Work Text:
SIMON
My breathing is harsh and rapid as I come back to my surroundings, my body's cold and shaking, my vision's been disarrayed by the dream I just woke up from.
I wish it had been a bad dream. They are easier to handle than the good ones. The real world is worse if the dream is good. I hate waking up here if the dream is good.
It's always Baz if it's a good dream. Him and his honeyed kisses and fond looks. Strong arms around me and quiet reassurances in my ear. The loss feels unbearable when I wake up, like I've been stabbed multiple times.
It seems like the only thing I fixate on nowadays is Baz. No matter what happens, wherever I am, my thoughts return to him at the end of the day. He's my refuge and yet he's the one I need to escape.
No.
Not need. Not want, even. Forced.
I've been forced to leave. For his own good. For Baz.
There's not a day that passes without me thinking about him. Thinking about him, missing him, it's all the same now. I can't think of him without feeling my throat contrict with pain and missing him like I'm missing a vital organ.
A tinkle of soft laughter, a spark of grey eyes, a curtain of falling black hair, cedar and bergamot, cold and sweet kisses and the gentlest of touches. Images flash across my mind at every hour of every day, making my heart long for someone who I had and someone who I've now lost.
My fault. My fault. My fault. All my fault.
If only I wasn't such a pathetic excuse for a man, a complete failure and terrible boyfriend. If only I could keep him happy. If only I could have been something in comparison to him. Maybe then, he would still have been mine. Mine to call and mine to love.
I suppose I don't need him to be mine to love him. I loved him before I knew I did and I love him still and I will for as long as my body allows me to.
I'm sitting on my bed in the dark, looking at nothing and yet, seeing everything. Everything that's him, anyways. I see him, his memories, in the dark, luminous and incandescent, out of my reach but tantalizingly close. He's smiling. At me.
I shake my head. It's late, Penny's asleep and the flat is deathly still. There might be an uproar of unspoken words and bitter regrets in my head but it's so quiet around me.
And in these quiet moments, when I'm alone in my room with the walls pressing on me and the open window bringing in sounds of the world outside, I miss him the most.
I miss him with an ache, a consistent pain in my chest, right in my heart, tearing it apart piece by piece. It feels difficult to breathe sometimes, like my yearning for him is choking me. I could be breathing fine and yet, the air feels suffocating at times.
I always try to console myself that he must be happy now because he no longer has to lug around a tosser like me. He must be happy.
Then why did I see his heart bleeding through his chest, dripping down on the floor, making an invisible stain there? Why did I see his face crumple, a silent plea shining in his tears?
Did he love me, after all?
That's the worst torture of it all. Wondering if he loved me too. Is it just wishful thinking? It must be so because him loving me would have been like the sun falling for a mortal. He is the sun, the moon, the universe. He is a wonder. I'm just a radioactive fallout.
“You don't mean that, Simon.”
He'd called me Simon.
“I do.”
I didn't. I did. I didn't. I don't know.
“Don't do this. Please.”
He never pleaded.
“I have to.”
Did I? Did I? Did I?
“Please.”
He never pleaded.
“I have to.”
He didn't fight anymore. Why didn't he fight more? Were we not worth it? Was I not worth it?
A soft rustle, a trickle of tear, and that hollow, aching emptiness washing over me as his footsteps sounded farther and farther away till he was gone. Only the faint smell of cedar and bergamot lingered.
I haven't seen him since.
Since eight months.
Surely, surely he'd have tried to contact me if he did love me? He'd have tried to at least text.
But I love him. Did I try? I wept for days, I still cry missing him, (I think I'm crying now) but did I ever reach out? Did I ever try to make amends? How can I expect him to?
But why make amends? Baz is happy and that's all that matters. His happiness comes before mine.
But is he happy? Before he left, why did he give me that one final look that was begging me to change my mind? Why did he look bruised and battered as he finally walked away?
But he must be happy. He was unhappy with me. His smiles had become rare. His eyes were hollow around me, a pain in them.
Was that pain for... me?
I tug at my hair in frustration. Every night it's the same argument, the same glass shards piercing my heart and every night, before I go to sleep, there's the same dreadful conclusion.
After I've fought with myself, after I've come up with every argument, after I've replayed that night again and again in my head and exhausted myself and after my tears have run dry, it's the same conclusion. And I know I'll come up with a thousand reasons and think of it as a foolish hope but for now, I know the truth.
Slow hesitant kisses and butterfly touches. A growing ridge. Desperation in his eyes and hopelessness in his heart. Pain, pain, so much pain.
He loved me.
He still does.
Oh, Baz.
And my tears start to fall.