Chapter Text
Verse 1.
Fall, 2017
Redundancy lied in where the beginning was spoken of — but this was where it truly started.
In the irony of a night’s dawn.
More often than not, most nights like these stayed the same, just like the last. It’s all darkness, and only artificial light emitted revealed secrets to those who sought. As if wanting a blanket to warm you up instead of doing something about that air conditioner.
In this darkness, however, there were some that found comfort in it.
Entertaining themselves, perhaps, with the sound of music in their ears. Maybe with the visuals of a movie here and there. It’s all relative.
What mattered was the occurring moment, hugged by friendly shadows, and endowed not by money, but by the lasting delight of spending quality time with those we hold dear in our hearts.
It’s all so pleasant, blooming in their chests and luring all the butterflies in their stomachs to their hearts through unfeigned interest. Enamored by the little things that make all the difference — and away from the flamboyance of things that demanded the most attention.
Here they were, basking in the muted bliss of a selected blackout — in Nathan’s apartment, with the lights off, except for his TV and one that's dangling above the table in the kitchen, because he was the one “ill-equipped” with all the latest technology.
This arrangement, however, wasn’t out of obligation. He himself volunteered to host his and Warren’s usual movie marathons. Not that they always agreed with what to watch. They've had their fair share of nearly biting each other’s heads off after raising their voices at each other, inadvertently pitting themselves against one another.
Warren had never condoned taking any of Nathan’s bullshit — always made sure Nathan was put in his rightful place, right back down to earth and not over his head; and Nathan had always fed into Warren’s little demon of spontaneity to get him away from meticulous planning — lifting him up to be more daring and bold and unafraid.
Alas, they’ve come to an impasse, one about taking turns. Tonight happened to be Nathan’s time in being responsible for them both, meaning, he got to choose the movies. A protest didn’t come from Warren’s end, because he wanted to watch what Nathan picked anyway, so that was a bother avoided altogether.
And here they found themselves.
There’s no dialogue — at least, nobody’s outright saying anything — for the first set of movies they’ve decided on consuming. Whether it was the nostalgia of it all that bound them, or the sound of their own voices reciting their favorite lines — there were knowing gazes, conscious stares, and an innate sense of awareness in every moment with quiet eyes.
They said that fiction was a mirror image of reality; a perception of it from a lens, or through various mediums which helped us reflect. Sometimes, the absurdity in its themes and events were purely for entertainment. Sometimes, it’s a vessel for unraveling realities that we otherwise cannot comprehend with naked eyes and closed minds.
Honestly speaking, Nathan had no direct answer to that, but he couldn’t be bothered to be all philosophical at the moment.
He liked movies, and Warren invited him to watch some. It’s that simple.
A simple man was what he was, after all.
Thousands of words making up hundreds of running thoughts, but Nathan found it both funny and a bit strange how everything that formed his head as of now were feelings of settlement.
With a friend by his side. Watching silent films. The classics.
…With Warren by his side. Watching movies. A classic.
It scared him a little, if he had even the slightest bit of respect for himself to admit that.
…In a way he couldn’t quite find the words to explain.
But it was because…
...because…
Guess what? Nathan had no idea why he was scared. It's on the tip of his tongue — so close — but it's like his taste buds around that area were burnt off, and needed to heal first before anything.
Now, exaggerated expressions on Warren’s face paired seamlessly with the near-comical recitation of written yet unspoken lines. Nathan’s gaze couldn’t help but linger, enticed by Warren’s seemingly gracious nature in wonder.
Like a moth to a flame.
Wasn’t that line already overused these days, though?
So… maybe the better method of expression was…
Well. Nathan had yet the words for that.
But he couldn’t deny that the enthusiasm in Warren’s voice and the spark in his eyes gave Nathan that… that push, or encouragement to follow along — to wear being a silly fool on his sleeve like a proud memento.
Even if he really didn’t want to, or a side of his brain thought it’s absurd and Nathan would be insane if he joined in on this “fuckery”—
Well, you know. Nathan said to just fuck it. It’s fun. It hurt Nathan’s lip every time he bit back a smile that’s getting too carried away for his own liking.
