Archive of Our Own ^beta

He winds it up, slowly. The hooks of it catch, clicking, as he turns it back, farther and farther. It feels like it'll break at any moment under his fingers, clumsy with age, but then just as it's about to stop, it goes a little further. The gears click into place, finally, and, when Andy places it down again onto the dust-covered dresser, it sings.

There's a small boy, across the street, pulling at his boot, and Andy can see his red nose and black hair even through the heavy snow, catching on his eyelashes. That was dumb, Andy thinks, every boy in Dunblane knows not to step too deep and to wear a hat. He rolls his eyes. Inside, there will be hot cocoa; the steam will rise to his face, cling like dew in the early morning, until he forgets the cold. Only twenty more steps, maybe. He rushes past.

He's already thinking about how he can get his mum to give him more marshmallows, when Andy hears a muffled shout and a thud behind him. He turns around to see that the boy has toppled over completely and now lays, shoeless, in the snow. Andy sighs and runs back. "Is there snow under your collar?" he asks and sticks his hand out for the boy to grasp.

Jamie better not have finished the cocoa, Andy thinks grumpily.

He has porcupine hair and he is still beating Andy. Andy grumbles under his breath, tugs at his shirt, annoyed. And he grunts like a shouting rabbit. (Well, Andy has never heard a rabbit shout, but it would probably sound like the boy across the net, anyhow.)

The coach says, when he comes over, "Nice work, Novak. Try to use your legs a little more on the serve."

Novak's next serve goes flying past the edge of Andy's racket. Bollocks, Andy thinks. Then, after Andy hits a backhand winner on the next point, he lets himself think: well, at least someone else here is good at tennis, even if he sounds like a rabbit.

Andy hates formals. He looks ridiculous in a suit and can't dance and doesn't have a date. His tie is crooked, undone, and he fiddles with it. There's a noise from the staircase and Andy turns and calls, "Novak?"

Novak isn't any of those things. He's charming and well-dressed and funny and for some reason that makes no sense, he's dragging Andy along to the formal. He emerges from behind the door and takes one look at Andy before bursting out with laughter. "Who did your tie?" he asks, "A three-year-old? Or a blind man?"

"Shut up," Andy mumbles.

"I'm just saying. You don't plan to go out like that into public, yes?"

"Are you going to stop?"

"No. It's funny." Novak grins over at him, "What would you do without me, anyway? Sit in your room and play on your Nintendo all day?"

The real mystery of the universe, Andy thinks, is why Novak never stops talking. Or why Andy encourages him. "I have other friends too, you know. I don't go comatose whenever you're not here."

"Yeah, yeah." He looks, mockingly thoughtful, at Andy, "I always thought you might be a robot. You don't have a switch to turn off somewhere?"

"You're hilarious." Andy says, dry, but the corner of his mouth turns upwards.

"Could be on the back of your neck. Would explain the tie." Novak gestures at him, eyes crinkled, "Here, let me fix it."

Coffee. Black with two sugars.

It's a familiar voice, filtering through the mid-morning–rush noise of the coffee shop, and Andy's eyes flick upwards towards the register, away from his blackberry. He's taller now, has finally grown into his ears and his feet, and he flirts with the barista as he waits. He still has porcupine hair, Andy thinks, and smiles.

Andy gets up – he needs a refill, anyway.

Novak's fingers are at the base of his spine, pushing his shirt out of the way; when they dip under his waistband, Andy shudders. He mouths at Novak's shoulder, leaves nail marks across his arm. Novak fumbles with the button of his jeans and Andy doesn't know how this is happening, but he gasps, grabs at Novak again, kisses Novak's mouth. Novak wraps a hand around him and the white-heat of pleasure curls within Andy's brain.

He hears a moan as Novak strokes him faster and it takes him a long moment to realize that it came from him. "Nole," he murmurs, into the darkness.

They visit an antique clock shop in Paris one summer, when they're at Roland Garros. There's an old man behind the counter with blue eyes, pale with sadness, and he watches them as they putter around. They find it sitting on a high shelf between two silver, analog clocks and Novak loves it as soon as Andy shows him how to wind it up.

The song that comes out reminds Andy of the first snow and of last summer rain, of home and of places that have yet to be visited. It reminds Andy of the shine in Novak's eyes that never disappears.

