Work Text:
MARK:
Sometimes I lie awake at nights, thinking of you.
Once my mind goes off on that track, I can forget about sleep, at least for a few hours. I go through the day in my mind, thinking about every word you said to me, thinking about every word I said to you, trying to find hidden meanings. Then I think of all the things we didn’t say, and I wonder if I’m reading too much into things, and if you ever do the same. I cringe at the idea of you analyzing the stupid things I say to hide from the things I really want to tell you, and scold myself for cringing because fucking hell, you’re my best friend and I shouldn’t be doing this, I shouldn’t be replaying every word I said in my mind and worrying over it, I shouldn’t be wishing things into your words that weren’t really there. And I definitely shouldn’t be thinking of all the times you touched me and all the times you didn’t and I wished you had, and then my mind goes off on another track entirely and things go from bad to worse.
It happens more often than not now, these nights of thinking things I should not be thinking. The sleep deprivation is bad, but the mornings are worse, because the second I see you after one of these nights, blood rushes to my cheeks and I have to turn away to collect myself, force myself to stop thinking, and carry on like everything is normal… like things are exactly as they were before. Before was not that long ago, and yet I can barely remember what it was like, because now I am consumed by this, and everything is different.
Ever since we started writing these songs together, writing these words of love about these supposedly fictional characters, I’ve seen how easily we could fit together, how we were made to finish each other’s thoughts. Your words flow from mine and mine from yours. When you play a melody, I know what you are thinking; I can already hear the song, and before I know it, my pen is scratching the words onto paper. You look at the words and say, “That’s it; that’s it exactly!” and I’m not even surprised, because I already know.
You know what’s funny? A lot of the time, the things I think about when I lie awake aren’t even all that explicit, although I’m not going to lie and pretend my mind never goes there. It goes there in great fucking detail sometimes, but at other times, I think of the strangest things… like lying in your arms at night, just sleeping, or not even sleeping, but lying awake and knowing you were there beside me. I think about being able to rest my head on your shoulder without thinking about it, of being able to intertwine my fingers with yours whenever I wanted to, of your hands on my shoulders like they were the other night before I pulled away, of your fingers caressing my cheek. Just the little things, the things I want so badly and cannot have. The possessive little touches that people have when they belong to each other.
Except we don’t belong to each other. Maybe we do, in a lot of ways, and maybe in some ways, we always have. But not in the fullest sense. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
It’s the maybe not ever that makes my heart ache when I lie awake at nights. I can’t stop it from wanting it, though.
Only you can stop it from aching.
*****
ROGER:
It’s you, Mark. It’s you.
Now that I finally know it – or at least I think I know it, though my mind is so fucking messed up that I can barely form words – I can’t see how I ever could’ve thought otherwise. Of course it’s you. After everything, how could it not be? How could it possibly be anyone else?
Suddenly, all the scattered pieces are falling into place, and now I know – it has always been you, and the only word to describe this hurricane of emotion is love.
It was the songs that told me, really. When our words fell into place together, when we stayed up so many nights feeling so interconnected, I wondered what it was, but I think this whole time, I already knew. I’ve never been able to write songs about things I didn’t feel, and all the lyrics we’ve written together these past few weeks have been things I’ve thought and felt about you. Consciously or unconsciously, these feelings have always been there.
I thought I knew how it felt. I thought I’d played this game before. But now... I don’t know what it was, before, but it wasn’t this, this crazy cavalcade of feelings, this rush of realization, this knowing, somewhere down in the pit of my soul, that this was meant to be. Before, it was a trial-and-error thing, grasping at a notion that could be right or wrong and seeing where it would lead me. This time, that part of the song has already been played. I know where this could lead, if I was brave enough to let my heart take the next step.
That’s the thing, though – knowing is almost scarier than not knowing at all, because now everything becomes a possibility, and I don’t know if I’m ready for that. There are too many options, and I’m terrified of choosing the wrong one and ending up right back where I started this whole thing – alone. And I was okay with being alone; I really was, this time, but not now! Not when being alone means not being with you.
Because... even if I can’t say it out loud, my heart knows – I love you, Mark. I had no idea what falling in love really meant until now, but now I know, and I hope to god I can figure out a way to tell you before it’s too late. I hope I’m not too late already, because I love you, fuck, I love you, and I was so blind not to see it, so stupid not to know it, when it’s been right here, in front of my face all along.
For now and for always, it could never be anyone else but you.