for fruitbrandy: paris 2004
for the song drabble meme
You don't have to tell, 'cause I know so well
What we are all after.
Likewise if uncertainty puts a spell on me,
I have to zoom in on your laughter.
There was always something unexpected to discover.
That perhaps might be Charles' favourite part of that first summer spent at Brideshead. The days were luxuriously long and seemed to stretch out forever. Fairytale-like and ideal as those summer days might be, the summer nights were still his fondest memories. They held a perfection and a freshness that Charles had never known before that point. That was the precursor to the man he would become. The twilight hours in those faraway days held a special combination of innocence and wickedness that can only be discovered somewhere on the borderline between childhood and maturity. He could only look back on those nights now with a special fondness and a secret resentment due to their ephemeral nature.
If only it could always be that summer, always together, always alone from the world outside of themselves.
If he closed his eyes at night, sometimes he could imagine himself transported back to that time. He and Sebastian would stay up for ungodly hours, long after the moon became exhausted with them and the sun would begin to show herself again. Laughter and wine seemed to be the perfect method in persuading doubts and anxieties to take their leave. That magical summer would not allow anything of that nature to interfere. The world was forgotten and they both preferred it that way. Alone on those nights they were given a new freedom, alone together they were permitted to map then uncharted territories. Always together, everything in that summer was always together. There was no reason for it to be any other way.
The sense-memory was still so strong that a certain scent or sound or touch could transport him there unexpectedly.
When he thinks of that time, his mind begins wandering to dimly lit rooms filled with types of laughter and discovery that can only be found in the summer nights of one's youth where responsibilities are but a vague distant notion waiting somewhere on a faraway horizon. There was always something new to discover in those nights, whether it be a new hidden room somewhere in the expanses of Brideshead or a new hidden part of himself he never imagined might exist. The days held discoveries all their own, but the nights created the most sublime variety of intoxication Charles had ever experienced.
Perhaps it was the headiness of wine and the impulsiveness of youth; certainly it was due in part to that special quality that could not be named but could only be attributed to Sebastian's influence.
The nights were defined by the sweet smell of the summer air and fireflies lighting up the landscape as if they were there purely to light up the sky for he and Sebstian. He could never say which was more intoxicating, the wine or the secret smiles that could only be revealed in dark hallways as they tripped over each other when they finally made their way their way to bed. All the elements seemed to converge for the perfect dizzying effect that made Charles feel deliciously free. A startled cry and a faked shock of outrage would always be followed by soft laughter hidden behind glasses of wine or whatever other ways young men find to exhaust themselves when they are reckless and impulsive from youth and wine and that special type of friendship boys of that age share.
Those summer nights he and Sebastian discovered a bliss of the most intoxicating degree. Yet no matter how many nights they spent in each others company, with Sebastian there was still always something unexpected to discover.