Archive of Our Own

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

"I need a break. From us."

The words come out with the sort of finality that doesn't leave room for arguments. What's the point of fighting back when everything has already been decided by a person who has given up their will to hold on.

Was it really a lost cause? Sure, they weren’t talking as much as before or spending a lot of time together outside of work but that’s because their schedules have gotten busier. And they’re both tired after a long day. So it’s only natural that they rest. Right?

So where was this coming from? Why the hell did Joss want a break?

All that comes out in return is, "What?"

"We cannot keep going on like this. You know that too," Joss replied in absolutem.

"What does that mean? I mean yea, work’s gotten busier and it’s definitely taking a toll on us but I thought-" Gawin's voice breaks off.

"Well you thought wrong. I can’t deal with this anymore. The silent evenings. You spending more time with your guitar in your own little world even when your boyfriend is right beside you trying not to fall apart every fucking day" Joss almost yells out. 

"Joss, since when have you been feeling like-" Gawin asks, surprised that he hadn’t even realised how much Joss was struggling. 

"What does it matter, Gawin? I'm always the one reaching out, always the one having to read between the lines, and even now, I've been trying to tell you for days- weeks actually- and you didn't even fucking notice. How the hell do I be with a person who doesn't even put in the effort to understand me beyond my words?"

The words hit like a final blow. Straight to the ribs, at least 3 confirmed to be broken.

He's not wrong. I am a lot more oblivious to him, I don't push as much or try as hard. But I thought…he said it was okay. He said he liked that I was the exact opposite of him, that communicating without words was our little thing. And he seemed okay to me, every time we spoke nothing felt different. He never told me he wasn’t okay. Was I supposed to know nevertheless? Have I ignored him too much without even realising it?

Gawin started spiralling, unable to keep his tears at bay any longer.

"I'm sorry Joss, I never meant to-" he swallows down his tears, refusing to cry.

"Well sorry doesn't make the cut anymore does it Gawin. I feel like I'm the only one putting an actual effort into this relationship. Half the time it's like you don't even care if I was mentally bleeding out unless I tell you. And even when I do, you don't even seem to care enough to help me through it. You never fucking notice anything about me. It gets to a point. I thought, someday he'll reciprocate to everything I'm giving him or at least receive it with some more appreciation. But no, now its just fucking tiring. Everyday with you is just so lonely. So yea, maybe it's a bit sudden for you but I've been feeling this way for a while now and it's about damn time I did something about it. Because you clearly don’t even care enough to even notice."

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

It hurt.

Not the way it did when he fell off his bike as a kid, and scraped his knees on the tarmac ever so clumsily. No.

It hurt.

Like the tides had suddenly rushed over into his lung and refused to leave until it could break free through his ribs. He wanted to scream, yell, say something. Inevitably, he couldn't.

Not against the man in front of him. Not against the resolution in his eyes and the settlement in his words. The words clogged up his throat, refusing to do anything but be swallowed back in.

"Joss," Gawin choked out, "How could you say I don’t care? Do you really mean that?"

"What do you- Gawin are you seriously asking me-"

"Yes Joss. I need to know. Do you mean every word you just said? Because none of what you said makes sense to me. Not after everything we've talked about-"

"Oh what? Now you're accusing me of being a liar? You're telling me all my feelings are invalid because you don't see the logic behind it?" Joss spat out, almost too defensively.

"That's not what I meant, you know that-"

"I don't care, okay? I just- I'm tired of us Gawin. I'm tired of the way I am around you. I'm....I'm tired of you." Joss said the final words like they were being ripped out of his mouth against his will.

"You're tired of me?" Gawin parroted. His eyes blurred with tears again, unable to swallow them back this time.

He fell to his knees and sobbed. Like the tides had finally come crashing out through his eyes instead of his ribs. 

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

Wait. No.

This wasn't meant to happen.

He didn't mean it. What was he doing really? It's true, he wanted a break. It's true, he was tired as hell. But was it really all Gawin's fault?

Was Gawin the reason the voices in his head were getting louder? Was he the reason Joss couldn't look back to his old life without hearing every hateful comment he’d read? Was he really the reason Joss has been feeling increasingly suffocated lately?

He froze. 

For the first time, Joss' body didn't immediately go to help. Which was weird. Because he was the boy whose kind-heartedness always shone through even during the tough moments.

So why did his body refuse to move when he saw the love of his life on the floor crying his eyes out? Why did every vein in Joss' body urge him to bolt out the door instead?

"Gawin," he called out, too fragile to be heard.

Gawin hadn't heard him, quite obviously, his own wailing blocking out the sound of anything else.

"Gawin." Joss tried again. Loudly. With more authority.

His head shot up, eyes wide in....in fear. God, had Gawin ever looked at him with fear in his eyes before?

"Can we please not do this right now?" That came out wrong.

"No wait. What I meant to say was...can we try this conversation later. When both of us are a little more calm and not messed up in the head?" Joss asked, pleading more so.

Gawin opened his mouth but no words left. He sighed to himself, resigned. All he did was nod and look down at himself.

It hurt.

Gawin looked like he was actively shrinking himself in front of Joss. Like he was breaking himself apart so he would no longer be too much to handle.

It hurt.

Because Joss knew he was the reason Gawin looks like this. But he still thinks this is Gawin's fault, that if Gawin put in a little more effort into understanding him then this wouldn't have happened at all.

Joss didn't know what to do. So he let his instincts take over.

His instincts told him to go home. Go somewhere safe. Don't think about this until there was a rational third person who could help him approach the situation better.

Truthfully, this conversation shouldn't have happened at all. At least not before he had found the right words to deliver it in.

So Joss walked out of their shared apartment. His apartment.

He didn't look back.

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

He drove for twenty minutes without knowing where he was going.

The city lights smeared past the window like something he couldn't hold still. His hands on the wheel and his jaw locked. 

The specific tight emptiness in his chest told him he'd done something he couldn't undo, the way you know a glass has broken before you even feel the crack graze your fingers.

He pulled into a deserted empty lot somewhere seemingly far away, turned the engine off, and sat in the dark.

I'm tired of you.

He'd said that. He'd looked at Gawin- who'd finally begun fully opening up to him, who'd been patient even when Joss got pushy, who'd called their dynamic our little thing in that quiet, earnest way that made Joss’ heart melt- and he'd told him he was tired of him, like it was the truest thing in the room.

It wasn't.

He knew that now, sitting alongside the stillness as the engine ticked itself cool. 

