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“Bit like being a football manager, eh.”
Greg glanced up from the folder in his lap, blinking at Andy, standing in the doorway of his dressing room. “Sorry?”
Andy nodded at the television, currently playing an old episode of Taskmaster. “Like you’re studying film,” he said, in what he clearly thought was a helpful analogy.
Greg glanced between the TV and him, bemused. “You realise I had surgery, not a personality transplant, yeah?” he said, and Andy laughed.
“Still not a football fan, then, I’ll take it.”
“Banning it’s still my first act as supreme dictator,” Greg said dryly.
Andy laughed again. “Alex would never forgive you,” he said, before his entire expression changed, tightened into a wince, just like everyone had done when mentioning Alex to him since his surgery.
Since Greg had forgotten him.
It was as though they assumed saying Alex’s name would elicit some sort of reaction, or pain, or– something. Even Greg’s own body betrayed him, tensing with some kind of expectation. Like his entire body seemed poised, still, to feel something that never quite came. Like muscle memory waiting on a phantom limb.
“Alex will have to get over it,” Greg told him shortly before changing the subject. “Sorry, did you need something in particular?”
There was something still guarded in Andy’s expression as he told him, “Just wanted to see if you wanted a runner to grab your lunch.”
Greg raised both eyebrows. “Because I’m too old and fat to waddle down and grab it myself?” he asked, a touch waspish before he remembered– well, remembered being told, anyway, that he and Alex used to have lunch together every day, something that hadn’t resumed post-surgery. “Ah, right,” he said, looking away. “Yeah, if you could have someone bring it, I’d appreciate that.”
Andy nodded and turned to leave, pausing when he saw the vase of small blue flowers on the table. “Nice flowers,” he remarked, glancing back at Greg. “Who’re they from?”
“No idea,” Greg muttered, looking back down at the folder without really seeing it. “They just showed up on Monday and have shown up every day since.”
“Right,” Andy said. “Well, I’ll have someone bring your lunch.”
As soon as the door closed, Greg sighed and scrubbed both hands across his face. It was hard, harder than he had anticipated, being back, filming Taskmaster still with no real memory of the man usually sat to his left.
The studio had provided him with old footage, including bloopers and bits that hadn’t made it into the aired episodes, evidently hoping it’d be enough to jog his memory, or absent of that, enough for him to rebuild the character of Greg-Davies-as-the-Taskmaster. He was an actor after all, and had been accused several times over of only ever playing himself anyway.
But watching the footage, reading the copies of interviews the studio had also provided, studying the photos and press clippings compiled in the file folder in his lap, hadn’t done much to help.
He remembered being there, of course, remembered filming the show. Even remembered the vague outline at least of the person sat next to him all those years. But all of that felt strangely removed from what he could only assume had been humour and joy and whatever else had sustained him for the past decade.
Instead, it felt like a photocopy of a memory, all the colours turned to black and white, the edges blurred and details faded beyond recognition.
He sat next to Alex Horne like he had done for 10 years now and he didn’t have the first inkling of how they had developed their dynamic the way they did, let alone how he could possibly replicate a facsimile of it.
Maybe it would be easier if Greg understood Alex and how he fit into all of this, but he didn’t.
He didn’t understand how he had ever fallen for the man in the first place.
Sure, Alex was handsome enough, in his own weird way, and tall – taller than Greg had been led to believe from his own words repeated more times over than he could even count amongst the footage he’d watched.
But Alex was also weird. And annoying. And frustratingly unfunny for an alleged comedian.
That was unfair of him, especially since he hadn’t sought out any of Alex’s stand-up, had stuck solely to the old episodes of Taskmaster and sundry materials he’d been given by the studio. But from their first interaction this series, Alex had given him absolutely nothing to work with, or play off of.
He’d walked into Pinewood to see the man in question chatting to one of the Andys, and Alex’s eyes had widened, just slightly, at seeing him. “Greg,” he said, in some kind of greeting, though Greg couldn’t quite read anything into the completely neutral way he said his name.
He nodded his own greeting, eyeing him closely, looking for some spark of recognition, some sense of familiarity, but there was none. Instead, he blurted the first thought that popped to mind. “You got a haircut.” Alex blinked and Greg rushed to add, “I mean, er, I’ve been watching– Since last series. You’ve had a haircut.”
“Er, yes,” Alex said, raising a hand to rub the back of his hand somewhat ruefully, and Greg was reminded of how many times he’d done the same thing since they’d had to shave most of his hair at the hospital. “More than one, actually,” Alex added, and Greg frowned. “Whole head, in fact. Not just one hair.”
