pair of them to spend entire days holed up in one or the other's bedrooms, listening to records or playing or going over songs they'd come up with together.

Could that have been when the seeds had been sown? And it had taken this long for Jonny to summon up the courage to act on his feelings?

He was fully prepared to sleep on the notion and confront Jonny about it in the morning. He had just started drifting when the shrill tone of the phone ringing brought him sharply back into consciousness. He half-considered taking it off the hook, rolling over and ignoring it, but instead he found himself reaching out and snatching the receiver, pressing it to his ear and hearing deep, shuddering breathing on the other end of the line.

“Hello?”

The breathing continued; Thom was about to ring off, when:

“Thom?”

“Jonny?”

There was a shaky laugh, which sounded muffled, as though Jonny had clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle it. “Yeah, it's me.”

Thom glanced over at the bedside clock and groaned. “Jon, it's nearly two thirty. What do you want?”

There was a small tremor in Jonny's voice this time when he spoke. “You told me I could come to you any time I needed to talk about stuff. So... I'm calling you.”

Thom sat up, tightly clutching the receiver to the side of his face. “Jon? Are you OK?”

A pause. “It's – nothing. No, I'm fine. I'm sorry I woke you, I'll just -”

“No! Jon, don't go. You didn't wake me up – I'm wide awake, I promise, just stay on the line. What's wrong?”

“I... don't know.” There was an odd sound, and it took Thom a few moments to realise what it was.

“Jonny... are you crying?”

“N... no.”

“You know you're a shit liar.” Something hot and horrible was clawing at Thom's insides, clamouring to be let out, and he did his best to ignore it. “Jon – is this about earlier? You weren't telling me the truth, that stupid story about falling over a box of records or whatever it was... look, I know you, I know you wouldn't tell me lies without a good reason, but... I'm worried about you.”

Another pause. Then... “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because...” Because I'm in love with you, a voice in the back of his head shrieked, and he almost dropped the phone; where had that come from? “Because you're my friend. And if you're lying to me about something... I want to know why you're hiding it from me.”

“Thom... please. Just leave it. You don't need to know.”

“Then why are you calling me at two thirty in the morning? If that's not a cry for help, I don't know what is.”

“Because I was worried.”

Thom snorted. “There's an echo in here.”

“Thom.” Jonny's tone was desperate. “I... think you might have got the wrong impression. This evening. Colin said something...”

Thom's blood ran cold. “What?”

“I wasn't flirting with you. I... I don't know where you got that idea.”

“How do you know that I got that idea?” Thom said indignantly.

“Colin told me.”

Well, that explained a lot. “Oh. Um... I'm sorry, then. I didn't mean to make a prat of myself or anything.”

“You didn't,” Jonny assured him, his voice sounding a little steadier now. “Actually... I'm seeing someone.”

“Seeing as in...? Seeing seeing? You mean the kind you don't just do with your eyes, right?” He was babbling now, and he knew it; it was as though Jonny's last words had burst something inside him and all the hysteria he'd been bottling up was now flowing out.

“The kind you don't just do with your eyes, yes.”

“You're smirking at me.”

“Thom, you can't even see my face.”

“I can hear you smirking. You're rubbish at pretending when you're not doing something, I can see right through you. You think I'm an idiot.”

“Yes, I do, but not because you're hopeless at reading relationships.” There was a hint of fondness in his tone. “Sorry. That was a little bit harsh. But... you're my best friend. You know that, don't you? I don't want that to be spoiled because of a silly little misunderstanding. I love you.”

It wasn't what Thom wanted to hear, even though he'd been longing for those three simple words. He felt like crying. “I love you too, Jon.”

“I know.” Jonny's voice grew quiet, and then, with a short, casual chuckle: “Well, anyway, if you think you've got a hope in hell of seducing me, you've got another think coming, Yorke. I'll let you get some sleep. Night.”

Thom was left staring dumbly at the receiver, a sensation of cold shock coursing through him. It could have been coincidence. Jonny and Colin finished each other's sentences all the time. But Jonny's last few words had almost exactly mirrored Colin's warning a few hours ago: you've got another think coming, he repeated inside his head, and an inexplicable shiver ran down his spine.

He dropped the receiver back onto its cradle, drew the covers up to his chin, and rolled over to finally go to sleep, his mind and stomach churning at what he'd just heard. He was still finding the comfortable place in the lumpy pillow when a sudden, dull thumping from downstairs filled his ears; it took a few moments to register with him that it was the sound of someone hammering on his front door. At – he glanced at the clock again, groaned and swore into the pillow – twenty to three in the morning.

Reluctantly, he hauled himself out of bed, dragged on an oversized sweater he'd nicked from Jonny, and stumbled down the stairs to the hall. Looking through the peephole, he couldn't see enough of his night-time visitor to identify; he'd barely pulled back the chain and started to open the door when it was flung back on its hinges, and an all-too-familiar blond-haired figure almost knocked him to the floor.

“Get up,” Wesley said, kicking the door shut with his heel and dragging Thom up from the ground by one arm. His eyes were wild, his suit jacket hanging halfway off his shoulders, and he was bleeding from the corner of his mouth. He started to drag Thom towards the sitting room; it didn't even occur to Thom to struggle. “We need to have sex. Right now.”