Chapter Text
Everything hits me all at once when I get back to my theater, the show Nana's directing is in its tech so everything is loud and cacophonous and I just want-
I don't know what I want. I just know that my brain is unraveling onto my office floor like it was crocheted out of yarn. That my ribs hurt because when Rosita caught me, the force probably cracked them. That my heart hasn't slowed down since I was almost murdered.
That I'm just an idiot for chasing something that much because I had something to prove or whatever makes people do dumb shit.
And now more than ever, I wish Eddie was still here. I cannot talk about any of this with them. Most of them are still young, one of them was directly involved and one of them is literally a celebrity. I don't want Porscha catching wind of how much this is bothering me either, because she is healing too, on her own time.
I could call him. He worked a few jobs as stage manager for me before he left, and he didn't leave on bad terms, more so that they were tense. After I kissed him, every time he tried to talk to me about it I pretended that it never happened because I thought it would hurt less that way. It didn't. But, y'know, I tried.
I lock the door behind me so Ms.Crawly doesn't amble in (can't talk to her either), trying to think optimistically about the new run of shows that we will be doing soon but everything is shadowy and dark and when I close my eyes I feel like I'm 1000 feet in the air.
I reach for my phone, answer a few emails, forward a few to Ms. Crawly for scheduling, dance recitals, high school theater, orchestras. So many people use my stage now. I really should have been renting it out for years, not so stuck on just sludging through the directing and casting of everything that ever set foot onto it.
I can’t believe myself sometimes when I start letting myself go for the sake of getting something I want. I completely disregard everything rational and let every idea that snaps in front of my gaze take control. I delegate the tasks I need done to branches of my psyche that I try to suppress, because most of the content they create are objectively bad ideas.
Like lying. Like stealing. Like cheating.
Like kissing my best friend.
I can’t even tell if we’re even friends anymore, much less anything more than that, but every minute that passes makes the ache in my body more painful, and the guilt and anxiety building in my head more explosive.
With an exhale, I tap his contact and I don’t let myself hesitate to hit the call button, bringing it up to my ear. It doesn’t even ring twice .
“Hey Buster-” His voice isn’t unkind, but it is a little hesitant. I bite my lip, trying to will myself to speak. He’s right there. He isn’t mad.
“Buddy? You there?”
“I- yeah I’m-” I get out, standing up suddenly, trying to get out excess energy. “I’m here. Hello.”
“Are- are you ok? I mean, I heard a little about what happened from Nana but I feel like- I feel like it was a big deal. I would have called earlier but I thought you were-” He peters out, as if unsure how to finish his thought without causing some sort of offense.
I wave my free hand, feeling like hitting something.
“I’m not upset with you.” I sigh, lightly tapping the side of my head.
“Oh.”
“Are you upset with
me
?”
“No.” He sighs, and then he backtracks a little sheepishly “I- I mean maybe a little but-”
“I’m sorry.” I bite out, because I am, but I’m also mad at myself too. “I was shitty. I’m sorry.”
“Dude, apology accepted.” He says easily, and the concern bleeds through the words. I want to shake it off, the dust that’s settled over everything. I want him to not care about me. I want him to not be so easily accessed. I want him to love me. I want him to hate me. “I- do you need me to come over? I don’t think you would have called me if you were- if you didn’t need me.”
“I thought you were in LA.”
“I was, but my contract ended and I came home a few weeks ago.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want me to?”
No. Yes. I don’t fucking know.
“Yeah.”
I can hear his keys, snatched off a table. No hesitation. He’s coming to help me, like he has a million times, even when I was being less than kind or considerate. He’s always wanted to help me, even if he doesn’t completely understand everything that I do. It’s almost painful to realize everything he’s done for me, hell, what his entire family has done for me. It goes down just as easily as razor blades would, splitting me apart with fine precision from the inside out.
I have to sit down again, clawing at my eyes. I don’t want to cry about this. Any of this.