Greg stared at him. “Sorry, is that meant to be a joke?”
Alex nodded, searching his expression for something he apparently didn’t find. “Evidently not a very good one,” he said, giving Greg a tight smile, one that Greg did not return.
It hadn’t improved from there.
Of course, it was probably better that he didn’t understand. Safer, really, to be able to sit on the Taskmaster throne and focus all of his energy on being funny instead of on the twitchy, bizarre man sitting next to him.
Even if it did throw a wrench into the usual format, and particularly their banter.
“And seated next to me,” Greg started, for the first time that series, “a man who recently texted me from his GP’s office to tell me that he’d grown a whole inch and is now 5 foot 5, it’s– Little Alex Horne!”
The audience applauded and cheered and Alex nodded officiously. “Thank you, Greg.”
Greg tapped his notecards against his knee. “So. Banter section, then,” he said, angling himself more towards Alex, who nodded again.
“Yes,” he said. “Thought for this series, we’d try something different.”
“Did you?” Greg said, before immediately cutting himself off with a wince, knowing in an instant he hadn’t nailed the tone he’d been aiming for. “Sorry, I think– I was a bit too enthusiastic there, and I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Shall I take it again?” The gallery told him in his earpiece to go on with what he suspected was rather more patience than they’d normally have for him fumbling things this early in the recording, but Greg was too busy frowning at Alex, waiting on a confirmation. “Alex?”
He followed Alex’s gaze to his own hand, resting on Alex’s arm like it must’ve hundreds of times before, and Greg flinched. He hadn’t even realised he’d reached out to touch him, and quickly pulled his hand away as if he’d been scalded, feeling like he’d just violated some sort of unspoken rule. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Alex shook his head slowly before finally looking up at him, his expression unreadable. “It’s fine,” he said, clearing his throat before adding, “We’ll take it again.” In an instant, his face had rearranged itself into the mock-subservience Greg recognised from his various rewatches of old footage, but for some reason the familiar expression just made his stomach churn. “I thought for this series, we’d try something different.”
Greg tore his eyes away, staring down at the cards in his lap. “Did you,” he said again, this time with such little enthusiasm it bordered on outright contempt.
“Ye-es,” Alex said, something almost hesitant in the way he drew the word out into two syllables, and he reached down to open the drawer under his chair. “I, er, I thought it might be, er, fun—”
He broke off and Greg frowned at him. “Problem?”
Alex shook his head. “I forgot,” he murmured, and Greg’s frown deepened.
“You forgot the different thing you wanted to try?”
“No, I, er, forgot the prop I needed to make this section work,” Alex said apologetically, and the audience laughed.
But Greg didn’t laugh, largely because he could see what the audience couldn’t, which is that there was distinctly something in Alex’s drawer, even though he closed it quickly. He could also see something in Alex’s expression, something he couldn’t quite name but nonetheless recognised, like Alex was trying to rewrite the scene on the fly, even if Greg couldn’t quite tell why. “I don’t—”
Alex didn’t let him finish, just pasting a slightly sheepish smile on his face. “Right, erm, sorry about that,” he said, more to the audience than to Greg. “Shall we, er—”
He made an odd set of gestures with his hands and Greg stared at him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m, er, well, see. Crack—” Alex repeated his motions, but slower, making as if cracking an egg, and then followed it by pretending to flip a switch. “–and, er, on.”
Greg had no idea how he was meant to respond to that, if he was supposed to laugh or make a joke or what, and Alex was staring at him expectantly, as if he was meant to just pick up that thread of nonsense and run with it. Instead, he shook his head and looked away. “Prize task time, then?” he asked, his voice a little rough.
“Yes, Greg,” Alex said, and Greg breathed a small sigh of relief.
As soon as the first break was called, Greg turned to frown at Alex as he asked, a little sharper than intended, “What was all that about?”
Alex blinked up at him. “Pardon?”
“The banter section,” Greg said impatiently. “You had the prop, so don’t even try—”
“I did have the prop,” Alex interrupted, something tightening in his expression. “But I realised– well, it wasn’t going to be as funny as it was in my head.” He shrugged, looking back down at his iPad. “So I decided to scrap it.”
Greg shook his head. “In the middle of the recording,” he said sceptically.
Alex jerked a shrug. “If I’d had the realisation sooner, I’d’ve scrapped it sooner.”
Greg didn’t believe him for a minute. “Okay,” he said dismissively.
But Alex looked back up at him, his brow furrowed. “You don’t sound like you believe me.”