He'd wanted to say: 

I'm tired of being constantly misunderstood, mischaracterised, and misjudged. I'm tired of pretending like I have my shit together when I’m falling apart. I'm tired of how invisible I feel even when you're right there next to me. 

He'd wanted to say a hundred things that were true and hard and would have required him to be vulnerable in ways he'd been avoiding for months. Instead he'd aimed all of it at Gawin like a gun and pulled the trigger, then stood there watching Gawin fall to his knees, and the worst part was that for one terrible second, he almost didn’t feel guilty about making Gawin cry.

He picked up his phone. Put it down. Picked it up again.

He didn't call. He didn't know what he'd say. He didn't know how to open that conversation without making it worse, and the one thing he was sure of was that he was very, very good at making things worse tonight.

He drove home. To the one that didn't have Gawin's spare toothbrush by the sink, his converse by the door or the specific ambient warmth of someone else existing in the same space. His own little condo that he hadn’t used since moving together with Gawin to a more secluded neighbourhood; the luxury of privacy and all. 

He lay on his back on top of the covers and stared at the ceiling.

He did not sleep.

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

Joss went back in the morning.

Not early enough to make it seem like he'd been up all night. Not so late that it started to mean something else. 

He texted from the lobby, 

I'm downstairs. Can I come up?

Three minutes passed. 

door's open.

The apartment felt different when he walked in. He'd been here a thousand times- it was technically his name on the lease, which felt obscene to think about right now- but it had the particular quality of a space someone had been alone and crying in. The air had a different weight to it. 

The throw blanket from the couch was folded too carefully over the armrest, the pillows fluffed up almost too perfect looking. Gawin had slept on the sofa, and seemingly tried to cover it up. Not that it would pass Joss’ observant eyes. 

The rest of the room was left untouched. Not even the guitar resting beside the kitchen island had moved an inch. 

There was a single glass on the drying rack.

Gawin was standing by the window. Still in yesterday's clothes. His eyes were swollen in a way that didn't disappear after sleep like it usually would’ve. 

He looked at Joss when he came in and didn't say anything. Just waited, because that was Gawin; doesn’t speak unless spoken to, or wants to speak. 

He gave room. Even now, wrecked, he was giving room.

Joss hated himself quite a lot, standing in the doorway.

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

"I'm sorry," he said.

Gawin's jaw tightened. He looked back out the window.

"I meant some of it. The stuff about feeling lonely. About feeling like I was reaching and not being reached back for." Joss stepped further into the room, stopping a careful distance away. 

"But I said it all wrong. And I said things I didn't mean because I- I don't know. I lost it. I've been losing it slowly for months and last night it just-" He stopped. Exhaled. "I took it out on you. And you didn't deserve most of what I said."

Most. He heard himself say most and knew he was still holding something back, still not fully crossing the floor to the honest version of last night. He couldn't seem to close the gap just yet.

"Most," Gawin repeated. Quietly. Not accusingly. Just noticing.

"I shouldn't have said I was tired of you." Joss said it plainly. "That wasn't true. I was…scared. I think. I turned it into your fault because it was easier than saying it out loud." He pushed a hand through his hair. 

"I'm working through something that I haven't figured out how to explain yet. That's not an excuse. But I just- I need you to know it wasn't really about you."

Gawin stood there. Something in his face moved, rearranged itself, settled into a quiet that Joss couldn't read.

"Gawin." Joss's voice dropped. He'd promised himself he would hold it together. He very nearly wasn't.

The silence lasted long enough that Joss felt it in his chest like a held breath.

"I need space." Gawin finally said. 

Three words. Softer than the droplets from a leaky kitchen faucet. Yet loud enough to cut through a silent room.

"I heard you. I did. And I believe you." He finally turned from the window, and Joss could see the full damage of last night in his face, the bags under his eyes and tear streaks on his cheeks.

 "But I need some time. By myself. To figure out what I'm feeling about all of it, because right now it's-", he took a deep breath, stabilising himself, "It's a lot. And I can't sort through it while you're right here."

Joss opened his mouth.

"Please." Gawin said. Just that.

And Joss closed his mouth.

"Okay. I'll give you space," he settled with. 

He looked at Gawin for a moment longer than he should have, memorising something, stupidly, as if he'd be gone long enough to forget. 

"Just- tell me when." Tell me when you’re ready to talk again. Don’t shut me out fully. Please. 

Gawin nodded.

Gawin picked up his keys from the counter. He stopped at the door.

Joss almost said something else - some addendum, some small insurance policy, something to make this feel less final- and then didn't, because Gawin had pleaded and that word had the kind of weight Joss couldn’t forsake. 

Gawin left. 

He didn't look back.

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

Day one was almost manageable.

He cleaned their- his apartment. He went to the gym. He answered emails he'd been ignoring for two weeks, called Kevin to “just chat”, and ate something real at a reasonable hour. 

He kept himself busy in the deliberate, grinding way of someone who understands that the moment they stop moving the thing they're outrunning will catch up.

He texted once. 

Hope you ate something today. 

The reply came an hour later. 

Yeah. You?

Yeah me too. 

He sent back. That was all.

Day two he noticed the mug.

Gawin had left it there on the drying rack, must’ve had coffee before Joss came back up and he asked for space. And left. 

It was white, small, a chip in the handle from when it had been knocked off the counter once during a disagreement about whose turn it was to do the washing up. A disagreement that had ended with both of them laughing at nothing in particular because that was how their arguments ended. Usually. 

It was sitting on the drying rack where Joss had left it after washing it the week before. He'd been meaning to bring it back. He stood looking at it for an amount of time that was, objectively, unreasonable.

He did not put it away.

Day three he woke up at two in the morning reaching across the bed for something that wasn't there. Not even consciously, his body just did it, the reflex of a person accustomed to warmth on one side, but instead finding the specific cold of unoccupied sheets. 

He laid there in the dark afterwards feeling the precise shape of an absence the way you feel a missing tooth with your tongue. 

He didn't text. It was two in the morning. He was not going to be that person.

He tossed over to the other side. Gawin’s side. Except it didn’t smell like Gawin anymore. No lingering scent of fresh linen and minty shampoo. 

He stared at the ceiling until four and then gave up. His feet took him to the couch, where he assumed Gawin had curled up on his last night here. In this empty abode that echoed Joss’ footsteps.

He tucked himself into the throw blanket that held the final remnants of Gawin’s scent. 