“Are you still there?”
“Mmm.”
“Can you wait for me to get there, or do you want me to stay on?”
“N-no. No, I'm fine. I can wait.”
“Okay. Ten minutes.” The line goes quiet, the promise of company forgoing any need for goodbye.
Okayokayokay.
1. I almost died, twice. Was it worth it?
2. I’m panicking, I think. I think I’ve been panicking since the first time I swayed over the city with nearly no plausible way to remain alive. I still remember the feeling of his flesh under my fingernails, tearing and folding under my weight and my refusal to die. I remember washing the blood off of my hands after, not resting even as I try to scrub away what almost was.
3.I don’t know what I’ll say to him when he gets here, but I need him. I need him I need him .
I try to breathe, wedged into a corner, for the entire ten minutes that I have to wait for him. I feel everything tightening around me.
It takes me a few moments to notice him knocking, rattling the door. I scramble up to let him in and as he steps into the room, I take 6 steps back.
“Buster, you look-”
Traumatized might be the word that I would supply but I don’t want to play my hand like that.
"Hmm." He finishes his sentence by not finishing it, taking seven steps towards me and placing a hand on my shoulder, "You should breathe."
I am trying. Maybe I am trying too hard.
"Do you need to talk about it?" He asks, and it's painfully gentle, and the hand on my shoulder feels heavy like lead.
"Have you ever thought about dying?" Is what spills over my lips before I can really stop it. Alarm flicks through Eddie's eyes, but he shakes his head.
"I didn't either, and that's fucking stupid, huh? Because- because both of my parents are gone and they died young but for some reason it didn't cross my mind that I could too."
"Buster, what really happened out there?" He asks, his fear only betrayed by the sudden tightening of his fist around my shirt. His tone and face remains neutral and calm, trying to pacify me.
"I made him mad, he grabbed me by the front of my shirt. We were really high up. I don't even know how many stories, I can't remember. I- and he- he shoved me against the wall, it was like a half wall, thing, whatever. And he lifted me over it. Jesus, I could see everything and I know it's dumb but for a second I realized how beautiful everything was from that height. And then my feet went over the edge. And then I think time slowed down a little, I just thought about you and everyone else I've hurt and- I knew I didn't want to die like that. Without fixing some of the shit I put the people around me through. Or at least apologizing for it.
"And so I fought, holding onto him until he bled. Somehow dragging myself up over the partition again when he got distracted. I don't know how I didn't die. I should have, by all normal laws of nature."
The man in front of me, usually so unbothered and steady, starts to look disturbed beyond what I thought he had the capacity to be. “You almost died.”
“Twice.”
“
What?!
”
“I think he thought that if he threw me from somewhere high, it wouldn’t be able to get tracked back to him. He was so…nonchalant about it, he must have done it all before.”
"Buster- why didn't you run the first time it happened??"
I shake my head, ripping away from him, pacing back and forth, "Like I said I couldn't let them down, Eddie, I had to finish the show for them. I was in too deep so I might as well dig my grave, right? I know I should have called you then but I guess I thought-"
"When did it happen." He asks, his arms crossed over his chest. I can't tell if he's mad at me or if he's absolutely terrified, due to the new stiffness in his stance.
"During the show. He brought me up in one of the lifts while Rosita was performing. And he dropped me. I was scared but I knew it was over, and I was glad I helped them to get where they were. I was only regretting-"
I raise my eyes to his and then drop them back down. After a while of waiting for me to continue, Eddie sighs.
"I would have beat his ass." Eddie mutters and that elicits the first genuine laughter I've managed since the fall. Granted it's short and bitter, but imagining my scrawny friend trying to beat up the bigger man has me a little thrown off.
"What? " He retorts, feigning offense through his flashing teeth, "I'm stronger than I look."
"I mean I didn't die, Rosita caught me. And he's in jail now." I shrug, the smile melting away, "But I'm sort of afraid he'll find me. If he gets off somehow."