Which Greg didn’t, but that was hardly the point. “I have no reason not to,” he said instead, because he really didn’t. He didn’t even know Alex, not anymore.
Something shifted on Alex’s face and he tapped his long fingers against his iPad. “Look, I– when I said I forgot, I meant that I forgot that this isn’t– it’s different for you,” he said. “You’re approaching this from a different place than I’m used to, and I should’ve realised it wasn’t going to be exactly like it was. I planned a banter section for– well, we just need some time to work out the kinks.” He pulled a face. “So to speak.”
“So to speak,” Greg repeated.
Alex glanced at him and away again. “Sorry. Another bad joke.”
Greg cocked his head. “Do you usually make a habit of apologising for your jokes?”
Alex’s lips twitched, just slightly, not quite inching into a smile, but almost. “Not as a rule, no,” he said before hesitating, searching Greg’s expression for a moment. “Just—”
He broke off and Greg frowned again. “What?”
Alex shook his head and looked away. “Nothing. Never mind.” He stood, setting his iPad on his chair. “I need to go speak to Andy. Maybe it’d be better if we just cut the banter section entirely for this series.”
“Cut it?” Greg repeated, surprised. “Why?”
“You have to be able to trust your partner in improv,” Alex said. He said it simply, like stating a fact, but Greg still flinched. “It’s the only way it works.”
“I’m sorry,” Greg blurted, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them, before he could even figure out what he was apologising for.
Alex shook his head. “Don’t be,” he said, almost bracingly. “The section was always more to give you something to start off on the right note than for me. If you don’t need it, then we don’t need to take the time.” He shrugged. “Plenty of other material we can include instead.”
Greg had a feeling that once upon a time, he would’ve had a thousand arguments to counter that, but right now, he couldn’t think of any that made coherent sense. Instead, he settled back into the throne, looking pointedly down at his notecards and aiming for a tone that he hoped indicated he didn’t give a shit. “It’s your show, mate. Do what you like.”
“Right,” Alex said after a pause, and for the briefest of moments, Greg thought he heard something almost sad in his voice. But when he glanced up, Alex was already gone, making his way across the stage to Andy.
And suddenly, Greg could no longer just sit there, so he stood. “Running back to my dressing room,” he told the first PA he saw, hoping they’d pass word along to whoever needed it. Then he strode from the stage, from the character he wasn’t sure he was ever going to figure out how to play.
When he got back to his dressing room, he spotted the vase of flowers still sitting on the table, another joke that felt like he wasn’t a part of. Before he could stop himself, he grabbed the vase and chucked it straight into the bin, finding a sort of sick satisfaction with the sound of the vase breaking..
He might’ve felt bad about it eventually, had it not been for the same exact flowers showing up in his dressing room the next day.
And the day after that.
And now they were back, staring him in the face, a reminder of everything he was still missing.
Another day of filming after this one, and he honestly wasn’t sure how he was going to get through them.
He stared balefully at the flowers before standing and grabbing them to toss them in the bin. Just as he had every other day. But something stopped him this time, though he couldn’t say what it was. He frowned down at the flowers, the same little blue blossoms like every other day, and even though he knew it didn’t have any kind of message, he plucked the tiny white card nestled amongst the flowers out.
Sure enough, there was nothing written on it, and he was tempted again to just chuck it all out. But then he flipped the card over, and saw the name of the flower shop that had done the delivery.
He didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him sooner but he fumbled for his phone, dialling the number printed on the card. “KHW Florist,” a bored voice said on the other end and Greg straightened on instinct alone.
“Hello, yes, I’ve gotten a delivery of flowers every day this week,” he said, with as much politeness as he could muster. “There’s no message left with them, and I’d like to know who’s been sending them.”
“I can look up the order, sir,” the man on the phone said, still in the same bored voice. “Can you give me your name and the delivery address?”
“Greg Davies, Pinewood Studios in Iver.”
He could hear a rustle of something on the other end. “Just a moment, Mr. Davies.” Greg huffed a sigh and ran a hand across his face, trying not to let his impatience get the better of him. “Right, I can see the order here. It looks like it was placed by an A. Horne for this entire week. One vase of forget-me-nots to be delivered each morning.”
Greg had immediately scowled when he heard it had been Alex sending them, but the latter part took his breath away. “One vase of what?” he asked, his voice strange to his own ears.
“Forget-me-nots, sir.”
