[Not the way it did before he died, when everything felt strange and cold and molasses-slow. This is warm and bubbly and uncertain and terrifying, and surely fake, some trick, some misunderstanding or miscommunication. It is. It must be. He knows.]
[It shouldn't matter anyway, even if it were true. It shouldn't, because he's heard it before, not all the time but often enough, when a girl got too close or he got too careless, right before he made himself alone again. Love, it's barely something he believes in, really; it's barely something that's ever occurred to him to think about.]
[And this isn't love, what they are. What they have. This is friendship. Isn't it? Friendship, closeness, mutual protection and comfort, that's what friends do for each other. Friends take care of each other. Friends—]
[(How many times has Joseph leaned in to smell his hair in the last week, two weeks? How many times has he stepped close, just like this, with his eyes so earnest and soft, honesty burning in the air around him like a halo? How many times has he thought, If we could just stay like this forever, nothing could ever hurt me again?)]
[He's frozen. He knows he is. He must look panicked, caught out, lost, because he is all of those things. Not afraid, but so confused. He wants — he just wants—]
[To understand? To have it taken back? To have Joseph say no, it was a joke, even though it so obviously wasn't? To be able to disbelieve and discard it, because if it's true then that means he's going to ruin everything, which . . .]
[Par for the course, isn't it?]
[He pushes the thought away.]
[Caesar, I love you.]
[And swallows. His voice comes out shaking.]
What do you . . . ?
[Stupid. Stupid, fucking stupid. His fingers tighten on the counter 'til his knuckles go white.]
no subject
[And it's like everything stops.]
[Not the way it did before he died, when everything felt strange and cold and molasses-slow. This is warm and bubbly and uncertain and terrifying, and surely fake, some trick, some misunderstanding or miscommunication. It is. It must be. He knows.]
[It shouldn't matter anyway, even if it were true. It shouldn't, because he's heard it before, not all the time but often enough, when a girl got too close or he got too careless, right before he made himself alone again. Love, it's barely something he believes in, really; it's barely something that's ever occurred to him to think about.]
[And this isn't love, what they are. What they have. This is friendship. Isn't it? Friendship, closeness, mutual protection and comfort, that's what friends do for each other. Friends take care of each other. Friends—]
[(How many times has Joseph leaned in to smell his hair in the last week, two weeks? How many times has he stepped close, just like this, with his eyes so earnest and soft, honesty burning in the air around him like a halo? How many times has he thought, If we could just stay like this forever, nothing could ever hurt me again?)]
[He's frozen. He knows he is. He must look panicked, caught out, lost, because he is all of those things. Not afraid, but so confused. He wants — he just wants—]
[To understand? To have it taken back? To have Joseph say no, it was a joke, even though it so obviously wasn't? To be able to disbelieve and discard it, because if it's true then that means he's going to ruin everything, which . . .]
[Par for the course, isn't it?]
[He pushes the thought away.]
[Caesar, I love you.]
[And swallows. His voice comes out shaking.]
What do you . . . ?
[Stupid. Stupid, fucking stupid. His fingers tighten on the counter 'til his knuckles go white.]