The old man smiles at them, barely-toothed, when they take it to the check-out. He traces his fingers, lovingly, over the gold engravings and mumbles at Novak and Andy in French. Novak tells him that evening, when they're sitting in the upper stands, watching Rafael Nadal, what the man had said to him. "Remember," he whispers into Andy's ear, smiling, ""La mémoire habite dans l'haleine de la Musique."¹

The rain is made even lonelier without Novak. Andy's on the couch, covered in blankets that are pulled high under his chin, and still he is cold. He shivers with the silence, ever-present now except for the tapping of the raindrops against his roof and the talons of birds against the window; he thinks about life, longing, moments hidden within a long stream of memory.

He thinks about how much longer Novak might be gone, closes his eyes like he can keep out the images of Novak that saturate their apartment. He colors his mind with watery streams of light that come through their windows in the mornings and the smell of strong tea, watching the time pass slowly. He waits.

"You're getting married?" Jamie asks incredulously, his voice tinny over the phone.

"We can't get married, idiot. We're getting a 'civil partnership'. Ceremony, family, you know. Flowers, probably. Don't really know. Novak's mum is having a field day with it."

"You're getting married," Jamie says, decisively. He cackles, a second later, "Little Andrew is all grown up," and Andy can see his ridiculous face and mad grin.

"I've been taller than you since we were fourteen."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't count. I am best man, aren't I?"

"Yes, Jamie, we're going to have three best men. And ice sculptures of Cupid and flying squirrels as ring-bearers."

"Thought I might beat out the kids. I'd be a brilliant best man."

Andy snorts.

"Well, there's no way I could be as shit as you. You didn't even give a speech."

"You asked me not to give a speech," Andy points out. "So, you're coming?"

"And miss the flying squirrels?" Jamie asks with a tone that suggests that Andy is an idiot. "The 25th?"

"Yeah. Say hi to Ale for me."

"Will do. And Nole for me." Jamie pauses. "Congratulations, Andy."

Summers pass between them like minutes of the day, filled with sunshine and the sound of running. They find memories, untangle them from the fabric of the world and hold them close. Miami, Japan, Machu Picchu, Prague: they laugh until even the silence feels like laughter and run, like flying, until, finally, they find their way back to where they started.

Now, they lie together like a still-young couple; it's as if time has stilled. Picnics, meadows, patches of snow just-melting with June, and the grey sun washes over them. Novak smiles and Andy chases him until they've both fallen, lying starfished in the long grass, breathless with delight. They could spend forever doing just this, he tells Novak, and he grins as Novak teases him (runs his hands over Andy's hair, saying "yes").

Even if it wasn't already obvious, the beeping of the machine never lets Andy forget exactly where he is. Andy's been told over and over again that the numbers are complicated, that he won't understand them, but he doesn't like how they look (or maybe that they're there at all). He hates even more the way that he sometimes stares at the monitor for hours, coaxing out each heartbeat-peak and dreading that they might just, suddenly, stop.

The nurse comes in to change the catheter and Andy tears his eyes away, blinking against the overhead lights that he'd missed being turned on, blinking out the red of the monitor, the wetness in his tear ducts. Novak looks pale even against the white sheets, sallow in the florescent lights. Andy grasps his hand and his fingers are still. Andy gets up when even the lights in the hallway are dimmed, when most of the staff is already gone and the halls are empty, stark.

He'll be back next Tuesday, he tells the nurse.

Lilies in August, carnations in December, tulips in March. Andy's never had much taste for flowers and he has even less now, but his days are filled now with the saccharine smell of them. Throughout their house, in little shops where pretty girls try to sell him overpriced bouquets, in the cemetery where they overpower the upturned dirt and too-fresh air.

He smells flowers instead of the gravestones; memorizes the weave of their petals, trying to forget the words written across sympathetic e-mails. He thinks that Novak would have gotten sick of the flowers, just like he has, but still he buys new ones, places them on top of those decaying slowly, browning at the edges and then withering away. If nothing else, Andy hopes that they might seep into the ground and convey a perpetual word. The only problem is that he's not sure which one.

The song reminds him of a laugh, of falling into the snow and waiting through the rain and the shine in Novak's eyes. It reminds him of all of the memories that they built together into a city of pictures, floating, replaying through Andy's mind, and a phrase, whispered to him like a melody.

The bedroom is empty now, cold, and he repeats it, thinking of the way that Novak's voice lilted over the French words. He winds up the music box again.