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Fluttering eyelashes.
It’s like an immune response. It’s like a sickness that wracks his body, sends shivers through each hair on his body, puts his skin into a chilling sweat, a frenzy of no no no no no no no not again no no no, freezes his breath—but he wants this. This is an illness he wishes so desperately onto himself.
A sparkle of green, blunted by caution, framed with apprehension and bushy eyebrows.
How Connor could even think while they were this close, Troye wasn’t sure. Connor had always been the one to either overthink or forget every possible word in his vast and eloquent vocabulary when faced with newness, with closeness. Troye wasn’t sure which the boy in front of him was going through right this instant, but eyes that knowing and eyes that passionate and eyes that caring couldn’t not be thinking.
A bated breath, laced with warm energy and waiting.
Connor was patient. He was always patient. He heard first when it happened. He heard silent gasps, mortifying sniffles, the only tears Troye would never deny in his life, he waited. Sometimes Connor was good with words, good with spinning poetic lines of sunnier days, good with making the loneliest night a little less so with an embrace of whispered comfort and thoughtful texts, but other times, he waited. Troye would never be able to say how much he appreciated the quiet, but he did. He really did.
Trembling fingers, out of the corner of his eyes.
The last time Troye saw such petrified hands, they were his own. Waking up to the reality of his actions made less of an impression on him than the fact that he couldn’t stop his fingers from tracing tiny patterns in the air all day, all week, all month. The only anchor for his blown, crazed hands was the warmth of his phone, pressed so tightly against his ear he thought he might burn skin, craving the soft breaths, the willing pauses, the kind and generous presence, the being that Connor was that day—and honestly, he’d always been there, still was here.
Here. Here, even though Troye had screwed up every willing presence in his life before this moment. Here, despite the fact that Connor knew—hell, he was the first to know—Troye had fucked up some boy’s life. Here, even when Troye had knowingly cheated, knowingly kissed another man, knowingly said yes to sleeping in the same damn bed with someone he never loved, someone he regretted, someone he shouldn’t have promised a better future he could and would never give. Here, even though Troye had shattered. Here.
How could falling in love be so easy after he had ruined everything? How could he bring himself to give himself to anyone when thoughts of his tainted heart, his stupidity, his anger, his hurt, his broken shards ran themselves along every blink, every twitch of a muscle, every unconscious movement, like fairy lights strung along his headboard?
Headboard. Even the headboard makes him sick. The walls make him sick. The idea of going home again, alone, having to wallow in guilt, having to wallow in the sheets he’s washed so many times but still smell like him him him him him, having to wallow in wretched exhaustion because he can’t sleep alone but he can’t bear to sleep with anyone because he fucked up, he fucked up. He can’t fuck up again. It’s not for himself. It’s for every single boy out there he’s scared to fuck up.
He can’t fuck up.
A little bump on the forehead, character.
It’s only hard to believe Connor cares because he knows. But sometimes, Troye lets himself think about how hours into 2014 Connor was joking with him on Twitter, laughing with him, not at him, flirting as if he didn’t care Troye had called just moments earlier with tears coating his every word like winter fur on a lemming. He lets himself think about how Connor couldn’t even come out to himself yet that day, had only said the words in front of a mirror for the first time four days later, yet put words of laughter and emojis of blushes for the whole world to see, just for Troye.
He lets himself consider how Connor’s eyes are always averted when he steals his own glance, as if he doesn’t want to be caught.
He lets himself remember that through every bit of lyric writing months afterwards, through every bit of furious typing and inkless pens, through falling for the first boy (he can’t say his name yet) and through breaking that first boy and breaking the second boy, through the months of trying to breath normally again, trying to not go out and run into either of them, trying to calm his frenzied fingers by playing melodies on his keyboard, trying to make sense of the inner destruction he had caused—to himself, or to the other boys, he’s not sure anymore—Connor had stayed.
It’s hard to believe; because Connor could barely know at this point what loving boys freely could feel like. It’s hard to believe; because Troye had thought he had loved back then, but he realized too late he didn’t. He feels like he does, finally, but he can’t because what if it happened again what if he couldn’t keep his promises what if he broke Connor?
It’s hard to believe; because how could a heartbreakingly beautiful boy like Connor want to love someone like Troye, someone who had splintered trust with his own quivering hands?
“Who knew?” A whisper.
The whirlwind stops. There is the sweetest smile on Connor’s face, the points of his rose petal lips curving up just the slightest, as if he’s scared Troye will move away. Troye can’t move. He’s frozen by how the light just highlights the tips of Connor’s hair, bathing him in glowing radiance. He’s afraid to sigh out loud; afraid of pushing Connor away with just the slightest breath, when he’s so close he can see the long parentheses around his mouth, count the tildes in the corners of his wide eyes, trace the forward slash folded between his eyebrows. He can’t help the chill that sprints up through his stomach and into his chest, unfurling like a snowflake melting in the absolute sunshine that Connor is.
Touching. Melting. Falling.
Fingertips stilled by dulled and jagged fingernails, each elder wand joint caressed by calloused, loving hands, palms held like butterflies whose rainbow wings would dissolve at a touch, knuckles smoothed by thumbs more used to smashing the space bar, veins traced by the slightest gasp of hangnail.
Lips covered in dewiness and a hint of a grin, forcing a glint of white into the light.
Forgetting.
~
The forgetting only lasts for a moment. It takes only a second to remember, but months afterwards for Connor to remind Troye why he is still here.
It takes months of Connor finding his own happiness, takes months of Troye rediscovering what it feels like to not panic, takes months of Troye and Connor talking, holding, waiting, looking, seeing, and, well, lots of kissing.
It takes months of calming and touching. It takes months of words and months of heads rested on shoulders and months of promises that aren’t broken and months of hands put to rest and months of physical reassurance that Troye, in fact, is not sick and not in pieces.
It takes months of memorizing the features on each other’s faces. It takes months of finding new fashions, new music, new lyrics, new bed sheets, new reasons.
It takes months of falling.
Some nights, it’s still hard to believe.
But waking up with a boy whose eyes could ignite the brightest stars in bed with him, even with the same fairy lights and the same sinking pit in his stomach, reminds him he is okay. Reminds him that no matter how broken he thinks he is, the sun will always rise, and every shattered piece will reassemble into a slightly more delightful him every day.
It’s easier to breathe, knowing Connor will be patient, knowing Connor will care, knowing Connor is falling just as much as he is, knowing they won’t let each other shatter.
~
Fluttering eyelashes.
It’s like an immune response. It’s like falling in love again.