Chapter Text
When Whizzer wakes up, he has arms clutching onto him and his head is resting on another's chest. He panics for a split second—disoriented and confused—before he feels a faint spark of recollection, the sound of the man's heartbeat as familiar to him as an old, forgotten but beloved song. Whizzer relaxes against Marvin and ignores his thoughts of realization and dread, even though he really shouldn't. He should be trying slip out of the man's embrace; he should be tiptoeing back to his own room and just pretending this never happened; he should be running away, keeping his gaze on the horizon and never looking back and never remembering how Marvin's arms had always felt so safe and warm and calming.
Whizzer should do a lot of things, but he does none of them. In the soft glow of early morning, his sleepy eyes flicker around Marvin's bedroom, a room of which he's only been in a scarce amount of times. It is still so unmistakably Marvin—with his idiotic, cringey posters and messy piles of junk on the floor and unorganized, overstuffed drawers. But still—it's different, too. There's a desk of papers with big numbers on them, and there's a calendar on the wall with several dates circled and written over, and there's pictures of Jason—a couple when he was just a little toddler with a curly head of hair, one where he's on a stage holding a certificate, a few in his baseball uniform—decorating the room in subtle, unabashed devotion to the kid.
Marvin is alike enough for Whizzer to recognize him, but he's different enough to make Whizzer terrified of him, of what might happen again and again and again if he lets himself be deceived and think that anything could ever be different enough for it to change.
Marvin's soft snores are muffled by Whizzer's hair, and he holds him so tenderly, so lovingly. And Whizzer lets Marvin do something that he hasn't in a long time.
He closes his eyes and lets Marvin hold him.
:: - ::
When Whizzer wakes again, the bed is empty and cold, Marvin leaving nothing but a faint impression in the mattress next to him.
:: - ::
Whizzer tries to bring it up gently, but Marvin rebuffs him and continues on like normal, as if their just friends policy hadn't been shattered and scattered on that kitchen floor. It's an immature move, and Whizzer is weirdly comforted by the fact that Marvin doesn't always surprise him now.
And they're playing the game again, even though Whizzer had already decided that it had been a limited-time-only sort of deal. Each day is a chess match, with both men playing sloppily almost as if they're trying to see which one could lose the fastest and in the most self-destructive way possible.
After a week, Marvin is the one who tries to sit down and talk about it, but Whizzer has already become addicted to the game again and doesn't want it to end. He pushes Marvin against the wall and kisses him, and they end up having sex on the living room floor. It's dirty and desperate, and it leaves a taste of blood and heartbreak on Whizzer's tongue.
They should talk. Whizzer wants to talk. Marvin wants to talk.
They don't talk. They fight and fuck and occasionally hint at their feelings.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Everyone knows how the story goes; everyone knows how the story ends. They've both been given a second chance to make different choices, but for the life of them, Marvin and Whizzer just can't stop looking down the barrels of each other's guns and waiting for the other to pull the trigger.
:: - ::
Marvin finds the circled apartment listings on the living room coffee table because Whizzer placed it there for him to find. It's morning now, and Marvin has to get to work. They can't fight now but they will, Whizzer knows. Marvin will yell and shout and fight for him to stay, and Whizzer will yell and shout and then inevitably stay because Marvin asked him to. They know the game and they know their lines and they know what roles they have to play.
Whizzer is drinking his tea at the kitchen table when Marvin comes in and smacks the newspaper down on the surface, the sound like a gunshot. Whizzer calmly takes another sips and then looks him dead in the eye.
But, to Whizzer’s surprise, Marvin doesn't look angry. He doesn't look hurt. He looks...
Tired. Resigned.
"The one on page three is promising." Marvin says, flat-voiced, "I can help you cover the rent until that asshole boss gives you the raise he promised."
Whizzer just stares at him, wide-eyed. Because this—this isn’t how the game is played.
"You want me to move out?" He asks, strangled.
Marvin has bags under his eyes and a vague look on his face. He looks old and tired, and Whizzer wonders if he solely made him that way.
Whizzer suddenly feels overwhelmingly ashamed of himself.
"Whizzer, I already told you," Marvin says, horrifyingly calm, "I’m too old to be chasing after people who only want to be chased and not caught." Whizzer belatedly places the vague look on Marvin’s face.
It is one of a man who is ready to let go.
Gripped with shock and fear and denial, Whizzer doesn't respond and walks out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Marvin doesn't ask him to wait, to stop, to stay.
As he walks away, Whizzer doesn’t look at the horizon. With each step, he keeps stopping and turning his head and looking back, expecting Marvin to still—without fail—to chase after him.
But the only thing chasing him is the past, and Whizzer refuses to let that actually catch up with him.
:: - ::
"Whizzer." Mendel says with a furrowed brow, pausing at the doorway of his home and staring at the wild-eyed, haunted-looking man.