Greg didn’t remember hanging up but he must have, since the next thing he knew, he was staring down at his phone in his hands. Why in the hell would Alex get him forget-me-nots? What kind of sick joke—
“Mr. Davies?” a PA chirped from the doorway, and Greg blinked, finally looking up from his phone, something like resolve tightening in his stomach. “I have your lunch—”
“Where’s Alex?” Greg asked abruptly, not caring if he sounded rude.
Which, judging by the look she gave him, he did. “In his dressing room, I think. Do you—”
Greg shoved his phone in his pocket. “You can leave my lunch, thanks,” he said, brushing past her and into the corridor, marching straight to Alex’s dressing room to ask him what the fuck he thought he was playing at. He banged on the door. “Alex, let me in,” he ordered.
When there was no response, Greg reached automatically for the door handle, half-expecting it to be locked. Instead, the door swung open and Greg didn’t even hesitate before stepping inside, determined to wait for Alex to get back and explain himself.
He glanced around the room, a mirror image of his own, albeit with various touches he could only assume came from Alex. His eyes fell on a suspiciously familiar looking folder on Alex’s table and he grabbed it, flipping it open.
Like the one he had in his own dressing room, it was full of photos and interviews of them, and his brow furrowed as he flipped through it, seeing various bits highlighted, and barely legible notes in Alex’s cramped handwriting scrawled in the margins. His own name featured repeatedly, as if Alex was taking notes on him in particular, and something felt weirdly tight in his chest.
He heard the door open behind him and he whirled around, still holding the folder. “Can I help you—” Alex started before breaking off when he saw who was standing in his dressing room.
Greg held up the folder and Alex’s eyes flickered between them, his mouth hanging open just slightly. “What is this?” Greg asked.
To his credit, Alex recovered quickly, shaking his head and looking away. “Nothing.”
“Am I really meant to believe that?” Greg asked, scowling.
Alex brushed past him. “I don’t particularly care what you believe.”
Greg ground his teeth together as he turned to face him. “Fine,” he snapped. “Then answer this: what are you playing at with the flowers?”
For a brief moment, Alex looked caught out. “What flowers?” he asked, but he couldn’t quite meet Greg’s eyes as he asked it.
“You know what flowers,” Greg said sharply. “The fucking forget-me-nots. What, is that your idea of a joke?”
Alex glanced up at him, his expression tight. “No.”
“Then why—”
“You told me to.”
Alex said it simply, evenly, and Greg stared at him. “I– what?”
He was so startled by it that he almost missed Alex’s somewhat unnecessary clarification. “You told me to get you forget-me-nots.”
“When?” Greg managed.
Alex looked away again. “When we spoke on the phone, the night before– before your surgery.”
Greg sat down heavily on Alex’s chair, feeling like he’d just been taken out at the knees. “I don’t remember that.”
Alex huffed what might have been an attempt at a laugh and ran a hand across his face, his shoulders hunched. “I’m well aware,” he muttered.
But Greg just shook his head, wracking his memory for anything involving forget-me-nots, or even flowers in general, anything that would explain why or how he’d even come up with the idea. “I assume I meant it as some kind of a joke?” he said, coming up empty. “Bit of an odd joke, even for me.”
“There was more to it,” Alex muttered, and Greg frowned up at him.
“What more was there?”
Alex sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think that’s a good—”
“And I don’t particularly care,” Greg interrupted, “so just tell me—” Without warning, Alex doubled over, wracked with a sudden cough, and in an instant, Greg was on his feet again, rushing over to him. “Alex?” he said urgently, grabbing Alex’s elbow. “Are you all right—”
“‘M fine.”
Alex straightened and Greg stared at his hands, at the bunches of flowers he held with trembling fingers, flowers he’d just coughed up. Flowers that meant— “What is this?” Greg heard himself ask as if from a great distance.
Alex pulled his elbow out of Greg’s grip, moving over to dump the flowers into the bin. “It’s nothing,” he said dismissively, but Greg followed him, bending down to snatch up a handful of the flowers, thrusting them toward Alex, who flinched away.
“Half a dozen daffodils and a bunch of whatever the fuck these are would say otherwise—”
Alex glanced at the flowers he was holding and away again. “Pink purslane,” he muttered.
Greg glowered at him. “I don’t care what they are,” he said impatiently, “I want to know why you’re coughing up the same fucking flowers as the ones growing in my mum’s garden.”
“I think you’ve just answered the question for yourself,” Alex said with a sigh, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Greg did. He still wanted to hear Alex say it. “You have Hanahaki.”
“Yes.”
As it turned out, hearing it didn’t actually make it any easier for Greg to wrap his mind around. “For how long?”
