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The silence that had managed to wedge itself between them was deafening. Or at least it was to Antonio.
He was used to the silence, sure, it seems their entire relationship was built on a content form of quiet. For they had spent their early years together fighting to make the most of any moments that the universe would be kind enough to spare them. Most of their time was spent silently side by side desperately trying to savor the short solace they had managed to find.
They were never a pair that would mindlessly babble on about life since they had last spoken. Though sometimes Antonio did, he quite enjoyed mindless ramblings when the time did call for them, and never once did Frederick protest listening. Yet the composer himself seldom had anything he felt was positive enough that he could share without risk of tarnishing the mood of the night.
Some things just went by easier without words. But they hadn't been like that in forever. No, Frederick's mental state had visibly improved during their time serving the royal orchestra. It was relieving to see him so full of life for once, before him stood the man he had loved so dearly, only now alleviated of all that made him so miserable. Antonio's heart would swell every time Frederick would feel well enough to talk his ear off about something that was finally more than complaints about the voices in his head, or his impossible family and the unrealistic expectations he was held to.
And now in this hellish manor, it's clear that even though he knows Frederick has been getting worse he still hasn't gone silent. Perhaps it was a distraction. That seemed very likely. Like he thought if he allowed the silence to catch up to them then soon would follow the gravity of their situation.
And so he talked. He talked about conversations he had with Mary, he talked about relationships he had managed to form, he complained about injuries, he complained about times Antonio's matches would run on for longer than he liked, he complained that all the running that came with the games was no good for his already shity legs, he complained about the antics of his fellow survivors, he complained whenever either of them was scheduled for more than a handful of matches a day, he complained just about every time Orpheus had the nerve to breathe in his presence- he complained a lot. But Antonio just liked hearing him speak. It satisfied some weirdly domestic, almost possessive part of him. In some strange way, he loved knowing that the same man who was so intentionally dense and cold to almost anyone and everyone would be able to sit with him for hours talking about nothing at all.
So lord forgive him if he had sort of let himself forget the silence that was once such a major part of their lives. God, he loved Frederick so much it made him sick sometimes, he adored everything they had built to be their own, and he couldn't stand the idea of going back to the place they had once been.
Antonio knows now that whatever they had in those early years wasn't exactly love, or at least in the standard sense of the word. He can say with no doubt in his heart that he loved Frederick with his entire being, and he knows for a fact his dear pianists felt the same. They were happy together, about as happy that two people like them could be, and they loved each other as much as the world would let them. But still, he doesn't think love was the fitting word for whatever they had going on between them then.
It was something more akin to desperation, he thinks. They had already established unwavering support for the other against all odds. Antonio needed to prove to himself that he was capable of love, of a meaningful long-term relationship. He needed to know that just because he was stupid enough to lose Andrea didn't mean he was doomed forever. And Frederick needed a distraction, he needed a break from his own life. He needed the support he knew Antonio would provide. And so they forced themselves to try to fit into roles of a traditional relationship when they knew it would never suit people like them.
But perhaps that's a tad dramatic. Antonio knows full well this silence doesn't mean Frederick is abandoning all that they've worked to improve about their relationship. He often spoke of how much he cherished the way they had changed when they were given the chance to exist on their own terms, to love the way they wanted to, not the lackluster sort of love they were once forced to take on.
He knows the silence most likely means nothing to Frederick. But still he worries. For it seems so strange for them at this moment. Frederick had all but demanded Antonio to accompany him to his room after his last match of the night, claiming they weren't able to steal enough time together today and that he needed some time to merely exist side by side before they turned in for the night.
And by no means did that bother Antonio, no, he cherished practically any moment they could spend together. What he didn't like was how silent his beloved was now.
He's not entirely sure he can link it to being too tired to hold a conversation, which seems to happen a lot these days. But no, not tonight. For right now the pitch blackness waiting outside the window told Antonio just how late it was, and still he counted the minutes and Frederick showed no desire to go to sleep. It was oddly worrying, he knew the pianist was scheduled for a match ungodly early in the morning. And while he knew full well Frederick had always been one of those odd people who could function the same on a single hour of sleep as they would if they had slept half the day away, still he found it a bit strange that he made no attempt to put an end to their night, while also barely trying to make the most of their short time together.
He was sure he's not mad, no, Frederick had always made sure Antonio was very aware of any grievances he might have at almost any given moment. But he can't help but shake the feeling he's waiting for something, that this unbearable silence is intentional, that he waits for Antonio to muster up the courage to break it.
