After the Funeral

This story is mostly processing of funerals and religion. These guys would definitely deal with grief partly via sex. It's short, but not a simple stroke story. Plenty of internal and external homophobia.

My other stories with Adrian and Dan are much more cheerful.

Minor spoilers for the 14-part Smoking Hot series where Adrian and Dan got together, reference to Turkish Delight where they went on holiday to Istanbul. The story Steak and a Blow Job Day takes place some months after this one. Adrian is ~18 years younger in Undergraduate Experiments.

***

"Ma's proper sick, Adrian."

My sister doesn't exaggerate. Even if she did, her phoning me to beg me to come home makes the seriousness clear. It's reached that point: our elderly mother needs a care home sorted out. And the house cleared out, and selling. I suppose Michelle could keep an eye out on the house, and god knows enough rellies will swarm in, stealing everything. Just as well I don't want any of it -- enough family feuds got rekindled when my grannies both carked it, and everyone started fighting over the furniture.

"Sure. She's our ma. I'll be over, Chelle. Maybe not tomorrow, probably next day."

I hang up, and collapse.

Dan's right worried. It's under six months since I had my first proper bender in years. I got that far -- the years -- mostly by avoiding my family, aside from my da's funeral. Which was more of a celebration, for all concerned.

"I've got to go. Wish you could come with me," I tell the man.

He's startled. "I could, you know. I've not got much work on. Flexible, yeah?" Dan's giving me that stare, like he knows I need his calm sanity.

"Aye, right! Whoosh in to the wee village: here's the prodigal son, back from That London, complete with the fella he's riding?"

"I wasn't planning on mentioning that bit."

"Huh. An Englishman, at that."

"And me not even Catholic? Come on! Serious, love, give me some credit! I know how not to look queer! How do you think I coped over there in the fucking Army?"

I roll my eyes. He doesn't get it.

"They could cope with the English thing. Being a Prod is fine if you're from elsewhere; doesn't count. The Troubles isn't about religion, remember! Fuck, most of 'em, my generation at least, they could even cope with the you-fucking-me thing! Not that my eejit cousins wouldn't take the piss something chronic."

I realise something. "Shit. Half the family swore I was a queer for years, just because I'd moved over the water. Proving them right is gonna be really fucking annoying." Then I look steadily into my man's blue eyes, me being all serious.

"It's the Army thing."

"Ah. Sorry. Of course."

There's been yet another non-inquiry into Bloody Sunday. The Ballymurphy Massacre hasn't even had that. Dan served in Derry during the last official few years of the Troubles. Not that Bill Clinton popping by solved everything, just shoved it undercover when McGuinness and that fucker Paisley started to play politicians.

"What if I just didn't mention having ever been to Northern Ireland? I could be coming over just to give you a hand a bit, and be a tourist?"

It's not the most stupid idea I've ever heard.

"I never got to see much of the country, after all. Up to you, what you say about us. Like when you met my folks." That turned out OK, despite Dan's fears, when he let on I wasn't just his flatmate.

I don't take him, though.

I stay five days, getting Ma set up in a decent nursing home, back nearer Portadown.

I walk round her house that I only spent two years in, until I escaped to England. I take a few things from the kitchen, a pair of pictures, a couple blankets. We all know Ma won't be returning.

Nor will I.

Not until the funeral.

Is there anything else I should save for you, Ade?" Michelle asks.

"It can all burn." I wish I still smoked, so I'd have a lighter to torch the place. Our old house, the one we lived in until I was sixteen; that, I'd buy ignition for.

"Adrian!"

"You can deal with the guns." We found them in Ma's dressing table. Three sawn-offs and four handguns, plus shot and ammo. They might be licensed, but I doubt it. I'm not giving them back to Uncle fucking Kevin. Too tempting for me. Him and all the family all told Ma to stay with my father.

"Right. Cheers for that, another thing to do. While you fuck off back to England."

I shrug. 'You didn't have to stay. Don't have to clear the house out, either. Let the vultures have at. Auntie Deirdre will love it."

"Don't be like that, Adrian. She's your ma."

"Aye, but let's face it, not for long. And I brought you up as much as she did. More than that fucker."

"Yeah. So would be good to see you more often, 'Daddy'." Michelle puts her pinky finger to her mouth and sucks it like some oversized Lolita, which triggers thoughts I never thought I'd have and sure as hell don't want.

"I'm only five years older than you! Wee brat..."