Warren just had that effect on him, of course, even if his gestures were the simplest of everything, because… well… complex systems consisted of simple mechanisms, or something. It’s easier to comprehend complicated things when they’re dissected right down to their individual parts; and figuring out their role in the entirety of the process just got more clear-cut.
And Warren, ever the genius that he was, perceptive as always, just knew.
He knew that Nathan was a simple man, with simple needs and wants.
And Nathan fell for it — hook, line, and sinker.
Maybe it was just a trick of the eye. A fluke. A thought conjuring in Nathan’s head, and his subconscious believed it enough that it felt true. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it. There wasn’t anything to overthink.
But if that’s so…
Why did Nathan catch Warren looking his way?
Why did Warren’s eyes meet with Nathan’s?
This time, when it happened, they didn't try to avoid it, or avert their gazes.
Like the South and North poles of two magnets, zeroing in on the proximity that was already near nonexistent.
They stayed there — locked and unmoving.
Their rushed heartbeats rising louder with the phantom cues of an orchestra.
Chorus A.
Fall, 2015
“Hey.”
A single earbud came loose from Nathan’s ear, nestled in the flesh of his cold fingers. Thoughts in his head met an abrupt halt as if the train he boarded screeched from the friction of metal underneath. “What?”
“Can I sit here?”
Here was the vacant seat beside Nathan.
A shrug — nonchalant, attended with the air of a sigh — was the response.
Through the comfort of Nathan’s music, the stranger’s voice strayed unwelcomed, but heard anyway.
“So… I’m Warren, and… you are?”
Verse 2.
The staring became… too much.
Too much for Nathan, definitely — and the case being the same for Warren was undeniable.
Back to the movie now, it seemed. Because that’s what they were supposed to be doing.
But then there was that… that feeling again. That one — all about moths and their instinctual attraction to an open flame.
Nathan still couldn’t find better words for it… but he thought he might need them soon.
His mind fell upon the weird thought of his fingers always being cold. The pursuit of a distraction could’ve been the reason why this thought surfaced — but long after he’s grown well into his mid-20s, that bit still had no significant difference to it. Might damn well be embedded into his system, for however his body worked.
He didn’t hate it, though. Not particularly. Sometimes, it was even intentional, because there was just something about wetting his hands and letting the air cool his skin that he kept coming back to it. Kept doing it.
Maybe there was something wrong — off about him. Maybe he just needed to keep it to himself because what nobody knew couldn’t hurt no one.
Call him however was deemed to be satisfactory, but to him, it was so fascinating how close human bodies were to appearing like corpses. Skin pale in cold places, turning blue at the edges, strangely mirroring the inevitable fate of the last life stages. A reminder, perhaps, of death, and how it’s tied to life, and how it’s nothing to be afraid of. Something was oddly grounding about it, his own hands appearing as though life was snuffed out of them when he clearly was still alive.
Morticians always masked the true veneer of dead bodies — skins pale and cold under their touch — filling them up with they only knew what, to give them the appearance of life. That’s their job; to make cadavers resemble that of living, breathing humans, as if they were just put to a deep sleep. It’s why people get embalmed.
Morbidly… Nathan relished in the comfort of his belief that his body, and everyone else’s, would look and feel the same, alive or otherwise, at the right instance, for a set period of time. That… “Instead of life mirroring death, it’s the other way around; death mirroring life,” so said a former friend of his — and he wouldn’t be able to forget that, no matter how hard he tried.
Admittedly… he liked the look of his skin in cold places, decorated by blood red arteries that littered and dominated his blue-green veins — like an abstract painting, with his pale complexion as the canvas.
Wary, as he was, of the fact that his hands lacked perfection. Slender and smooth, like the snow-powdered branches of a tree in winter. Jagged on the outlines, and weak with their grips. Fine hairs adorned their backs, adding significant texture, like a bird’s eye view of a hundred footsteps in the aftermath of a snowstorm. Dark browns and reds scarred his knuckles from both intentional and unintentional catalysts, in those days of inexplicable dullness or simple human errors.