Antonio's sure he looked silly right now, here he was worrying about if Frederick truly did love what they'd become all while he's quite literally melted into the man's side. They're not quite completely tangled up together, as much as Antonio would like to be, they're far too busy for that. Frederick was practically drowning in loose pieces of sheet music as he desperately attempted to sort out unfinished compositions like perhaps the order would allow him to find the motivation to actually try to complete them. And Antonio sat right beside him, in his lap held a book that he hadn't been paying attention to for some time now.
Perhaps he's just focused, Antonio thinks he likes that answer. He knows how much that discarded pile of music had aggravated Frederick . And now it even managed to stress Antonio out a bit as almost the entirety of the pianists bed was covered in music, nearly an inch of space existed between where Antonio sat and several sheets of scribbled notes, some pages filled with as little as simple outlines and ideas for melodies, some oven so obscure nothing was on the paper other than some wavy lines Antonio assumed represented pitch. He knows this problem had been eating away at Frederick for some time, and he knows full well how a frantic nature seemed to come easily to him in times like this.
Antonio's barely even aware of anything when he's able to pick out the abrupt stop to the sound of shuffling papers, what had used to be the only source of noise in the small room.
"Are you alright?" He hears Frederick ask, his voice laced with genuine concern as he lets his pile of music rest in his lap.
"Of course." Antonio lies straight through his teeth. "Why do you ask?" He mumbles, pressing a kiss to the side of the pianist's head like it could further convince him he was okay. It doesn't.
With that Frederick makes a noise somewhat akin to a groan, clearly displeased with Antonio's desultory excuse. "You haven't turned a page in 10 minutes. I've been counting."
"Just thinking." He sighs, leaning a bit further into Frederick , which turned out to not be as comfortable as he would have liked as the man quickly bent over to reach for a scribbled agglomeration of notes that lay discarded just in front of Antonio, causing him to knock his head into the composer's shoulder.
"Ah, try not to hurt yourself." Frederick teased, a sickening smile laced between his words as he tapped the stack of paper twice on his legs to even out the sheets. But his words come too late, for in a way Antonio had already managed to hurt himself, but he probably knew that. "What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing notable." Antonio hums, nursing the new burning sensation in his forehead.
"Oh, I don't buy that. Not for a second." Frederick laughs.
Yet Antonio doesn't respond, and it's clear Frederick doesn't like the silence that follows, the silence that had been the source of all Antonio's worries. He feels weak, unable to protest as Frederick hooks a pair of fingers under his chin to force him to meet his gaze.
"I love you." He says almost desperately, staring deep into Antonio's eyes as he speaks, like he needed him to know he meant every word. And he did, he knew very well how much Frederick loved him. But still, it was a fact his worries always tended to forget.
Antonio only forces a smile, leaning in to briefly capture the composer's lips before he is able to turn away. "As do I. I absolutely adore you, Frederick , with every fiber of my being. " He mumbles, enjoying the short chuckle he's able to feel against his lips as Frederick laughs off the maudlin turn the conversation has taken.
"Oh, you love sick fool." Frederick says while unable to fight a stupid smile, moving his hand up to cover Antonio's mouth and push him away.
"Only for you, my dear." Antonio replies with an equally moronic grin. Briefly attempting to take Frederick s hand in both of his own though it was quickly pulled away from him.
"No, really, what were you thinking about?" Frederick attempts to ask once more, making quick work of straightening out the edges of the papers before he sits the stack beside him, giving Antonio his full attention. "I can tell it's nothing positive."
Antonio surprisingly doesn't let his smile waver all that much as he lets his head fall back against the wall behind him, yet he can still feel Frederick s pressing gaze burn into the side of his face. "I told you, love, it's nothing important."
Frederick frowns, his eyebrows knitted together. "It is." He refutes. "Antonio I-"
"Can I tell you something?" The violinist interrupts, it's all too quickly that he's turned to face Frederick , dead eyes peering into the pianist's own. "I need you to promise you won't even try to fight me on this." He almost pleads with the other man. Reaching out to push aside several pieces of music to leave him enough room to turn himself to completely mirror the composer.
Frederick only blinks, the strange urgency in Antonio's request leaving him dumbfounded. "Of course." He answers, yet his response is slow, almost phrased as a question. "Why would I try to fight it?"
"Because it's stupid. I know it's stupid. And I know you'll be upset I'd ever even dare to think such a thing. But I just need to tell you because this plagued me for weeks until I realized you couldn't care less about it, now I just need to say it so it stops eating at me." Antonio admits, taking Frederick s hands in his own like he wished to close any possible gap between them.
A raised eyebrow and a squeeze to both his hands is the only form of a response Antonio gets. The violinist takes a quick breath, letting his gaze fall to their intertwined hands as he attempts to figure out how to phrase his words.
