Fairytale endings would have it that I steeled myself and all of my cowardice – grew some guts and made a life changing decision, rushed to Evan's flat and poured my drunken heart out. His own heart would have melted. There would have been promises of the rest of our lives, and nobody else, and gushing streams of apologies that tumbled over one another. Instead, I stumbled out of my building, and turned out onto the street aimlessly, ending up for some godforsaken reason, nearly half an hour's walk from my flat, climbing a moderate hill up to the scrap of wasteland where the city monument lies deserted and unfinished, looking out across the sparkling lights of the town towards the docks and back the way, further in land watching the headlights of traffic streaming along the busiest streets. It's a site with great infamy for dogging, drug use and underage rent boys – a stupid place to wind up after dark.

However, I managed to avoid all of that, though I did notice a few solitary individuals, most likely just as suspicious as I was, and I gave the gravel car park a wide berth. I climbed, a little perilously, up onto the plinth of the deserted monument, putting my arm muscles to use as I heaved myself up the last oversized step that reached as high as my shoulder. Wary of my lack of balance, I edged around, keeping my eyes on the hovering horizon, ignoring all the warnings not to climb, that vague urge to look down and the slightly sea-sick feeling in my almost spinning head. Quite stiffly, I edged to the most exposed side, feeling like a jumper edging out onto the ledge of a roof. The thought threw me a fresh wave of nausea as I spied some dark, static lumps in the swirling grass below that I pegged as boulders ready to crush my spine. With my arms hugging at the stone behind me, hands sweaty and desperate, I sat down very slowly, dangling my legs off the edge and trying to calm my racing heart beat. I sat there, straining my eyes staring out into the gradually lightening night, freezing my arse off on the cold, damp granite, with my back against one of the fluted columns, until I was completely chilled through and the worry about how to get back around to safety was smaller than the possibility I'd caught pneumonia. All the while, I'd stubbornly refused to focus on reality – on Evan, and whether tonight meant we were done, or any form of analysis at all. I even stopped myself from thinking about George's sudden display of alturism. The most proactive thing I did up there was shiver.

Down from the monument, I jogged a little to get the warmth back, until drunken stumbling meant I nearly turned an ankle in a rabbit hole. I tripped and swore, and my words were snatched by the wind. On my way back down to the city proper, making my way along the almost post-apocalyptic streets of the wee hours, as the sky was tingeing pink, I ran into a couple of blokes who took one look at my incredibly bladdered state, then decided to punch me in the face, and relieve me of my sadly empty wallet. No warning, or anything as considerate as that, just a bleeding mouth and a trainer or two in the gut for good measure. I don't even know which one of them rifled in my pocket to grab it.

For a little while, I lay sprawled on the pavement, barely moving. Then, I rolled over and picked myself up, slowly assessing the damage – tongue running over my teeth to check for wobbles and cracks behind the searing pain. There was really no point chasing after them. I must have been at that state of drunk where I assumed I was much more sober than I was, and that time was the thing playing tricks on me, because when I looked to see where they had gone, the street was just as empty as I'd thought it always had been.

Fairly near the main set of university buildings, there's a cafe that's run by a mildly communist group of vegans – anarchistic clowns, I kid you not - open nearly twenty four hours, with a good supply of table space and board games, especially at nearly five in the morning. Evan and I had wound up there for lunch a few times in the last couple of weeks. One of his cross-dressing, weed-addicted, lesbian, humanitarians helps out there. It's not the kind of place that would kick you out, and it was the only possibly open place that sprang to mind. Climbing to my knees, then slowly to my feet, I somehow staggered my way in the right direction, leaning heavily against the traffic light pole as I paused to cross the road, pressing the button, despite the total lack of cars. The bell on the front door jangled at me, and my feet were heavy, but I forced my way onwards, into the back room, where I promptly collapsed at the nearest table, slumped down and waited to die.

They left me there; I loved them for it. It was a few delirious hours later, when I'd managed just snatches of sleep with my head forced against the wooden table top, that someone slid a rather grubby bowl of ice cubes in front of me, along with a large mug of green tea and a pissed-off sounding exhale.

"You know where I want to be right now?"

I looked up, squinting, and groaned because seeing Evan Llewellyn there could only mean whatever I'd been drinking had been spiked with hallucinogens. His scowl intensified, and I began to see how flawed I'd been in my initial tactics for getting him to leave me alone. The look was sexy – even half-way to hangover, I could tell that.

"Asleep, Thom. Under my duvet. That's where!"

I brought a hand up to cover my eyes and swallowed down saliva that seemed twice the thickness it should be before risking another glimpse at him through my fingers. He leaned forwards and I fought the urge to recoil.

"Do you happen to know why I'm not?"

Evan Llewellyn does not go out of the house wearing glasses and his oversized hoodie, looking like he's just rolled out of bed for anyone. My fat lip throbbed and I failed to produce an answer. Someone started trying to hammer nails through the bone at the back of my eye sockets. Thankfully, Evan wasn't waiting on anything from me.

