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Early evening slanted its heat and light across New York City, the start of the sun's gradual August descent drawing blinds and casting slats over a small and not-so-busy street, one holding almost no bodies’ weight at the present moment, yet still occupied by the sound of three men halfway through the walk from theater to home, who played the discordant yet unified harmony of their voices into late summertime air.
“Look,” Noel said. “All I'm saying is that maybe you just don't appreciate high art the same as me and Arthur.”
John scoffed. “Whatever the fuck we just watched is not ‘high art.’”
“A Winter’s Tale is a well-renowned classic, John,” Arthur objected. “And anyone with an ounce of taste would understand why.”
“Or anyone who doesn't understand what the words ‘fun, compelling story' mean. That was perhaps the most inconsistent, wearisome two and half hours of my life. That ending— all that statue shit— was a fucking joke to the art of storytelling.”
“Okay, I might agree with ya on that point, Winter’s Tale is pretty miserable” said Noel— which elicited an offended ‘hey’ from Arthur— “But I still don't think I can trust the opinion of a guy who said the exact same thing about Hamlet. Calling a full five acts of compelling psychological explanation a ‘dreary slog’ is a step too far, sunshine.”
“I still stand by it,” John sniffed. “There is no reason to watch someone debate themself for hours when you could instead watch a play where someone actually does something.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “Well, I'm especially not listening to the opinion of someone who's favorite play out of all the ones we've shown him so far is fucking As You Like It. If you want to talk about ridiculous endings, maybe you should review your own taste first.”
“As You Like It is a delight! The music is fun, Rosalyn is a clever heroine and great friend, and the ending is hopeful and heartwarming. Besides, you like Twelfth Night, and that’s essentially the same thing.”
“I tolerate Twelfth Night,” Arthur retorted. “I’d hardly call it ‘good’ for anything except a few laughs, and certainly for nothing that’s intellectually substantial.”
“Woah, lay off the comedies a bit, kid,” Noel said. “Ain’t nothing wrong with a bit of lighthearted fun every now and then.”
“Your favorite is one of the most infamously grim and grief-ridden plays of all time, detective.”
“Nah, there’s some levity in there. Plenty of good jokes, and to be honest that ghost is entertainin’ in a spooky sorta way.”
“The ghost?” Arthur twisted his face into an incredulous glare (which Noel carefully did not call-out as being a rather endearing look). “The inciting object of the entire play’s unease and tragedy is ‘entertaining’? What on earth are you talking abo-”
Abruptly, Arthur clamped his mouth shut and froze in his tracks, eyes faraway and face pale, looking like he'd heard a ghost of his own.
Noel slowed to a stop, John following suit beside him.
“Kid?” Noel asked. “Ya alright there?”
Arthur didn't respond. Slowly, he turned his head to face the other side of the street.
His eyes, though unseeing, burned bright as they gazed across the road. Noel followed his direction over the asphalt to find what had caught his attention.
There, standing just in front of a shop front, a family stood all together: a father, a mother, and between them— just barely reaching their knees— a little girl.
The father was busy trying to hail a cab, but the mother had her eyes cast down to the girl, who was enthusiastically rambling on about her day at school. Both her parents spoke back to her at a regular volume, inaudible from where Noel, Arthur, and John stood. But the girl’s voice— loud, joyous, lively— rose high and musical through the air to their side of the street.
Her blonde hair shone bright and sparkling in the sunlight, a crooked grin beaming up at her parents. The light radiating off of her snagged on something in the tucked-away corners of his mind. She looked almost like N—
No.
(don’t think about it)
Noel shut his eyes hard for a second, just enough to reset any stray feelings. When he opened them again, a cab had pulled up, and soon the family disappeared behind yellow paint and dark windows.
Silence sat for several long moments.
John brushed a hand over Arthur’s back, and leaned in to speak softly. “She’s- they’re gone now.”
Arthur swallowed thickly. “I know.”
Noel felt his subconscious start to slip from his tight hold. He shoved his hands into his pockets and clenched his fists, like that might give him a grip on self-control again.
