Work Text:
Greg glowered at the table in his hall, or more accurately, what was rather unexpectedly resting on the table in his hall. “What the fuck is this, Rois?” he called grumpily.
Roisin poked her head out from the guest room, where she was divesting herself of about twice as much luggage as a sane person would need for the weekend she was staying. “Sorry?” she said, frowning, and when Greg looked pointedly at the table, she rolled her eyes. “They’re flowers, Greg, surely even you’re not too thick to recognise—”
“I know they’re flowers,” Greg interrupted, his sour mood made even worse by Roisin of all people calling him thick, “but why are there flowers?”
Roisin joined him downstairs. “Bit existential, don’t you think?” she asked brightly.
Greg gritted his teeth. “Rois—”
“Sometimes, when people come to visit, they bring a little something nice for the host,” Roisin told him. “Like flowers. Even when the host is being a complete twat.”
Greg glared at her as he picked up the bouquet of admittedly very nice flowers, in perfect spring colours. “I liked it better when you still drank,” he grumbled as he led her into the kitchen.
It was the kind of statement that she could have been genuinely offended by, but luckily, Roisin knew him well enough to not even bother pretending. “Why?” she asked, clearly amused, which was worse than offence.
“At least then you brought me wine when you visited.”
Despite his grumbling, Greg set the flowers gently down on the work top before going to find his only vase and carrying it over to the sink to fill it up. “What can you possibly have against flowers?” Roisin asked, plopping down at the table.
“Me? Nothing,” Greg said, unwrapping the bouquet and carefully depositing the flowers into the vase, not even bothering to attempt to arrange them. “My hay fever, on the other hand—”
Roisin pulled a face. “Since when have you had hay fever?”
“Since always.”
“Horseshit.”
Ordinarily, Roisin’s tendency towards bluntness was one of the things that Greg loved most about her. Not at the moment, however. “What, you want me to ring my GP, get a doctor’s note?”
He pulled his refrigerator door open with far more force than necessary, and Roisin stifled a laugh. “Please do, yeah,” she said sweetly as he grabbed them both bottles of water. “I’m dying to ask your GP what part of the diet and exercise plan he put you on he considers as optional as you seem to.”
“Fuck off,” he huffed, slamming both bottles down on the table, the effect somewhat muted by the fact that the bottles were plastic.
Roisin grabbed a bottle and twisted the top off but didn’t drink, instead frowning at Greg. “Seriously, what’s wrong with flowers?”
“Nothing,” Greg said, and when she just raised both eyebrows, he repeated, “Nothing!” He sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. “They’re just– they’re very spring-y.”
Roisin’s eyes narrowed, and for a second, he thought she might pull him up on ‘spring-y’ not actually being a word. Of course, he should have known better. “Right,” she said. “So what’s wrong with spring, then?”
He huffed another sigh, reaching for his own bottle of water. “Did you come all this way just to play 20 questions?”
“Maybe,” Roisin said. “Did you let me come all this way just to sulk the entire time?”
“Maybe,” Greg shot back, not particularly caring that he sounded like a petulant child. “Nothing’s wrong with spring. It’s just my least favourite season.”
Roisin nodded slowly and took a sip of water. “Okay,” she said simply, and Greg frowned at her.
“What?”
She looked amused again. “I said okay.”
His frown deepened. “Yeah, I heard you, but– aren’t you going to ask me why it’s my least favourite season?”
She shrugged unconcernedly. “Nah.”
“Sorry?”
“You’re not planning on telling me the truth, so why should I bother?” Roisin asked in what she clearly thought was a reasonable way, which just made Greg all the more unreasonable. “I’m better off trying to suss it out on my own.”
He snorted an attempt at a laugh. “Yeah, all right, good luck with that.”
She took another sip of water before adding, pointedly, “Well, sussing out what it is other than the fact that it’s obviously something to do with Alex, of course.”
Greg choked on an ill-timed swig of water. “How—” he spluttered.
“Isn’t it always?”
Some days, Greg had a hard time remembering why he was friends with her in the first place.
For one long moment, he considered denying it, but dismissed it almost as quickly as he dismissed the wild idea of ordering her out of his house. He wasn’t a monster, after all, and she had come all this way. And even brought him flowers, which he would eventually, however grudgingly, recognise at a sweet gesture.
“Yeah, all right,” he said finally. “But if we’re going to talk about Alex, I need something stronger than water.”
Roisin brightened. “You get the vodka and Red Bull for yourself,” she said, standing. “I’ll get the ice cream.”
Greg heaved a sigh. “I hate you,” he said plaintively, as Roisin helped herself to his freezer as if she owned the place.
She had the audacity to smirk at him over her shoulder. “I know,” she said sweetly. “And aren’t you so glad I’m here?”
He was.
But fuck if Greg was going to tell her that.