"You were right." Whizzer says hurriedly, choking on the words, "It's never been over. After college, I always thought I'd just been running away. But maybe I wasn't, you know? Maybe I was chasing him. Maybe I've always been chasing him.
"I've compared him to every guy that I'd given a second thought. I'd hear those stupid fucking show-tunes sometimes that he obnoxiously sang in the shower, and it was like a gut-punch. I told him I only thought about him sometimes, but I lied. It was all the time. I thought about him all the time. And there are some people that you just can't forget about, and it's just—I've just always been lying and running away and deflecting emotions and you were right, Mendel. I am pathetic."
Mendel looks at him, surprise coloring his features. But he doesn't invite him in. No, someone else does.
"You know, I think that's the first thing I've ever heard you say that hasn't been a lie." Whizzer hears Trina's tired, wry voice inside the house, "Just come in already."
:: - ::
They sit across from each other at the kitchen table, and Whizzer is reminded of that day at the diner, sitting in the booth with solidarity and secrets between them.
Then, Trina had looked at him happily but ignorantly.
Now, Trina looks at him with resignation, but at least she isn’t blind anymore.
"Jason's already left for school, and Mendel has to get to work." Trina tells him, "So did you need anything or are you just wanting to cry on someone's shoulder because your boyfriend dumped you?"
"You've grown meaner." Whizzer notes idly, an undercurrent of appreciation for her in his voice.
"I've had to." Trina says vaguely.
They were never close, but they were never strangers. They were never friends but they were never enemies.
And Whizzer realizes that he's never even apologized, for all that he'd done to her.
"Trina, I'm really sor—"
"Don’t. Just—don’t. I don't need your late, guilt-tripped apology." Trina scoffs, exasperation and bitterness clogging her tone, "I don't need this anymore, you know? This—This migraine that you two have always given me. I'm not a side character in the Great Opera of Whizzer and Marvin anymore. I have a child and husband who love me. I have a life where I am happy. I got my happy ending."
"I didn't." The words spill out, accusing and pitiful.
Trina doesn't look sorry for him. She gives him a cool, withering look, "Well, that was your own fault."
"It was Marvin's fault," Whizzer tells her, and he wants back that silent, subtle gaze of hers, that solidarity—he wants her to make him feel less alone, "He ruined us, Trina. He—"
"Us? There is no us. Oh my god, are you serious right now?" Trina looks at him with scathing disappointment, "Jesus, Whizzer, you want me to feel sorry for you? News flash: just because Marvin was a bigger asshole than you doesn't take away from the fact that you were an asshole, too. We are not allies in this, Whizzer—not anymore. And honestly, looking back on it all? I don't think we ever were."
A silence takes the room by hostage.
"I am happy for you, Trina," Whizzer says honestly, "Really, I am. You deserve a happy ending."
Something hard in Trina's gaze breaks and softens.
"I thought you were so cool, back in the day. You were so nicely dressed and you broke so many hearts and you just didn't care about what other people thought." Trina confesses suddenly, looking overwhelmed and ashamed at the honesty of it, "Especially that last part—of you not caring about other people's opinions. I—I envied that. It took me a long time to learn how to do the same thing."
Whizzer reaches over and covers Trina's hand with his own. Trina smiles, without fear or anxiety or insecurity. She looks so beautiful and happy.
Whizzer says after a long pause, "I'm still in love with Marvin."
She seems unfazed by this bombshell, "Tell me something that literally anyone who's ever seen you two around each other for three seconds doesn't know."
"I'm scared," He announces abruptly, "We don't know how to love each other the right way. It's gonna end bad, I know."
It's inappropriate and selfish to tell Trina this, to put her in a position of mediator and assurer. But Whizzer needs someone to talk to. Whizzer needs that solidarity, that mutual understanding of what he's going through.
Trina sighs and thinks for a long time, leaving Whizzer to an uncomfortable silence.
After awhile, she says gently, "You need to let go."
"I've tried."
"Not of him," Trina clarifies, surprising him, "Of the past."
Whizzer finally finds his voice, and it is small and broken, "It doesn't work like that."
"You think that there are only two options: run away from the past or repeat it. But you can also just—let it go. You can always remember it, and you can talk to him about it, and you two can actually forgive each other, and then you can let it go. Maybe even build something new." He ignores his reflexive dismissal of the idea and thinks about it:
Whizzer and Marvin. Talking openly about all that happened. Dropping the masked, feigned indifference. Being honest with each other.
"Marvin and I don't talk about that." Whizzer says unnecessarily, though this is the first time he's ever truly wondered why.
"You need to. And you need to leave me out of it." Trina stands up and leaves the room, signaling clearly that Whizzer has been dismissed. So he actually does something that's in Trina's best interest, something that Trina wants.
