The rest of the day passed in a haze of memories. Gideon told Jason all about Jerry, and remembering the good times had helped temper the grief of his sudden death. Jerry and Jason would have liked each other, if they'd been able to meet for more than those few moments that morning, and every time Gideon felt like he was sinking under a wave of sadness, Jason was there to hold him up. Gideon couldn't imagine anyone else being so willing to listen to endless stories about their husband's ex-boyfriend, but Jason didn't bat an eye.

Later that night, after Jason had fallen asleep, Gideon lay in bed, curled around Jason's warm body, and thought.

You used to have such sad eyes.

Jerry's words went round and round in his head. He wasn't the first man to have said that to Gideon.

Gideon got out of bed. Jason mumbled something but didn't wake up. Jason's phone lay on the nightstand on his side of the bed, and Gideon walked around the bed to pick it up. Jason had been pushing for him to get a phone of his own, but he wasn't there yet. He still got confused trying to work Jason's.

But he'd learned enough to unlock the thing, pull up Google, and search for The White Gull B&B, Brighton.

More than forty years had passed since he'd rescued a mother and son from their abuser and taken them to that B&B, where Paul and Simon had taken them in for the night, and – like Jerry – he'd never imagined he would see any of them again.

But suddenly he needed to.

After what he'd learned from Jerry, he had to know if the AIDs crisis had taken Paul and Simon too, or if they'd lived to see their dream of same-sex marriage becoming a reality.

If they were still out there, Gideon wanted to find them.

Images appeared on the screen, the B&B that Gideon hadn't seen in decades, but recognised in an instant.

The front had been repainted, and there were boxes of flowers arranged on the windowsills that hadn't been there before, but the sign was the same. Gideon scrolled through photos of the B&B's interior – it had been decorated and now looked very different – but when he reached the last photo his heart sank. Standing outside the building, with their arms around each other and bright smiles on their faces, was a young couple – a man and a woman. According to the information on the website, these were the current owners.

Of course Paul and Simon didn't own it anymore – if they were still alive, they'd be in their eighties, maybe more.

How was he ever supposed to find them?

Maybe he couldn't. Maybe this was a dead end and there was nothing he could do about that.

"What are you doing?" Jason asked.

Gideon turned.

Jason had his head propped on his hand, his eyes sleepy, his hair mussed, and he was so beautiful that it made Gideon's chest ache.

He joined his husband, back on the bed, and explained what he'd been trying to do. Jason took the phone and examined the screen.

"When were you at the B&B?" he said.

Gideon thought back. "It was a few years before I met Jerry, so it must have been 1974. I think."

"Do you remember what Paul and Simon looked like?"

"Yes, but I have no idea what they'd look like now."

If they were even still alive.

"Do you know their surnames?" Jason asked.

"No."

"Okay. It's worth us calling the B&B in the morning, and asking the current owners if they can point us in the right direction."

"And if they can't?"

Jason put a finger until Gideon's chin and gently lifted his head. "Then we find another way to track them down."

Gideon forward and pressed a kiss to Jason's lips. "Thank you."

"We will find them," Jason said. "If this is important to you, then I'll make it happen."

The new owners had never heard of Paul and Simon – the B&B had changed hands at least twice before they took it over, and they had no contact information for the people who'd owned it before them.

So Jason took to social media, asking his followers and Vladdicts across the country if anyone knew Paul and Simon, based on the information they had about them. Gideon didn't hold out much hope, because there wasn't much information, and as the days passed, his remaining hope waned.

But Jason was absolutely determined, investigating every time anyone contacted him with a possible link, until finally, after a week, he rushed into the bedroom, brandishing his phone so excitedly he almost hit Gideon in the face with it.

"I've found Paul," he said.

"Are you serious?" Gideon asked, almost not daring to believe it.

"I just got off the phone with a woman who said he used to live next door to her. He moved into a care home about three years ago. I've got the address and phone number, and if you want to, I can call them to arrange a visit."

His face was bright, but there something slightly off in his voice, and suddenly Gideon realised what he hadn't said.

"What about Simon?" he asked.

Jason's expression said it all before he even spoke. "I'm really sorry, Gid."

"He's dead, isn't he?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know what happened?"

"The neighbour said he died about six years ago, but she didn't know more than that."

Gideon quietly absorbed that. There'd always been a chance that one or both of them wouldn't still be alive, but it hurt to hear, nonetheless.

Jason sat next to him on the bed. "This whole thing can stop here, if you're not up to it. I don't want you to hurt more than you already are."

"You haven't gone to so much trouble tracking him down for me to back out now."

Jason pointed fiercely at him. "If you don't want to do this, then we don't do it. I don't care if it had taken me a year to find him, I still wouldn't expect you to do anything you're not comfortable with."

Gideon kissed Jason's fingertip. "I think I want to see Paul – if he wants to see me, that is. Assuming he even remembers me."

"How could anyone forget you?" Jason said.

"Smooth line," Gideon teased.

"Hey, it got a ring on your finger, didn't it?"

Gideon leaned in and kissed him, a long, slow kiss that probably would have become something more if the situation had been different.

"Thank you for doing all of this," he said.

"Do you know what you want to do?"

"Yes. I want to see Paul."

Three days later, Jason had arranged for them to visit Paul's care home in Brighton. A member of security drove them there, in a van with blacked out windows, and parked down the street, ready to take them home again when they were done.