Memories he thought he’d managed to bury deep enough were starting to claw their way to the surface with each second. They bubbled up through dirt and soon a river formed. Currents made of his Ma’s music, his Dad’s embrace, his best friend’s kiss. Each one tossed him off-balance but they all sucked him into one thought, one absence, one deep yawning want for—
(don’t. think. about it.)
“Ya ever thought about having kids, John?” he asked suddenly, a substantial layer of cheery casualness thrown on top.
John startled, furrowing his brows in thought, loudly displaying his emotions as always. “I’ve… I don’t know,” he said slowly. “We didn’t really have time to think about that kind of future before.”
“Makes sense.” A constant state of survival didn’t really offer opportunities to think of much more than saving your own life, let alone caring for someone else’s. Noel knew that. (don’t think about it)
“But you’ve got time now, don’t you?” he asked.
“I suppose.”
“So, what do you think?”
John glanced at Arthur for a moment, almost studying the man for an answer before he gave one. “I think… I think I would like that. I’m not sure how- if, it could work. But I’ve already experienced the fulfillment of creation for myself— I have to admit that giving that experience to someone else sounds… good. Really good.”
After the words finished, John’s eyes briefly clouded over with thought. He looped his arm through Arthur’s, and the other man immediately melted at the touch, almost like his body had been waiting for the first shelter he could find to collapse onto.
Keeping himself faced just away from Noel, John spoke to him. “Why do you ask?”
Noel shrugged, forcing a little extra nonchalance into the motion. “Just an idle question, really. ‘s not like it could ever actually go anywhere beyond a bit of speculation. Not, uh, not with- well, you know.”
John made a quiet affirmative sound.
He now turned his gaze toward Noel, and a particular gleam in them immediately let Noel know that John knew, too. Noel quickly broke the eye contact, staring forward as he tried to staunch whatever part of him was bleeding loud enough for others to hear.
(don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t—)
“Have you ever thought about having kids, Noel?” John asked, voice far too gentle, not gentle enough.
Fuck.
Clearing his throat, Noel fumbled a cigarette out from his pocket to buy himself a few seconds.
The answer sat on the tip of his tongue, perched to leap and eager to be shared after spending so long hidden: Yes, he had thought about. Of course he had. For years, for most of his life. He remembered nights in Harper’s Hill spent wrapped around his friend, hidden in the safety of shadows and whispering impossible promises into the fragile dark, imaginary questions of Whose eye color would she have? or Would he laugh like you? or Do you know beautiful, how wonderful, how happy our family would be?
Often on those nights— when the words’ sweet hope tipped its way over into bitter— Noel would go still after a while. He’d tighten his arms that held them together, and the spark in his eyes would fade to a snuffed-out ember as he spoke. These will only ever be dreams, Charlie.
Then dream them with me, he would say back. And they would, pressing wishes into each other’s skin like they might take up permanence, like they could root themselves in each other’s life and reach up before unfurling into something new, something real.
They dreamed, and the dreams were secret, safe, sacred— theirs to hold and love.
But dreams didn’t last. Not for him. Dreams looked pretty, felt nice, then disintegrated under the hands of fate, of gods, of himself.
Dreams died and disappeared, just like everything else, like every friend and joy and hope and—
Breathe.
Evaluate. Redirect.
Noel took a deliberate drag of his cigarette, blowing the warm smoke out slow and cool. “Sure,” he said in an even tone. “Guessin’ just about everyone’s thought about it at least once. It’s a pretty natural thing to consider, whether it happens or not, whether you end up wanting it or not.”
“And do you want it?” asked John.
“I- I did.”
“Did? Or do.”
God dammit. Why did Noel have to drag the two most frustratingly perceptive people in the world into his carefully guarded life? He managed to suppress a cringe at the question, but he spent too long wordlessly rolling his cigarette, and he knew he’d already given his answer by the fourth or fifth second of silence. No use trying to lie, then. Noel took an extra moment to weigh the word on his tongue before finally releasing it into the air. “…Do.”
Arthur’s grip tightened on his walking stick.
John’s hand tightened on Arthur’s arm.
Noel’s mind adeptly did not think about either of those things.
“Like I said,” Noel shrugged, “it’s just speculation. I may be a real crackpot, but I’ve got enough sense to know when something’s pure delusion. Not worth giving any extra energy.”