Alex jerked a shrug. “Long enough.”
Greg dropped the flowers back in the bin, staring down at them without really seeing them. Then he looked at Alex, his eyes hard. “Who?”
Alex’s eyes darted to his. “Sorry?”
“You know what I’m asking.”
Alex swallowed, hard, but couldn’t seem to force himself to look away. “And you know who.”
Greg shook his head slowly. “I still want to hear you say it.”
“You,” Alex told him, a desperate edge to his voice. “It’s always been you.”
Greg felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under him, Alex’s words echoing hollowly in every beat of his traitorous heart. He reached out automatically to steady himself against the wall, and Alex took a step forward, his brow furrowed, but he stopped when Greg said, his voice low, “I don’t understand. This entire time—”
Alex nodded miserably. “Yes.”
“You love me.”
Saying the words aloud didn’t make them feel any more real, either. “Yes,” Alex repeated, and Greg forced himself to meet his eyes.
“Why?”
Something flickered in Alex’s expression. “Why do I love you?” he asked, the joke falling flat before it even left his mouth. “I don’t think—”
“No,” Greg snapped, unwilling or unable to let Alex turn this into some kind of joke. “No, why didn’t you tell me?” Alex flinched but Greg didn’t stop. “Why did you let me go through all that, losing my memory of you, of us—”
“Because I thought it would be easier,” Alex said with an exhausted sigh, and for just a moment Greg wondered how many times he’d made this justification to himself. “I thought that with the surgery, you could go on and find someone and I could just be happy with things as they were, but then—”
He broke off so suddenly that his teeth clacked together, and Greg glared at him. “Then what?” he prompted, his voice tight.
Alex shook his head. “I was scheduled to get the surgery,” he mumbled, looking down at the ground. “You were never meant to find out.”
“Then what, Alex?” Greg repeated with the last vestiges of his patience.
Alex swallowed again. “Then Roisin texted me,” he said, no louder than a whisper. “I had asked her to, to tell me when you were out of surgery, and she did. I was scheduled to get mine on the same day because I figured it’d be easier that way, but then, not even ten minutes after her first text, as they were literally taking me down to the operating theatre, she texted again.” His voice shook, his arms crossed so tightly it looked almost as if he was trying to hold himself together. “She told me that you didn’t remember who I was. And I– I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go through with it.”
“Why?”
“Because it was suddenly real,” Alex said with a shrug. “The fact that I might forget you. It was no longer a statistical chance, it was a reality. And I just– I needed to hold onto it for a little while longer.” Something in his tone turned pleading, as if begging for Greg to understand. “I thought maybe if I had one more series – big if, I know, colossal if, really—” He broke off, his face crumbling. “But then you…”
Greg’s hand clenched into a fist against the wall and it took everything in him not to punch it. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he growled, and Alex glanced at him, eyes wide.
“I don’t—”
“You’ll die without the surgery,” Greg said flatly. “You realise that, yeah?”
Alex exhaled sharply. “I do, yes,” he said. “Which is why I’ve rescheduled it for after we finish recording the series.”
Greg’s entire world felt off balance, like he still had far more questions than he'd ever find answers for, and he reached for the folder he’d tossed on the table. “And what’s all this for, then?” he asked.
Alex jerked another shrug. “I’ve been trying to work out a new dynamic for us since everything’s so…”
He trailed off and Greg managed a dry noise like a choked off, humourless laugh. “Fucked?” he supplied.
But Alex didn’t smile. “I was going to say different,” he said instead, scrubbing a hand across his mouth before adding, “Different and– and fucking awful.” He sounded so genuinely miserable that under different circumstances, Greg could almost imagine himself tossing the folder aside to cross to Alex and pull him into an embrace.
He didn’t. Instead, he set the folder back down, ignoring the way it flopped open, its contents half-spilling across the surface. “I’ve been watching old episodes and dailies and all of the things that made us us,” Alex told him, “and it’s still– it’s not enough.”
It hadn’t been enough for Greg either, and the bizarre parallel struck him as some kind of cosmic irony. “If I could take it back,” Alex said, his voice cracking, and Greg closed his eyes, choking back a pain he couldn’t even begin to give name to in his chest, “if I could change things…I’d give everything, but I can’t.”
Greg forced himself to open his eyes, forced himself to watch as Alex swiped almost angrily at the tears shining on his cheeks. “I’m no longer scared to forget you, or this,” Alex told him shakily. “Because as it turns out, there’s nothing left for me to hold onto anymore. And that may well be worst of all.”