"You said Mary told you how she practically had to drag me to see you, right? Why was that? Why exactly did she say I was so hesitant?" There's nothing but absolute determination in Antonio's gaze once his eyes flick back up to meet Frederick s' own.
"You said you had to tell me something." Frederick states, Antonio knows he was caught off guard by the desperate questioning but he barely showed it. "Why waste time asking questions you already know the answer to?"
"Because I'm not sure I really do know the answer." Antonio replies with a heavy gaze, almost begging Frederick to just play along for once. "Please, dear, just tell me what she said."
"She said you were worried about how I'd react to the drugs, or whatever it was, that you didn't want me to end up here to." Frederick shrugs his shoulders as he speaks, furrowed brows telling Antonio he didn't see the reason why he should have to recall these things. "But we already talked about that, Antonio. I don't think that's stupid." His gaze is practically dripping with something close to sympathy and Antonio almost laughs.
"Because that's not it. That's not the stupid thing." Antonio suddenly feels relieved of all his desperation, and it's not long at all before a stupid smile finds its way onto his face once more, bracing for the backlash he knew he would receive. "Believe me, love, I talked her ear off worrying about these things when I first arrived here. Oh, how I was a mess then. Though I suppose she assumed I'd worked over it so she never mentioned it to you. But it was something that just stuck in my mind no matter what I did."
Frederick tilts his head to the side, eyes half lidded and brows low with feigned annoyance as he stares up at the violinist. "What is it? Please, Toni, do tell me why you assumed that after I'd been beaten within an inch of my life that I wouldn't have wanted to see you, my dear fiancé, the love of my life, and the only person that kept me sane for years. Especially after I had spent over two years a complete wreck because I thought you were dead." Frederick can't stop the sickeningly sweet, almost teasing smile that quickly spreads across his face, finding himself unable to hold any major emotion after the guise of his frustration was broken by Antonio's ramblings.
"I told you it was stupid." Antonio smiles almost sheepishly, caught in the act even though he hadn't yet even made his confession.
"You haven't even told me what it is!" The pianist counters.
"I thought you'd hate me." Antonio finally admits, all but pushing the words from his mouth.
"What?" Frederick questions breathlessly, a stupid dumbfound smile still plastered to his face as he chuckles away his shock. "I truly don't think I could ever hate you. Why would you even think that?"
"I suppose I thought you'd be mad that I left." The violinist shugs, a smile forced onto his face as he speaks like he thought it could take some of the weight from his words, like it could hide from Frederick just how much he had let the thought consume him.
"Why would I be?" Frederick speaks straight through his smile. "They tried to control practically everything about you they could.
How could I hate you for finding your out from all of that?"
"I stuck around for a few months after I left, sort of lurking in the area before I started getting the letters. I waited for you, but you never came. I figured you were mad." Antonio says with a sigh.
"That's because they told me you died!" Frederick counters, his tone strained in an almost exasperated manner, like he didn't see the point in Antonio's statement. "I was a complete wreck, I didn't know what to do."
"Well I know that now." Antonio sighes. "But I didn't then, did I? Besides you never seemed all that on board with the idea anyway." He admits, pursuing his lips slightly as he tries to think of his defense.
"Because I was confused." Comes the pianist's rebuttal. "You were stressed out, you weren't making much sense of anything."
"That's because I really didn't know what I was doing either." Antonio laughs somewhat bitterly under his breath at the memory.
"I figured that much." Frederick notes. "But I still trusted you wholeheartedly. I thought you'd work it all out eventually. I really didn't think I could ever hate you."
Antonio tries his best to manage a smile, in a way the expression comes naturally, no doubt Frederick s words force a stupid grin onto his face. Yet still his body seems to fight the reaction, it just doesn't feel right on his face somehow. "Well, I didn't exactly have you there to tell me that. So forgive me for letting my stress mischaracterize you. I assumed the worst of everything."
Frederick gives him a lopsided grin, a bit strained, an expression forced on his face by pure disbelief. If Antonio hadn't known any better he would have left it at that, an awkward reaction, never would he have assumed his beloved pianists' smile was meant to tease him in any way. "So you assumed I'd disregard all our years together over a simple disagreement?" The smile pulling at the corners of his lips is now undeniably humorous, suddenly Antonio regrets this conversation, he knows he'll never win. "Antonio, I really am sorry, but you're not getting rid of me that easily."
The violinist merely clicks his tongue, leaning into Frederick s side as if his physical presence would validate whatever it was he was trying to argue. "Oh, but you see, my love, that's the funny thing about stress, it rarely ever goes hand in hand with rationale."