But he didn’t wander further into that thought, and merely clung onto reveling in the times when it did look worth it to take a peek.
They were never perfect to begin with.
Those thoughts, if Nathan’s honest, had only truly dawned on him whenever he snuck a glimpse of Warren’s hands, depending on the means he did. They were so unlike his own — rough, to the point of feeling solid; dry, to the extent that his skin almost cracked like the scales of a fish in certain areas, explaining his excessive use of hand creams or lotions; distinct, especially his right hand, marked by a prominent callous on the left side of his right middle finger, just beside the joint below his fingernail.
Nathan didn’t know the true intent of these thoughts, whether they stood for a definite purpose or not — but he had to go back to point out a small, seemingly unimportant detail.
They were warm. Not just at chosen times — always.
How was it that Nathan knew of this?
Here. He’d show it.
His focus rewired — from the movie in front, to the person beside him — he held out his left hand. Extended his fingers not by a lot that the tips still curled inward at the middle joints.
Warren noticed the action, and his focus relocated to abide by Nathan’s wordless request.
Like the threads in a loom tightly weaving together — he laced his fingers through the spaces between Nathan’s own.
They were still warm. Always — not just at chosen times.
Nathan still didn’t know why, but he never bothered to ask.
The shadow of their two hands drew an outline — casting it on the wall.
It’s funny. It’s not laughable, but it was funny because the events in movies weren’t always too far off from real-life scenarios.
Their hands, joined like this? It was as if they were enacting the scene in the very movie they’re watching.
The very movie Nathan chose, and Warren approved of.
Elegance… well. By definition — “refined grace and suggested maturity.” Nathan might’ve considered it, at some point, that there was nothing elegant about the act at all. Just a silent ask was all it was — not forced nor desired with absolution, unlike a requisition — and all it ever would be.
Nathan swallowed. Strange as it was, that it felt thick in his throat — like trying to down frozen honey whole — as he wiggled his fingers, winding them tighter between Warren’s own.
Warren made no move to untangle his fingers from Nathan’s, or to voice out a complaint.
Overwhelming, as it unfolded — but the lump in Nathan’s windpipe slowly peeled away at the perturbation that was within inches of consuming him completely.
At times, what we ruminate in our heads — pricking and prodding the walls of our wildest imaginations — fall flat at the sheer power of unpredictability. At the factors influencing the outcome, bringing forth the unexpected — a token that said that nothing would ever truly be in our control. That everything was permitted because nothing was true.
But perhaps that’s precisely why it was elegant. A graceful greeting met with a languid, but careful progression of maturity. Implicitly asking to hold hands was, in and of itself, not that awkward or uncomfortable, just something that was ingrained into their minds, like muscle memory, signifying that the time they spent in each other’s presence wasn’t sand merely blown off into the winds, but more akin to the sands of time, recollecting minute upon minute of memories with every flip of the hourglass.
Some—fear—thing lodged itself in Nathan’s throat.
He swallowed it down.
Now, speaking of languid…
Nathan made a move to stand, tugging at Warren’s hand in the process. Every movement Nathan initiated — Warren tailed after. Meticulous, deliberate, lingering motions, going to the ballroom inside Nathan’s spacey living room, crafted through improvisation.
Warren was oblivious to Nathan’s wants in the spur of the moment, that much Nathan was aware of, evident in the way Warren began tensing at Nathan’s hold. The frantic flicking of his eyes from one vague direction to the next, the growing warmth of his hand seemingly dampening both their skins at where their palms converged and their fingers rested, the soft sound of his shallow breaths getting caught in the way his chest expanded and contracted—
Somehow, it reflected Nathan's anxiety all too well.
He might not be as perceptive as Warren, but… he knew it, too.
This was undiscovered territory to them both.
But even with his right hand twitching, he guided Warren's free arm to his waist, and the feeling was unreal. Unruly. Unbecoming.
But again, with his right hand to Warren's shoulder — a quiet attempt at recalibration — he got back his attention. Just a quick squeeze, nothing more. Perhaps even the weight of it got Warren to look.
And bore his eyes into Nathan's did he just do so.