He didn’t wait for Greg to say anything, pushing past him and all but bolting from the room, leaving Greg behind in more ways than one.
Once upon a time, Greg probably would’ve gone after him, but instead, he just stood there, numb, his heartbeat echoing loudly in his ears. Alex– Alex was—
It didn’t make any sense. None of this had made any sense.
And he had lost any ability he’d once had to make sense of it.
That didn’t stop him from casting around for something, anything that could bring some kind of rationale to everything Alex had just told him. His eyes landed on the picture on Alex’s dressing room table, the same one he’d seen hundreds of times before as he scoured every bit of the dossier someone from production – almost certainly Alex, now that he thought about it, and that made his chest hurt all the more – had put together for him to reacquaint him with their dynamic on the show. It was a photo of them at the beach from their holiday together, him scowling while Alex mugged for the camera. The perfect encapsulation of whatever their fucked up dynamic had been.
He hadn’t even realised he’d rested his hand on it until it was crumpled into a ball in his fist and he let out a shaky breath as he released it, flexing his fingers as he started to turn toward the door if only to put some space between himself and this, whatever this even was, this illusion of something that he couldn’t even remember in the first place.
But he paused as he caught sight of the picture underneath the one he’d just crumpled up, a picture he’d never seen, or at least had no recollection of. It had clearly been taken on the same day, at the same location, Alex still in that stupid grey jumper. But Greg’s faux scowl had been replaced by a genuine, almost soft grin as he looked not at the camera but at Alex, who was also looking up at him, seemingly mid-laugh, those blue eyes crinkled at the edges from how wide his smile was.
There was none of the artifice of the picture posted on Twitter, none of the mock-irritation from Greg or the unnatural excitement from Alex. Everything in that second picture was unguarded, like both had forgotten the camera was even there at all. Like the only thing that mattered in that moment was each other.
And Greg felt something in him click into place, like this was the missing piece he’d been struggling to find, the answer to the question he’d forgotten to ask.
He’d spent that entire week searching for an explanation for why Alex, why any of this, but he’d been looking in the wrong place. The show wasn’t the answer. Taskmaster may have been the seed, but the answer was in the flowers that Alex had been sending him every day. It was in this picture of the two of them that no one else had ever gotten to see. It was in a thousand little moments they had shared offscreen over the years.
He didn’t remember it. But he knew, in a way he hadn’t before, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that it had been real.
And that was something worth holding on to.
He tossed the photo back down on the table and whirled to race after Alex, trusting his feet to remember the likeliest place where Alex might be headed, since he had no clue.
And luckily, they did, Greg catching up to Alex and grabbing his arm. Alex’s eyes flew to his before he looked away, trying to yank his arm out of Greg’s grip. “Greg, let go,” he ordered, but Greg shook his head.
“Tell me,” he said instead, breathless in a way that should be embarrassing considering he’d barely been jogging.
Alex stared at him. “What?”
“Tell me,” Greg repeated. “Tell me you love me.”
Alex’s expression tightened. “Greg—”
But Greg didn’t let him finish, pulling him into the closest room, which was mercifully empty. “Tell me you love me,” he ordered a second time as soon as the door was closed after them, and Alex shook his head.
“It won’t fix anything,” he said, with just a hint of desperation.
Greg shook his head as well. “It’ll fix you.”
Alex flinched and looked away. “But it won’t bring any of it back.”
“No,” Greg agreed. “But it’ll stop you from losing what remains.” He hesitated, finally letting go of Alex’s elbow to instead take his hand. “And it’ll give us a chance to build something again. Maybe even something better.”
Alex looked up at him, those big eyes even bluer than Greg remembered. “Greg…”
“I loved you,” Greg told him, because he needed to say it almost as much as he needed to hear Alex say it. “I didn’t– Objectively I knew that, but I didn’t really understand that until now.” He shook his head, holding Alex’s hand between both of his, smoothing his thumb over his knuckles. “Didn’t understand how you became the most important person in my life. I spent so long studying the show that I didn’t even consider how much you and I extended past that. And I know this won’t fix it or bring it back, but Christ, I don’t care if it’s a million to one odds, if there’s a chance, we have to take it. You have to take it.”
Something flickered in Alex’s expression. “But if you get sick again—”
Greg shook his head again. “I won’t, mate,” he said, and he knew as soon as he said it that he believed it.
Alex didn’t look convinced. “How do you know?”
“Because last time, it was– it was all pining and wanting something I thought I couldn’t have,” Greg told him. “I thought– My doctor said that it wasn’t romantic, the idea of falling in love with you a second time. That it would just be suicide. Because it’d be falling back in love with something I couldn’t have.”
