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They spent every single evening together for months, so much so that Q had become an intrinsic part of Sal's day, of his life, and he feels the loss keenly when he goes.
"I'm sick of the pity," Q told him a few weeks back, sat on Sal's couch with all the lights off, an eighties movie marathon on the TV.
"No one pities you," Sal dismissed. "It's concern."
"Fuck it," Q said. "I can't stand everyone looking at me like I'm broken."
"They give a shit," Sal shrugged. "We give a shit."
He could sense Q roll his eyes even though he couldn't really see him in this light. The huff, however, was clearly audible.
"I might just fuck off."
"No," Sal said, wanting to pause the movie but knowing instinctively it would spook Q, make him close right up like a spotlight had been shone on him. "You're doing me a favour. Who else would watch this shit with me?"
Q leaned his head back against the couch, running his fingers through his hair. "I want to go. Disappear. Just fucking check out for a bit."
Sal stared at him in the flickering light, eyes closed tight against the pain churning away inside him. Sal had heard a lot of things from Q lately, dark, scary thoughts spilling out of him, anger and vitriol spat forth, but this he didn't know what to do with. Q disappearing was what terrified Sal the most. He wanted to keep his friend from sliding into the abyss. Some days it was the only coherent thought he felt like he had.
Q sighed, opening his eyes, and Sal looked away, feeling as though he were intruding.
"I've been thinking a lot of existential bullshit lately," Q said, his tone full of disappointment in himself, as though it was unreasonable to do a little soul searching in his position. "I can't change all that shit. But I can change what people see."
"Lie?" Sal asked.
"Not really," Q dismissed. "Just let them believe something that's not quite true."
"You're not a burden," Sal said, hating how bluntly it came out.
"It's not about that," Q responded, shaking his head.
"So what's it about?" Sal asked.
"Being somewhere else," Q said. "Doing something. I don't know, man. I want to go. I want to be out of here. I've got that money from the fucking ring, I might as well do something with it."
"I'll come with you," Sal agreed. "I'll get time off work."
Q turned to look at him, meeting his eyes, the saddest little smile curving his lips. "That's not how this works."
Sal's stomach was tied in knots the whole time Q was planning his great European adventure. He told himself it was just a change of scenery, a chance for Q to clear his head and move on, but a little part of Sal was worried he was never coming back.
When the day came Sal was the one who took Q to the airport, fidgeting while Q checked in, trying to make small talk as they shared a drink at the airport bar, but the whole time he had this horrible sinking feeling. Every evening they'd spent together in the past few months, every night out in Staten Island, every cinema trip and meal out, every drunken night that left them staggering around looking for a cab, every night curled up in front of the TV in Sal's house, all of it had been Sal's attempt to save his friend from a bad guy far scarier than any video game. He wasn't entirely sure if they were winning, but he thought that if he could just be there, if they stuck together, they couldn't lose.
It always felt selfish for Sal to acknowledge his own powerlessness in the situation because he knew this wasn't about him, but all he wanted to do was make his friend feel better, to not lose him, and now it felt as though he was slipping through his fingers.
"Have fun," he offered as he hugged Q outside the security line, trying to look like he wasn't falling apart.
"I'm not going to have fun," Q responded, sounding almost bemused. Sal pulled back to look at him. "Let me tell you a secret," Q said, stepping aside from the flow through security. "I might need an accomplice here."
"Okay," Sal agreed, already trying to work out if he could buy a ticket to England on the spot, if work would understand if he just didn't turn up. This constituted an emergency, right?
"I wanted to engineer a storyline of some great adventure," Q said. "All that coming of age bullshit. Your typical young guy goes on a voyage of self-discovery. You know the trope."
"Right," Sal nodded.
"I don't have it in me," Q said, shaking his head. "I'm not fucking brave. I'm not even that good of a writer. But if I can make them believe it, if I can just get away from all those looks and all that pity... You know what I'm saying."
Sal frowned. He had no idea what Q was saying but he didn't like the sound of it. He didn't think distance was going to be the magic formula to heal Q and he didn't want him to find that out the hard way, so far from home and all on his own.
Q sagged. "Can I call you?" he asked. "When I'm not having fun. Will you keep it a secret?"
"If you're not going to have fun..." Sal began.
"Can I call you?" Q cut in firmly, giving him that look that meant don't fuck with me right now, I'm hanging by a thread. It was a look Sal had seen far too often lately. "Can you keep a secret?"
"Yeah," Sal agreed. "Of course. You know I got your back."
Q nodded and Sal could see the tension drain from him; the relief that comes with someone believing in you.
And so two weeks later here they are, thousands of miles apart but the pattern never changes. Q calls him at the end of every day, tired and usually miserable, but whenever anyone asks, Sal lets them believe that Q is having a wonderful adventure. He feels as though the two of them exist inside their own reality.
"What did you do today?" Sal asks. He's sprawled out on his sofa like he would be if Q were here but now the TV is on mute, a visual companion rather than something to fill the silences.
