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The sound of guitar drifts peacefully through The Ark’s London apartment. It’s a damp, rainy day, nothing exciting happening on their day off, except for Rowan’s sister Jade being in the city. That took him out of the apartment, leaving Jimmy and Lister alone together.
They’re sitting on the living room floor, Lister with his back against the couch and Jimmy off to the side, fiddling with his guitar. Their tea is long forgotten, and they’re in pajamas still, despite it being the late afternoon. Lister has taken to silently watching Jimmy, enjoying the way his eyebrows furrow while he writes and the way they soften while he plays. Lister has always thought that Jimmy plays guitar like a god, however there’s something intimate about the way he gets to see the process. The quick scribbles of chord progressions in his notebook, then hearing them be turned to life. It’s… magical.
He doesn’t feel wrong for staring– gazing at Jimmy anymore. After The Kent Incident That We Sometimes Talk About, Lister was determined to stop being a weirdo creep and get over his tiny crush on Jimmy. However, it turns out that without the numbness of alcohol his feelings were even stronger, especially once Jimmy started sleeping in his bed. It was just to help with the insomnia, they had both said. And it helped. Once the sleeping in the same bed turned into sleeping in each other, Lister’s feelings had been thrown into a blender to create a casserole. What was it, love? Lust? Guilt? He didn’t know. Then the fighting began, where denied feelings turned into arguments and excuses to push each other away. Until one day, they were shouting so much at each other that The Feelings came out. For the first time in months, they actually talked. His best friend/bandmate/roommate/situationship added on a new title, boyfriend. Now that was magical.
Now, the comfortable atmosphere of the living room lulls Lister’s eyes to close, listening to the guitar, until a new sound makes him open them again. Jimmy has started softly humming a song that Lister has never heard. He knows every song that Jimmy plays, every song on the radio, on Rowan’s records, on his social media, and every song of theirs. This was not one of them.
The humming stops while Jimmy returns to his pencil and paper, his eyebrows close together again. “What’re you playing?” Lister’s curiosity gets the better of him.
“...just an idea,” Jimmy mumbles after a moment, once his pencil is down.
“What kind of idea?”
“A song idea,” Jimmy smiles and grabs his guitar again, idly strumming while he looks at his boyfriend.
“Are there lyrics?”
“You are full of questions today.”
“You didn’t answer that one,” Lister raises his eyebrows, smiling.
“...There may be lyric ideas.”
Lister practically bounces at this. He dramatically gasps, “Show me,” he smiles wider now, and when the faint ghost of a blush appears on Jimmy’s face, he knows he’s hit a pot of gold.
“It’s not done,” Jimmy pouts. “It’ll sound weird.”
“Nothing you write sounds weird.”
“Ugh, you’re hard to shake off,” Jimmy’s smiling again. Lister loves his smile. He gives Jimmy a look, and the other rolls his eyes. “...this may be a song about a certain someone.”
“I hope you mean me, or this is about to be really awkward,” he grins, but internally wants to scream into a pillow.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Unfortunately! I’ll have you know that I am an incredible muse,” says the muse, developing a blush to match the writer.
Jimmy just clicks his tongue and continues to strum his guitar.
“Play the song, Jimmy.”
“Ugh, fine, but you have to promise to not make fun of me.”
That’s not something that Lister would usually promise, but the look on Jimmy’s face tells him it's serious. “I promise!” Jimmy sighs, then after a moment reaches his pinky out to Lister. He has to awkwardly stretch his body in order to reach the pinky extended to him, but he does, and they shake on it. The childish act makes them both grin.
Jimmy returns to his guitar and pretends to be tuning it, making sure everything is just right for Lister. He makes a big deal of warming up his voice, making the older boy laugh. He smiles softly, and begins to play the song.
It’s almost like Jimmy has given the guitar a life of its own. He’s gently nodding along to the strumming pattern, his fingers gently creating a melody that Lister will hear in his mind over and over and over again for the rest of his life. Then, Jimmy opens his mouth.
“Darlin’, I will give up everything,” his voice is soft, nothing like when they’re performing. “Who I’ll be and who I am, you can have it all,” His eyes are trained on the guitar. “Baby, you could start a cult, you see, anywhere you go, I’ll be, you are so much more than beautiful to me,” he has a smile to match the gentle tone of his voice.
Lister has decided that he is long gone. With one verse, Jimmy has knocked all of the air out of his lungs, and his heartbeat is like he’s had ten energy drinks. Jimmy does that to Lister. He doesn’t try to hide the look on his face, the pure adoration of the man in front of him, because that man is refusing to look up from his guitar while he plays. There’s a joint acknowledgement that someone has turned the thermostat up too much, because their faces are red enough to match it.