He reached out for his phone again. He was not going to text. It was too late. So he opens YouTube instead. His fingers led by instinct, to the only music that gave him comfort after an unbearable day. 

Gawin's voice filled the dark. 

He lay there listening to it with his arm over his eyes like that made it less desperate, like the visual barrier created some kind of dignity in the situation. 

Day four had a schedule in it, which helped. 

Press for the new series, a different one, not one they’d do together, and that was fine. That was completely fine. There was no reason to feel the absence of Gawin in the space next to him at the interview area. 

The interviewer asked him how he'd been and he said , great, really good, busy, smiled in the specific way an extremely professional veteran actor would. 

He came home to the mug on the drying rack and a message from Gawin. 

saw you on the channel today

you looked good 

He sat on his kitchen floor for a little while after reading it. Not dramatically. Just sort of unceremoniously plopped down. Leaned his back against the cabinet and held his phone close to his chest. Read it four more times like the message was different each time. 

You looked good. Gawin didn't waste words, which meant each one had been placed there deliberately, which meant-

He didn't know what it meant.

He sent back a thumbs up like a coward and then slapped himself on the forehead. He followed-up with a thank you  before it was too late and stared at the double delivery tick until it turned blue. 

Gawin didn't respond further.

He got off the kitchen floor.

Day five passed. Day six tried to follow. It didn’t. 

By day six, it had stopped feeling like discipline and started feeling like an amputation. Like something had been removed and everyone around him expected him to carry on moving as normal- which technically he could- but there was a quality to everything that felt muted and slightly off-register. Like a song played half a beat slow. 

He’d never experienced phantom pain. Only the soreness and ache of muscles that were present in his body, over-exerted beyond capacity. But this was different. The pain, it felt too foreign to locate yet too deep to be from somewhere other than inside him. 

But the day must go on. So must his duties as an actor. He sat through a table read, laughed in the right places, said his lines back and thought, the entire time, in the background hum beneath everything: I wonder what he's doing right now. I wonder if he's okay. I wonder if he's eaten. I wonder if he's sleeping on the couch again, if that's what he does when he's unhappy, if he's been doing it for longer than I noticed.

He wondered, specifically, when he'd stopped noticing.

That was the part he kept circling back to in the quiet hours. Not just the fight, not the things he'd said; he'd examined those thoroughly, knew its contents by heart, came to terms with how he'd been assembling them out of the wrong materials for months. 

But the not noticing. The very thing he’d accused Gawin of doing. Maybe it was him who was guilty of it. Maybe he hadn’t noticed the right things either. 

The way Gawin had been doing that small, Gawin-specific version of struggling- going quiet in a particular way, making himself smaller, carrying his weight alone- and Joss had been in the same building and hadn't seen it. Refused to acknowledge it, too busy feeling unseen that he’d rather go blind than see from another lens. 

On day seven, he sent a voice note by accident. 

He'd been meaning to send a text. Something brief, something that didn't violate the terms of space. 

But his thumb slipped. He let it. 

He'd recorded four seconds of himself starting to say Gawin's name before he realised and ended it. He stared at the four-second voice note in the chat for a full minute. It had already been sent. Delivered. Seen. 

Sorry

accident

He quickly typed. 

A long pause.

Then, Gawin's reply. A voice note. Also four seconds. 

Joss pressed play with slightly unsteady hands.

Gawin's voice was soft, a little rough around the edges in the way it got when he was tired. 

"It's okay."

That was all.

Joss played it again.

He played it an embarrassing number of times. He played it while making coffee, during the walk to the parking lot, sitting in the car before he could make himself drive anywhere. 

It's okay, he’d said in that voice, the one that had been singing him to sleep for a week behind the shackles of his phone speakers because he was apparently incapable of basic self-preservation. 

Four seconds. He had four seconds of Gawin's voice actually directed at him and he treated it like a relic.

He drove to the studio on day eight. Self preservation be damned. 

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

He texted from the car park. 

I know u said space and I want to respect that

Im not coming up unless u say its ok 

I just needed to be closer to wherevr u were

That probably sounds insane

He watched the typing indicator appear. Disappear. Appear again.

it doesn't sound insane 

u can come up

 ̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

Gawin was alone in the booth. The recording light was off. 

He wasn't working, or he'd stopped working, or maybe he'd known Joss was in the carpark so had been sitting in the quiet waiting. He was in the producer's chair with a guitar in his lap, wearing the oversized sweatshirt he'd had since his McDowell days.

He looked tired, like someone who'd been sleeping and eating but not quite in the right way, the way that keeps you going without actually restoring anything.

He also looked, in the specific low light of the studio, a little too good. 

And Joss, who had spent eight days trying to remember precisely this and finding that memory wasn't enough, felt something ignite cathartically in his chest.

"Hey," Gawin offered first.

"Hey." Joss stopped just inside the door. 

He didn't move to close the distance letting Gawin have the room, all of it. He stood near the exit, feet glued to the floor. Gawin opens his mouth again, an attempt to lessen the painful awkwardness. 

"You don't have to say anything. I just-" Joss began. 

He'd planned things. Arranged sentences on the drive over. They'd all scattered when the second Gawin looked at him, with those pretty eyelashes and chocolate brown eyes. 

"I wanted to say I'm sorry again. Properly. Not the version I gave you the other morning, which was- which was partial. I was still holding some of it back because I don't fully know how to say all of it yet. I'm not there yet. And I know that's not good enough, and I know you deserve the whole thing. I'm not asking you to-" He stopped. 

Something in his throat. A small lump, itchy and painful. He swallowed it back down. 

"I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I know I still owe you more than that."

Gawin watched him. That open, undefended face. The face Joss had been reconstructing from memory for eight days and getting slightly wrong each time, like a song you know by heart that sounds different when you actually hear it.

"Joss-"

"And I want you to come back home." He said it before he'd decided to. 

It came out without the composed delivery he'd intended, quiet and unvarnished and a little too desperate. 

"I know that’s not- I know I don't have the right to ask that yet. I know things aren't fixed. I know I haven't given you the full explanation. I know you said you needed space. But I miss you. I don't know how to be in that apartment without you in it. I didn't even know that about myself before last week and now I can't unknow it."

He finally looked up.

Gawin hadn't moved. His hands wrapped around the guitar- instinctively using it as a shield- and his face was doing something complicated and quiet that Joss couldn’t decipher. He hated not being able to have a read of Gawin. 

"Come home G, please." Joss tried again. He couldn’t fathom imagining another day waking up to a cold bed, listening to his favorite voice coming from anything but in front of him. 