"I got a phone call from Mel," his eyes flicked over to the cafe counter on another irritated breath – I guess towards his cross-dresser – following the look was too much trouble. I don't know anyone at all with that name. "Five of them, in fact. Do you know what time it is?"

I vaguely shook my head and managed some kind of shrug that was meant to be past caring. "Not my fault. Didn't ask her to."

His jaw rippled. My confidence that I could take him in a fight disappeared completely. "Were you waiting for George? Only, he wasn't here an hour and a half ago, while I was still in bed trying to ignore her telling me you just walked in looking like someone tried to punch your face inside out, so I doubt he's turning up any time soon."

I squinted at him, and blew out a condescending flow of air that rattled over my swollen lip like a trumpet player's toot as I straightened up to shake my head. "Actually, George locked me out. He's fucking Ben, so Ben can't fuck you, because he is that much of a mate."

His bottom lip jutted and my cocky air of having everything right, of knowing it all, started to taste a little bitter at the back of my throat. "I wouldn't let Ben fuck me even if he offered cold, hard cash." Evan Llewellyn lent back in his chair, snatching up the cup of tea that I suspected had never actually been for me.

I snorted, an ugly sound, and it failed to have the redeeming quality of possessing a little humour. "Just suck him off for free."

The tea cup slammed back down on the table, and his chair scraped back as he stood up. "I'm leaving."

The world came echoing back into horrific focus for the split second he glared into my eyes. I know he wanted to hit me. I would have wanted to hit me too, but as it was, I wanted to hit him more.

"Brilliant," I started, digging our grave a little deeper. "Great, fuck off then."

Those eyes of his narrowed and I couldn't read the expression in them; it was mixed, but not much in there was positive. The movement he made to shake his head was very small indeed, almost as though he didn't want to make it. That wouldn't have surprised me.

"No, Thom. You're coming home with me, you're sobering up and then you're fucking off."

Somehow that sentence made my throat tighten even more than the waves of nausea assaulting my brain. I let him tug me up by the shirt collar, wobbly on my feet. Breathing was difficult because I knew what he was saying. "I hate you," I managed, though my tongue could barely curl around the words.

"Yeah, that's the problem, isn't it?"

I don't know whether the taxi was waiting for us, or whether Evan found one almost instantly, but I don't remember hailing it. We piled in. I reminded myself of a drunken George, because he let me slump against him, and I could barely keep my eyes open once the hum of the engine started up. The journey to his flat wasn't far, but I slept through all of it quite deeply, only starting awake again with the cool breeze as Evan opened the car door, and the light slap he landed on my cheek to wake me.

"We're here."

He'd already paid the driver.

Inside, he sat me on the edge of his bed, and dabbed disinfectant on my split lip. It crowded in my nasal passages, stinging with an ammonia-based tang, but he didn't hesitate at my wince, or the way I tried to shy from the ball of cotton wool. It was light enough then that the morning glow coming in from around the badly drawn curtains was just enough to see by.

"You're an idiot," he told me, voice betraying how tired he was. Just as tired as I was, by the sounds of it – physically, mentally, completely. His fingers traced over the blossoming bruise that had formed across my ribcage after he unbuttoned my wine-stained shirt. His eyes kept avoiding mine and I wished they wouldn't.

I tried to touch him – tried to tangle fingers through his hair and run them down his stubbled jaw line, because I needed to, and I knew that a great cavernous distance was opening up between us, but my pleading fingers worked no better than the desperate edge to my voice.

"George isn't...was never..."

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to turn it all to drawn out sex, with slow, slow kisses and softly placed, forceful hands because I knew I could win him over with that. With arching backs and curling toes, deeply stabbing thrusts that would split as solidly - as truly - as the yearning in my stomach for him to keep holding on. I wanted to make him forget his decision, but all it would have been was an elongated goodbye. A drunken last hoorah, but none of it would have made its way past my aching head to let me have the pleasure anyway.

"Thom," he stilled my hand, fingers tight around my own to grab my attention as he peeled me off. "That doesn't matter. We're not good for each other."

I let him take my top off, blinking slowly at him, even as he refused to look, sealing each touch and each lungful of him into my memory because I knew they were the last I'd be getting. He paused at the top button of my jeans and broke away before he skimmed my softly straining erection. Somehow, I stayed dry eyed. Dehydrated, nauseous – maybe that was what kept me too numb to break down to repetitive apologies made with useless five letter words that would fail to make an ounce of difference.

He lay down next to me, staring up at the ceiling and his breath came out tremulous, lacking control before he hid all of that so easily, tugging his glasses off and his jumper over his head. Another weary exhale and he reached to his bedside table, handing me an old two-litre bottle, label torn off, water sloshing halfway up its sides.

"Drink something."

All business, no identifiable undertone of anything else, and he rolled over when I took it, face into the pillow. All I had to stare at was the back of his head. Suddenly sleep wouldn't come so easily.