Right, he thought. Tell that to your own brain.
There was a slight pause in the air. Then, John kept looking at Arthur as he hedged his response. “Maybe… maybe it’s okay to give it some energy.”
“What?”
“You clearly find some solace in the thought, right?”
That obvious, huh. “R-right. Yeah.”
Now John shrugged. “Then it’s okay to keep and hold it.” He spoke bluntly, simple and straightforward as always, like everyone could see there was no use in stepping around desires.
“I-” Noel looked to Arthur, who stayed quiet but jerked out half a nod in agreement with John. “I suppose it does feel nice to… to think about it. To imagine us all together in that life.”
Arthur gave a soft grunt. It was nearly imperceptible, but Noel thought it sounded like affirmation.
Feeling encouraged, Noel shifted and tried to feel out the weight of the words he was saying. “It’d be real nice to go through the days with us, and a kid between us, too. Get to raise ‘em and carry them through the world at our side. All together.”
John smiled at him. “Together,” he repeated.
An ember of warmth stirred at that smile, a particular burning ache that Noel hadn’t dared spark in years. He couldn’t help cupping it in his hands now and cherishing the bite against his palms as he spoke on. “All of us working and eating and learning through life. Helping each other grow. And maybe then I could teach all three of ya some manners at the same time,” he tacked on with a smirk, pulling back some levity before the words’ weight grew too much too fast.
John scoffed. “We have manners,” he objected.
“Arguing with everyone you meet doesn’t count as good manners, John,” Arthur said quietly under his breath, briefly broke from his silence.
“Well, neither does making snide remarks all the time.”
Arthur opened his mouth— likely to rebuke that statement with the exact same snideness it accused him of— but Noel cut in before he could dig them both deeper.
“Boys,” he warned. “I’ll tell ya what’s not manners— interrupting everyone else’s days with your bitchin’ and squabblin’. Least you could do is wait til we get home.”
“You’d just complain about it at home, too,” John muttered.
“S’pose that means you should just not do it here or there, then. Make the world much quieter for all our sakes.”
John grumbled, but did acquiesce as he started to walk forward, leaving a hand on Arthur’s arm to lead him on the way back home without any more arguing. With a chuckle, Noel moved to follow.
Below his skin sat a slough of past and present, a tempting mix of disconnection and sharpness— too tempting, his instincts yelled. Rather than immediately give into that temptation, Noel shook his head and tried to turn his focus outward. It didn’t work perfectly, but he continued trying his best as they headed home.
Aside from his brief comments at the corner, Arthur stayed near silent during the walk, offering only a sparse scattering of one-words responses or hummed acknowledgments.
Noel knew that Arthur had once had a kid of his own, but he didn’t know much else beyond that. Arthur had given her name— Faroe— and in a few vague comments gotten it across that he’d long-ago lost her far too early, to some unknown circumstance. But Arthur had never offered anything else beyond that. And Noel knew not to push, himself far too familiar with the pain of unprying a memory’s million sharp legs from around his insides only to let someone else see it once.
So he didn’t press the issue now, didn’t force scars open just to know what their underside felt like.
He could see the skin around them, anyways, and he was a detective for a reason, so he could guess all the same.
Or… try to guess. Arthur was a mystery that defied all laws of logic, and Noel always seemed to lose half his composure around the man anyways. Still, guessing to the best of his ability in the worst of circumstances was what had helped him survive a million times over, so he tried now.
When approaching the topic Arthur seemed cold, a lake frozen and closed off. Yet as Noel cautioned a step forward and pressed against that surface, it felt… unsteady. Like somewhere under layers of thick ice, there was a pocket of water still flowing. Like there was still a chance to dip their toes into this life should the frozen barrier thaw.
Treading water in his own overflowing lake, Noel figured he could get that frost to ease up. Eventually.
For now, he would have to focus on the eddies of his own swimming. There was no stopping it, really, by now anyways. The dam around that particular idea had broken, and there was nothing to do besides letting the incoming wave sweeping him off his feet and into the flood.
Fuck it. If he had to think about this, then he at least was going to make it good.