Lifting their hands — the ones entwined, wound like a braid, touching so graciously, but somewhat bursting in flames — until they were leveled to their ears, it was when Nathan instigated, and Warren assented.
The movie was still running in the background, forgotten, but knowingly played soft tunes slow enough to the perfect pace.
Thus, began the waltz.
Maybe it was just in the heat of the moment. A happenstance, stemming from the intrinsic sense to scoot closer.
And closer.
Nothing short of just… being brought on by the waves — by the sway of their bodies to jazz tunes, like water lapping at the air at night.
But if that’s so…
Why did Nathan wrap his arm around Warren's shoulders, ushering him to shift nearer?
Why did Warren coil his palms around Nathan’s waist after a few seconds?
Strange, this was. Queerly stranger than anything that has ever happened in both their lives.
So, what was the reason?
Why?
Why did Nathan feel inclined to press his lips to Warren’s?
A question hung in the air: Nathan asking for verbal consent on Warren's part.
But what was the reason?
Why did Warren say yes to Nathan kissing him?
What was the reason for encountering the swelling of a phantasmal orchestra when their mouths met?
Waves, it was the most similar to — crashing upon the shoreline, foaming like the incoming clouds of the following morning.
This time, when it happened, they didn't pull away. Neither of them tried.
Like the South and North poles of two magnets finally zeroed in on the proximity that was already near nonexistent.
They stayed there — locked, but unraveled — ensnared by desire, answered wishes, a want, and a need.
Rising louder now, until they’re under sheets.
This was not in the plan.
This was completely derailed — off the rails, if that was the better phrase for this case of craze.
Not that it actually mattered, because Nathan had never planned for this to happen.
His breaths were shaky, probably loud and lagging behind in the quiet of the room that he couldn’t quite catch them — couldn’t calm down fast enough.
Not like Nathan ever expected Warren to kiss him back.
Certainly not this.
This — Warren beside him, sleeping soundly, tucked under the very sheets they spent the night in. The very bed that Nathan dreaded laying in, for the nights it felt far too lonely to fill in.
Of course, there was no doubt about how he didn’t expect this at all.
Definitely did not anticipate them both being very, very naked, either.
...Fuck, this was bad.
Really, really bad. Fucking awful.
It was just supposed to be a — a dumb session of hand holding. Point blank. Nothing else. They did it all the time. There was nothing new about it. None at all.
They’re just friends, what was Nathan thinking?
In entirety, including the other instances that they clung onto each other’s hands, they mostly never progressed into something… more. One thing that led into another. Nothing like that.
Until now, that was.
They’re just friends, and Nathan wasn’t thinking.
Warren mumbled something, the words indiscernible from his indisputable slumber.
…Shit. This was downright, thoroughly fucked, indeed.
Warren was so, so fucking gorgeous — looking so goddamn tranquil, undisturbed by outside forces equipped with ill intentions — that Nathan couldn’t deny just how undeserving he was of this moment.
How undeserving he was of Warren.
The same one who stirred up their first conversation on their first meeting on that train back home.
The same one who Nathan got into frequent, thick-witted fights with about what movie to watch next, or whose playlist to blast on the speakers second.
The same one who tolerated Nathan’s inability to put his thoughts into words, by finding them himself — or doing them himself so that Nathan could visualize properly.
The same one who—
Nathan pressed his palm to his forehead, as if there was an impression of a hangover that bitterly hit too close home.
Moths fluttered in his belly, rejoicing in their ability to fly, even through the blackness of his insides — his heart.
But they could only endure so much shadow before they tried begging for light.
Better words for it, huh? Nathan thought he needed them. But what's a better way to reformulate the idiom, “a moth to a flame”?
…Something so readily seduced by what was so destructive?
Did moths even know they were fires? That their “light” was akin to scorching those that came into contact with them?
Did they even know how damning it was to burn, or were they too tempted by the blazing beauty that it was almost impossible to turn away?
Was their craving for light through the never ending darkness responsible for their imminent maiming?
Nathan stayed there — locked and unmoving. His heart thundered in his ears, but Warren’s slow breaths pierced through the roaring, anyway.