“I still don’t know that you can,” Alex murmured.
Greg just shrugged. “Maybe not. But at the very least, if I fall in love with you a second time, this time we get to try.” He squeezed Alex’s hand before adding, a little wryly, “And without the risk of either of us kicking off.”
Despite himself, Alex managed a light, shaky laugh. “Really captures the gravity of the situation.”
“I do my best,” Greg told him, before adding, “For you. Always for you.”
He didn’t remember it. But he knew it was true.
Alex took a deep breath, looking up at him. “I love you.”
Strange how much weight three little words could have.
Greg felt a small smile lift the corners of his mouth. “I know,” he told him. “C’mere.” Alex didn’t hesitate, stepping forward to let Greg fold him into a hug, ducking his chin to rest his head against Greg’s chest.
Alex fit perfectly in his arms. Just, Greg assumed, resting his chin on top of Alex's head, as he always had.
He wished he remembered it. He wished he still loved him.
He didn’t. Not yet. Knowing how Alex felt, hearing it said aloud – it didn’t change anything. It certainly didn’t change the possibility that he might never feel that way for Alex again.
But there was also a very real possibility that he could.
And for Greg, that was enough.
Alex’s phone vibrated loudly against the table and he grabbed it, casting a guilty look over his shoulder towards the closed bedroom door, but luckily, Rachel didn’t seem to have heard it. He glanced down at the phone and his guilt only increased when he saw GREG DAVIES across the screen.
He grabbed his phone and hurried to the sliding door, letting himself outside before finally answering. “Greg?”
“Hey,” Greg said, sounding tired. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” Alex said, shivering slightly even though it was the middle of summer. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither,” Greg said with a sigh, and Alex could picture him scrubbing a hand across his face. “Thought about downing half a bottle of whiskey, but then I remembered, nothing but water—”
“After midnight,” Alex finished for him, his own stomach letting out a sad little gurgle at the reminder. “Still, good to know that I rank just below alcohol in terms of your coping mechanisms.”
Greg let out a wry chuckle. “Dunno, I’d say about equal in terms of self-destruction,” he said, the joke, such as it was, hitting Alex like a punch in the gut. Evidently, Greg felt it too, since he hurried to add, “Sorry, bad joke.”
Alex forced himself to laugh. “If you start apologising for all your bad jokes, you really won’t get any sleep tonight.”
Greg barked a genuine laugh. “And that’s why I rang you,” he said fondly, and Alex raised both eyebrows, amused.
“So I could mock you?”
“So you could make me laugh,” Greg corrected, hesitating before adding, “And so I could hear your voice.”
Alex didn’t have anything to say to that, and his grip on his phone tightened. “Are you scared?” he asked quietly instead.
This time Greg didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” he said immediately. “God, yes. I am having brain surgery tomorrow, you realise.”
“I’m well aware,” Alex muttered, too aware of the reality that they both faced the next day.
“That’s terrifying in itself,” Greg told him. “And then—”
He broke off, and Alex frowned. “What?” he asked.
Greg sighed heavily, and Alex imagined him taking his glasses off so he could rub his eyes. “I’m scared I’ll forget you.”
“You won’t.”
The words were out of Alex’s mouth before he could stop them, something almost fierce that he didn’t recognise in his own tone, and he could hear Greg’s answering frown in his reply. “You don’t know that. There’s a one in four chance—”
“Up to,” Alex corrected.
Greg paused. “Sorry?”
“There’s up to a one in four chance.”
Greg barked another short, dry laugh. “What, have you been doing research?”
Alex shrugged, even though Greg couldn’t see him. “Yes,” he said honestly. Which he had been, mostly for himself, but he liked to think– no, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that even if he wasn’t facing the same surgery, he still would’ve done all the same research for Greg’s sake.
“Fucking hell,” Greg muttered. “Fine, up to a one in four chance. Still not fond of those odds.” Alex sighed, trying to think of a way to reassure Greg that he wouldn’t just counter with a joke, but before he could come up with anything, Greg told him, his voice low, “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and if I do anything to ruin this, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Alex’s chest felt suddenly two sizes too small, and he swallowed, hard. “There’s nothing you could do to ruin this,” he told him, meaning each word with every fibre of his being.
Mainly because Alex already had ruined this. By telling him to get the surgery. By scheduling his own surgery for the same day. By not telling him that he loved him when he’d had the chance.
It was the worst thing he’d ever done.
