Quinn shifted uncomfortably in the vinyl chair of the little cafe and studied his cooling cup of weak tea ruefully. He contemplated getting another one. He'd been sat there two hours and making a couple of cups of tea last two hours was probably stretching it a bit. Still, he wasn't exactly hungry and he did have time to kill; it would be at least another hour or so until Rob would have to leave for work and Quinn could go back to the flat to collect a few things for the night.
That was the trouble with shagging your flatmates, wasn't it? He though to himself. When things went wrong you couldn't just up and leave. Well, you could. He had. Had half-expected Rob to come running out into the street in his socks; had half-expected Rob to go after him, try to stop him somehow. 'Course he hadn't. That would have been a little bit too much to wish for really. Even after all these months Rob seemed fairly clueless as far as the actual being-in-a-relationship business was concerned.
After waiting just around the corner for a few minutes, hoping against hope that Rob would get a clue and realize that 'stay the fuck away from me' had really meant 'you hurt me, please make me well again,' Quinn had just stalked off to a cafe down near King's Cross; a divey little place, but the kind of place that didn't mind if you sat around for two hours nursing a couple of cups of tea. He had time to kill after all.
It did strike him as kind of funny that after all these months of worrying almost constantly that he'd hurt Rob—Rob, who always seemed vulnerable somehow—the one that had done the hurting hadn't been him. To say that Rob had made a pretty valiant attempt at ripping his heart out whole was almost an understatement. What Rob had done, what he had seen this afternoon, wasn't going to be forgotten in a hurry; forgiven, perhaps, given time and suitable encouragement, but not forgotten.
Quinn swirled the now cold tea around the cup a little and wondered idly where he was going to spend the night. Not in their shared room, that was certain. A hotel perhaps? No, he hadn't the inclination though he supposed he could have ponied up the cash. He wanted to be around people he knew all of a sudden. People who'd understand and maybe even soothe some of the heartbreak.
Not that they would of course, he thought bitterly. They'd nod knowingly, with that 'I could have told you so' look on their faces, and say, "that's what happens when you fall for the pretty closeted boys."
Still, he would go home and collect a few of his things after Rob had left for work and go and stay with a friend for a while. A friend that Rob didn't know, which pretty much narrowed it down to a handful of former lovers and assorted other misfits. It was better than nothing though.
He needed time to think.
Time to decide whether he would be gone for good.
© KJB 2002-2003.