Because he just had that effect on Nathan.
And so, Nathan fell — hook, line, and sinker.
...This was a mistake.
There was Warren’s hand, carelessly resting on his bare chest, rising and falling with every cycle of timed, soothed breaths. The same one Nathan held onto last night — as if it were his own, most precious property.
He shifted to his side, feeling the weight of his torso on his right forearm, along with his hip bone jutting out and poking the heel of his palm.
…Who was Nathan kidding, though?
One of his dirty secrets was that… he had always been a colossal hypocrite.
Fingers damp and toes numb, he reached out — taking in Warren’s hand upon his own. At first, he brushed the pad of his thumb along Warren’s knuckles, feeling each and every dip and climb of alternating flesh and bone, meticulously noting the sensation, as though Warren was a model who needed his exact measurements recorded.
Then, either because of satisfaction, or the way Nathan’s breath hitched in his neck from agitation — or both — he continued, tracing along the lines marking the back of Warren’s hand, tendons aside, as if he could spark the blue veins red with the fire in his fingertips.
Despite the screaming in his head, the chill breaching into his nerves that stirred from his spine, the signs coming from every direction that told him no, no, no, stop—
Just a bit more.
Coming from the back of Warren’s right hand, Nathan slotted the fingers of his left hand through the gaps that separated Warren’s fingers. Grasped it firmly, exposing that signature callous on the side of Warren’s finger that Nathan was well-aware of.
Just one more.
Inhaling once, and almost holding that one in — Nathan lifted the hand he clutched from Warren’s chest, guiding it carefully to his lips, and planted a kiss on the center of the inside of Warren’s wrist. A dragged out exhale escaped his mouth, warm upon Warren's skin.
Just this once.
Before… well.
He untangled his fingers — gritting his teeth at the feeling, like a tether breaking — as if a part of himself had been torn from the pages of a novel, and the words were coherent no more—
This was where he’d leave.
Standing over Warren’s dormant effigy.
Cursing at himself over this tomfoolery.
Dressing in the clothes that stripped off his dignity.
Just a minute left — a few seconds more, only to look over his shoulder — before he began to hate the soft click of his apartment door locking, echoing off the walls of the narrow hallway.
He clenched his jaw. He shut off his emotions. He willed his tears to stay back.
But… God…
Thinking that his favorite maroon coat would disguise such a lovely smell was so — fucking — foolish.
There was only so much Nathan could run from, dodge, deflect, before the little things — the ones that accumulate over time, invading, overriding, drawing that line between a panic and an anxiety attack — parried his strikes flawlessly.
Causing him to stumble, tumble — and fall, fall, fall.
Crumbling on the ground where his feet used to stand, trying to piece together the shattered pieces of his fragile heart — only to fail, fail, fail.
So readily seduced by something so destructive.
…Like a moth to a fucking flame.
This coat? This smelled like Warren.
And Warren?
Nathan grunted to the peak of autumn’s air, his fingers digging into his palm. Untrimmed nails added more lines to the inside of his hand — impermanent, but persistent.
Warren... smelled like home.
Upon the jarring realization, Nathan laughed.
It sounded strained. Pained. Strange.
Not like it was the first time he’d lost something quite like home.
Chorus B.
Spring, 2016
“Bad Weather.” Bad name for a nightclub. (With a bar.)
So was the weather, it seemed — with the hurricane taking the night as its bitch.
A heartbreak had Nathan stumbling upon the place. Myers it was — the only part of her name that he could stand to utter or even conjure in his brain.
Rachel. She was another, but everything about her was still far too painful to comprehend, for none of it was his fault.
Cheers. Though, there was no one he could clink his glass with, and nothing about this was particularly cheerful.
No, Nathan was here to burn the linings of his throat and stomach.
The bartender, who said his name was Desmond, was kind enough to heed Nathan’s wishes of a drink (“their hardest fucking liquor”). There was even, “Don’t be a pussy because I sure as hell won’t waste my money for the weak shit.”
So with the funds to spare, the good stuff he was given, and the good stuff he drank swiftly as if it was juice that his world, his perception of it, blacked out.