"Walked aimlessly around the city until my legs felt like they were going to give way, then I went to McDonalds, came back to the hotel and cried in the shower," Q responds in perfect monotone.
"Why are you eating at McDonalds when you're in Paris?" Sal asks.
"Because a Big Mac is the same in any language," Q tells him.
Sal laughs. "That's really pathetic, you know that?"
"Oh, I know," Q agrees. "But as far as everyone else is concerned..."
"You're leaving a trail of trashed hotel rooms and broken hearts, right?" Sal responds.
"That's right," Q says. "They all wish they were me."
There's no spark in Q's voice, not even the slightest hint of relief at having fooled everyone. They lapse into silence and Sal shuffles down the sofa so that he's staring at the ceiling, letting the flickering light of the TV play over him. He wonders for the millionth time what the real point of all this is. He understands the concept, but everyone believing Q is Superman won't stop him having to deal with the day-to-day realities of being Clark Kent.
"What time is it there?"
"Around two in the morning," Q responds.
"You should sleep," Sal tells him.
"I'd rather talk to you."
Q's voice is quiet, spoken directly into Sal's ear, and there's no escaping the intimacy of it. Physically he's further away from Q than he's ever been and yet he's right there, closer than ever. He imagines Q laid on a hotel bed, sleepy, dishevelled, alone. It's a sad image but one that calls to Sal. He aches to hold him in a way he never did when Q was right there next to him and now he curses all those missed chances.
"Tell me about your day, buddy," Q implores.
And so Sal talks, goes into stupid, minute details, because he knows that this helps, the simple act of someone being there, a distraction from Q's own head. He talks about the places he went and the people he saw, the things that he did and the meals that he ate, but he misses out all the times he missed Q, all the dull pains through his chest that came from being so far away, so helpless, an accomplice in something that might be a really fucking bad idea.
When he finishes there's nothing on the other end of the line but Q's breaths. Sal assumes he's fallen asleep and he closes his own eyes and just listens.
"I wish you were here," Q murmurs.
Sal squeezes his eyes shut tighter, wincing at the words, because that's exactly where he should be but he's a shitty best friend who let him do this all on his own.
"Should I get the next flight out?" Sal asks, trying to keep his tone light, but he knows he fails miserably.
"That'd be great, buddy," Q responds, and the sarcasm is lacking in his voice too.
Q has always been the guy most likely to dismiss his own success, the guy who truly believes he deserves it when bad shit happens to him. He's one of the smartest people Sal knows and yet he can never get the words out, trapped inside his own self-loathing. He's the guy who removes himself from a situation because he's so embarrassed by needing somebody, believing he's nothing but a pain in the ass, his self-worth pinned on what he takes rather than what he gives and he always feels like he takes too much.
"Are you tired?" Sal asks. He's not trying to get rid of Q, just trying to put it in context for both of them, because right now everything feels stripped bare and raw and a little bit dangerous.
"Not in the way sleeping fixes," Q responds.
"I'm sorry," Sal says, the words tumbling out before he's even registered them, and he holds his breath because this is exactly what Q went to the other side of the world to avoid. Pity.
"Me too," Q agrees, his voice filled with defeat.
Sal can't quite equate it with the man he knows. Q's always built barriers to protect himself and sometimes Sal thinks he doesn't even let himself inside, but now he feels laid bare in a way he never has when he was right there by Sal's side, the distance offering him a safety from the immediacy of Sal's, in Q's mind, inevitable rejection.
He pushes the thought away, concentrates on breathing in and out, on the trust that Q has in him, on the fact that they're still in this together. Fuck the distance.
"You're not the worst person in the world," he tells Q, because it's the kind of compliment he might just be able to stomach.
Sure enough, Q snorts a laugh. "Thanks, buddy," he says. "I think."
"Thanks is right," Sal tells him softly, his face stuck halfway between a smile and a frown.
He feels like they're balanced precariously on the edge of some kind of precipice and he doesn't know how to stop them falling over, doesn't know how to keep either one of them safe now. He slides his hand across his body, resting it on his waist, hugging himself, but it doesn't offer him the comfort he wants and he knows who he'd rather be holding right now. He bites his lip, closes his eyes, tells himself not to imagine it, but he's fighting a losing battle.
It's just a trick of the space between them, he tells himself. There's no distractions from each other, no movie or video game or noisy bar, just Q's voice in Sal's ear, making him lean in, making his fingers move slowly over his own side, catching on his T-shirt. He imagines Q on that hotel room bed and he can see it so clearly because he knows Q. He'll be lying on his stomach, legs sprawled apart, head turned to the side, hair still damp from the shower and soaking into the pillow in a way that makes Sal curl his lip in distaste. He'll be wearing boxer shorts, maybe a T-shirt, maybe not. He'll have the air-con on, the white noise like a security blanket, the coolness making him ready to crawl beneath the sheets but he won't move, won't have the energy. He'll have his phone pressed to his ear - fuck the roaming charges - and Sal's voice will be right there in his ear just like Q's is in his. So close, yet so far.