Gawin looked at him for a long moment. Joss knew that look. Knew it was Gawin actually thinking, actually being honest with himself before he said anything, which was one of the things about him that Joss had somehow managed to call a flaw a week ago.

"I need more time," Gawin finally spoke. 

Joss felt it go through him. He'd been half-prepared. But a rock still tears through paper thin walls no matter how well-made its design.

"Okay," Joss replied, nodding slowly. It's all he could do. Accept this reality that he had created through his impulsive recklessness. 

"It's not-" Gawin paused, finding the right words again, "It's not that I don't miss you too. My apartment- my life doesn’t feel normal without you in it either. I’m still a bit scared though. After you left, I just- well, you saw it anyway. I just need to know I'm okay on my own before I come back. Does that make sense?" He sounded careful, like he wasn't sure he should be admitting to this but doing it anyway. 

"Yeah," Joss replied. His voice stayed unnaturally even, "Yeah, it makes sense."

"I'm not punishing you."

"I know."

"And I don't want this to be over. Us, I mean. I want you to know that."

The knot in Joss's chest did something it probably shouldn't have done in a situation this fragile. It didn’t magically unravel, but it loosened enough for him to breathe unmechanically again. He held very still and didn't let it show.

"Then I'll wait." 

He meant it. 

"However long you need. I'll wait."

Gawin nodded once. Small. Real.

Joss stood there another moment. He wanted to cross the room. He wanted to sit on the floor next to Gawin's chair and put his head against Gawin's knee and not say anything at all, just exist in the same space again the way they'd been so good at before everything went wrong. He wanted a hundred things he didn't have the right to.

He picked up his jacket.

"I'll go," he said.

He had his hand on the door when Gawin called out, "Joss."

He turned.

Gawin was looking at him steadily from the chair. 

"Thank you, for coming. And for-" a small pause, "for not pushing."

Joss looked at him. At this devastatingly beautiful person in his own hoodie for once, looking like an angel in the low studio light; who had fallen to his knees in their apartment and wept, stayed and waited for Joss even after he left him like that, then slept on that godforsaken couch, and somehow after it all, never raised his voice at him. Who was still, for some reason, thanking him.

"Don't thank me for that," Joss murmured. "This is the least I could do for you."

He went out.

He took the stairs instead of the elevator because he needed the extra minute, and he stood on the second-floor landing with his hand on the rail and his head bowed and breathed through it. Mechanically again. 

The words replayed through his head. 

I miss you too. 

I don't want this to be over .

The specific way Gawin had looked at him when he’d told him, however long you need, like he was checking whether Joss meant it.

He meant it.

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

He sat in his car. He did not play the voice note again, because he had some self-respect left, fractured and barely operational, but present.

He played the voice note again.

"It's okay." 

Maybe not now. Maybe not for a while. But it was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay. 

He drove home to the mug on the drying rack, the too-large bed that was cold in all the wrong places, and the ceiling he'd been talking to for eight days. 

And he waited. Because Gawin was worth waiting for. Because Gawin had always been worth waiting for. Because some part of Joss had always known that. Even if it meant he needed to burn everything down to find it again.

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

The press tour started on a Tuesday.

His schedule no longer had only his name on it. It had both of them. Side by side. 

Joss Way-ar Sangnern and Gawin Caskey

JossGawin, a unit, a brand, a relationship that existed in public even when it was quietly falling apart in private.

He could do his job. He'd been doing his job through worse.

What he hadn't accounted for was the specific relief he got from it.

The first interview was a soft afternoon slot on a variety channel. Gawin came in looking rested in a way that made Joss' chest act like a teenager. He looked warm in the professional way, the way that could look identical to the personal way if you didn't know the difference. 

He sat next to Joss at the interview table and said hi in the low, private register he used when they were technically in public but doing something small between themselves. 

Joss said hi back and felt the first clean breath he'd taken in two weeks move through him like water.

Okay. Okay. I can do this.

The host asked them about the series and they answered in their usual rhythm, the back-and-forth they'd built over months of shared press. It was still there. 

Whatever had broken between them privately, didn’t falter the chemistry they had. Joss hadn't known how much he'd been afraid of losing that until he felt it under his hands again, solid and even.

By the second interview he'd started leaning in.

Not dramatically. Just incrementally. A degree closer in the chair. His shoulder a little more into Gawin's space. When Gawin laughed at something the host said, Joss’ face lingered towards him a few seconds longer than necessary. 

When the camera was off them, his knee found Gawin's under the table without deciding to. 

Gawin didn't pull away.

That was the accelerant. Gawin didn't pull away, so by the third interview of the week Joss had his arm along the back of Gawin's chair, and by the fourth he was tilting into him in a way that made the hosts coo and the cameras linger on them longer. 

The fans were going crazy too:

“THE WAY HE LOOKS AT HIM”

“joss said mine mine mine”

“get yourself a man that looks at you like joss looks at gawin”

Joss read the comments. 

It was nice seeing the fans adore him again. It’d been a while. It should’ve validated him. The fans love it. Everyone loves it. So why do I feel like throwing up? 

Truth be told, it felt like he was performing. All of it. Like he was taking the one place he actually got to be close to Gawin and making it into content. 

Like the cameras had become permission slips for things he hadn't been allowed any other way, so he was using them, and the audience was applauding him for it.

He felt like a monkey at a circus being given a standing ovation for doing some cheap tricks. And the worst part, he couldn’t stop himself from doing them anyway. 

He reached for Gawin's hand in the evening radio show. The clip got three million views overnight.

He stared at the number and felt- hollow. 

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

The last interview was with P'Leo. He felt the dread settle into his stomach. 

P'Leo was good at his job, which meant he was good at finding the loose threads and pulling at them. Or to put it more bluntly, he liked going full-out offence just to secure the “shipper moments”. 

The segment was meant to be a light, promotional, fan-service adjacent kind of interview where the chemistry between the pair was as much the subject as the show itself. 

It started fine, it was going fine, until P'Leo leaned back in his chair with that particular smile that meant he'd been saving something.

"So Joss, I have to ask. Because the fans have been talking about it. There's a theory going around that you have been," he paused for effect, clearly enjoying himself, "a little bit territorial  lately. In interviews. With a certain someone."

The studio erupted in cheers. Gawin laughed too, the soft, slightly embarrassed laugh he did when the attention swung his way unexpectedly.