As the visions swam through his head, Noel reached up to pluck out the warmest ones, holding onto those and ignoring the others that brushed against his synapses with ice. Noel reading ridiculous bed times stories to a kid curled up under covers, tired eyes just barely peeking over the blanket’s edge. John sewing dresses and coats for a giddy girl, letting her pick out gaudy patterns and colors to her heart’s content. Arthur looping an arm around a boy’s thin shoulders, sitting on a piano bench singing or playing the first few basic scales together. He cradled all those thoughts, and purposely lost himself to the hazy hope of possibility.
He imagined walking these streets with a much smaller hand clasped in his, swinging their owner between himself and Arthur or John. He imagined the echoes of giddy laughter that rise with each swing, or that later carry the brassy melody of their symphony at home, crescendos and diminuendos through ascending and descending portamentos transcribed on their walls.
When they walked through the doorway into their home, that phantom musician was missing.
The echoes still rang in Noel’s ear, though. He paused and stood near the doorway for a couple minutes, listening for it as John walked to the kitchen side and Arthur went to grab a book and read it at the table near John.
Noel let his eyes roam over the apartment.
Down the hallway, their office could easily be turned into a bedroom. Small, for sure, but not cramped. Cozy. And just a couple short steps away from their own bedroom, close enough that nothing dark or dangerous could ever creep in there before three men more than comfortable snuffing out darkness could reach it first.
Here, the living room was more than big enough to accommodate for an extra person’s activity. John and Arthur’s eclectic hobbies and all three of their borderline hoarding tendencies already left the house a mosaic of items and objects. One more splash of color wouldn’t hurt in their shared painting.
Around the building, it wasn’t a particularly pretty area, but it was far from terrible. People were friendly enough, warm and smiling as much as city people could. The park wasn’t far off. It wouldn’t be trouble at all to walk down there on sunny weekends, to point out daisies and ducks, to make beautiful memories.
It could work.
(couldn’t it?)
Noel looked over to the kitchen, where John was looking into the refrigerator with a slight frown on his face, studying the food inside as though it would tell him an answer for what to cook in a few hours. He’d started planning their meals out more often, and taken to the task with a calculated determination.
And that— well, Noel must have been on a particularly strong strain of sentimentality today, because the sight made his chest ache with the memory of peering up at his own parents in the kitchen, sunlight caught in their teeth as they smiled back and moved about to make a meal for them all, perhaps even letting his clumsy adolescent hands help alongside theirs, as they often did.
Like all the other aches from the last half hour or so, it was a good ache, one that hurt in just the right way to light up his blood and drift his mind toward something as close to ‘calm’ as he could usually hope for. Noel had learned how to discern and cherish the better pains from the worst ones, so he gladly latched onto this one.
He walked over to John and leaned around him to shut the refrigerator door, making sure to brush against the other man’s back in the process. Drifting his hands to John’s hips, Noel tugged him lightly, encouraging him to turn around and face Noel
John raised an eyebrow and smiled at him in amusement, but didn’t object, simply letting himself be led by Noel to lean against the counter.
Thoughts floating freely down their stream, Noel offered no words and only a lazy grin to John before lifting his hands. Noel laced his fingers into the hair at the back of John’s head, holding onto thick black locks with steady gentleness. Using his hold, he pulled John in for a lingering kiss, who immediately melted at the touch. John let out a contented sigh, and brought his hands up to rest on Noel’s hips, broad and steady.
Still toying with John’s hair, Noel tipped his head down and leaned in close to John’s neck, brushing warm breath across the delicate skin before he spoke against it, lips drawn into a slow smile.
“Don’tcha think our kid would look real cute with you boys’ curls?”
The air broke with a crack.
Both John and Noel jumped hard at the sound. Nerves suddenly alight back to normal high-alert, Noel whipped around to find the source.
Arthur stood over the table, chest stuttering in uneven breaths.
The book he’d chosen sat haphazardly on the wooden surface, still echoing the impact of its violent tumble from Arthur’s hands. His eyes seethed, with something hot as a bonfire, cold as the ocean.