Eddie scoffs, turning me by the shoulder to face him. “1, He won’t . 2. If he does I’ll beat his ass, like I said, and last, there are no skyscrapers here.”
I sniff, but don’t make an effort to get away, “It doesn’t take a skyscraper to do it.”
“I will not let him get you.” He snarls, and it’s a little unexpected, so I look back into his eyes, seeing a desperate sort of sincerity there. “You need to believe me.”
I do believe that he means it. It’s not his fault that he really can’t promise anything like that in the first place. I do let him pull me into his chest, and I let him pet my hair back as I try to cry, try to let out the anguish in my body, but I can’t do much but cling onto him with my strange facade of apathy.
Eddie sighs, and my ear is pressed against his chest so I hear his heartbeat. It is quick. “I missed you, you know?”
“Mmm.”
“I didn’t want to go.” He continues, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to know what that really means. I shift slightly, nudging one of the buttons on his shirt with my nose. He smells like sandalwood deodorant, which is one of the worst of the old spice scents. I nuzzle closer regardless.
“Mmm, where?”
“LA. I didn’t really want to go anywhere without you.”
That’s strange. I don’t know what to say.
“But I felt like you wanted me to go.”
“I wanted you to go because it was a good opportunity. I wanted you to go because I thought
you
wanted to go.” I say, lifting my head to look back up at him, “You’re talented, you can work in bigger places than here.”
“Yeah, and I am glad that I went.” He affirms, tugging lightly on my hair; not for any reason it seems, just because he wants to. “I met a lot of people and got hella cash.”
I laugh again, biting my lip. “Sounds like you were very successful. Are you going to go back?”
“Depends.”
I don’t want to take the bait. He’s looking at me like he knows something that I don’t, and that’s annoying. So I ask, out of necessity.
“It depends on if you’re coming with me or not.”
I have to remove myself from him. I can’t do this to us, to him. He doesn’t let me, again. He holds on too tight. He doesn’t want me to run away, and I suppose I understand why.
“No, Eddie.” I say, firm, “We already have a contract with another theater-”
“Ok.” He says, and I let out a breath. “So I’ll stay here.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to-”
“No.” I finally make my way out of his grip and he watches me pace, “No, you have connections in
LA
don’t be crazy-”
“I’m not crazy.” He snorts, annoyed now, and that’s more comfortable. Him being sweet is normal, but it’s usually under a veneer of sarcasm or overall incredulity. “You’re making me
feel
like I’m crazy, as per usual-”
I snap to him, a quick turn on my heel. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
With a huff he sits in my swivel chair, looking a little uncomfortable. “You know what I mean.”
There are alot of things he could mean, realistically. I generally push my fiction as fact to make it more believable, until I can manifest it into reality. That has the side effects that one would expect from softcore gaslighting.
“I don’t.”
“You kissed me, Buster.” He says, and it’s nearly devastatingly matter-of-fact, “And whenever I try to talk to you about it, you try to convince me that you
didn’t
.”
This is such a big ‘no’ that it nearly knocks me over and blows me out of the window.
I stand in stunned silence, nowhere to run.
“Look, you clearly don’t want to talk about it, but we should. Right?”
“Eddie, I just almost died.” I throw out, like a last ditch attempt to compromise with the enemy. But Eddie isn’t the enemy, he’s only everything that I want or need and I feel like if we open this door it will be impossible to close it again.
But in all realness I probably opened it all those months ago, and the drafts of discontent have been chilling the both of us to the bone since.
Eddie sighs, hitting his leg before spinning completely around in the chair. “Shit. Yeah, this is going to sound really bad, but bear with me.”
“Shoot.” I sigh, trying not to show the stages of grief I’m going through with the expression on my face. Knowing me (and knowing him knowing me), he can see them all in excruciating detail. He reaches out for my hand, and after a few agonizing seconds, I let him take it. With a simple tug, he has me stumbling into his personal space.