Joss should have deflected. He had prepared for this, something to divert, something that turned it into a joke about the characters and pivoted cleanly back to the show. He'd done it before. He could do it again.

Instead the words that left his mouth were, "I mean, is it territorial if it's just honest?"

P'Leo's eyebrows went up, delighted.

The noise behind the cameras swelled.

Gawin turned to look at him.

"He puts up with a lot from me, more than he should, probably. So if I seem…protective, I think that's fair." Joss continued, his voice had found a register that was somehow both performative and desperately sincere. The worst combination, because it read perfectly on camera but left a terrible aftertaste on his tongue. 

P'Leo was practically vibrating in his seat. "Protective. Not territorial."

"Same thing, different context." Joss smiled. 

The smile was fine. The smile was very good actually. He'd built that smile for the past decade. Just for the camera. 

The segment ran another twelve minutes and Joss carried most of the heat. The teasing, the hypotheticals, the “if Gawin did this, what would you do” questions that P'Leo lobbed like softballs. 

Joss swung at it all, one after another, easy and crowd-pleasing, and getting further and further from anything true. Gawin answered when asked but largely let Joss run with it. 

It was easier than the silence, the audience was receptive and for thirty minutes Joss got to talk about Gawin like Gawin was still his to talk about.

When the cameras cut he felt like he'd been turned inside out.

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

Gawin stopped him in the corridor outside the green room, which was already an indication of something, because Gawin didn't usually come find him. It was always the other way around.

"Hey," Gawin sounded concerned.

"Hey…Good segment, right? P'Leo was-" Joss was derailing. He knew it was pointless. 

"You didn't have to take all of that."

Joss looked up. Peered into those soft brown eyes hoping he could find something shallow to latch onto. He found nothing but sincerity. 

Gawin was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, not closed-off, but protected. He had the look of someone who was being careful about how they wanted to say something. 

"I was fine," Joss said. 

"I know you were fine. That's not what I mean. You went in there and made yourself the target of everything. Every joke, every teasing question, every bit of the heat. You didn't have to do that. P'Leo would have split it between us." Gawin's voice was quiet, steady. 

"I know but it was easier to just-"

"Joss." Gentle. Just his name. "You don't have to overcompensate for any of this."

The corridor was empty. Someone's heels clicked past at the far end and faded. The fluorescent light above them hummed at a frequency that Joss had never noticed until now.

"I'm not-" he started.

"You've been doing it all week. In every interview. I see it. I know what it looks like when you're being genuine and when you're doing it for the cameras and lately it's-" He stopped. Paused. Reconsidered. Rephrased. 

"I'm not saying this to make you feel bad. I'm saying it because I want you to stop taking all the blame. What happened between us isn't something you can fix by taking more heat in press segments. You know that, right?"

Joss stared at the crease in the middle of Gawin’s forehead.

"And I know," Gawin continued, "that I'm taking longer than I probably should be. That's on me. That's one of my- I know it's a flaw. Taking too long. Going too quiet. I'm aware that it's-"

"Stop." So much for someone who just told me not to blame myself. 

Gawin blinked.

Joss was looking at him now. There was something almost like a smile happening on his face- not the press smile, not the P'Leo-segment smile, something smaller and much more his own. Something that had arrived without being summoned.

"Don't apologise for that," Joss said.

"I'm just saying-"

"I know what you're saying. You're doing that thing where you find something that could cause a miscommunication and apologising for it beforehand. You’re overexplaining G." A beat. "I kinda missed it. I missed you."

Gawin went quiet. Pressed his lips in a line and furrowed his eyebrows. He was contemplating something. Joss wished he had the right to ask him what was on his mind. 

A pause. 

"Do you want to get dinner?" Gawin asked. 

Joss's heart suddenly started beating again. After two weeks of just pumping blood to the rest of his body, his heart finally started working in the clumsy, fumbling way it always did around Gawin.  

"Yeah," he replied. More than anything in the world. 

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

Their usual spot, a Pad Thai shop nearby, was small and slightly too bright. It had plastic stools that were uncomfortable after the first twenty minutes, and a group of chatty old people at any time of day. 

They ordered the same things they always ordered because neither of them needed to look at the menu. 

Gawin stole Joss's spring rolls without asking which was normal. A normal thing- their little thing that had always happened. Yet for the first time, it made Joss almost choke up in tears. 

They talked about nothing.

They talked about the series, the overseas fan response, and a video someone had sent Gawin of a cat that had learned to open a specific brand of cabinet door. They talked about a mutual friend's upcoming project and whether the script was actually as good as the buzz suggested. 

Gawin had opinions about the script, ever the cinephile. He delivered them in the dry, precise way he always did when he'd actually thought about something. 

Joss sat across from him, under the blinding fluorescent lighting, eating their slightly-too-spicy pad thai and felt, for the first time in two weeks, like a person who was going to be okay.

Not fixed. Not there yet. But okay.

Gawin laughed at something- really laughed- the unguarded one where his eyes almost disappeared and all his smile lines and teeth were visible. The one that Joss had spent five interviews this week trying to produce on camera with markedly less authentic results. He knew he was staring, he could imagine exactly what he looked like. Lovestruck. 

I shouldn’t push. It’s too early. 

He forced himself to look back down. Ashamed of how easily the words come back home were about to leave his mouth at the sight of a mere laugh. 

I love you G. I love you and I let you sleep on the couch and said I was tired of you and you still let me come to you selfishly for my own needs and you tell me not to blame myself even though I’m the reason we’re like this and you still asked me to have dinner with you today after all this, and now you’re eating dinner with me and laughing with me like I hadn’t made you cry your eyes out and leave you there to bleed just two weeks ago-

"You've gone quiet," Gawin remarked. 

He saw right through Joss’ turmoil. He chose not to acknowledge it. Thankfully. 

"I'm fine." Joss looked up. Smiled. The real one this time. 

"Just- this is nice. Thank you."

Gawin looked at him for a moment, contemplating. "Yeah, it is."

They finished eating. The bill came. Joss reached for it, so did Gawin and their hands met on the small plastic folder. Neither of them moved for a second before Gawin pulled back and let Joss take it. 

That one second was the most contact they'd had in two weeks and Joss felt it course through his entire body. 

They stepped out into the evening and stood on the pavement side by side. Joss’ mind was racing. High on the adrenaline of a singular touch, and the hopes of what it could mean. 

Okay, so now we walk back together, maybe I ask if he wants to walk the long way, maybe he says yes, maybe-

"I'm going to head home," Gawin’s voice sears through, crisp and clean, "early start tomorrow."