Behind Noel, John shifted forward. “Arthur-”
“Don’t.” The word was both a venom and a plead. “Don’t you fucking- d-don’t. I’m not- I—” Arthur trembled, hands and lungs and voice unsteady with the threat of total collapse. He shook his head violently. “I can’t,” he muttered. “I can’t do this.”
And without another word, he marched out the balcony door and slammed it shut behind him.
Noel stood reeling in the middle of the kitchen, mouth agape, heart twisting deep into his chest. “Should we- should I go…”
“No,” John said softly from behind Noel. “Just let him have a moment, he won’t want anyone pushing right now. I’ll talk to him later.”
Noel looked out at Arthur leaning heavily on the balcony railing. Even through the glass and across the room, Noel could feel the roil of thoughts churning inside the other man’s head. His heart sank even deeper.
“Christ, I feel like a real piece of shit. I didn’t know, I-I didn’t mean to-
“It’s not your fault, Noel.” John grabbed his hand. “It’s not… not something you can change. Certain wounds don’t just fade away, no matter what anyone tries to do. That doesn’t mean we put that pain there.”
“But I made that pain worse for him either way.”
“You… might have, yes. But there’s no use pressing on a bruise again when you’ve already hit it, is there? It’s better to let it alone.”
No, there wasn’t any use, but Noel still didn’t turn around. He couldn’t tear his eyes from Arthur. He wanted to grab the other man and pull him back into synch, ease him back into their regular three-part harmony, even though Noel had no idea what exact note he’d struck to scare off Arthur, nor any idea what note to play to call him back.
A different note played from just behind him, soft and open.
“Hey,” John said, keeping his voice carefully steady. “Come on. Let’s go lay down for a bit. We’ve had a long day, resting for a bit would be good. Okay?”
Noel watched Arthur for a couple seconds longer, trying to pick out whatever final evidence he could, though the attempt ended fruitless. With an effort, he pulled his eyes off Arthur and met John’s gaze, who smiled and squeezed their interlocked hands. Even if he didn’t deserve the comfort of that smile, Noel couldn’t stop himself from clutching it with a desperate instinct.
“…Okay.”
He let himself be guided to the bedroom. Each step took him further from Arthur, which hurt, but each one also brought him further into the safety of their home, into a softly lit room occupied by a soft bed. In the reliability of their room, Noel felt himself— with several drops of guilt and yet a river of relief— slipping back to the haze he’d been in before.
He seemed to be good at that. At losing track of one thread in favor of grabbing hold of another, hoping that he was saving something within himself, knowing that he was breaking everything instead.
Barely a second after they stepped through the doorway, John separated their hands in order to pull vest, button-up, and slacks off. He shucked them carelessly to the side and walked to the bed.
Noel rolled his eyes, but smiled softly and followed after him. He pulled off his own shirt while John plopped down on the edge of the bed.
He reached out as soon as Noel was within arm’s length and dragged him over by his belt loops, forcing Noel to lean down toward him. John placed a warm hand on the back of Noel’s neck, drawing him close before speaking again.
“You really want this family, don’t you?”
“I mean…” Noel couldn’t stop his eyes from casting downward, though he forced a small shrug to cover the hesitation. “Yeah. S’pose I do.”
“You suppose,” John repeated in a murmur. “It’s a pretty supposition. Felicific.”
The corner of Noel's quirked up, a bit of levity back. “Listen to you. ‘Felicific.’ You keep talking like that and soon any kid we might have would be a miniature walking thesaurus, just like you.”
“You say that like you don't love hearing me,” John said, leaning in to ghost his lips against Noel's again.
“Well, you've got me there,” Noel whispered back, then closed the nonexistent distance to kiss John.
The kiss was light, though unhurried. Slow yet chaste. A touch making a lazy promise of forever, as though the entire world stretched out before, waiting, endless.
John parted their lips just enough to whisper a soft question.
“So in this hypothetical, which one of us gets to be pregnant?”
Noel laughed as he pulled back and stood up. “That question sounded real eager, sunshine. You got some little fantasy you wanna tell me about?” he spoke over his shoulder as he turned to pick their shirts up and set them in the hamper.
“Humor me.”
