Work Text:
He entered the stage in the dark, as he had done so many times before. Another day at the office, he thought.
As he settled his guitar strap over his shoulder, the lights exploded across the stadium.
That was when Jonny saw the beautiful girl in the front row.
He was so caught off guard that he even missed a note.
Thom gave him a look of pure disdain.
For the rest of the set, his eyes found her every chance they could.
Her skin looked as smooth as her long black hair. She had a captivating silhouette, as if carved by a sculptor utterly tortured by his art.
The crowd went crazy, roaring and dancing, but she was a quiet storm within it—singing, dancing, tears streaming down her face. He felt an urge to hug her but could only embrace his guitar as a pathetic and empty consolation.
The concert was full of a frenetic energy that seemed to trespass into his body. He felt anxious and aching inside.
Their eyes met for a second during “Nude,” and in that fragile space, his entire future with her unfolded… He fantasized about a life together: their first date, how her kisses would taste, how his fingers would touch every inch of her brown skin, their first time making love, the moment he would say “yes, I do” in front of a priest, the earth, heaven, and hell, their honeymoon, their first child, their first marital fights, and how he would try to comfort her after they argued. He wanted her all to himself. She looked like a fallen angel who mocked God by being forced to live like the rest of us mortals.
He felt all the air leave his lungs. The weight of his body seemed to vanish, and he felt he could float.
The crashing final chord of the song snapped him back to the stage, to the roaring crowd, to the unbearable distance between him and her.
Then he saw it: a small trans flag pin on her sweater. He couldn’t believe how his beliefs had turned to shit.
A cold shock ran through him—not of rejection, but of profound shame. Every ignorant joke, every dismissive comment he’d ever made churned in his stomach. This wasn’t a “creature” or a “mental disorder”; this was a woman who had gone through things he couldn’t imagine to become who she was. Now she stood here, radiant, unraveling him completely.
A war raged within him: the rigid map of his old beliefs crumbling under the violent seismic shift of a feeling he knew with certainty was hopeless love.
When the time came to play “House of Cards,” he played it for her alone. Every note, every word that came out of Thom’s mouth, was a secret message meant only for her:
“I don’t want to be your friend
I just want to be your lover
No matter how it ends
No matter how it starts”
The final song arrived too soon. He didn’t want to leave the stage, and he felt—he knew—she didn’t want him to either.
As the last chord faded, their eyes met one final time. The music and the shouting faded into silence.
He knew with a certainty that chilled his soul that he would never hear from her again. Absence is a knife. He had never felt this way about anyone before, and he never would again.
The lights went off slowly, covering him in complete darkness—so alone.