The world rearranged itself. 

"Right," Joss bobbed his head, like it was the most obvious unfolding of events, "Yeah, of course."

"Tonight was good." Gawin said it like he meant it, because he did. And that almost made it worse.

"I'm glad you said yes." Gawin smiled.

"Me too." Joss smiled back. 

Gawin lifted a hand in that easy, understated way of his- not a wave exactly, just a small gesture that meant, goodnight, take care, I’ll see you around — and walked back to the GMM building. 

Joss stood on the pavement and watched him go, hoping Gawin would look back at least once. 

He didn’t look back. 

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

He found his car. He got into it, put his hands on the wheel and didn't turn the ignition.

He was sitting in the aftermath of something that had been so close to good that he could feel its shape in the air around him. 

And now it was gone. 

Now Gawin was on his way home to his studio apartment and Joss was supposed to be on the way home to theirs.

It had all been right there. The unassuming conversation. The soft, genuine laughter. The hands brushing. 

Tonight was good, he’d said so sweetly. 

It had all been right there, placed directly in front of him, and then picked up and carried away before he'd had any right to reach for it. 

He could feel it low in the chest, slightly left of centre, the ache of something that built a cage around itself because it had nowhere else to call home.

He picked up his phone.

He didn't decide to record a voice message. His thumb just pressed the button, and his voice came out before he'd cleared it.

“I know you said you need more time and I'm trying, I am trying, but I just- I’m sitting in the car and I can't-”

He stopped. Swallowed.

“I don't want to go home tonight. I keep going home and the apartment is so…empty. I just need one night. I'm not asking to pretend like everything is fixed, I know it's not, there’s still more to be explained and a proper conversation to have. I just- I don’t know what I want or what I’m asking for right now.”

He pressed his forehead against the steering wheel. 

“It hurts G. Everything just hurts. My head, my body, my heart, my soul. It all hurts so much. And when I saw you, it all left like it was never there, and now you've gone and I'm-”

He laughed, a short, terrible sound.

“I'm sitting in my car unable to drive. Which is- I know how this sounds. I know I'm being too- I’m asking for too much. I know. I know. Just for one night. Just until the aching stops, and I remember how to fucking breathe again. You don't have to- we don't have to talk about any of it. I just need to be wherever you are. Please. I feel so lonely G. It’s eating me alive. Please Gawin, just one night…I’m begging.”

He stopped the recording.

He looked at the screen. Eyes blurry. Hands shaky. 

One minute and forty seconds. His thumb hovered over the delete button.

It slipped to send. 

He stared at what he'd done.

The tick turned blue almost instantly, which meant Gawin was looking at his phone, listening to Joss pathetically whine about being alone and shamelessly wanting to stay the night like some goddamn abandoned mutt-

His phone rang. He picked up before the second ring.

"Hey, I'm still in the carpark. I haven't left yet."

Joss didn't say anything. Afraid his throat would betray him again. 

"I kind of half-expected you to ask," Gawin said. Not reproachfully. Just honest. 

"At dinner. I kept thinking you were going to. I hoped you would. Then you didn’t so I thought I was reading it wrong. I’m glad I wasn’t. You should come. If you’d like."

"Yeah?" I’d love that. More than anything in the world. 

"Yeah. I'll text you the address of the studio. I don't think you've been."

He hadn't. He knew it existed. Gawin had mentioned it many times. The small space that he’d seek refuge in when the world got too loud and he needed somewhere that was just his. 

"Okay. I’m coming" Joss’ voice came out almost inaudible. 

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

The car started on its own, body on autopilot while his conscious mind was still sitting on the pavement outside a pad thai shop trying to process the sentence, I kind of half-expected you to ask.

He found the building, small and slightly off the main road, tucked into the kind of street that only existed in the parts of Bangkok that hadn't been developed yet into something louder. 

He found the right floor. He walked down the corridor toward the door at the end, and before he'd reached it- before he'd even raised his hand to knock- it opened.

Gawin was standing there in his socks- one with pineapples, and the other with the UnderArmour logo- with an expression Joss couldn't fully read in the dim hallway light.

"I could hear you coming," Gawin commented casually. 

"Your footsteps are gentler than everyone else's. More…intentional." 

A small pause. 

"I always know when it's you. Even when I’m not looking"

Joss stood in the doorway.

He'd thought about the things Gawin must’ve noticed about him, cataloguing them all week with the particular self-absorption of someone doing penance. What a cruel thought. 

Gawin was standing at his door because he'd learnt the specific sound of Joss' footsteps, because he'd listened hard enough and long enough to separate them from everyone else, and Joss was questioning whether it was out of guilt. What a fool you’ve been. 

"I didn't know you noticed things like that," Joss mumbled.

"I notice a lot of things." Gawin stepped back from the door. 

“Maybe my mistake was not showing you that sooner. Or at least- telling you about it.” He turned around and went in, blending into the apartment’s warmth. 

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

The studio apartment was small in the particular way that meant everything in it had been chosen on purpose. A keyboard along one wall. Lyric sheets pinned in a loose constellation above the desk. A worn armchair in the corner that had an old guitar Joss had never seen before. A couch beside it, taking up most of the small living room. A small kitchenette that seemed well-used yet heavily unequipped. 

It smelled like Gawin. Not overwhelmingly. Just the fresh smell of a space of one person who had occupied it long enough to make it theirs.

Joss stood in the middle of it. 

He tried not to look too hard at everything because he was afraid of what his face would do.

"Coffee?" Gawin suggested.

"Sure."

Gawin used a moka pot. Joss didn’t know Gawin even had one, or knew how to use it. He wanted to ask. Is there anything else about you that I don’t know about? Do I only see the parts of you that you want me to see? Am I doubting you so much because I feel like I’ve failed at noticing you as well as I prided myself in it?

He looked at the lyric sheets on the wall- some printed, some handwritten, one that had a word circled several times in pencil like Gawin had kept coming back to it and still hadn't decided. 

He wanted to know what the word was but felt like walking over to look would be too much. He’d be crossing some line of permission he hadn't been granted yet.

Gawin came back with two mugs, sat in the armchair, moving the guitar against the wall near the window, and folded his legs under him the way he always did. 

The position was so familiar that Joss felt it in his chest. 

Home. I’m home. 

They talked.

About nothing again. About the cat video, because Gawin brought it up and then actually showed him. The cat was genuinely unhinged, and Joss laughed for real, the one where his eyes crinkled and his dimples deepened. Just a normal human laugh because a cat had opened a cabinet with unreasonable competence. 