The chorus begins, “Oh I’ll follow you ‘till there’s no tomorrow, I’ll follow you ‘till there’s no tomorrow,” the song carries through the room now, with more confidence. “I’ll follow you ‘till there’s no tomorrow, I’ll follow you…”
This is not the first time Lister thinks of the word love, but it is definitely the time it hits him the most. He was 16 the first time he associated the word with Jimmy, thinking that’s what it was. How stupid he had been. Love was not the way that Lister wanted to kiss Jimmy, or to be the one that the fans shipped him with. Love, Lister knows now, is the way his body relaxes when Jimmy’s in the room. The way that he looks for him first in a crowd, how Jimmy’s eyes crinkle when he laughs, sneaking into each other's beds, the words they whisper in the dark only for each other. Love is what Lister feels now, admiring the way Jimmy’s voice glides through the room, reaching through his whole body and making him want to throw up. Lovesick, he thinks.
“Swear you, you could start a war or two, kingdoms fightin’ over you, to wake up by your side is all I wanna do…”
He doesn’t remember when his name went from Lister Bird to Lister Bird, sex symbol. He does remember feeling ashamed for things he never did, for sleeping with people he’d never met or “dating” a new girl every week, causing outrage in the media. Once he came to terms with the shit show that is his life, Lister was able to debunk it. He is not a druggie bisexual slut. He has worth. His best friends and family help him to see that, even if they couldn’t before. Now his boyfriend is serenading him, telling him the same thing. Love.
The chorus repeats, then Jimmy hums the tune instead of singing. It reminds him of when he was a kid, before his mum worked multiple jobs to keep them off the streets. She would sing him to sleep. Maybe that’s why he felt drawn to music. It feels like home. I love you.
“Baby, you could start a cult, you see, they will say that we’re crazy,” Jimmy finally looks up and looks directly at him, “But you are so much more than beautiful to me,” he ends it softly, trailing his words and gently strumming until… silence.
I love you I love you I love you I-
“I love you,” Lister blurts out.
Jimmy’s eyes widen slightly, causing his eyebrows to soften again. His mouth forms an “oh” shape, but nothing comes out. He takes a deep breath, eyes flickering with emotion as he exhales, and sets his guitar aside ever so gently. He fiddles with his fingers and looks at Lister with a soft smile. “...I love you, too.”
Lister has imagined this scene hundreds of times. In the shower, on long flights, before bed, in dreams, those three little words have haunted him. He’s always pictured some dramatic scene, maybe in the rain, where Jimmy confesses his undying love for him first so that Lister doesn’t have to get rejected. They hug, then kiss, and live happily ever after. He never imagined that it would happen when he’s been half-asleep all day, in boxers and a hoodie, in the quiet of their apartment. He never thought he’d be brave enough to say it first. He never thought the words would be enchanting.
He lets out a relieved laugh and so does Jimmy. Runs a hand through his hair and laughs again. “I never imagined it like this,” he confesses to Jimmy, because the other boy can read his mind anyway.
Jimmy just smiles, and Lister is so happy that he can’t help but practically leap at Jimmy, tackling him to the floor. They’re a heap of laughs and smiles, Lister holding himself up above Jimmy from his hands, loosely pinning him beneath him. The laughs die down, replaced with smiles and tender looks. Lister is sure he’s seen this expression on Jimmy’s face before, but now he knows what it means. ‘Can I kiss you?” He asks, grinning.
“We’re in love, I don’t think you have to ask anymore,” Jimmy teases, but can’t say anything after that because his mouth is covered by Lister’s.
The kiss is soft yet deep, emotions pouring into it like the song. Jimmy cups Lister’s face with one hand and the other wraps around his back. Lister’s hands are in his hair, gentle, but more persistent as the kiss lengthens. A soft noise comes from one of them, probably Jimmy, craving more and more. From hooking up to dating, they know what the other responds to and enjoys. Knowing Jimmy’s body language is like knowing a secret language just for him.
Lister moves his kiss to the corner of Jimmy’s mouth, smiling, and begins to kiss all around the boy’s face. “I love you,” he mutters before kissing his nose. Says it again before kissing his cheek. The crinkles by his eyes. The freckles on his forehead. Jimmy’s face scrunches up in a smile, holding Lister as close as possible.
“I love you, too,” Jimmy grins and connects their lips once more.
After many, many kisses and smiles, they eventually migrate to the couch. Jimmy’s head is on Lister's shoulder, hands intertwined. Lister has always admired the way their hands fit together, the contrast of their skin, the feeling of connection. Jimmy has explicitly mentioned this a lot.
“So, did you like the song?” Jimmy finally asks, grinning.
Lister laughs. “I loved it a lot. It made me feel…” he trails off. Jimmy’s gaze softens, understanding. Always understanding. “It was beautiful. You’re beautiful,” he finally decides, looking at his boyfriend.
The look in Jimmy’s eyes tells him everything he needs to know. It’s a look he’s only seen a handful of times but couldn’t identify, despite the fact that he feels he knows all of Jimmy’s emotions just from his eyes. Those big, brown eyes, so expressive and defining of Lister’s whole world. This look, where his eyes only slightly crinkle, are slightly widened, and slightly sparkly. This is Jimmy’s look of love, directly solely at Lister.
“I love you,” Jimmy says, so delicately and deliberately, the first time he says it first.
“I love you, too.”