Work Text:
3 years.
It’s been so long.
Momento Mori living forever in their hearts.
Living without each other.
🖤
He stares at the notification on his phone that has been there for days. It haunts him. It feels like the calendar is mocking him at this point. It’s a bit late but he’s had days to process, he needs to go.
Putting on a simple black shirt he gets in his car and drives. No music on. Just silence. The mostly empty road ahead.
He reaches the spot. His heart aches. He feels broken once again. How can he go on like this?
Minutes pass, the ticking of his watch in the silence overwhelming to the point where it forces him out of the car.
He drags his feet as he walks down the familiar path. Passing the other stones along the way, some old, some new, some even unmarked. He clutches the black rose close to his chest like a lifeline as he approaches the site.
He stops.
A deep breath.
He’d forgotten how bright the white was. In a place like this it was blinding. Meanwhile the black felt in place. It mimicked how he felt inside. There’s ivy crawling over it, even some leftover petals scattered from the last time.
He chokes a bit on his breath. “I’m sorry I’m late. You know how it is… sometimes you just get a bit busy.” He pauses as tears start to well in his eyes. “Sometimes… you lose track of time.”
He brings his phone out to clear the notification on it. Finally. He’s here. He can let go, right?
“I’ve been thinking of you a lot…” In everything he sees. In everything he does. “I hope to do more things that you’ll be proud of.”
The birds chirp at him in response and he lets out a shaky sigh. Gently places the rose atop of the vault.
“I’ll be back again next year, my friend.” He chuckles quietly to himself. “I’ll try to be on time next time.”
He rests his hand there a moment longer. He whispers, “ Momento Mori .” The tears start running down his face and he forces himself to turn around and walk away.
He loses his carefully crafted composure in his car. Sobbing uncontrollably. He leans his head on his steering wheel, shoulders shaking as he cries.
“Why did it have to be you, Mark? Why?”
🤍
He sighs. He doesn’t have it in him to go there. He never does. He’s already late, but it doesn’t matter. He’s known for days it’s that time of the year.
3 years it’s been. Isn’t that crazy?
After some thinking he finally relents and gets in the car. He’s on his way to his favorite, and least favorite, place now.
The ache in his heart from this is unmatched. It grows every second that ticks by. He gets out of the car and trudges up the slight hill, feet heavy as his heart.
His eyes look down at the ground, at the fallen, brown leaves on the worn down path. He knows this path like the back of his hand.
The white rose hangs loosely in his grasp as he approaches it. The vault. He wishes it was his house. He wishes he was there instead.
He looks it over. The black and white contrasted perfectly. Yin and Yang. Light and dark. Him and his better half.
He lingers for a moment, playing with the stem of the rose. “Hey… I’m sorry I’m late. I just lost track of time… it’s a funny concept huh?”
He sighs. “I told you about some projects I wanted to work on last time, I hope you listened to it. They’ve been going good. I just wish you were here to share it with me.”
There’s a black hole in his life now. Once filled by and energetic goofball he’d learned to love. Now forever lost.
“It’s funny how sometimes I forget about all this. Yet, I always come back to you. That’s why I didn’t come sooner.”
He steels himself as he sets down the rose. “I miss you. More than you know. I promise I won’t be late next year. Until then… Momento Mori.” He rests his hand on it as a tear rolls down his cheek and drips next to the rose.
He sniffles and backs up a bit.
“You’ll always live on in my heart, Ethan. Until the day I join you, I can promise you that.”