Gawin laughed too, soft and slightly shaking his shoulders, head tipped back against the armchair, and Joss watched him, realising he might just have the audacity to be more selfish than he already was. 

They talked about the series. Gawin had thoughts about his character's arc that he hadn't said in any interview, the ones he kept for spaces where there wasn't a camera. 

Joss listened and responded with his own actual thoughts, and it started feeling like before- like the months before everything went wrong, when they were still just two people who worked together and genuinely liked each other's company.

Gawin shook his head at something Joss said, the specific head-shake that came before a soft laugh, and then the soft laugh came, and he settled deeper into the armchair looking at Joss with that fond, slightly exasperated expression. 

Joss wanted to grab his face and kiss him senseless. 

Don’t you dare reach. Don’t do something impulsive and ruin this again. 

He looked at the couch. The perfectly safe, reasonable couch. He could stay here. He could sit on this couch and they could keep talking and it would be fine. This was good enough, this was already more than he'd had in two weeks-

His body slid off the couch.

He was on his knees, on the floor in front of Gawin's armchair before he'd finished deciding to do it.

"Joss what are you-"

"I need to do this. I need to- please just let me." His voice was nothing but a whisper. 

Gawin looked down at him. "But you’re on the floor, you don't have to-"

"I know I don't have to. I want to.” He looked up. 

“I've been needing to say this to you since that morning when I gave you that half-assed version of an apology because now, I've been sitting with the rest of it for two weeks and I- I can’t stand the thought of having to go back home without you tomorrow morning.” Joss took a deep breath, his eyes stinging. So he let the tears flow out. 

"I'm sorry for saying I was tired of you. I've never been tired of you. I was just tired. And scared. So scared. Scared of how loud everything had gotten, how mean my own voice sounded in my head, and I lashed out. On the one person who I should’ve told my fears to. I've been terrified of needing you as much as I do and I turned that against you, blaming you for shit that wasn’t even your fault. When you fell to your knees in our kitchen because of me, I- I'm sorry for just standing there when I should have gotten on the floor with you. I am so sorry for assuming you didn’t care about me, or notice me when really I was just bottling up everything and expecting you to read my mind. I’m so sorry G-" his voice cracked. Joss choked a sob as he clutched onto Gawin’s knees tighter, afraid Gawin actually might kick him out after this. 

"Joss." Gawin's voice had gone soft in a different way now. It sounded pained. 

He looked up at Gawin. Properly. Without trying to micromanage his expression for once.

The words spilled out of him again before he could think better of it. The teacup to his desperation had been filled to the brim and now, a single droplet of Gawin’s presence made it overflow. 

"Come home. Please. I wake up at two in the morning and the bed is cold, and I still reach across it like an idiot every single time. Every single morning for two weeks. I have your mug on the drying rack that I can’t seem to put away. I physically cannot make myself put it away, without feeling like that would erase the final remains of your existence in our place. I've been listening to your songs, I've been listening to your voice notes. The one you sent. It’s okay.  Four seconds, and I've listened to it an embarrassing number of times.” Joss let out a wet laugh, ugly and despairing. 

His voice dropped to something barely above a whisper again. "I don't know how to be in that apartment anymore, Gawin. I've been there six years but since we’ve been there together, I can't make it feel like mine without you in it. I can't do another two weeks of- of this. The space. It’s suffocating. It’s too much. Come home, baby. Please."

He was properly crying now. Eyes red and swollen, hair falling across his forehead, lashes soaked in tears still hadn’t stopped, bottom lip trembling between words in a way he clearly couldn’t control, hands clasped uselessly in Gawin’s lap, fumbling with his drawstring. 

He looked  utterly wrecked. 

He hadn't meant to get here- had thought he could deliver it with more composure, more dignity- but his knees were on the floor of Gawin's studio apartment, his eyes were basically river streams, and the word please had turned into something shapeless and desperate in his mouth.

He was done choosing pride over honesty, and it was the most liberating thing he’d done in months. 

He heard Gawin make a sound.

He looked up again.

Gawin was crying. 

Quietly, the way he did everything; tears tracking down his face, nose turning a splotchy red, lips quivering ever so slightly. 

"No-" Joss scrambled up immediately, all his physical eloquence abandoning him at once. 

"No, hey, don't- Gawin, don't cry, you've already- you've cried enough because of me, please don't-"

"I'm not crying because of you. I mean- I am, kind of but not really. I'm crying because of what you said, dummy. "

Joss stared at him, eyes wide still filled with panic.

"I didn’t know I was killing you on the inside like this. That just two weeks of not seeing each other made you so miserable. I didn’t mean to make you suffer like this Joss- I swear-”

“I know! I know. It’s not your fault I was an asshole. And even if you wanted to make me suffer I wouldn’t blame you for it. I deserve it G-”

“Don’t do that. Stop punishing yourself for something that was meant to be a conversation neither of us were ready for. There were better ways for both of us to have handled it. You lashed out only because I didn’t notice. So that’s on me.”

“It’s not like you can read my mind everytime-”

“No but I can try. I can stop letting you be the one to reach out every time. I can meet you halfway. I see you Joss. I swear I do. I love noticing the small things about you, like when you scrunch your nose whenever you get sleepy. And I know sometimes I get too quiet and I need more space than necessary but I’m working on that. Maybe I can’t change it entirely, but I’ll try- I’ll try talking first and not leaving for too long. Promise.” 

Joss started crying again. His knees were aching but it didn’t matter. The pain and burden he had felt in the past few months had finally found a way outside his chest. All because Gawin had told him the things he didn’t even know he’d needed to hear. 

“I want to protect you too, you know. I can’t do it the same way you do for me but in my own way, I want to protect what’s mine. And you’re mine, J. Always.” Gawin said, his voice so gentle it almost felt like a confession. It was. 

He was Gawin’s. He always was. The relief hit him before the happiness. When old dogs finally reunite with their favorite person in heaven, was this what it felt like? His legs hurt, but his torso stayed curled into Gawin’s knees, head on his lap, tears still occasionally seeping out. 

Gawin’s fingers were in his hair, slowly drawing circles in his scalp and caressing his head tenderly. Joss nuzzled his face into the middle of Gawin’s thighs, inhaling his scent. 

He looked up again. His Gawin, was sitting in a worn armchair in a tiny studio apartment with tears drying on his face, hair fluffy and unruly, and mismatched socks peeking out. 