"He definitely knows we're coming?" Gideon checked, staring at the facade of the care home.

"I promise you, he knows," Jason replied. "It wouldn't have been fair to spring this on him without warning."

"You've never asked why this is important to me," Gideon said.

"Did you want me to? The way I saw it, it was important to you and that's all I needed to know. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Honestly, I don't even know why it's important to me. Jerry and I were together, but Paul was a stranger. I probably only spent about an hour with him that night. I don't know why I need to see him again."

"I think I do," Jason said. "It's the way they talked to you about getting married. It's the way you told me how they were with each other – completely comfortable and happy to grow old together in a way that you probably thought two men wouldn't be able to. It's the fact that they told you they didn't think gay marriage would be realised in their lifetime – but it was. You want to know if they got married, don't you?"

"I suppose I do. But why does that matter so much to me?"

"Because they helped you. Because they loved each other, and it wasn't fair that they weren't allowed to get married. Because Jerry has stirred up old memories." Jason grinned and flexed his bicep. "And because you want to show off your amazingly hot husband, of course."

He was right, Gideon realised.

Paul and Simon weren't the first men who'd made him wonder if men could get married one day, but he hadn't known the couple who'd first mentioned it. They'd just been passing in the street. Paul and Simon were different. They'd resigned themselves to the fact that it wouldn't happen in their lifetime, but they still hoped that it would one day happen for other gay men, and even though Simon had been dead for years, Gideon still desperately wanted to meet Paul again. Paul already knew that men could marry now, but Gideon did want to show him that what they'd talked about all those years ago had come true for him. He wanted to know if it had come true for Paul and Simon too.

Paul was waiting for them in a small room with cream walls and large windows that looked out onto a neat lawn. A hedge ran around the grounds, and in the middle of the lawn was a wooden bird table, scattered all over with seeds.

Gideon almost didn't recognise him. It had been a long time since he'd seen him, and Paul was more than forty years older now – his skin sagging in folds, his hair little more than white wisps clinging to his scalp. He stood up as Gideon and Jason came into the room, leaning heavily on a cane.

"Good lord, it really is you," Paul said, blinking.

"I wasn't sure you'd remember me," Gideon admitted.

"Not remember the gorgeous young man turning up in the middle of the night with a battered woman and child he rescued from the street? Simon and I never forgot you."

They sat on a sofa by the window, Paul wincing a little as he did so. "I'm not as mobile as I used to be," he said with a sigh.

"I'm really sorry about Simon," Gideon said.

Paul looked out of the window, tears gathering in his eyes. "He had a stroke in his sleep, so there wasn't any pain. He just never woke up. I'm glad it happened that way – I wouldn't have wanted him to suffer." He patted Gideon's knee. "He'd have liked to see you again, though. Now, are you going to introduce me to your young man? Or is he a vampire, too?"

Jason laughed. "One day, but not yet. I'm Jason."

Paul's gaze focused on the rings that Jason and Gideon both wore, and his expression wobbled. "Are you married?"

"Yes. That's why I wanted to find you after all these years. I wanted you to meet the husband that I never thought I'd be able to have," Gideon said.

"I'm really glad that you did find him," Paul said, smiling at Jason. "You're a lucky man."

"I'm the lucky one," Jason said.

"Did you and Simon ever get married?" Gideon asked.

Paul held up his hands. There was no ring on his finger. "By the time it was legalised, we both felt we were a bit old for all that."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not. I got to live a full and happy life with the man I loved, and who can ask for more than that? Now, tell me about you two. How long have you been married?"

"Just a few months," Jason said.

"Still in the honeymoon period, then."

"I want to make every day the honeymoon period."

Paul smiled. "I like the way you think."

"Did you ever hear from Gilly or Liam again?" Gideon asked.

"No, but I never expected to. Did you hear from them?"

Gideon shook his head.

"You were never tempted to track them down?" Paul asked.

"It honestly never occurred to me," Gideon admitted.

"Will you ever try to find them?"

"I don't think so. I can't see any need to."

"Well, I feel very honoured that you found me," Paul said.

They stayed with him for an hour, and told him about their lives, and he shared stories about what he and Simon had done after selling the B&B in the 80s. When it was time to leave, Paul gripped Gideon's hand.

"You'll come and see me again, won't you? I reckon I've got a few years left in me, and it'd be nice to have a pair of handsome faces to look forward to," he said.

"Of course we will," Gideon said.

Paul's hand trembled as he pulled Gideon's hand closer so he could examine Gideon's wedding ring. Tears gleamed in his eyes.

"You're a good lad," he said, the he laughed. "Although, I suppose I can't call you that, can I? Not when you're so much older than me."

Gideon smiled. "You can call me whatever you want."

Paul took Jason's hand. "You take good care of him, you hear me?"

"I will," Jason said.

"He always does," Gideon added.

Even though he didn't need to breathe, Gideon deeply inhaled the briny Brighton air as they stepped out of the care-home.

"Are you okay?" Jason asked.

"I think so," Gideon said.

Jerry's death was still raw, and he really wished he'd been able to see Simon again, but finding Paul had helped ease the ache of those losses.

"Are you ready to go home?" Jason asked.

Gideon gazed at his husband, the man that he never thought he would find and now could never be without. Sometimes, even after the years they'd spent together, it still amazed him that he'd made it to this point.

He linked his fingers with Jason's. "I'm ready," he said. 

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