If it wasn’t for the stranger-turned-friend he met last (last?) year on a fateful train ride back home to his mother’s house, perhaps there would have been nobody to drive him back home.
Bridge.
Maroon was a shade darker from the water weighing down on the fabric of Nathan’s coat. Laid flat on his head, obscuring his already limited view, was his dirty golden hair; his high-cut black socks soaking in his leather boots like a skin that’s sitting unwelcomed on his feet, waiting to be shed.
A curse, one that blamed climate change for a cold-ass downpour in the prime time of the season, manifested effortlessly from Nathan’s tongue. This coat was supposed to keep him warm, damn it. Water, coupled with the winds of fall, were making that impossible.
Yet, Nathan walked the stone path — this bridge of memories — overlooking a man-made stream of murky waters, made even cloudier by the rain it collected, and the waste that commanded it. Despite the possibility of falling ill if he didn’t take shelter now, he was a missionless man wandering the sidewalks, dragging heavy boots with a burdened, broken heart.
There was no time to grab something to shield himself from the rain he didn’t know would come, anyway.
Every second went on for too long, for Christ’s sake. He breathed air deemed too dense for his lungs to house, endured temperatures too taxing on his iron-deficient system, and his heart—
“Nathan!”
—dearly longed for the presence of…
“...Warren?”
The name was more of a whisper amongst the clamors in Nathan’s brain rather than to the clamorous rain. Dead in his tracks, his breath stopped, beholding his world pause all the same. Funny, come to think of it, that it was Warren that departed from his lips instead of Graham.
Games were absent, off the table, unplayable as soon as Warren was in close proximity.
“There you are.”
Here Nathan was, indeed.
“You forgot your phone.”
That? Nathan didn’t need.
“I left it in your place, ‘cause it would have gotten wet. And by the way, I have your keys with me. I locked your apartment.”
That was… sweet.
“I figured, or hoped, really, that you’d still be nearby, and then I saw someone on this bridge from afar. I was right! It was you. You’re always zoning off somewhere when we pass by here. I know. I noticed. Um—“
...Was Warren a cree—
“Anyway—” Warren heaved as if it was more from pain than exhaustion, “—why would you just leave me like that?”
Unfortunately, none of Nathan’s answers were there to please.
“I couldn’t…” was the pathetic start. “I didn’t…” was the pitiful follow-up.
I couldn’t stay. I didn’t think I deserved to be there.
Abstraction, not quite art, began brewing on Warren’s features. Hurt, anger, sadness, betrayal, loss — Nathan, the artist he was, could decipher every emotion Warren has painted upon his blocky, canvas-like face and body.
“So was it all a lie, then? You dancing with me, kissing me, then — then us s-sleeping on your bed — was all of that just fun and games?”
“That wasn’t—”
“Then why did you run off, Nathan? Why did you just leave me there?”
Nathan stayed there — locked and unmoving. Unfortunate as it was, there was a difference between interpreting and experiencing, so stark that it flared and sparked.
Experiencing this Warren — knitted brows, the tension between them pulled by the drooping corners of his mouth as if a thread was pulled too tight—
Nathan’s grateful to the obscurity the rain has delivered, no matter how inconvenient, for it gave him an excuse to not catch Warren’s woes.
“Answer me…” Warren’s voice was hushed, like puffs of air, but they were close enough — too close — that Nathan could make out what he uttered. Warren reached forward. “Please…”
Nathan pulled his shoulder away, nearly stumbling from the action.
“Did that mean nothing to you? Nothing at all?” Warren’s voice was choked by his throat.
Despite everything, Nathan spoke not a word.
“What? Were you so scared out of your damn mind that you just had to leave me in your own goddamn apartment—”
A sigh — one that condensed in the cold air with its heat — tore itself from Warren’s mouth.
“...Fine,” he spat, beginning to guide his feet with his heels. “Fine.”
He’s pulling himself away—
—and Nathan was too much of a coward to do anything about it.
There was everything he could theoretically and possibly do, and yet there was nothing he could physically and emotionally perform to stop Warren from turning on his heels and walking away.