Well. He could certainly do that. (and, though he would not admit it, he couldn’t deny that he himself had already indulged in such fantasies before)
“Hmm.” Noel moved back over to the bed. John had taken the time to lay down, and Noel let his eyes trail lazily over the body sprawled before him, lounging as though there were no concerns in the whole world because, in this room, they had made it so. He slowly lowered himself onto to the bed, crawling over to kneel above John’s thighs, a leg straddling either side. “Well, much as I’d like to offer to shoulder that work, I think this—” he laid both his palms over John’s stomach, “— would be the perfect place to start a new life.” He swept his hands up soft curves, lingering in the feel of hair and fat and muscle gently moving under palms.
John hummed, and Noel could feel the tiny vibrations travel down John’s body and into his fingertips, the thrum of energy created and shared by them both. “Is that so?” John asked.
“That’s so.”
“And why is that?”
Now it was Noel’s turn to hum again. “I’d want them to rest in a place that I trust. To live with a person that I know, that I understand to their deepest core.” He continued slowly brushing fingers over John’s body as he spoke, trying to map out the exact shape of sunlight resting inside. “I’ve seen this core, and I love it. I know I’d trust it to hold onto a life we made. That way our kid could spend the first part of their life somewhere soft, and warm. Somewhere kind. Somewhere that already carries all the best of the world.”
A quiet gasp came from up the bed. Noel quirked his lips. John was easy to get flustered and sentimental— at least under Arthur or Noel’s hands and words— and Noel loved taking every opportunity he could to make the other man melt into comfort. He dragged his fingertips back down, slow and careful.
“I’d look at you every chance I get.” Noel leaned down and pressed a slow kiss to John’s stomach. Just under his lips, he felt breath and blood flowing free and gentle. He lingered there a few more moments to murmur over that breath and blood. “I’d wanna look at you holding that life, and know that kid’s gonna be ours.”
This time a sigh followed his words. John lifted a hand to run it through Noel’s hair, a heavy yet careful touch. An act of reverence.
Noel let the hand roam for a few seconds and basked in the tangibility of trust.
“Our kid,” he whispered. The words felt like cherries on his tongue, tangy and sweet at once. He lifted his head and sat back up, locking his eyes with John. “Our kid.”
Golden eyes looked back, unwavering. “Ours,” John said.
Hearing it back sent a burst through Noel’s chest, a heat that he couldn’t tell whether it soothed or burned. He clutched it tight either way as he looked back down at John’s stomach, watching the path of lighter and scarred hands melting over dark, smooth skin.
“They would start life here, with the best of it. And you would bring them into the world, where we could hold them, smile and laugh with them.”
“I hope they would smile like you,” John whispered. “Kind and easy, like that’s their first language instead of words.”
“I hope they’d love like you,” Noel said. “With everything in their heart and body. And I hope they’d live like Arthur, strong and unafraid. You two would give them so much to learn from. You’d teach them exactly what it means to be good.”
Good.
Like John. Like Arthur.
This could work, with them.
It could work.
(…couldn’t it?)
“We could raise them, all of us together,” Noel said. His voice was hushed, delicate. “We would keep them happy, make sure they know happiness before they know anything else. Make sure they’re kind, and gentle. Safe. Loved.”
Noel’s hands slowed in their sweeps, but they still pressed warmth into the life below with everything they had. He watched each even rise and fall of breath underneath secure skin, felt each unhurried, unworried push and pull of blood beneath his own scarred hands. He repeated the words to himself, rolled them through his head like exotic treasures.
Kind. Safe. Loved.
That’s what their kid would be, the life their kid would own. Nothing else.
No wars, no regrets, no terrors. No weeks of hunger, or loneliness, or loss. No dark cages. No layers of scars on their skin. No layers of scars in their head.
No lies of—
no… no captors that—
n-no kings in—
no Hast—
“Hey.”
It took a few seconds for the soft, low voice to filter through all the heaviness pounding against his eardrums. Slowly, Noel dragged his eyes upward to meet John’s. Something shone in those gold irises, soft and aching all at once. Something that knew.
“C’mere,” John murmured.
He reached a hand up to tug at Noel’s arm, which Noel easily followed.