Greg’s doorbell ringing took him by such surprise that he very nearly dropped his laptop. Luckily, a combination of well-honed instinct and his ample gut prevented it in the nick of time, and he sat up from the sofa, setting it on his coffee table before standing and crossing to the door, a frown furrowing his brow. “Yeah?” he called.
“It’s me.”
Even now, even after all this time, Greg’s heart still did something stupid in his chest when he heard Alex’s voice, and he fumbled with the lock before yanking the door open. “Hi,” Alex said, holding a bouquet of flowers, and Greg didn’t hesitate, stepping forward to wrap him in a hug, caring even less than he normally would about the bouquet getting squashed between them.
Alex tolerated it for longer than he usually did, which told Greg more than anything that he must really be in a state, and he realised a moment too late that he was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt that hadn’t been washed in—
Well, long enough that Alex was a stronger man than he normally gave him credit for to not gip.
Greg let him go and took a step back to let Alex inside. “What’re you doing here?” he asked. “Did we have plans I forgot about?”
He knew they didn’t, hence the dirty clothes and, now that he surveyed the state of his lounge over Alex’s shoulder, the empty takeaway containers that were a rather dire indictment of his current state.
Alex was tactful enough to mention none of that, just setting the flowers down on the table before dropping his bag in the hall and toeing his shoes off as he told Greg, “Roisin phoned.”
Greg’s mood darkened immediately. “Of course she did,” he huffed, all but slamming the door shut. “Fucking traitor. And if it hadn’t been her, it probably would’ve been my mum. I am surrounded by traitorous women, Alex.”
Alex raised both eyebrows, following Greg into the lounge. “I would perhaps refrain from saying that in public,” he advised, watching as Greg swept two empty crisp packets off the sofa cushions.
“Fuck it, may as well go down as an anti-feminist at this point,” Greg groused, collapsing against the sofa, which let out a worrying noise. “Embrace misogyny and the manosphere, the full monty.”
Alex wrinkled his nose as he sat far more delicately on the other end of the sofa. “At least wait until the recommission is officially announced.”
Greg sighed heavily. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll have forgotten about it by then anyway.”
“I’m more or less banking on that.”
Greg sighed again before hauling himself up into a seated position. “So why did Roisin phone you?”
Alex scratched his beard. “She, erm, she mentioned you were having a rough go of things,” he said, as delicately as he had sat down. “She also said something about you taking your, and I am quoting here, ‘emotion constipation’ out on the flora, which is a new one, I’ll admit.”
Greg scowled, glaring over the back of the sofa in the direction of the flowers Alex had brought. “I am not emotionally constipated.”
Alex’s eyes flickered to the empty takeaway containers, crisp packets, and crumpled cans of Red Bull. “Mm.”
“Fuck off.” Still, Alex had a point, even if he hadn’t bothered vocalising it, and Greg huffed another sigh, running both hands across his face. “You know how some people do spring cleaning? I do spring sulking. It’s fine.”
“I suspect you and I have different definitions of fine,” Alex said.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about, at least.”
Naturally, Alex didn’t look remotely convinced. “Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?” he asked, and when Greg just gave him a look, he added, “I rather thought the point of us being in a relationship was that I get to worry about you with impunity.”
Greg’s scowl deepened. “No, the point of us being in a relationship was so you’d stop using words like impunity, you prick,” he grumbled. “But it really is nothing.”
It was Alex’s turn to give him a look. “I left here three weeks ago.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Alex cast another pointed look around the lounge. “You have to admit it’s a bit of an abrupt fall.”
Greg snorted a laugh. “It cannot surprise you after all of this time what I’m like when I’m by myself.”
“By yourself is sort of the key term, since I think Roisin left only a few days ago,” Alex said evenly. “Which is an even more abrupt…”
He trailed off, and Greg supplied, “Descent into madness?”
Alex shrugged. “I was going to say downward spiral.”
Greg exhaled heavily and looked away. “It really is nothing,” he said, as if Alex might believe it this time.
“I’m beginning to think you and I have very different definitions of nothing as well.”
Greg groaned and ran both hands across his face again before hauling himself off the sofa, starting to gather his trash together just to give himself something to do other than sit and squirm under Alex’s gaze. “Look, it’s– I hate the spring, yeah?” he said, pulling a face at the smell from the entirely unidentifiable remnants in the one of the containers. “And some springs hit harder than others.”
Alex watched him tidy, his expression unreadable. “I don’t remember you ever expressing any particular feelings towards spring. Or any other season, really.”
“That’s not true, when it’s 35 degrees out and I’m sweating my arse off, I will tell anyone within earshot that I hate summer,” Greg said.
Alex let out one of his stupid little hums. “Bit situational, that.”
“Yeah, well.” Greg shrugged, tossing the takeout containers in the bin. “So’s my dislike of spring.”
“How so?”
Greg sighed, staring out the window, down toward the beach and all the stupid fucking flowers that were blooming along the way. “Spring is just– it’s all downhill from there.”
