Work Text:
Declan Suzanne tossed and turned in his bed. He couldn’t get one man off of his mind. Tillman Henderson. He had once heard a teammate say that “whether you love him or hate him, if Tillman’s on your mind, he’s won.” Declan couldn’t deny that. Tillman was definitely at the winning end of this deal. Tillman hadn’t talked to Declan since he had come back from the dead. Certain memories kept replaying in Declan’s mind…
Declan and Tillman were both at a Lover’s party in San Francisco. They had danced for hours. Tillman grabbed his waist and everything. It was the first time they had truly been romantic.
“You know, you’re really our worst player.” He grinned at Declan while dancing.
“Hater.” Declan had responded. Declan kept thinking, maybe if he were kinder, maybe if there was less banter, Tillman would have stayed.
“Dating you should be a federal crime.”
“Oh, we’re dating now?”
Declan remembered very clearly how Tillman’s face had flushed up and how he sputtered out random words, trying to still give off his attempted vibe of cool. It had never worked for him, and it especially wasn’t working now.
He rolled over in bed again, sighing and pushing back tears. He thought about grabbing his phone from his nightstand and checking for something, anything from Tillman, but he had already put Tillman’s notifications on a special ringtone. He would have known if he were trying to text him.
Declan was back to remembering. This time, it was a party in Chicago, Declan’s hometown. They were on the roof of the Fire House, watching the stars and shittalking their teams. In a moment of silence, Tillman grabbed Declan’s hand. Declan didn’t pull away. In fact, he had carefully folded his fingers around Tillman’s hand. They stayed like that for hours. Just staring into the night, enjoying each other’s company. He looked into Tillman’s eyes, and Tillman looked into his. Something in Tillman’s eyes suggested that maybe… maybe they were something more than just friends.
Declan knew better now. He found himself curled in a fetal position. Was that a tear on his face? Declan quickly wiped it off, but more just kept coming and coming. Nothing he could do would stop it. He tried the deep breaths he had heard about, but soon he found himself hyperventalating. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to be crying. He was supposed to be funny and annoying, he wasn’t supposed to feel things. Tillman had broken him. But why? Why should he care about Tillman so goddamn much?
Did he really love him that much?
Declan looked at where his phone was. He knew that Tillman wouldn’t be there. He knew Tillman wouldn’t respond if he texted him, deep deep down. But something made him grab the phone, and open the conversation with Tillman, and read through those messages again. He skipped past the tons and tons of texts he had sent that had gotten no answer, and went straight to the last text Tillman had sent, which was on the day he died.
Tilly: gotta play a game, see you later nerd
Me: i hope you lose
It occurred to Declan that maybe this was somehow all his fault. Maybe if he had been nicer. Maybe if there weren’t so many jokes. Maybe if he had been more serious, or less serious, or just more chill with everything. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Declan put the phone back down and rolled over in bed, curling back up into a fetal position. This time he didn’t hold back the tears.
But then, his phone dinged.
It was Tillman.