“Warren—” was the piss-poor attempt. Weak. Cowardly, indeed. Nathan couldn’t even bother to lift his head and relocate his gaze.
“Just so you know—” Warren called without ever looking at Nathan, “—that meant everything to me.”
That, surprisingly, got Nathan to glance his way.
“Why?” He asked it loud enough for Warren to hear through the drops of water splattering across the pavement.
Warren laughed. Out of amusement, out of disdain — or both.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe, all this time, I’ve been in love with you… or something cheesy and stupid like that. Or — shit, I don’t know, maybe I’m too ‘in love’ with you, but that can’t be, right? Because we are just… best friends.”
It’s hopeless, I know it, was the unspoken.
But…
“I—” Nathan swallowed. “I’m…”
I’m fucking in love with you, too, was the unknown.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” said Warren. It cut through the tense air, emulating the sharp, cold, merciless edge of a well-kept blade.
A well-kept secret, it was.
“What?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” said Warren again. “Going back to Seattle.”
Oh.
Please don’t go. I’ll be all alone again. Please don’t leave me.
“Hopefully, by the time I get back, you—” Warren’s cheek was now parallel to his right shoulder, reaching for something in his pocket. “—you’ll finally make up your mind.”
When Warren threw Nathan's apartment keys to the pavement saturated with the sky's tears—
Nathan stayed there.
Locked and unmoving.
Scorched like a moth that flew too close to the flame.
Questions ran laps around the rough curves of his brain. Nonsense to utter tickled the tip of Nathan’s tongue uncomfortably. So much to say… so much left unsaid.
So, “Warren…” was all he could conjure. It was everything that felt right — for Warren was everything that felt right.
He must have heard Nathan, for he froze right where he stood.
Waiting with clenched fists.
The rain has settled; calmed as if waiting for another, more devastating storm.
Warren’s patience grew weary like “butter scraped over too much bread”, he’d have referenced. No matter how hard he tried, Nathan noticed it on his pursed lips, and the way he unsuccessfully wrinkled the air with his fist hidden behind the fabric of his coat.
He always noticed. Of course Nathan did.
He called this. He saw it coming.
So, after all this, in spite of everything… “I can’t. I can’t… do this, Warren.”
And Nathan always knew he couldn’t.
They were just friends, and…
“I wasn’t thinking it would ever go any further than this.”
Still, behind the curtain of what was fabricated — he had already fallen.
He fell. Had fallen. Kept falling.
As if a moth to a flame.
Hook, line — and sinker.
Falling in love with, and pursuing the hopeless—
—like the hopeless, worthless romantic he was.
With the secrets of his heart unveiled, he gathered his discarded keys, garnered the shameful scraps of his audacity, and turned on his heels, beating Warren to a dead sprint.
Slumped in an alleyway where no one would think to look for him, then, came his imperfect world crashing like a waterfall from his exhausted eyes.
Chorus C.
Spring, 2023
Moments like these where Nathan was the director, cinematographer, cast, production manager — the core and the body — of his very own one-man short film no longer boxed him in as just a famed photographer. In his mind, he was conceptualizing, story-boarding, composing, designing, framing every possible outcome in his scenic life’s narration.
To the innocent onlooker, he looked ordinary.
To himself, he was hopeless — hopelessly deranged.
Impatient, currently. Admittedly thrilled. Shoe-tapping. Watch-checking. Yet, impressively composed.
Upon this station, some—one—thing was arriving.
Stand clear of the closing doors, please.
His nerves jolted into action. His head snapped in revolving directions… searching. His body soon collided with the sea of passengers that rolled in a new wave with each passing second from newly-opened mechanical doors.
A tap on his shoulder…
…and a smile he’d always remember.
“Hey. It’s been too long.”
Fingers combing through his own hair, a chuckle sung its way out of Nathan’s rare grin.
“Felt like forever,” he said.
A mirrored grin flashed. “Want to make that our reality?”
“Yeah.” With a smile enduring on his loved lips, Nathan locked their fingers — cold and warm, balanced — together, as if sealing their fate. “I've always been yours, Warren.”