2. Cinn
two
Cinn
J ulien was snoring when Cinn awoke, the exhalation of his breath tickling his ear. During the night, his head had shuffled off Julien’s chest onto a cushion they’d shared. His aching muscles protested that two men sharing a sofa when a king-sized bed was a mere handful of steps away wasn’t the best idea, but Cinn had no regrets.
He pulled his head back slightly to study Julien’s face: the sharpness of his cheekbones that was softened by the morning light; a tiny, tiny scar on his forehead, unnoticed until now; the shiny blond waves that had annoyed him the night they met. He’d yanked on them, hard. But Julien had seemed to enjoy that, hadn’t he?
Cinn couldn’t help but smile to himself, resisting the temptation to run his fingers through Julien’s hair, feel the silky locks that were as soft as they looked. In such a short time, the arrogant, cocky princeling he’d immediately disliked had become… his princeling .
It had been difficult to watch Julien last night, falling apart—falling apart again— because of him. Almost as difficult as the two weeks of staying away from him had been.
Undeniably, Cinn had been angry at first. Pissed off. Fuming. Tyler was in the hospital with broken ribs, and the man semi-responsible for setting off the chain of events was the same one Cinn had just started imagining giving his heart to. Fury at Julien warred with fury at Tyler and fury at himself for letting it all unfold that way .
Then he’d read the letter. The letter, the one in the yellow envelope that was waiting on his floor the day after he’d broken his own heart by leaving Julien crying on the floor of his apartment. The letter that had contained so, so many words. So many words, Cinn didn’t know what to do with them. The letter, the one that he’d gotten out and read again and again, to the point it became dog-eared, Julien’s outlandishly over-the-top inked signature smudged where he’d run his fingers over it so many times.
After its arrival, Cinn waited for Julien to show up on his doorstep, or to surprise him by appearing alongside Darcy for lunch one day. After all, it wasn’t like Julien to respect personal boundaries. When he didn’t make an appearance, and the space between them began to stretch longer and longer, Cinn began to question everything, including whether Julien had gotten bored with him and moved on.
Now, here he was, waking up next to him.
Cinn untangled himself from their web of limbs as gently as possible, to pad around Julien’s apartment barefoot with mouse-like steps.
He needn’t have worried—even the noise of the kettle boiling and Cinn preparing the coffee beans using Julien’s ridiculously high-effort hand-grinder didn’t wake him.
While the cafétière steeped the coffee, Cinn found himself wandering around Julien’s living room, picking up several curious-looking objects—motetech?—for further examination. A wooden ladder shelf housed plants that felt real and alive to the touch but were rooted in tiny tree stumps rather than soil. On the top shelf, a photo of four people standing in a row, arms around each other, on a sunny beach, waited for his prying fingers to grab it down. Julien and Béatrice wedged in the middle of Elliot and Darcy, the four of them looking windswept and slightly sunburnt. As Cinn tilted the photo, the sea in the background appeared to move just a fraction, as did the hair of the four smiling friends. He set it back down .
Cinn meandered over to sit at Julien’s red-velvet piano stool. Smooth curves and sharp angles melded seamlessly to create an impressive grand piano, its black shine winking at Cinn, begging to be played. For all his love of listening to music, he’d never actually played an instrument outside of the few music lessons he’d bothered to attend in secondary school. In his defence, sheet music was even harder to read than words.
Cinn lifted the piano’s fallboard to reveal a mesmerising expanse of glossy ebony keys. He ran a single finger over their smooth surface without pressing down.
“Do you have a secret talent you haven’t yet revealed?”
Jumping out of his skin, Cinn lurched backwards on the stool. The seat tipped, sending him flying into Julien’s laughing arms.
Cinn scowled at Julien’s upside down smirking face, his dimples on full display. “You could have said good morning.”
“Now where would the fun be in that?” Julien said, before pressing a soft kiss to Cinn’s lips. “When I could watch you nose around every inch of my apartment instead?”
Julien released Cinn, who spun around on the seat to continue glaring at him.
“Move out of the way. I want to play you something I’ve been practising.”
Cinn slipped off the stool to sit on the floor while Julien grabbed a thin glossy book down from a nearby bookshelf, opened it without a glimpse at the page number, and placed it on the music stand. Julien played a few notes, pressing his foot against each of the three pedals.
“Sounds great. A plus,” Cinn said, slow clapping. “Definitely give up the day job.”
Julien paused. Turned his head to stare at him.
Without breaking eye contact, Julien danced his fingers lightning-quick across the keys, conjuring a cascade of melodies, a musical magician. The room soon resonated with a symphony of layered harmonies, all without Julien even glancing at the keys.
Cinn stopped clapping in shock.
