Chapter Text
The first morning without him is unusual.
The sun is bursting wide and wild hot against his face and his skin tingles like it would when he would feel his mouth there on his cheek, kissing him good morning and his eyes pop open, heart palpitating, trembling with hope, but there's nothing there, nothing here and there won't be, probably for a very long time. He hasn't cried at all since it happened, maybe that's normal in a situation like this, he reasons. Slowly he sits up, as if it physically pains him to, aches blistering through his body. When did it start hurting so much? He's used to a thousand loving messages on his phone in the morning, but this morning there are none. He feels something like lead drop down hard in his stomach, sitting miserably there like a stone, refusing to move. He looks over his shoulder towards the other side of the bed, a pool of sunlight touching the sheets golden, it's delicate, warm and it's something he loved to see as he would turn over onto his side and kiss him there and there and there. Seeing it now makes him uncomfortable and he looks away. He decides now to begin his day, the rest of his life. Things are different now and not in the way he likes. There's an empty space that was once full with love, slick and sweet to the bones with it. How could it have gone so quickly? Or had it been slow dripping the entire time and he had failed to notice the signs? Failure isn't easily accepted by him, neither is loss. He wants to be mad about it, sink into fire and rage, but at who? At what? It won't bring him back. He tries to anyway, balling his fists, tightens his jaw, bares his teeth and glares at the wall, needing an enemy out of nothing. He can play the part well, but he's become all bark and no bite.
When did the big dog become so soft?
There isn't anything left in him in this empty space and he relaxes his hands, tension dissolving from his face, the sun still light on his skin. There is nothing to go to war with anymore but his grief.
Life goes on.
The world doesn't stop for tragedy, for loss and heart ache. It moves indifferently, beautifully and mercifully forward, the sun always rising high again. “How can that be?” he wonders, attempting to philosophize his pain. He knows that his suffering isn't unique, there are millions of other people who are as broken hearted as he is now, but nobody's hurting like he is. Nobody can understand just how fucking badly this hurts. He nods his head, hands gripping the steering wheel in confirmation as he drives, on his way to tonight's show. He works himself up into what he thinks is acceptance, into eagerness and excitement for something new. It works for the night until rage catches up with him on stage. It must have been hiding somewhere beneath the pain and it leaps boldly into him, the terror in his eyes is real, he loses himself in it. The pain he inflicts now is real, not imagined and it hurts, it hurts bad. It's only when he hears Elias scream in his ear that he comes out of it suddenly and he stops himself from breaking Elias's arm in front of millions of people.
Naturally, his friends start to ask questions, tentatively, softly in the beginning, those concerned gazes and voices quiet with worry. It nauseates Roman at first, then it frightens him because he realizes that there's no hiding it anymore. There's no hiding this anymore, that his heart is broken and he can't stop the bleeding anymore. He lies anyway. How can he be honest with others when he isn't willing to be honest with himself?
This is the new normal and he fucking hates it.