Work Text:
Most nights, Alex is either working, networking or out like a light by 10PM. But sometimes, when the overwhelming heat of summer creeps into his lungs, or when he hasn't been home in a long time, wherever that even is for him anymore, or when he allows himself to think too long, yes, some nights, Alex stays up to yearn.
It is this weird state of being he keeps slipping back into: a heavy, long, stretched ache pulling his heart out from the inside. His eyes get tired in a hyper-awake way, that makes keeping them open uncomfortable, but closing them even for blinking painful. He keeps listening to the sounds around him, whether it's the hum of a fridge or faint laughter and street noises, or birds and the rustle of trees swaying in the wind, and he wishes to know every secret of the universe. He wants to classify every animal in a mile's radius around him. He wants to know who owns and who sits in the cars that drive by, where they're going and why. He wants to see the machines in the factories that produced the furniture around him. He wishes to know what happened to all the people he ever met in passing, no matter if they're his fans, or cashiers and waiters, or strangers on the subway.
He doesn't ever act upon those feelings. He knows that even if he stood up and walked to the window to see what birds he can spot, or lingered in the lift until he saw what kinds of people stay in the same hotel as him, it would never be enough. He always wants to know more, to understand more, to feel more. Even if he knew everything about the universe, he'd wonder about parallel worlds.
Because it's not about finding truths, it's about the profound emptiness he feels deep in his heart. About the pull that cannot be answered, and about the sadness that always eventually overcomes him after a while. The feelings stay, and he knows it's not about his thoughts at all. He keeps on thinking throughout.
Sometimes, he thinks about why this keeps happening. Is it grief? What is he grieving, even? Or is he cursed? By whom? He tries writing songs about it again and again, but never finds the right words, always too impersonal or deeply raw.
Sometimes, he sits in silence without thinking at all for an hour, just taking in everything he can perceive. That's worse than the thinking.
Sometimes, he tries to connect with others to forget. He packs his schedule full with spontaneous side quests, visits people all around the world - lord knows he has more friends than time to message them all regularly. It never works. The thoughts stop, but it's not about the thoughts, never was.
And sometimes, he indulges. He loses himself in small what-if scenarios, makes up numbers and backstories of entire lives of families. He thinks about himself in different universes, how he'd act if he'd been born someone else or if he had taken different turns in life or if the world was a different place. Those nights are the hardest. The pull intensifies, he usually sheds some silent tears sometime during it. They're the only way to stop the feeling from resurging for a few weeks.
Tonight, he thinks about having a wish. One singular thing he could change in this world, or about his life. End world hunger would be one thing, or stop wars. But part of him is more selfish, wants something more personal. The health of his family and friends, maybe. Not immortality, he'd get way too lonely. Not money either, he's got enough. Protection of queer people would be lovely, or possibly finding someone he can grow old with.
A tiny part of his brain screams that he'd like to not have to yearn anymore. He shuts it down quickly - he's used to it by now. He'd miss it terribly - would yearn for it.