“You almost died, right? I almost lost you.”
I grimace, secretly relishing the warmth of his fingers against mine. “So-?”
“I almost
lost you
.” He whispers, his facade cracking. His voice cracking. My resolve cracking.
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Why the
fuck
are you sorry?” He asks, pulling me down so we’re face to face. I cautiously climb into his lap, and he makes sure that I don’t fall. “I’m just saying that I don’t know what I’d do without you. Do you understand?”
“Are you purposely being obtuse?”
Eddie squints his eyes at me, as if disappointed.
"Take that word out of your vocabulary immediately."
“No. I think it fits this situation pretty-.”
“Stop, stop just-” He covers my mouth, “I’m trying to be emotionally vulnerable here. And either you’re stupid, which I don’t think is true, or you’re scared.”
I push his hand off of me but I can’t get that far or I’d be on the floor. “Fine. I’m scared. Fine. Fine!”
“Of what?”
You. Us. Everything. Emotional vulnerability. Pain. Loss.
Eddie sighs again, turning over my hand in his, tracing the scar across my palm. “What’s this now?”
“Electric fence.”
“Jesus Christ.”
I hum. With unwavering eye contact, Eddie brings the scar to his mouth, kissing it lightly. I think he sees my blush. He pushes the sleeve of my jacket up, kissing my wrist.
“Do you ever consider getting a new suit?” Eddie grins, hovering above my arm close enough I can feel his breath.
“I-no- this is a good suit- I-”
“I’m kidding.” He starts tugging the jacket off regardless.
“Oh my god what are you doing?!”
“Dunno.” He finagles it off, throwing it to the ground and pulling me closer, a hand on the small of my back and the other wrapped around my shoulder. “Tell me to stop.”
The words die in my throat as he kisses my neck under my loosened collar, I can’t do much but sigh under him as he continues upward. I think that this is weird, that this is crossing so many lines, but I can’t let myself believe it means anything. I close my eyes and let it all happen, afraid any slight movements will make it stop.
With a kiss on my nose, I open my eyes to see him smiling at me.
“What-?”
“I like you, idiot.”
“Oh.” And then it makes sense, the fog disperses, I see the world in crisp lines.“
Oh
.”
“Maybe you are stupid.”
I surge forward, catching his lips with mine, and he laughs into my mouth, winding me ever closer into his arms. It’s passionate and slow and-
Finally, finally, I start crying.
I haven’t cried since it happened. I haven’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.
He lets me, falling back and letting me burrow into him, cries of pain and anguish stifled slightly by his shirt.
He pats down my hair, saying nothing and everything at the same time and I realize so quickly that this is what we both wanted this whole time, someone who knows us, someone who cares and won’t leave and if that isn’t your fucking best friend then who else would it be? I’m basically alone. I throw myself into my work, and leave everyone behind, but he’s always been there, dragging me away from it, clawing and biting.
I claw and bite and rage and climb and leave all softness behind in the gutters of death and loss. I list and categorize and I think too much and too concretely, and too abstractly too, my mind fluctuates between overly grounded and so high in the air that I can’t even begin to reach the things I’d promised.
I assign faces to bullet points, names to a playbill, shaking hands to passing money and beautiful voices to spike tape on a stage. Everything has its category. Everyone has their place.
He never fit into any of those categories, he was too transcendent. He’d toe the lines I would set down to define our relationship like a sidewalk curb, balancing on the granite but always tumbling off one way or another.
I’m difficult. I’m abrasive and mean and loud. I lie. I pretend. I panic I cheat I cry alone.
And I love him.
I pull back, wiping errant tears from my cheeks.
“You with me?” He asks, and I can see in his face that he loves me too.
“If you’ll have me.”
When he laughs and kisses me again, I take that as a resounding ‘
yes’
.