Frederick laughs as he laces their fingers together, it's breathy and it's pure, for a moment Antonio doesn't care that he's just making fun of him, he just knows he'd give anything to let him laugh like that again. "Well I suppose you're right about that." He mumbles as he scatters a few chaste kisses across the violinist's face. "But still, I'd assume you would know me better than that."
"I do." Antonio hums, lightly squeezing their joined hands for emphasis. "I know you. My worries, on the other hand, they do not. Odd considering you're the main topic of almost all of them."
In an instant the rooms entire mood shifts as Frederick sighes, guilt laced all throughout the air he had forced from his lungs. "I know, in a weird way I love you for that." A little part of Antonio dies as he abandons their intertwined hands in favor of physically turning the violinist's face to look at him, letting his hand come to rest on his shoulder afterwards. "I get you worry about me, I'm just someone that's easy to be concerned about, I know that. And I know you just care about me and want me to be okay, believe me I see that. But you should never have to worry about if I really do love you or not. Because I promise you I do."
Part of Antonio cringes at how far he's pushed this. A pang of guilt hits him along with Frederick s decoration, for he knows his dear pianist has never been one to let conversations like this get serious enough that he has to voice all this. He knows Frederick had never been able to make all that much sense of anything that happened in his mind, so he rarely ever tried to express his jumbled emotions with actual words. "I want to keep this." Antonio says in an uncharacteristically hushed whisper. "I want us to get better."
Frederick sighes once more, yet this time he seems oddly relieved, like he's much happier knowing the source of Antonio's stress, for it seems he was confident he could disprove this. It's only a few short moments later that a loopy smile manages to find it's way back to his face. "Oh, so that's what this is really about." He cocks his head slightly to the side as he makes the move to take Antonio's freezing in his again. "We have gotten better. I promise you that. Believe me, mein engel, I have no desire to revert back to how we were before. We met during the worst parts of our lives and I'd like to move past that if we can."
Antonio hums in an oddly begrudging manner as his eyes flick around the room. "Lowest points, huh? Are you implying our situation has improved?" He says with a shrug, the most he felt he could do to convey a mocking gesture around the room.
At first Frederick s only response is a dry laugh, if Antonio didn't know any better he would have assumed he was trying to block out their unfortunate position entirely. "What you don't think so?" He jokes with an unconvinced smile. "You really don't think the whole murder game thing is better than you thinking you're incapable of love and me being the laughing stock of the music industry?"
It's silent for a moment, despite the pause Antonio still doesn't feel there's any room for him to speak. Or perhaps he just knew he didn't trust himself to say anything without destroying the more playful feeling that had just managed to find its way back to them.
Frederick sighs like it's his final breath, such a heavy volume of air pushed from his lungs one would think he'd been holding his breath for hours. "If you allow it I'd prefer we ignore our current situation, I fear there's nothing we can do about that. But if anything I feel that does prove we've gotten better. Things have undoubtedly gotten worse, but we haven't. That should mean something, shouldn't it?"
"I suppose it should." Antonio shrugs in what should be a resolutionary manner, but he knows full well Frederick doesn't buy it, he knows this isn't the end.
It's then the pianist shakes his hands from Antonio's grasp, moving to take his face in his palms, forcing him to meet his gaze directly as if preparing for a grand confession. Yet he can't find the words. No, his mouth falls open for several seconds yet no true sound follows. Not until he lets out a heavy sigh, clearly frustrated by his own inability to make enough sense of his thoughts to even form a sentence.
Moments like this happened often in times like these, as already noted. Rarely was Frederick ever the person to be especially slow to respond to anything, typically he spoke before he could even think of what would be best to say. Perhaps that's why many people thought he was so rude at times. Yet the more intimate moments like these were much different, it wasn't uncommon for him to go speechless. For now he actually tried to think about every word he spoke, making things as meaningful as they could be. Yet when he tried to search for the best things to say he tended to just get confused by his own crowded brain.
For a moment Antonio thinks this is the end to their night, or at least to this conversation. As now Frederick seems too frustrated with himself to carry on from where things ended, even if he figured out what to say. Yet quickly he's proven wrong by another sigh, though much lighter this time. Frederick simply stares at him for several moments before he seems to give up, choosing to bring their lips together rather than to speak. He had always preferred using actions as opposed to words in times like these. And if it's like this Antonio can't complain.
The composer hums as their lips finally part, pressing their foreheads together as he finally lets his hands fall to lace his fingers with Antonio's once again. "I love you, Antonio, more than anything. I don't want to go back to how we used to be, and I know we won't. I'm happy like this. I'm happy here with you." He says, his voice barely above a whisper like he didn't even want the universe itself to hear his words.
And for once Antonio wholeheartedly believes him.