Without another word or plea for a pity party, he stands up and leaves.
:: - ::
Later that day, Whizzer is at Central Park, taking pictures of the sky. The action and setting reminds him of a memory, of him doing the same thing and thinking that he'll be able to keep his gaze on the horizon and force himself to get over everything that happened by ignoring it. He feels annoyance at his younger self but he quickly lets that go.
He lets it all go.
The anger. The cruel calculation. The bitterness. The heartbreak.
That day, after he left Trina's house, he wandered around his old haunts, grabbing hold of these memories and putting them to rest. The art gallery. Marvin’s old apartment. The diner where he ran into Trina. The library. The racquetball court. The frat house with that toga party. The seven-eleven. The house of that unnamed, forgotten girl with a closet barely big enough for two immature, lonely men. The classroom of Introduction to Philosophy where this story began.
He goes to all of these places and studies them and smiles at them and cries at them. And then he lets them go.
Whizzer takes another picture of the way the sun slowly starts its descent into the horizon, and he smiles. And he cries a little bit. And he lets this place go, too.
He hears Marvin walk up behind him, stopping only a few feet away. Whizzer smiles.
He turns around and snaps a picture of him, laughing at how Marvin winces at the flash and looks unamused.
"Asshole." He says on automatic.
"You look good in this lighting, Marv." Whizzer says, making Marvin smile a little through his annoyance.
"So," Marvin says, looking around the park and seemingly choked by the echo of the past still engrained in the air, "What is this about? Trying to recapture the past?"
"No." Even though he inwardly balks at the prospect of grass stains, Whizzer sits down on the ground, gesturing for Marvin to do the same.
When he sits next to him, Whizzer turns his gaze away from the horizon and looks instead at Marvin, the man that he knew and loved. The man that he knows and loves.
And they talk about it—about everything. They drop the pretenses and the indifference and the mind games. Whizzer tells him of the heartbreak, of wanting the best for Marvin and knowing that it wasn’t Whizzer but it also wasn’t Trina and falling in love with him and being so fucking scared about that and hating Marvin for never choosing him—even though he had always told him not to. Marvin tells him of the heartbreak, of wanting men his entire life and finally finding a beautiful, unattainable one and falling in love with him and wanting that man to be in love with him and being so scared of everyone else’s opinion and wanting it all and realizing that that hadn’t been fair of him only years and years later.
They talk and listen and laugh and cry. And Whizzer wants to say that it had been everything that he thought it would be—renewal of passions, happiness only found within one another, the promise of a future together, the promise of love—but it is not everything. It is only one thing.
It is forgiveness. And Whizzer thinks that right now, that’s more than enough.
:: - ::
Marvin tells him, “I wanted to be with you so fucking much. I was too spineless to do anything about it—to accept myself and stop listening to other people. But when I thought about my future, it always included you. It included us. It included no secrets. I wanted to be open and out with you. I wanted to make you happy. I wanted to be happy. I wanted you to love me.”
Whizzer tells him, “I loved you so fucking much. I was too spineless to even say the words—to admit it out loud to anyone. But Marvin, I should have told you. I did love you. I loved the hell out of you.”
At this point in the long conversation, their voices are hoarse and the sun has almost completely disappeared. Even after their talk, they still don’t know where they stand with one another. Their past is forgiven but their future still stays suspended in uncertainty.
Whizzer doesn’t like to look back, to admit to any regrets, but still he needs to know, “Would you do it again? If you—If you knew then all that happened afterwards. Would you have still kissed me that night?”
Whizzer remembers his own response to that question, years ago: "It doesn't matter," Whizzer says quickly, releasing his grip on Marvin's hand, "Just let it go."
“I’d like to believe I would,” Marvin doesn’t hesitate, saying firmly, “That I’d do it again and again. That I would choose you, every time.”
Whizzer looks up at the sky, feels a warm smile spread across his face. He feels happy.
“I’d like to believe that I’d let you, every time.” Whizzer concedes.
They’re sitting cross-legged, side by side, with their faces turned to the horizon.
“I’m still moving out. It’s just the best thing for me and the possibility of an us,” Whizzer says, “But maybe you should, uh—you should call me, later. You know, ask me out on a date.”
Marvin huffs a laugh at the notion, pointing out, “You know, we’ve never even been on a first date.”
“Don’t take me somewhere fancy,” Whizzer says, “Go to somewhere like a fast-food diner—some place where you don’t spend a lot of money because you’re not sure whether this whole thing will pan out. You know, like a proper first date.”
“Okay,” Marvin agrees, looking at him with stars in his eyes, “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Whizzer covers Marvin’s hand with his own, the giddiness and hope rising within him and threatening to split him open. They stare at each other for a long time—adoringly, nervously, disbelievingly—before they slowly turn their gaze to the horizon.
And they don’t look back.