"I really would come there," Sal tells him. "I'd get on a plane, I'm not kidding."
"I know you would, buddy," Q responds tiredly.
"I'd do it," Sal insists. "I would, I—"
"I know," Q says more firmly, as though he can't bear to hear the end of that sentence. "That's why you're the one I call."
The words hit Sal in some deep down place, his fingers curling into a fist around the fabric of his T-shirt. He holds his breath, holds onto it until it comes out in a helpless shudder. It's because Sal feels things too deeply, because he takes his friends' pain on as his own; it's just empathy mixed with anxiety and immaturity. That's what he tells himself as he listens to the sound of Q shifting against the bed and tries not to imagine his body, tries not to wish himself into the picture.
He knows that in a heartbeat he could ruin this, all the years of history, all the trust Q has in him. They're best friends. That means everything to him. Nothing is worth fucking that up for. No amount of loneliness or hormones or deep, painful empathy can ever justify what his body wants him to do, what his mind is making him feel, the words that are on the tip of his tongue.
He thinks back to one of the worst days, when Q wouldn't come and see him, when Sal refused to let him be alone and made the choice to just fucking intrude. He went to Q's parents' house, smiled at Q's father as he let him in, but there was nothing behind it. They were both weighed down by the same painful turmoil that wasn't their own.
Q hated the fact that he'd ended up back in his parents' basement, saw it as the ultimate indignity on top of every other humiliation his life had turned into. Sal was glad he was there. If there was one thing he was sure of it was that Q would never do anything stupid so long as his mother was upstairs. That fact always gave Sal a certain sense of peace in the chaos that was caring about someone who was going through what Q was. And there was that selfishness again, making it about him.
As he came down the basement steps he saw Q sprawled out on his stomach on the pull out bed just like he imagines him now. He was wearing pyjama pants and a baggy T-shirt and Sal guessed he hadn't moved all day. Sal stood there, staring at his sad form. Q was facing away from him but somehow Sal could tell he knew he was there, announcing his presence seemed futile, and so he didn't. Instead he followed his instinct and he climbed onto the bed behind Q, the springs creaking beneath the thin mattress. He laid down by Q's side, sliding an arm over him, resting his cheek on Q's shoulder blade. Q took a deep breath, Sal's body moving up and then down with him as he released it, the tension draining from him.
They laid like that for a long time, just breathing and existing, the warmth from their bodies seeping into one another. Sal has never been very good at being quiet, but in that moment he knew that no words were going to help Q, but this just might. He remembers the heat from Q's body, remembers the way he smelt, musky and clearly unshowered for who knows how long, but it wasn't unpleasant. He remembers listening to his mother doing the washing up on the floor above them, remembers his father's footsteps and the sound of the TV filtering through.
"I'm hungry," Sal stated, the only thing it seemed acceptable to break the silence for.
"Me too," Q agreed.
Sal sat up, leaving his hand on Q's back for a moment longer, not wanting the disconnect to feel too abrupt. He scrolled through his phone for takeout numbers as Q sat up, facing him for the first time. His eyes were damp but the tentative smile on his face was real.
They ordered pizza and they watched a movie and it was like it never happened. The memory got misfiled somewhere along the way amongst everything else, and Sal didn't think of it again until just now. He imagines Q's body again, that hotel room in Paris, and he wonders if Q needs that kind of contact again, wonders if he could trust himself to do it. But Q is his best friend, Sal would do anything for him, even swallow his own feelings and choke on them.
"I should sleep," Q says, cutting through his thoughts.
"Yeah," Sal agrees.
"Yeah," Q repeats, sounding a little lost.
"Come home soon," Sal tells him. "We all miss you."
"Miss you too," Q responds, and he doesn't specifically mean Sal, he means all of them, but then Sal is the one he calls. Sal is the one he's talking to.
Sal shakes his head. "Sleep."
"Sleep," Q agrees.
When Q is better, Sal tells himself. When this is all water under the bridge. When they have some distance from the emotions and the desperation. When they're right there in front of each other. When the timing is right. Then he can let his brain dwell on this. Then he can sort through these feelings. Then he can work out if this is anything more than the flattery of being needed.
"Take care of yourself, bud," Sal tells him. "Go climb the Eifel Tower."
"Tourist shit," Q says.
"Right," Sal agrees. "Tourist shit. Do that."
"I'll take a photo for you," Q tells him.
"I'll put it in a frame," Sal responds.
Q snorts a laugh. "Night, Sally boy."
"Night, Q," Sal responds, hanging up the phone.
He stares up at the ceiling, the flickering light of the TV, and he ignores the fact that his hand has made its way down to his hip, is rubbing little circles. It doesn't mean anything. None of it means anything. Not until Q is back to being Q. Then all bets are off.