He had said as such to Rachel, when he’d finally told her. “I’m open to sharing you, if that’s what your concern is,” she had told him once he’d finished blurting it all out.
He shook his head. “It’s not,” he said, before pausing, screwing his face up before adding, “Well, it is, at least partially. It’s not fair to you, to ask that of you.”
“You’re not asking,” she told him. “I’m offering.”
Alex sighed. “I know. But it’s also not fair to him.” He reached for her hand, squeezing it. “Greg deserves this, or at least the chance for this, for everything you and I have. He deserves someone who loves him the way that he loves, with his whole heart.” He shook his head. “And no matter what I feel for him, I can’t give him that.”
Rachel studied him for a long moment. “Maybe that’s what he deserves,” she said finally. “But he loves you.”
“Thankfully that’s a curable condition,” Alex said. She didn’t laugh at the joke and he sighed again. “I just want him to be happy.”
She nodded. “Even if it’s not with you. Because you love him.”
“Yeah,” Alex said quietly. “I know it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done, but if there’s even an outside chance for him to find someone else…” He trailed off, seeing the look that crossed her face. “You think I’m wrong.”
Rachel shook her head. “No. Not wrong.” She gave him a look. “But I do think you’re an idiot.”
Despite himself, he managed a shaky laugh. “To be fair, you thought that before all this.”
She laughed as well, leaning in to kiss him. “Well, that is true,” she murmured, putting an end to the conversation.
“You always were the optimist between us,” Greg said, breaking his reverie, and Alex shook his head to clear it of the memory.
“I don’t know that I’d call it optimism,” he hedged.
Again he could hear the frown in Greg’s voice as he asked, “Then what would you call it?”
Alex paused as if considering it. “Refusal to accept reality, probably,” he said cheerfully, and was rewarded by another laugh from Greg.
“Well, one of us needs to, I suppose,” Greg said grudgingly. “If I do forget you, will you do me a favour?”
“Anything,” Alex said, and he meant it.
“Keep refusing to accept reality.”
Greg clearly was aiming for casual when he said it, but there was something too heavy, too truthful in the words, and Alex’s grip on his phone tightened. “How would you like me to do that?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Greg told him. “One of your twerpy little jokes that no one besides you finds funny.”
Alex half-smiled. “You find all my jokes funny,” he reminded him, unnecessarily.
Greg snorted. “I’m exceptionally biased,” he said dryly. “At least for the next twelve hours.”
Alex hummed. “Maybe I should send you flowers to remind you of your former bias.”
Greg barked a laugh. “Jesus, that’s fucking twisted.”
“I could send you forget-me-nots,” Alex suggested, his lips twitching.
“Fucking Christ,” Greg muttered, but he sounded almost delighted by the prospect, by another little joke, just for the two of them. “Please do. I could use a laugh.”
Alex’s smile, though, died on his lips. “But will you still find it funny if you forget me?”
He didn’t mean to voice the thought aloud, and Greg sighed heavily. “I don’t know.”
“Right,” Alex said softly.
“But I’d like to think I will,” Greg continued, with a confidence Alex hadn’t expected. “I know the odds, and I’m not– optimism’s not my strong suit, you know that.” Alex did, knowing all too well that Greg’s focus was always on the worst possible outcome. “But I can’t help but think that no matter what the outcome is, you and I are too…there’s too much between us. I’d at least like to think that there will be a part of me that will always know you. And I don’t think any surgery could take that away from us.”
He said it firmly, as if daring Alex to contradict him. Not that he had any plans to. In fact, there was only one thing he wanted to say to him. “Greg, I—”
But the words wouldn’t come out, every reason that Alex had for not telling him keeping them stuck in his throat.
“Yeah?” Greg prompted after a moment, and Alex coughed, ignoring the perpetual tickle of flower petals.
“I should let you get to sleep,” he said instead. “You have a big day tomorrow.”
Greg sighed tiredly. “Yeah, I do,” he agreed. He hesitated, and Alex held his breath, waiting for what else he might say. But in the end, all Greg told him was, “I’ll, er, I’ll see you on the other side, I guess.”
Alex exhaled heavily. “See you on the other side,” he said before ending the call and heading back inside to try to get some sleep himself, even if he doubted he would.
But talking to Greg had helped more than he had expected it to. Or maybe it was just a strangely comforting thought as Alex drifted off to sleep, that a part of Greg might always know him, that a part of him might always know Greg. He hadn’t the first clue if it was even possible, but he certainly liked to think it was.
Either way, at the very least, they would find out together.
And maybe in the end, that would be enough.