Work Text:
It starts like any other day. Alex wakes up, warm and content, Eliza’s arm heavy on his chest and her warm breath fluttering over his neck. He lies in the dark for a few moments, blinking up at the dark ceiling.
She’s a light weight against him and he turns his head just slightly to see her, face smooth in sleep and a smile just curving her lips. As his eyes wander over her soft features, his thoughts drift to another person, who sometimes occupied the same space beside him.
Freckles spilling down his cheeks like someone’s flicked a wet paintbrush down his face, a hard line drawn in the furrow of his brow that refuses to leave even when he’s asleep. His arms are hard lines of muscle and tension, and bruises bloom over warm tanned skin. His mouth is rarely ever a smile in sleep, and Alex has woken up too many times with John on the other side of the bed, body curled in tight like a bomb waiting for the trigger to go off.
His eyes get pulled towards his phone, but he turns his head away, instead shifting closer to Eliza.
Later. He tells himself. He can text John later.
Eliza wakes up a few minutes later to her alarm, and Alex laughs at her arm flinging out to hit the clock off the bedside table.
“You aren’t allowed to make fun of me this early in the morning Alexander.” She says primly, pulling herself off the bed. Her hair’s still a mess, tangling and fuzzy, falling around her shoulders messily. There’s sleep in her eyes, and pillow crease marks on her cheek.
She’s beautiful.
They have a quiet breakfast, Alexander speed-reading the newspaper on his phone while Eliza follows the smudgy printed words. She watches with amusement as he piles the sugar into his coffee, and demolishes his toast in a few quick bites.
“You aren’t even the one who has work in the morning.” She chides gently. “You work from home .”
He shrugs and winks at her over his mug. She laughs, and his breath catches at the way the early morning sun frames her face.
Eliza leans forward over the counter and presses a kiss to his cheek.
“I’ve got to go. Try not to kill Aaron over the phone today, will you? You know his entire job is making your books better.” She says it with an exasperated, yet defeated tone. She knows that he’ll never listen to Aaron, no matter how good his intentions may be.
“My books can’t be made better.” He snorts, and taps a string of 3 hearts and a kissy face to ‘southern fuckboy <3’
“I’ll see you later, okay?” Eliza grabs her bag and heads to the door, looking back at him one last time with an unreadable expression, before shutting it with a soft click.
Alex feels his phone buzz in his pocket. He slips it out of his pocket, but frowns at the text he sees on the screen, a hint of worry making his heart beat just a little faster. ‘we need to talk’
A few hours later, John is sitting at the end of the bed, and Alex’s eyes drift over the hard muscles of his back, follows the beads of sweat trickling down. The room is still dim and silent except for their panting breaths. Alex’s scalp still twinges and his throat feels raw.
His head is bowed, and curled hair still frizzy from what had just happened. Alex feels something in his stomach missing the normal soft cuddling that would transpire, but can’t bring himself to move forward towards John.
“This isn’t what I meant by talk.” His voice is still rough, and he turns his head just slightly, profile outlined by the soft light streaming in through the cracks in the blinds.
“Do you want to talk now?” Alex ventures, and he hates himself for the tremor in his voice.
“Why do you keep texting me Alex?” John sounds tired, and there’s a note of bewilderment in his voice. He turns to face Alex properly and he has to look away. “Aren’t you satisfied with what you have?”
His eyes trail meaningfully to the clear remnants of Eliza. The things he hadn’t even noticed were there.
Discarded clothes on the floor, a tube of mascara on the bedside table, perfume sitting beside his own deodorant.
“I just-” His voice catches and he flushes under John’s heavy, weighted gaze. “I miss you. I miss before. I miss us.”
There’s a moment of silence, and he doesn’t know what he’s expecting, why his heart is racing so quickly in his chest.
“There was never an us. ” It’s a sudden burst of vehemence and Alex flinches. He now sees the tension lining John’s shoulders as anger, can see the angry, frustrated lines cut into his face.
Alex doesn’t know what to say. He opens, and closes his mouth, not trusting himself to speak without an awful tremor that would reveal too much.
“You were a good friend, Alex, and sure I liked us fucking, but-” He sighs, presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “You got attached, and I didn’t want to be the asshole who broke it off.”
Alex scrambles to catch at any of the sentences flooding through his brain a mile a minute, but the words feel clunky and not-right in his mouth. “What do you mean, I thought we had something John-”
“Even if we did, you have a girlfriend Alex!” He runs a hand through his hair and stands, refusing to look at him. His hand is clenched into a fist at his side and that’s all that Alex needs to know. “You can’t keep texting me like this, I’m not gonna help you cheat, just cause you can’t keep it in your pants.”
Grabbing his t-shirt, he pulls it on over his head. Alex can’t move as John makes his way to the door, pulling his hair back into a ponytail.
He finally stands, not bothering to put on a shirt and hurries after him. “John, wait-”
Before he gets there, however, it opens, and Eliza walks in, a smile on her lips and bounce in her step. “Alex! I got off work early-” She stops at the sight of John, hair still mussed and lips swollen, a line of hickeys blooming on his neck.
“Alex?” Her voice is full of questions and dreaded answers.
He makes desperate eye contact with John, but he just shakes his head, lips pulling into a tight line on his face.
“Eliza-”