The dance of limbs to lay twined around each other was an easy ritual by now, but the normally content ritual soured into solemn. Noel let himself be pulled down, every muscle seeming to grow heavier with each inch it moved, until he had practically collapsed to John’s side.
John didn’t seem to care, much too good for Noel and taking his weight into his arms without a single word or flinch— the solid, steady nest woven of earth and grass beneath a bird with broken wings.
They ended with Noel curled into John’s side, resting a hand on John’s chest to feel the undeniable pulse of life kicking beneath the body’s surface. John hugged Noel close with one arm and brought his other hand up to rest upon Noel’s hand.
They sat with silence for a while. With each second that drifted by, Noel felt the dreams he'd grasped earlier slipping from his fingers like water, until eventually the river had run completely dry, devoid of future.
John swept a thumb over Noel’s knuckles. “You would make a good father.”
Noel pushed air out his nose in a cheap imitation of laughter. “Right,” he muttered. “Mr. Noel ‘can’t look at the sun wrong or he goes into a fit of hysterics’ Finley, Noel ‘can barely hold his own mind together with cigarettes ‘n insomnia’ Finley, Noel ‘batshit insane’ Finley. He would make a peachy parent. Real top-notch dad material.”
“You would,” John insisted softly.
“Charlie might’a. Noel wouldn’t.”
It was quiet for a moment. The air sat hushed and dull around them, smothering. Lifeless.
After a long pause, John squeezed Noel’s hand and hugged their sides closer.
“You would have made a good father, if…” He trailed off, leaving the sentence open and listless.
Noel shut his eyelids. Everything in his body felt dull, heavy. He was so God damn tired.
He leaned further into John, hiding his face in John’s neck as though it could hide the bitter, damning finality of the word he whispered next.
“If.”
If he didn’t love in a way that tore half the world’s opportunities away from him.
If he hadn’t abandoned the small town where he was welcome, where he’d had the best chance of carving out some false yet passable act of a normal family.
If he hadn’t thrown away his safety at every step of life, tossed aside whatever small pieces of normalcy he had in the hopes of finding just a little more.
If he didn’t die a million times over in some unfathomable hell, and then have to spend all his energy restitching his own life together instead of creating someone else new.
If he wasn’t so fucking broken, so sharp and fragile and full of grenades with the pin half-pulled that he would never dare let something good touch him, let alone form under his hands.
If he wasn’t who he was.
But ‘if’ was a useless word, an imaginary grain of sand amongst a desert that cared not for hopes and wishes that would inevitably be swept far beyond broken hands’ reach.
Noel knew he wasn’t in a dream with any golden-haired or golden-eyed boys by his side. He was sitting in the desert with dust burning his eyes. Where if he wanted to survive, he had to resign himself to drinking down the sharp shards of sand to soothe his thirst, to letting his skin scrape raw in the middle of barren wastes with nothing but rough dirt to staunch the weeping of blood.
Where there was no life for him to hold beyond whatever scraps of himself that he managed to scavenge in the wastelands.
John cradled the back of Noel’s head, fingers warm and sweeping, an ocean of wistful hope that both eased and teased the drought yawning inside.
“Maybe in another universe we get to. Together.”
The words were sharp. The words were dull. Knives that tore, stones that pressed. Embers that warmed and burned all at once.
Words of a promise. Of a prayer. Of a desperate, hopeless hope against all reason.
Noel rolled them through his head, over his tongue. He tried not to break their surface and taste the cold hollowness inside them as he opened his mouth to whisper.
“Yeah.”
And maybe, somewhere, among all the different renditions of this pathetic, anticlimactic tragedy, there was one where things went alright. One cast that included a tiny grinning, giggling, bright-eyed life. One scene where Noel got to act with a rumbly man of divinity and a snarky man of passion, and they all got to hold that little bundle of giggles between them. One single line where they all got to talk and laugh and live together.
Noel buried himself against John’s side, clutching him tight, eyes shut tighter, trying to focus on the dark warmth of this hushed room, trying to ignore the heavy cold that ached deep inside his ribcage.
“Maybe in another universe.”
But not in this one.
Neither of them spoke the words.
No matter how quiet, no matter how small they may be. Don’t speak the words.
And maybe, then, they won’t be real.