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A cold, wet spring morning under a watercolor sky as the sun rises after another sleepless night tallied on to others that made it seem insignificant among other things.
To be in love is to have to face what you refuse to alone, with someone else.
Not as easy as he’d like it to be.
Jake had quit facecam a long time ago because he couldn’t bear looking at himself. He never could, but he still did, because he thought exposure therapy would help. It always just ended in drunk, sleepless nights—but now, he doesn’t need to get drunk not to sleep. Just the crippling jealousy of every face he passes by.
The one thing he can count on, belonging to him, rings him up. And, like always, to a call out from his lover, unwavering even in running waters, he answers. To think he was ever mad at Albert; he wouldn’t like to either.
“Jake!”
“Hey, Albert.” He croaks out, still in bed, having stared out at the sunrise forgetting to eat for hours.
“What’s the matter? Still having trouble sleeping?”
“Man, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s been days.”
“Have you eaten? I can come bring you something and we can talk about it, if you want—it might help. I know it helped me when you let me talk.”
He feels guilty for making Albert spend money on him even when he knows he has exponentially more than enough. To be a rock in a waterfall has to be hard enough as it is.
“If you want, I guess. Just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to take care of me.”
“Dude, shut up. See you soon. I love you. Mwah!”
“I love you, too. So much.”
Albert flashes his little toothy grin before he hangs up, the sun shining down on his teeth, and liquid dread raining down on Jake. His lover was so perfect, and he couldn’t even look at himself. He couldn’t get out of bed. He couldn’t turn the camera on, or brush his teeth in the morning. Of course, he loved seeing him, but it’s hard looking outside the window at the sun when you’re locked inside a cold, empty warehouse.
An hour or so later of staring at the ceiling, he heard his door opening. It sounded like Albert meant to be quiet, so he pretended not to hear it.
He could hear rustling, cabinets opening, plates hitting the counter—he started to become nauseous, for some reason. Selfish, he calls himself. You stay in the rain if you refuse the awning.
He swallows and closes his eyes for a moment longer, until he hears footsteps. His door is opened, gentler than a kiss between a man and another dressed up in postmortem and laid in a silk-lined coffin.
Oh, he loved him. It wasn’t fair.
He noticed Albert took care not to flip the light on so as not to frighten him.
He came and sat on the bed, right next to Jake, with a croissant and some strawberries, a small meal for someone he knows has been having trouble with bigger ones. He coaxed Jake’s hands out from under the covers and handed him his food, patiently waiting for him to eat.
He ran a hand through Jake’s hair, looking at him with the smile of a saint. He could be one, for all Jake knows—saints were not known for convention.
“I ate in the car, this is just for you.”
“Oh.”
Jake’s eyes began to well up.
Albert had somehow coaxed the waterfall out, the one he dreaded, washing shame over him.
He looked up and smiled at Albert, waterfalls on a face carved from love.
Albert smiled back down at him, eyebrows furrowing. Worried, but he knew he was chipping away at it. Jake did the same for him.
He would wait on the rings of Saturn just to have a ring for Jake. He’d marry him with Saturn’s rings if he asked. God, he would.
Albert reached down and wiped Jake’s tears with his thumb.
“I love you. I wish we could switch places.”
“No, you—you don’t, I can’t even look at myself, man. You don’t want this. I haven’t eaten or slept in three days, I’m a mess, I’m ugly, I’m—I’m disgusting—“
Albert’s eyes began to water, but through the waterfall, what Jake knew to be shameful, he laughed.
He laughed, and it echoed in every dark corner.
“I know exactly how you feel. Don’t you remember, when I was all gross and sad, and you sat by me every morning, just like this?”
And it was true. Jake waited, too. Albert was in the dark for far too long—leftover dye in his hair after he’d neglected to cut it, getting skinnier by the day because he couldn’t get out of bed. But now, he gets to be the light, because the flame that sat with him in the dark sacrificed itself to keep his lit. And he made a cosmic promise to light and stay lit forever.
“But that was—that was different, you’re none of those things.”
“Neither are you.” Albert punctuated his sentence with a kiss to Jake’s lips, before sinking down and laying next to him, inching his food closer to his face.
Jake would never have stepped out of the night if the day weren’t waiting for him at the edge of his bed.
Jake picked up a strawberry and ate it in one bite, sighing as he swallowed the first thing he had in days.
As he ate, Albert still shone next to him.
He knew he couldn’t fix this in a day. But, even still, he would wait. He would marry, he would wash, he would kiss, fuck, breathe love. His love. Your soulmate is who ever you loved as a star before you were conceived, he believes. He was always meant to be here, right next to his love.
Without water, and without light, there would be no rainbows.
“I love everything about you,” he rambled on, as Jake ate, finally peaceful, and to Albert the final love, “your nose, your eyes, your hair, your arms…”
“Okay, okay, I get it!” Jake laughed with a mouthful of food, covering his mouth with a hand.
Albert waited until he swallowed to kiss him.
“Blegh, you haven’t brushed your teeth, have you?”
“…sorry, I—“
“Finish eating and I’ll stay right next to you so I can kiss you again.”