Extract Beginning To End

[Vivian Brackenstall]

Out of Character:

IDK what to call this, I guess it's a fanfic? Is it canon or not? Who knows???????? I just couldn't sleep until I wrote this weird inner monologue thing so enjoy i guess

Vivian hated that he would carry with him for the rest of his life the memory of what it felt like to kiss Tristan for both the first and last time. That as much as he tried not to there would always be a part of his mind holding every other kiss up against those ones, measuring them and seeing how the experiences compared. The search for closure had instead re-opened far too many doors in his mind, and Vivian didn’t like what he saw behind them.

The first kiss had been sweet, innocent and gentle, the barest brush of lips. Barely more than children, reaching out to another for the first time. He had been too stunned to even react, a new flame flickering to life in his heart at the realisation that Tristan liked him. Popular, funny, smart Tristan. If only Tristan had ever been any of the things Vivian had thought he was as a child.

This had all been easier when their last kiss had been nothing special. Vivian had realised he no longer loved Tristan several weeks before the spark that had exploded their relationship into pieces, and he had spent those weeks going through the motions. Their last kiss at school had probably just been a perfunctory morning peck, something meaningless, forgettable. It had made it easier to walk away and start his new life.

But now, try as he might, Vivian couldn’t help remembering how it felt to be curled in Tristan’s arms moments from sleep, knowing that after they drifted off there would need to be a return to the icy status quo. There had been no hunger left in their last kiss, just comfort. The reassuring presence of someone so desperately familiar, even after so many years. They had held each other close and luxuriated in the moment, in one another’s warmth, in the familiarity of what had once felt like true love.

And now Vivian was alone again, and how was any future kiss supposed to weigh up to such an important one, a kiss with a decade of history behind it? Closure felt further away than ever every time the thought crossed his mind, and part of Vivian desperately longed to go back in time, to see Tristan sitting alone at the bar and turn to leave at once, never come close enough to invite old feelings back in. But another, scarier part of him couldn’t bring himself to regret the encounter, couldn’t stop dwelling on how it had felt to kiss Tristan again, how he had changed. But Vivian had changed too, and as much as it hurt he pushed the memories away, let his heart harden all over again thinking back to the moment he had first fallen out of love. He couldn’t let that happen again. He had chosen to turn himself to ice, and even if he felt the flickers of that old familiar flame, he wouldn’t let it melt him.