“Fair warning, I’ve only practised this a few times,” Julien said, nodding to the sheet music.
“Okay…” Cinn said slowly, waves of apprehension surging.
After a deep breath and a roll of his shoulders, Julien studied the music for a moment before starting to play.
Cinn knew the song at once.
He felt his eyes widen in disbelief and his jaw drop slightly slack as the very familiar chords of “Go Your Own Way” vibrated through the room.
Each note sent a fresh shockwave of raw emotion through him, threatening to choke him and drag him under. Memories of moments flooded Cinn’s mind, intertwining with the music as Julien’s rendition breathed new life into the song so beloved to him for as long as he could remember.
He traced the rib where the lyrics to the Fleetwood Mac song had been inked many years ago.
It was his mother’s favourite song.
Cinn had an entire catalogue of hazy memories of her playing the song during his childhood. Each of them featured her smiling face as she shouted it as loud as she could, often pulling him down from sitting on a bar stool to spin around their tiny kitchen with her. They’d spin and spin, getting dizzier and dizzier until the final notes faded into their laughter.
“Hey. Come here. Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Cinn rapidly blinked. Julien had stopped playing.
He hadn’t realised he’d been crying until Julien swiped across his cheek with his thumb as he pulled him onto the stool with him.
“You didn’t upset me. That was… really beautiful, Julien. Thanks.” Cinn’s voice was thick with grief and barely above a whisper. Once he rested his chin on Julien’s shoulder, hiding his face, he continued, “That was my mum’s favourite song. She must have played it a thousand times.”
“Oh?” Julien’s hand came up to stroke small circles onto his back. “I had no idea. I just thought you must like it.”
“The tattoo artist and my mates thought I got it to make some kind of statement against her or whatever, but I actually got it to keep her close, even after I left.”
“You act like you had a say in the matter.”
“She said the song reminded her of when she left home to carve out her own path. She’d sing it to herself whenever she doubted her decision to go. My nan passed away when she was just four, so she was raised by her dad and her older brother. I was only thirteen when I went into care, so I don’t remember much, but I know they were shitheads.”
How long had it been since Cinn talked about all this? The words felt foreign on his tongue.
Julien hummed before nudging his head against Cinn’s. “Do you know where she is now?” he asked. “Is she still…”
Alive? A mess? “Nope. No idea. Lost contact years ago.” Cinn fought to keep his voice steady. This was exactly why he avoided thinking about her. “It’s alright. It’s all in the past now. It’s probably for the best. I like to picture her out there, living a good life, dancing around to this song. She was always at her happiest when there was music playing.”
Julien touched Cinn’s shoulders, pushing him off his shoulder to face him. “It’s nice you had that in common with her.”
“Yeah.” Cinn shot Julien a sad smile. “Anyway. Cold coffee?” He dragged himself away from Julien to pour it out. It was cold indeed, but Julien’s golden-threaded motetech mug had the lukewarm liquid piping hot in the ten seconds it took to walk Julien’s mug over to him.
The calendar dangling on the wall caught Cinn’s attention. He tapped on today’s date, disbelief seeping through him. “Fuck.”
“What? ”
“It’s Christmas Day in four days. How did we not notice?” Cinn whirled around to catch Julien pulling a face.
“Urg, Christmas . I hoped everyone would forget.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a Christmas Scrooge. I can’t stand those types.”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who go crazy for it. Actually, scrap that, you’re British. Of course you do.”
Bright, tinsel-coloured fragments of memories, almost certainly rose-tinted, crowded Cinn’s mind. “It used to be a happier time of year when I was a kid. Then it got pretty shitty in foster care. But the last few years have been great. What’s not to love about presents and too much food?”
Sighing, Julien interlocked his fingers behind his head, leaning backwards as if pained. “I suppose I can pretend to love it, just for you. Fair warning, Darcy will go home to her loving parents in Scotland. Can you believe it?” He pulled a face of mock disgust. “But Elliot will probably be around.”
Cinn turned back to the calendar. It wasn’t too late for him to fly back to England, to spend it with whoever was around. Tempting, but no. As much as Julien presented as all-too-happy to ignore Christmas, Cinn couldn’t leave him. Didn’t want to leave him.
The pages of the calendar shook slightly in a non-existent breeze. Cinn’s eyes flicked to the ladder shelf, where a minute hum buzzed. He squinted. The objects were vibrating ever so slightly, the leaves of the plants quivering.
That’s when the first tremor became obvious. Subtle, yes, but enough for Cinn to feel the pulse of energy thread through him. “What was that?”
“Construction downstairs?” Julien said slowly, tone lacking conviction. Another minor tremor passed under them, and Julien failed to disguise his alarm, jumping to his feet to head to the glass wall that faced Talwacht’s centre .