He turned back, unsurprised to see Alex frowning at him. “What do you mean?”
Greg returned to the sofa, sitting down with somewhat less force than before. “I mean, spring is the start of the stretch when I get to see you least,” he said bluntly. “Between summer holidays and the show needing to take advantage of the nice – well, nicer, I suppose, let’s not get carried away – weather, I’m lucky if I get a weekend or two until we hit the September studio recordings.” Alex winced but didn’t contradict him. “And then it’s start of term and you and Rachel getting back into school activities with the boys, and then before you know it, we’re at the New Years Treat recording. Then it’s Christmas, and your wedding anniversary, and by the time we hit the new year, I’ll have seen you less than a dozen times.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex said quietly.
Which of course Greg knew, but that wasn’t really the point. “I know. And I know– I knew what I was signing up for.”
Alex crossed his arms in front of his chest. “That doesn’t make it any easier.”
Greg shook his head. “No, it doesn’t,” he agreed. He gave Alex a pointed look. “And you can’t drop everything and come here every time I’m reminded of that.”
Alex wrinkled his nose. “I could.”
“You really can’t.”
There was something stubborn in the vertical line that appeared between Alex’s eyebrows as he said, “I could take a look at my diary—”
“Alex, no,” Greg sighed.
“I can, I’m sure there’s something that can be moved around—”
“That’s not the point—”
“—and maybe you and I can have a little holiday together, or even just a long weekend, or—”
“Alex, you can’t fix this!” Greg burst, and Alex flinched. “I know you want to. But you can’t.”
Alex’s eyes flickered up to his and away again. “I could try.”
“No, you can’t,” Greg repeated, gentler this time. “I know you, and you would break your fucking back to try, but it wouldn’t fix anything. This isn’t a problem with a solution if we just try hard enough. This isn’t one of your twerpy little puzzles where we can figure out some kind of workaround. It’s just—” He broke off and shrugged hopelessly. “It just sucks.”
Alex nodded slowly. “Yeah, it does.”
Greg sighed and reached out, his hand tracing the tension in Alex’s crossed arms until Alex finally sighed and uncrossed his arms, letting Greg take his hand and squeeze it. “And, just so we’re clear, I am okay with it sucking because it’s worth it,” he said, because he was. He really was.
The state of his house notwithstanding.
“But that doesn’t make it not suck,” he said. “So despite what Roisin thinks, despite you driving all this way, I am allowed to be sad about it, and take it out on fucking flowers and the entire concept of spring if I want to.” He prodded Alex in the side. “And you have to let me.” Alex immediately looked pained at the thought and Greg laughed, an actual, genuine laugh. “You absolutely hate the idea of that, don’t you.”
Alex shook his head. “I just think I could—”
“You can’t.”
“But—”
“Nope.”
Alex’s expression twisted as he thought of and dismissed at least a dozen additional arguments before he finally sighed and relented, “Yeah, all right, I hate it.” They sat together in silence for a long moment before Alex looked over at him. “This is horrible.”
Greg barked a laugh. “Yep.”
Alex pulled a face. “Can I at least– what can I do?”
“For right now?” Greg tugged Alex to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, grinning as Alex automatically curled against him. “You can cuddle with me here on the sofa and pretend like I don’t smell and desperately need a shower.”
Alex laughed lightly, resting his head on Greg’s shoulder. “I can do that.”
Greg ran his fingers through Alex’s hair, shorter than when he’d last seen him. “And then tomorrow, you can get back in your car and go back to your wonderful wife and your surprisingly-not-horrible children, and you can rest assured that I will be fine.”
Alex twisted his head to look up at him. “Will you?”
“Of course,” Greg said dismissively, but it wasn’t the same defensive dismissal as before. “I always am.” He bent and kissed Alex’s forehead. “I’ll see you in a few weeks for the next studio recording, and then—”
“Then, what?” Alex asked. “You’ll have a repeat performance?”
“Oh no, much worse, probably,” Greg said cheerfully. “I’ll have a proper strop.” He poked Alex again, grinning when he flinched. “And you will let me.”
Alex wrinkled his nose. “Mm. Well, I’ll try.”
He lay his head against Greg’s shoulder again, and they sat together in silence for another long moment before Greg added, “And maybe don’t bring me flowers next time.”
Alex honked one of his stupid little laughs that Greg loved so much. “Mm, fair. You want me to take those with me when I leave?”
Greg shook his head. “Nah, I’ll rip ‘em to shreds in a fit of rage in a couple days.”
That earned him another little laugh. “Is that what you did to Roisin’s flowers?”
“Yep.”
Alex hesitated. “I’m not entirely sure that’s the healthiest—”
“Alex? Shut up.”
Alex laughed again. “Yes, Greg,” he said, before looking up at Greg once more to tell him, “I love you, you know.”
Greg did.
It didn’t make it suck less.
But it did make it worth it.
“I know,” he said, kissing the top of Alex’s head. “I love you, too.”