The Open Secret

14

It all falls apart one night in June.

Debate concludes at a reasonable hour for once, and they make their way back to his flat together, falling into their old routine without so much as a second thought. There's still fire between them - there always will be, Rob thinks - but this thing they have has settled into something more tender over time. It no longer feels like a mistake, though he realizes it never really did from the beginning. They were always on a collision course. Always inevitable, one way or another.

Jesse pulls him down onto his sofa and into his lap without saying a word. Rob goes. It feels as natural as gravity, tumbling toward him. They're both aware they don't have long tonight, and so they remove their jackets and set about unbuttoning their shirts, unable to get everything off fast enough. Out of nowhere, he finds himself recalling the night they started, when he had watched him sit on this sofa and shuddered from restraint, from wanting him so badly.

"You know," Rob muses between kisses, "I never thought I'd end up being so glad I agreed to Thierry's stupid drinking game that night."

Jesse laughs. "Speaking of, you never did answer my question. When I asked if that was your plan all along."

"It was. Was it yours?"

Jesse doesn't answer. Instead, he pulls him in for another kiss, humming against his mouth, "I love you."

He doesn't expect him to say it back, Rob knows, and he won't. They've come to an agreement, realizing that a mutual exchange of those words would open them up to the unthinkable: to action. To wanting to change their lives so they could be together. They both know they never can, and Jesse is an idealist, but he isn't stupid.

He can't tell him he loves him, so he sinks to his knees and shows him instead. He takes him into his mouth and meets his eyes, lacing their fingers together on the cushion as Jesse moans, telling him he's good, so good, God. The praise makes him shudder, but he focuses on him single-mindedly, not allowing himself to consider his own desires. Jesse pulls him back up into his lap afterward, kissing him deeply and tasting himself on his tongue.

He is perpetually on edge in the Kamer, with everyone wanting him to chip off pieces of himself and give them away, advocate for this cause, this legislation, this proposal. He gives and gives sometimes until he feels like he has nothing left. With him, he feels made whole. He feels real, flesh and blood and anchored to his body, not his optics or talking points.

They hear the turning of a spare key in the lock two seconds too late.

He only remembers things in flashes after the door swings open. There is a pause, at first, and an awful silence. Tensing, bracing themselves for the storm. Yelling, then. More pained than he's ever heard from his partner before. Jesse scrambling out from underneath him, out the door.

He never comes to The Hague, but he'd come to surprise him for something. Their anniversary, Rob thinks it was, which he'd forgotten about like he does every year. They fight, but it's one-sided. He has no room to talk, no way of defending the indefensible.

He has no idea how long it goes on for. Minutes. Hours. He feels too frozen to cry, even as he watches the past seven years evaporate into thin air before his eyes.

Then, words that turn his blood to ice in his veins, chilling him to the bone:

"End it. End it, or I swear to God I'll tell everyone. He has a family. A fucking family, Rob. End it."

-

The next few days pass in a hellish blur.