She giggles, suddenly happy at making a joke, an adult woman freed from her upbringing, raising her two kids in a happy, boring, fear-free home.

Which is what I did it all for.

"Aye, your fella's keeping you looking young. Or maybe it's just the stopping smoking an' all." She sighs. "Don't be a stranger, Adrian."

"I don't mean to. But I'm not coming over here, staying in this house, ever again."

"Come stay with us, then."

"Rural Tyrone? Doesn't really appeal."

"Ah, the Killeter Forest is grand! Nary a soul for miles, views over the hills, all the conifers. Come on, Ade. Escape your rat race a wee while." She's pleading. Which means I will, sometime. Michelle's never asked for much, even when she should.

"Maybe. But seriously, you bring yer man and the kids, and we'll show them London. My treat. I'll put you all up in a hotel, if you don't want to stay at ours. Just tell me when to meet you at Gatwick."

She's not so sure about staying with us, I know. Her Niall is all polite to my face, but if they stayed at ours they wouldn't be able to deny to themselves that Dan and I only use the one bedroom. So I make it plain to her:

"Premier Inn, family room at London Bridge, sure. It's a short walk from mine. You tell me when; I'll take a couple days off and guide you round the sights." The kids are six months and nearly three, so they won't notice much.

Meeting them, for the first time, I realise they're the next generation of my family, the only ones. I ought to keep up a connection with them. If I can do uncle duty for my mate Will's kids, I should do it for Michelle's, my actual nephew and niece. It's luck that I've come over before wee Aoife is old enough to ask why I haven't, before. She's going to be one sharp wee kid.

It's a relief, though, to get home.

*

A holiday in Turkey refreshes me beyond imagining. Dan really is the perfect man for me.

*

It's about four months later, when Chelle says I'd better come over, if I want to say anything to Ma that she might ever notice. She may last more than weeks; months, couple years, even, but the personality is nigh gone.

This time, I do ask Dan to come with. I know it's saying goodbye.

He doesn't want to go via Derry, I can tell; luckily flights to Belfast are at better times anyway. I hire a car -- I know the roads. We stay in a pub in Newtownstewart, all grey stone but a good bar. A double bed and a single are in the room, so they don't need to ask That Question. Dan ruffles up the bedding on the single anyway, on all but the last morning.

It turns out all right, even when Niall cottons that Dan's ex-Army. As Chelle says, it's not like he was an officer in the Eighth Paras! Dan just joined the infantry as a wee sixteen-year-old with no qualifications, who didn't know shit. His lot were trying to keep order during the Drumcree conflict, where many of my family were still living, and we all know about the soldiers getting shot by Loyalist bastards in Armagh while he was over.

Dan manages to merely sip pints and nod for much of the evening, until Chelle and her bloke pull away. He's a star, Dan. But I'm not gonna mention my relationship with him to the uncles, for sure. They can figure it out when we get to the funeral.

Dan comes with me to see Ma. She is well confused. Seems to think that Dan is Diane's brother, and lectures him on losing his Scottish accent. Probably for the best. He sips endless tea, nods sagely, and asks for stories about my childhood.

It's a sanitised version she gives, my da hardly featuring, nor any of our fears. It was like she says, sometimes. She tried. Rarely fucking succeeded, but she tried.

Over the last few years, during Ma's slow decline, we've kinda become closer. Her mixed emotions after Da's death, my pure grief from losing my wife Diane. I will mourn my mother's death, even though twenty years ago I never thought I would.

Two weeks later, that's what happens.

I let Michelle organise the classic Catholic funeral. Father Paul seems a good man, despite the structure he works for, so I can go along with it. It's what Ma would want. At least I know how it all works, and can get through the thing on autopilot.

Niall and Dan hold hands with Chelle and me respectively, Dan staring flatly at anyone during the vigil or funeral who gives us the slightest dirty look. It's probably what clues them in that he's ex-military, even if he were just a kid, just turned eighteen when he came over.

My mate Will comes to the funeral too, which kind of highlights how much of my life the bastard has been embroiled in, from our punch-up in our first year of college before we became friends, him being my best man when I married Diane, visiting my folks' old house, Diane's funeral, Da's funeral, and now Ma's. I suppose he won't need to come over for me again. Dan will outlive me, I'm sure.

Come the reception, the aunts have stood everyone proud.

"Wow! Never seen so many stunning cupcakes! Sorry, 'wee buns', innit?" Dan is impressed by the feast laid out. There's about a hundred people; not that big for a funeral after-party here.