His G, who was willing to change the core of his personality just so it would ease their relationship, who had learnt him from the sound of his footsteps, who had just claimed him forever. 

His G. Joss liked the sound of that. 

You’re mine J. Always. He wanted it tattooed in his heart, right next to the chamber that was dedicated to Gawin.   

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

They didn't make it to any kind of formal decision about sleeping arrangements. The conversation wound down the way good conversations do, not running out of things to say, just finding a natural place to rest. 

Somewhere around two in the morning Gawin pushed them to the couch and pulled the blanket from the back of the armchair over both of them, which required a certain amount of rearranging since the small sofa was not built for two large, muscular men. 

They sorted it out through a combination of Joss tucking himself under Gawin, letting him fully rest atop him, and Gawin wedging his legs further between Joss with his arms around his nape and face against his chest.

Neither of them suggested they move to the bed, because the bed was the furthest thing away from them right now. And they had to make up for the two weeks they spent without living inside each other’s skin. 

Joss fell asleep to the sound of Bangkok beyond midnight, Gawin's breathing evening out beside him, and the weight of Gawin’s thighs between his.

For the first time in two weeks, he slept. Peacefully. 

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

Joss woke up to the smell of something being made. He was immediately graced with the sunlight coming through the gap in the curtains that told him it was later than he usually slept in. 

Gawin was standing at the counter in yesterday's clothes with his hair doing something chaotic, making what appeared to be toast because the studio apartment's kitchen tools extended to a toaster and a kettle, and apparently that was sufficient.

Joss looked at him from the sofa with the blanket pooled around his legs. 

He stood up, instantly startling Gawin with his movements. 

“Good morning. Slept well?” Gawin turned around, stretching out his arms over Joss’ shoulders. 

“Morning. Slept like a baby. My back’s gonna hate me soon though,” Joss mumbled between pecking Gawin’s mouth. 

Gawin giggled. And God, what Joss would do to have that in his secret folder of voice notes from Gawin. 

“Your back will be fine. I’ll tell Darren to add some mobility exercises to your routine-”

“Don’t you dare. If you even say anything close to the words mobility to him, I’ll drag you to our early morning runs from tomorrow,” Joss stared him down, then broke out into a fit of laughter, unable to keep the ruse for more than a millisecond. 

Gawin slapped him on the shoulder and shook his head, turning around to get the moka pot. 

"I didn’t know you had a moka pot" Joss nuzzled into his shoulder from behind, wrapping his arms around his waist.

Gawin looked at it, leaning back into Joss. "Yea, I forgot about it too until two weeks ago."

"When did you learn how to use one?"

"Back in high school. Tala was obsessed with making different types of coffee. Naturally I was her guinea pig turned apprentice"

"Haha, how cute. I can imagine young Gawin clumsily trying to make coffee for himself."

"Young Gawin burnt his hand twice actually. Mae banned me from using it after that. I got this one out of nostalgia when I first got this place. Needed something that reminded me of her. I’ve got little-somethings for everyone dear to me.”

“Oh yeah? What do you have that reminds you of me?” Joss expected something basketball related, or maybe even something a little more ridiculous. Like boxing gloves, or a stolen beanie. 

“Why don’t you go see for yourself? It should be behind one of the pillows on the sofa.”

Joss spotted it immediately. A small pink bear holding a sunflower. He laughed. Of course it was more ridiculous than he could have possibly imagined. 

“Why this? Do I look like a pink teddy bear to you?”

“Well you definitely are a teddy bear in my eyes. All soft, sweet, and cuddly. The pink was cute. And I think you’re cute so that works too. But I actually bought it because of the sunflower.”

“The sunflower?”

“You remind me of a sunflower. I don’t know if you remember this but you told me my voice sounded like sunshine, like 5 years ago. I don’t know why, but it stuck with me. And now, the way you look at me when I’m performing on stage, or just talking nonsense with you- like I’m the only person in the room, it makes me feel special. Like I’m your Sun. And if I’m your Sun, that would make you my sunflower right?”

If there was one thing Joss learnt about Gawin, it was how intentional Gawin was with his words. But this- Gawin wasn’t just being poetic, he was being vulnerable. 

Joss crossed the living room in two strides and wrapped himself around Gawin. Actions always spoke louder to him than words ever could. 

Gawin chuckled, turning around to fit himself into Joss’ chest, feeling the heart underneath his ear gallop a mile a minute. They stayed there for a few minutes, only breaking apart when the bread popped out of the toaster. 

Gawin slathered some butter on the toast, and wordlessly handed it to Joss, who ate it leaning against the counter shoulder-to-shoulder with him as the morning light gleamed through the apartment with a golden glow. 

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

"Next time, I'll take the couch," Joss said.

They were cuddled up on the sofa, Joss with a book in hand and Gawin with his lyric diary. 

Gawin looked at him sideways, eyes squinting. "Where is this even coming from-"

"I'm serious. You'll never sleep on the couch again next time we have an argument. My fault or yours. I'll take the couch. Every time. Non-negotiable."

Gawin held his gaze for a moment. Something settled in his face, quiet and certain. 

"There won't be a next time," Gawin said.

"There might be."

"Then we'll figure it out. Together. Even if it takes all night."

"Yeah." Joss snuggled his head into Gawin’s shoulder, like a big fluffy Saint Bernard. "Yeah. We will."

Outside, Bangkok continued on its loud and ordinary way. The press tour will resume tomorrow. The comments would keep coming; the good, the bad, the irrelevant. The work would keep being work and some of it would be hard. 

Joss would inevitably swallow something he should say out loud, and Gawin would inevitably go quiet for half a beat too long but they would navigate it, imperfectly, because that’s what mattered. 

That they tried anyway. And they keep trying even during the tough moments, especially then. 

But right now; he could hear the faint humming of whatever song was on Gawin’s mind, his pen scratching over a particular word, his body almost welded into his own.

Right now this was enough.

Right now this was more than enough.

Right now this was everything.

̊─── /ᐠ - ˕ -マ ───⋅  ̊

Distance makes the heart grow fonder. What a load of absolute bullshit. 

Distance almost made Joss rip his heart out so he'd have evidence to prove it was still beating, not just running like a mechanical clock. 

500 miles. 

If Joss had to run 500 miles, barefoot, in the rain to see a glimpse of the sunshine again; then he would. For the rest of his life. 

Because Gawin wasn't just his sunshine anymore. He was his Sun. 

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