Work Text:
there’s a lot to get used to in this new life. relationships, for one thing.
you don’t know much about what normal couples are supposed to do - what is normal anyway? - and you’ve never really been one for overt displays of affection - it’s not the way you’ve been taught to do things - but sometimes, out of nowhere, he takes your hand and squeezes it in solidarity like it’s some kind of second nature.
you decide that you don’t really mind it all that much.
//
there are nights, it turns out, when you have nightmares.
they’re always the same, these dreams, and you always wake in the same blind panic, fingernails digging into your arm - not dying not dying not dying - leaving crescent marks on your skin and dark purple bruises under your eyes that you can’t cover up with just a smile.
he asks, one day, because of course he does: what do you dream about?
um, you say, because you’ve never been much of a flat-out liar (truth evader, maybe, but not necessarily a liar - until now), i don’t remember.
he doesn’t believe you - you can tell right away by the way his brow furrows and his dark eyes narrow with disbelief in your direction. still, he doesn’t push it.
somewhere, deep down, you think there might be a part of you that wishes he does -
- because there are nights, it turns out, when you can’t sleep at all.
it’s not even the type of insomnia where you lay awake alert - those nights are bearable, because there’s a million and one things you can fill the extra hours with and you can feel grateful for that, even if the circles under your eyes tell you otherwise. no, these nights come after days that leaves you as exhausted and drained as those nightmares do, when you lie in bed unable to keep your eyes open and yet unable to keep them closed.
eventually, when the silence gets to the point of suffocation, you’ll roll over and reach for the phone. sometimes it’ll ring for what seems like years, years marked by the gentle tick of the clock that sits in the hallway just outside your bedroom, but eventually the line will connect and there’s a soft voice in your ear, mumbling.
yeah?
that’s when the guilt hits you, of course, harder than any kind of pain that came with dying - you’ll try to say i didn’t mean to wake you, and he’ll say you didn’t, and you both know it’s entirely a lie, but before you can pull him up on it he’ll change the subject, talk until one of you falls back to sleep again. sometimes it’ll be about school, all those problems from that ordinary teenage life of his. sometimes it’ll be about a book he’s been reading, or a song he’s heard on the radio, about how they remind him of you. tonight - today - it’s about a study session for an exam in a subject you’ve never heard of. you make non-committal noises at first, but slip into silence after a while, simply listening, almost at peace.
there’s a pause. did you fall asleep?
no. i’m just thinking.
about?
nothing. and everything.
there’s a noise at the other end of the phone; it kind of sounds like laughter, if laughter is supposed to be as bittersweet as that.
yeah. i get that.
//
life moves on pretty quickly, as you always knew it would. sometimes, if you’re not careful, it may even move on without you.
at the end of one long summer day, the kind where the hours of golden sunlight stretch out before you, a beaten up volkswagon pulls up on the pavement outside, and a familiar face leans out of the open window with a beaming smile that could make you forget your own name, quoting your driving, whilst awful, is not technically illegal.
you roll your eyes. what an accolade that must be. you should be proud.
not even your snarky response can knock the smile from his face; he just grins. i am.
you find yourself smiling too, in spite of it - there’s something you want to say to him, something important and complicated and so overwhelming that you’re not even sure that those three, tiny words that burn in the back of your throat every now and then will even begin to describe it, could even come close to it.
(but maybe he knows already. it’s not your best kept secret, after all. maybe that’s why you still call him at three AM when you know you should let him rest, and maybe that’s why he talks to you about everything and nothing until there’s the sound of a car pulling up outside and someone climbing up the fire escape towards your window.)
//
somehow, through some means, you pick up a job you actually like.
it’s not as much as you’d like, a few hours a week at a garage three streets away, but you’re still competent enough to remember the skills you’ve picked up over years of needing to adapt, and still formidable enough to glare down at anyone who dares to try and doubt you.
it has its advantages, of course; as soon as you start working there, he wheels his car into the garage so often that you can’t help but wonder if it’s all just a giant ploy to procrastinate on the few responsibilities he does have. he swears it’s not, that his car is just cursed with bad luck, maybe quite literally, but you’re not sure you believe it. not that you don’t enjoy the company.
do you regret it? he asks on one slow friday, sitting on his coat on the ground and watching you trying to fix up a motorbike someone is picking up in the next hour. the whole human thing?
no, you reply, surprised both because he would even ask that question and that, despite everything, you genuinely do mean it.
it’s not the rose-tinted dream of freedom you’d once thought it would be, but it’s got a lot going for it.
//
you’re not easily scared off, but it does happen - it happens precisely once.
he beats you to the punchline on this one, tells you those words that hold so much significance, and even though you know that you could say the same thing back to him, hundreds and hundreds of times, you shake your head so violently that you could pull a muscle.
you don’t mean that.
he frowns then, face a picture of confusion and just a little hurt. but i do.
you just shake your head again, because it’s not possible. it can’t be. what the hell have you ever done to deserve those words? what the hell have you even got to offer for those words? evenings spent sitting on the floor in a house that doesn’t have proper tables and chairs in it? bad dreams and hours upon hours of insomnia? too much emotional baggage for someone to carry?
you’re so caught up in your own head that you nearly miss when he reaches for your hands, like he has done hundreds of times before, that second nature again, and says the words again, maybe so you understand, maybe just because he can -
- and you kiss him then, because you can.