Work Text:
Did you know that when you get up early to make the best of the golden hour - or whatever else you nerd are doing outside at the asscrack of dawn - I pretend to be asleep just for the moment when you stop to look at me and touch a featherlight kiss to my cheek before you go off to the bathroom?
Did you know that your eyes are the color of the stormy sea when you are angry?
Did you know that 15 years later all my journal entries are still addressed to you?
The sheets smell like you.
And the shirts, I know you started to buy a size larger ages ago because I kept stealing them. It is silly, but I can’t stand not feeling close to you. It makes me feel cold. But everytime you press your nose into the softness under my jaw, fold into my side, hands tucked under my back, and sight the way you do - like an immense relief - I think you understand.
I never told you - and I don’t think I ever will - but although I of course don’t remember, I sometimes dream of things that did not happen. Mostly flashes. Feelings. Fleeting impressions. Rain on my face. The smell of wet earth. My ears ringing. Darkness. A train whistle and my panic turning to silence before the light consumes me. Pulling a trigger, my cheeks hurting from grinning, eyes on you instead of the target. The cold tiles of a bathroom floor. And sticky red. The smell of metal. And something sweet. Always those two.
It’s probably just imagination, something I conjured up from what little I could get out of you, from that distant look you sometimes get before reaching out for me almost desperately and cling so hard it leaves marks. But then you twist your fingers in the chain of my bullet necklace, eyes full of things ghosts and jaw clenched thigh, I think I might dream echoes of the past you undid for me.
I suppose I never once had to ask you if you love me.
But neither did you.
I know you never actually fall asleep before I am home.
You are too still, your shoulders always cramped, no matter how hard you pretend. I know it’s selfish of me but the fact that after all those years you still get anxious when I am out of your sight for too long overfills my already overflowing heart. I am sorry. For this. And for the marks I leave on your skin on such days but I can’t help myself. I love you so much, it makes me want to cry. I fear one day it will drive me insane and I will eat you whole just so I can have all of you to myself forever.
It scares me that you might actually let me.
And it makes me want you more.
Even when you drive me nuts.
I know you feel the same. Especially when you leave long scratches down my back. A punishment and a plea. You will never let me go and I would never forgive you if you did.
I am serious.
It better be fucking forever, Price, because you are never getting your stupid surname back. It is as long as I live and after that I will haunt your ass because there is no such thing as ‘until death does us part’ with us. There never was.
The prize money for the sculpture came in yesterday. I haven’t told you yet because I am going to buy tickets to LA with it. I know it always bothered you that I couldn’t bear to go, even if you would never say - you never say great many things.
It’s time.
I think I can let it go now. And I want you to be there with me for it. Your hand in mine, a life full of adventure ahead of us. Like always.
I suppose I should also buy more polaroid film for all the pictures you will inevitably take.
By the way, did you know they released a newer and shittier version of that old camera you love so much? I am sorely tempted to buy it for your b.day just so I can watch you sit there with a carefully neutral expression and pretend you are not contemplating if all this was really worth it just to keep me, before I give you your real gift and you forget about the weight you are carrying for about 2 seconds.
I hope one day you will be able to set it down. I hope we both will be.
And meanwhile I will just make fun of you for the polaroid of me I found in bed today, you utter creep. Of course the only sensible thing left to me in such a situation was to take another - more fun - pic and sneak both of them into your wallet while you were packing your 500 lenses so you are welcome for your now exciting and much improved trip to the coffee shop ❤️
Did you know I miss you every day when we are off to work?
I know we are never truly apart but I miss you all the same.
My partner in time.
My heart.
My Max.