Work Text:
Cant you see the coffee pot is still warm?
Your childhood bedroom window is open to let the spring breeze in?
The weeds are overgrown everywhere but your windowsill, dont leave my boys.
My last nice shirt and jeans are hung up in the closet for the day you come back, I havent used my best cologne since you left because I want to smell like home when you return.
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They show up to the house, a little bit in the forest. Going home, they thought, but no one was there.
Maybe they got the wrong house? It’s been so long, maybe they’d forgotten.
Maybe the people living there don't care anymore, maybe they were never going to be accepted and they should stop dreaming.
Maybe they were never meant to have a home there, it was a life meant for someone else, not them.
A life of love and warmth and comfort never seemed to be their lot, why would it be now?
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They returned hand in hand, but Mike lets Will's hand go to wipe the panicked tear from his cheek as they knock on a door that begs no answer.
Will gives a small smile but his sadness creeps through his eyes as they call mike back to him.
Maybe their return was never warranted by the fates, maybe their hopes were too large for a place that would never see them as more than two boys holding hands.
Maybe the world was much bigger than the town they grew up in, and their kindness is much larger than the number of those who deserve it.
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My favorite boys, what a supernova you were.
It was so lovely to see you burn so bright for the time we had.
If only your darkness hadnt pulled me in and stretched me out, maybe I wouldnt be burdened with the time you've given me to think of every moment we could have had.
The black hole is the first to show sparks of color where you were, in the outlines of blue and yellow.
Sometimes when a radio signal passes, you can hear the laughter of two kids who didn't know what would happen when they grew too old for bike bells.
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In another life they have a swingset in their backyard.
In another life their daughter learns how to push off the swing with both feet.
They named their daughter Jane, after a lost sister.
Mike wrote a childrens book called 'Magic Heart'.
Will illustrated it.
its about a paladin and a cleric saving a kingdom,
and they read it to their daughter before bed.
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They feel so much closer to my bloodied grasp, and we are in hell.
The world we've built for ourselves has a law against shoes and the streets are paved with broken glass.
But after a while you just get used to it,
eventually the pads of your feet scab, and gets thicker.
Eventually, maybe, you hope, the glass won’t cut so deep.
Some of us choose not to leave very often,
We just sit on the porch and wait for the day that the grass might grow through the spikes.