Will laughs. "What did I tell you, mate, about Catholic do's here? Let me put my traybake down." He gives Dan a big hug, then me.

Having Will here also helps, because those who want to can pretend Dan is just another friend, despite me being glued to his side, gripping his hand a lot, and, once, when Lord's My Shepherd ended, dabbing my eyes against his shoulder. His wife Lindsey isn't here, busy minding their kids -- their wee girl is a holy terror of a toddler this minute, and my other best friend Laura just gave birth and isn't in a state to go anywhere. Babies everywhere. This uncling business is getting big, I tell you.

Even once the drink is in full flow, it goes OK. Dan makes sure I don't have much, and that I don't deck Ma's brothers or brothers-in-law when they yak on about how much they did for her. If they'd ever told her to ditch Da, or just used the old-fashioned method of a bullet to his head, they'd never have had to do anything else. And they didn't, either.

But everyone's making efforts to be polite to Dan, the man I live with, even if they're not wanting to think about our relationship. Even tosser Uncle Kevin, Deirdre's fella, is OK, though he insists on telling Dan that by the time he served over here, it was only themmuns causing any trouble, not ussuns. Them lot, not us lot.

I manage not to cough -- Kevin's brother was rumoured to be involved in Eamon Collins' death, which is almost certainly him acting all Billy Big-Bollocks, but for sure there were still two sides of arseholes at it. The 'Real IRA' were still going strong and even the Provos hadn't yet decommissioned, for fuck's sake.

So much for the uncles. I think Aunt Deirdre is rationing the spirits. My cousins get well wasted, though. Young and daft enough to ensure they take full advantage of any free alcohol. So I'm not surprised when they come over to snipe about me pushing off to London and staying there. I don't need Dan's restraining hand when the gobshites accuse me of sounding English.

Dan's pure laughter, in his Midlands accent, "You think he sounds English! Bollocks he does!" deals with that one.

Will comes and looms over, just like a bouncer. That also helps -- he's always sounded a bit English, him from the posh end of Belfast, and definitely does nowadays, after nigh twenty years across the water.

But later, two cousins see me hugging Dan close. Very close.

"Eh, Adrian? Not drinking, not smokin', all metrosexual and that?" goes Dara, the total eejit. Squat heavy fella, no brain. "Knew you were a poof."

"Poof, like all the fuckin' English," pipes up young maggot Keiran, Dara's wee brother.

Dan barely sighs, as he pulls back on all his Army resilience to such chaff. His flat Brummie voice is perfect for deadpan put-downs. "Trust me, not all the English are poofs. My teenage years would have been so much more fun if they were."

Keiran realises he's put his foot in it, hadn't realised where Dan was from, and mutters something apologetic. But Dara, bloody fucking moron that he is, jealous of my top school grades compared to his crap ones, not to mention his dead-end jobs versus my career since, all rubbed in by all the aunts, has to push it.

"Yeah, always told you Ade was a fuckin' queer. Probably why his wife died. Broken-hearted, from being trapped with him!"

That's beyond the pale. I'm kind of grateful for the excuse to deck him.

Dan doesn't bother to stop me punching Dara in his smirking piggy face. Just suggests it's maybe then time to go.

Will hovers over Dara, making it well clear he'd better not try a comeback. Will's an ex-rower, six foot of muscle and shoulders, so it works. I blow a kiss to Michelle, and let Dan steer me out before I rub my sore knuckles.

Family events always end in some sort of brawl. It's good to keep traditions going, right?

There's one huge advantage in having Dan here this time, instead of just Will.

Nothing like a day of acknowledging death to make you want to celebrate being alive.

They always say a funeral is a celebration of a life, which is as maybe. Mostly, you're celebrating the life ending without too much suffering, nor using up the entire inheritance. But there's nothing like sex to celebrate the fact that, against all the odds, you're still alive, and here, and even well.

Dan shoves me in the hire car. Our wee hotel is under ten miles away, so it's not long before he hauls me out, into the bar, and asks if I want one whisky before bed.

"Aye. In our room, though."

The barmaid gives me a sour look until Dan mentions I've just come from my own mother's funeral. She tries to recast her gormless face to being sympathetic, and fails. It's kinda funny, so I'm giggling as I let Dan assist me up the stairs.

"Right, where's this special whisky you've been saving, then?"

I point at my holdall. Obvious, now my funeral suit and other clothes have been removed from it.

Dan stares at the bottle. It's about a third full.

