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It’s late when he gets his call. It might be considered as early in the morning at this point, actually, but Andy wouldn’t know. It’s been a long time since he has stopped looking at the little numbers of the oven clock. Their small, flashing green lights are like little beacons in the darkness of the room, but there is nothing comforting about it. Midnight, one o’clock, one twenty-five… Twenty-six past one… Twenty-seven past one… and suddenly it was half past two and Andy had no recollection of the time that had just passed, so he stopped caring.
With slow gestures, he reaches out for the phone that's sitting on the dining table, screen flashing intermittently. His eyes take a few seconds to adjust to the sudden brightness, and to focus on the name displayed on the screen. This time, he presses the green button, accepting a call for the first time in hours. He brings the phone to his ear, and the sound of his voice makes him release a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He doesn’t even hear the words at first, but when the voice on the other end of the line takes on a worried tone he snaps out of his daze.
- ... saw you called me six times in a row! Are you alright?
Andy doesn’t answer. His voice is stuck in his throat, which feels scratchy and dry. Is he alright?
- Seriously, hey, you’re kinda scaring me here. Did something happen?
A pause, like he’s trying to weigh in the situation from out there in L.A.
- Or are you still mad at me because I forgot to do the dishes before leaving? It was two weeks ago, babe, can’t hold a grudge against me this long, come on.
His voice is lighthearted, despite the tiredness coming through. He’s trying to make him laugh, to dissolve that tension he can feel even from kilometers away, even after hours and hours of work. Andy can’t help but feel a little guilty that he’s going to reduce his efforts to nothing, that he will have to bring up bad news and make this hint of a tentative smile disappear from his partner’s face.
- I’m sorry, you know Greg forces me to turn my phone off when I’m with him in the studio. He still complains about that day I spent texting you instead of working with him, can you believe this? And we were working on a song and I forgot to check my phone and when I got out of there I noticed the missed calls and…
Andy knows he should say something, now. When Mika starts rambling it’s never a good sign, especially when he’s faced with a situation he doesn’t understand. So he tells him.
He tells him his dad passed away in his sleep, in his house on that Greek island he loves so much. Unexpectedly.
He tells him about the surprise, the confusion, that came first and fogged his mind until he couldn’t hear any of the words that were being spoken on the other end of the phone. All of this feels like déjà-vu, except his mind is clearer now, almost throbbing with the information he had to accept hours ago. That nagging thought that he doesn’t want to acknowledge completely yet.
He tells him that his dad wouldn’t have wanted this. That he should have had more time. That he deserved more mornings to watch the sun rise, sprinkling colors and shimmers over the sea. More days spent fishing, watching his sons play football when they came over, drinking coffee with his neighbors. More of this quiet life that he deserved, that he had earned after all those years.
He tells him about that feeling of helplessness that’s seizing his chest right now. About his mother crying on the phone this morning. About the void that suddenly opened up before him when he was brutally reminded that death doesn’t only happen to other people.
Or maybe he doesn’t tell him any of this, maybe the words are too heavy to get past the roof of his mouth, the lump in his throat. But when Mika talks again his voice is soft and concerned, and Andy somehow knows he understood both what he said and what he did not. Then, after a few words that feel like fingers gently intertwining with his, he can hear Mika say:
- I’m coming here, alright?
An unexpected sob rises in Andy’s chest at those words. He repels it, forces the pang of anguish and sheer relief mixed together to recede inside of him.
Mika doesn’t wait for an answer, tells him he loves him and that he’s going to board a plane to London immediately. Even though he wants nothing more than to stay on the phone with him, Andy is the one who hangs up. It’s only a matter of time before Mika passes the door, now, he tells himself. Soon he won’t be alone with his grief and uncertainty and the green glow of the oven documenting the time passing, with the silence of the house wrapped around him like a blanket. Soon everything will look clearer, and he will know what to do.
Andy stares at the phone that is now back on the table, sitting here with its screen turned to black, but the small notification LED blinking furiously to remind him that he still has several texts and missed calls waiting for him. He ignores it, not exactly eager to communicate with anyone right now, be they family or close friends wanting to cry on his shoulder or express their condolences.
Andy narrows his eyes, suddenly remembering Mika’s words.
Did he really call him six times? He doesn’t remember looking for his name in his contacts, nor pressing the “call” button, not that many times anyway.
After a minute of trying to recollect his memories, to no avail, he gets up and goes to the window. He lights up yet another cigarette, in an attempt to slow down the painful pounding of his heart against his ribs, get rid of the tears sneaking to his eyes.
With heavy eyes and a burning chest, he looks up at the empty sky slowly turning to a lighter shade of blue, and steels himself for a long, sleepless wait.
He finds that he can sleep, after all, when he opens his eyes a few hours later and realizes he’s fallen unconscious on the sofa at some point. He can’t really remember having dreamt of anything, but if he did, it's probably a good thing he forgot.
The sun is shining now, or rather, trying to shine through the heavy gray sky of London. The room is shrouded in an almost ghostly glow.
The day passes slowly. Andy paces around the house, goes from room to room aimlessly, straightens up the books on the shelves. He's not the type to start cleaning obsessively when things get rough, usually tends to deal with his problems through sport or exercise, but this time he has no desire to leave the house. He’s waiting.
When the sun starts coming down, slipping below the outlines of the buildings he can see from his spot on the couch, Andy can’t take it anymore. He’s feeling restless, almost jittery, as if every muscle in his body is begging him to move. He runs a hand across his face for the umpteenth time this day and gets up from the couch, and that’s when he hears the door open.
It’s almost like an electric shock and he stands here, stupidly frozen in place, listening to the sound of footsteps, until a pair of brown eyes lock with his own from the other side of the room. Andy utters some kind of greeting but doesn’t have the time to finish his sentence, suddenly wrapped in a tight embrace that feels more like home than the house he'd been in the whole day. Andy gives up on trying to talk and hugs his partner back, burying his face in his neck and just holding onto him.
He smells like smoke and cold ashes but Mika doesn’t say anything, even though he usually does complain about this particular scent. He holds him in his arms, and wills his body to infuse comfort into him, hopes the warmth and strength of his embrace will be enough. And if he must stand here like this until his arms and legs become numb, if this is what Andy needs, then so be it. If Mika spent ten hours in a plane to get here, it’s because it is exactly where he needs to be.