Cinn followed, grabbing on to Julien’s arm. “Should we evacuate?”
“Let’s not panic.” A small furrow formed between Julien’s eyebrows as a rumble tore through the apartment—distant thunder? It didn’t sound like it.
Nothing of note was visible outside the window, but as seconds passed, the tremors intensified, growing stronger with each passing moment.
“At what point do we panic?” That ship had long since sailed for Cinn. His heart thundered in his chest as he shamelessly clung onto Julien’s arm.
The room began to sway almost imperceptibly as the rattle of objects bouncing against shelves increased to a deafening crescendo. Several alarms in other apartments pinged, creating a chorus of warning.
Finally, a gasp from Julien. He pointed across the town to where another high-rise building was visibly shaking.
What were you meant to do in an earthquake, again? Cinn had no real clue, fluctuating between suggesting they hide under the dining table or flee outside. Outside, onto the main road, where things could fall on them. Flatten them like pancakes, crush their bones into dust.
“We need to…” Cinn couldn’t finish his thought. Every intake of breath offered him an insubstantial amount of oxygen as his legs turned to watery jelly. The gold band around his wrist warmed with his rising adrenaline-fuelled heart rate. It would prevent him from shadowslipping, but it wouldn’t save them from being buried alive.
Then came the unmistakable sensation of the floor beneath them shifting violently, as the earthquake’s intensity surged. The glass wall rippled ominously, warping inwards as the largest tremor so far blasted through the room.
“Julien!”
With a horrific crack, the glass succumbed to the relentless force, fracturing into a spiderweb of fissures that spread with alarming speed .
Cinn dove backwards, tripping over something in the process, sending both him and Julien tumbling to the floor.
“Fuck!”
The glass exploded inward in a shower of deadly shards. Cinn’s arm flew up to cover his face, and he braced, readying himself to feel the stinging bite of razor-sharp fragments.
They didn’t come. Cinn unpeeled his firmly clamped eyelids to find the thousands of shiny shards flying away from them, and Julien kneeling, attention focussed solely on the glassless windowpane. A torrent of strong wind, originating from behind them, pushed every shard of glass outwards to tumble down onto the road.
“You certainly picked a good time to start channelling again,” Cinn said meekly, rising quickly to his unsteady feet. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Julien didn’t need persuading. Swiping up their rucksacks en route, they dashed straight to the front door. By instinct, Cinn half moved towards the elevator before Julien yanked on his arm, pointing to a door that led to a staircase. Julien may then have said something, but Cinn’s ears rang from the deafening cacophony of alarms and the roar of the continuing series of quake-induced shudders. With gritted teeth, they pounded down the emergency staircase, hands interlocked and squeezing each other to the point of pain. Each concrete step was a precarious dance as the building trembled around them. The treacherous descent was made even more ominous by lights flickering through the choking haze of dust that filled the air, making Cinn’s eyes water.
At last, their endless journey downwards came to its conclusion, and they burst through a fire door onto the main road.
Cinn gasped for breath. “Another reason”—he coughed violently, spitting bile and ash onto the ground—“not to have a fancy-ass penthouse suite.”
“Is this really the time for that comment? ”
Cinn’s face split into a grin, the euphoria of their escape sending him doolally. He dusted grey powder from Julien’s white shirt before meeting his wide, red-rimmed eyes. He was still panting as he brought their foreheads together. “I can’t believe we’re alive.”
The rush of joy from escaping the building faded as Cinn absorbed the chaotic scene around them. The street was littered with debris, the air thick with the acrid scent of smoke and the distant wail of sirens.
The tremors had finally ceased, however, their sensations petering out into nothing. Around them, strangers stumbled, shell-shocked, many of them clutching crying children to their chests.
“This is madness,” Julien said, shaking his head. He was as spooked as Cinn had ever seen him. Blinking rapidly, he stumbled several steps backwards to lean against a lamppost.
“Hey.” Cinn grabbed his wrist, sliding his fingers up the sleeve of his shirt to feel the corded muscles of his forearm. “We’re okay. It’s over.”
Julien took a second, tipping his head back to the grey sky. He inhaled deeply, once, then appeared to gather himself. He launched himself from the lamppost, marching straight up to a random local, rapidly reeling off questions in what was presumably Swiss-German before returning back to Cinn.
“He said don’t bother driving anywhere.” As if to demonstrate this fact, several angry car horns sounded in the near distance. “We’ll have to walk.”
Cinn’s shell-shocked mind struggled to process the information. “Huh? Walk? Where?”
Julien looked past Cinn, down the road, a distant look on his face. Cinn came close to repeating his question, then Julien finally said, “Darcy’s. Let’s hope her side of town was less affected.”