The Scottish Boy

by Alex de Campi

Harry lies there and tries to glimpse the divine reason for Sir Simon’s death. For his mother’s. Because the alternative thought – that God doesn’t have a plan, that all this random pain and cruelty is merely the purposeless lurching of the human animal as it comes howling into the world and then goes screaming out of it – is unbearable.

Iain reaches up and strokes Harry’s cheek. ‘You’re so nice to me,’ Iain mumbles. ‘Nobody’s ever been as nice to me as you are, Harry.’

‘Why can’t you just hate me?’ Iain sobs under his breath. ‘It would be so much easier.’

‘Her name was Marguerite,’ Iain whispers, his voice raspy and faint. ‘Your mother?’ Harry says, scooting onto the floor and sitting near him. Iain nods, tears rolling down his face, as ugly sobs emerge from his mouth.

WRECKED ME

Harry looks down at Iain’s hand, covered in his seed, and his eyes widen as Iain raises that hand to his lips and licks Harry’s release off his fingers.

I personally cried at this moment

‘Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?’ he whispers, running his thumb over Harry’s cheekbone. ‘And kind. I wasn’t lying, that night when I said nobody has ever been as nice to me as you are. And you were my enemy.’

He becomes lost around Iain. It’s like the boy bewitches him. There are no boundaries; everything is possible, everything is permitted. Even sin.

‘I’m sorry,’ Harry breathes. ‘You got even more beautiful while I was gone. I didn’t think that was possible.’

‘I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know what this is. I prayed so hard, throughout my time away from here, that I could … be your friend. W-without sin. I thought I had succeeded. And I come back, and with one look from you I am ablaze again.’

When they break apart, breathless, Iain wipes the saliva from his glistening lips and says, ‘Take your clothes off now, or I will take them off, violently.’

Iain is just.... sum else honestly

‘Don’t say it,’ Iain whispers. ‘Whatever excuse you’re going to make, don’t.’ Harry steps forwards, and Iain flinches away, as if burned. ‘I know you’re torn up about the sins you commit with me. I know it keeps you awake,’ Iain says, his voice hoarse with barely controlled emotion. ‘Have you ever thought how it makes me feel?’ Harry stutters. ‘It’s destroying me,’

‘One moment you want me with a hunger that’s overwhelming. The next you won’t even speak to me, won’t touch me. Like I’m diseased.’ He shakes his head, then looks up at Harry, his eyes blindingly beautiful and raw with hurt. ‘I want you all the time, Harry. This isn’t an experiment for me. It’s how I am. I like boys. I’m a filthy pervert who likes boys. I can’t just go and find a wife and move on. I don’t have that choice.’

‘And the worst of it is, I feel like the foulest, most ungrateful bastard on earth.’ ‘No, you’re not—’ Harry begins. Iain’s head is tilted back, and Harry watches as a tear tracks down his cheek. ‘And the most hypocritical,’ Iain says, his voice going high with the struggle not to cry. ‘Because if all I get are crumbs, if I get less than the gnawed bones you toss to the dogs, I’ll take them.’ He sucks in a great ragged breath. ‘I’ll take them. Because it’s better than nothing, and I know too well what nothing tastes like.’

Iain you SHATTERED ME

‘Let’s get out there and hit each other.’ ‘You have got to be fucking kidding,’ Iain says. ‘It’s England,’ Harry replies. ‘Fighting in the rain is an important skill.’

status. Those who have travelled great distances on the class scale often forget how much those who have not measure every inch above and below them as if it were a league.

Iain merely retreats into silence, growing quieter and yet wilder the further north they go.

I LOVE this description of Iain so much

‘I missed you so much I wanted to die,’

‘Are you worried the King overheard your prayer?’ the aide asks. ‘No. I prayed in English,’ Harry says. ‘Pfft,’ the aide snorts. ‘Then God did not hear it either, for He does not speak the vulgar tongue.’

THIS WAS WAY TOO FUNNY