"Isn't this that one you and Laura had, when you were celebrating giving up smoking?" He means, after me and her celebrated by fucking, with Dan there watching, drawing us in his sketchbook, to convince me he was OK with it.

"It is. I'd always thought I'd have half to celebrate Da snuffing it, then the rest when my ma went. Only then I decided there were actually special occasions other than death."

I wish I could remember more of Diane from before she got ill, and not have her dying body being the one my brain keeps viewing when I think of her. "So, aye, Laura and I had a nip each while you drank some of your piss," -- Dan only drank beer, then -- "and I had some at Christmas." My first Christmas with him. "I could finish it now, I suppose, but I think I'll save some for when you finish your diploma. Celebrate life, right?"

The lad blinks, then kisses me, with a hug like a desperate octopus. He's so blokey most of the time -- straight-acting, they call it, in public, except for holding my hand, maybe the odd peck, and of course what we do in private -- so I like it all the more when he gets all romantic and a bit camp. He's got very little confidence about his intellectual abilities, so me assuming he'll pass the course means a lot to him.

"Yeah. Life! Let me have a shot, too." I've been teaching him about whisky, over the last year. "Fucking hell, man, that's banging! Wow!"

"Oh god, don't you go getting a habit for this stuff! D'you not remember my saying, it costs a pure terror?"

"800 quid a bottle, didn't you say? Nah, don't you worry your pretty little head. It'll only ever be an occasional thing for me."

"Oi, who's head are you calling 'little'?" I get my cock out, to make the pun clear, but hey, I was about to anyway.

Dan gives me that filthy look I love so much, and drops to his knees.

He's on the floor in front of where I've landed on the edge of the bed. He's undoing my best belt and the fly of my darkest grey suit. I'll probably never need to wear the black waistcoat or tie again. I hope. I'll have to keep them, so as not to tempt fate. I manage to undo the tie myself.

"Leave it on," Dan tells me. "You, all togged up in perfectly-pressed designer gear? I'm having you, just like that. Besides," and he's now murmuring right near where he's holding my cock, still held tight to my body by my briefs, "you want to be fucked right now, don't you? Celebrate, on this day of com, com, misery..."

"Commiseration? Hell, yeah. 'Celebrate life, as we mourn with death.' 'The Lord has swallowed up death; let us be glad and rejoice.'"

Dan raises his eyebrow. It's cute. It always gets me hard. Harder. I chuck my suit jacket aside; the Order of Service falls out. I don't care. My sterling fella wants to suck me off and swallow all my grief. Unless I've scared him by going a bit mental. I do that, sometimes.

"Rejoice, eh? We can do that." He bends his head down again and kisses the tip of my cock. He licks the head with gusto -- he may never have mastered deep throating, but who gives a shit when a guy is this enthusiastic about your penis? I'm all wet and loving his hot tongue, when he gasps and gets the whole bell-end into his sweet mouth.

"Oh, god..." I murmur incoherently.

He's doing all sorts of filthy things to my cock, a bit of spit running down my shaft. Then there's vibration.

He's humming. I even decode the tune. Rejoice, rejoice, Immanuel. He never went to church, just learnt all the Christmas carols at school. Bless him, and I mean that in every sense.

I'm loving how he controls my thrusts, holding me tight, making sure there's delightful friction but I can't get bashed against his teeth or anything bad. It's beautiful, my cock in his hot strong mouth, reacting against the pressure. Tingling round my ridge where I'm rubbing over his hard palate. He's forceful, and so male, and so wonderful.

I come. To him. O Israel.

Dan lets some of my come splash over his face, so he can enjoy wiping it up and licking it off his fingers.

I'm spent, not just in the obvious way. It's been a bit of a week, let's face it. Normally I'd be gagging to get my mouth on his fantastic cock, but for once I just don't have the strength in me.

"Come on, you." He lifts my legs and shifts me so I'm lying on the bed. He's four inches taller, and stronger than shrimpy me, so he can move me about when he wants. For sex, basically.

But the moment he's ripped off his good shirt -- same one as from his sister's hen do last year, only this time with a dark grey tie of mine -- I roll and cling onto him, kissing his firm bare back like my life depends on it.

Maybe it does.

He turns his head as far as he can, but can't really see me; his shoulder's in the way. Not such a bad thing, seeing as there's tears coming to my eyes. I lick and suck at him, wanting that whole flavour of his skin. Needing to mould myself like clay around his solid body. He will transform the body of my humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory. Dan's body is glorious, for sure.