“jesus, the things we’ve seen.”
edward speaks the words quietly, as he steps out onto tristan’s balcony with a glass of wine clutched between his slender fingers. tristan looks up, from where his gaze had been softly focused on the artificial starlight of the paris skyline at night, and raises an eyebrow as his friend comes to stand beside him, lean the long line of his frame against the wrought iron balcony--it’s a strange...admission, perhaps, of the red string of shared pain that ties them together, an acknowledgement that the man who lingers somewhere within the body of tristan’s apartment, having made the declaration during dinner that he could not take one more moment of edith piaf, paris be damned, was a happiness unexpected, never once hoped for, that edward is not so far removed from where tristan stands, alone.
only edward, he thinks, not unkindly, would feel the need to voice such a thought. only edward would believe his own happiness to be a thing so fleeting, so unreal and malleable, that he needs to reach behind himself and dig his fingers into old wounds, just to remind himself of how much they hurt. tristan smiles warmly, takes a sip from his own glass. only edward, with his heart so large, so ill-contained by the fragile bones of his ribs, would feel tristan’s pain so keenly, to take it inside of himself and allow it to hurt both of them at once.
“it hasn’t been all bad.” he says with a quiet chuckle, a quick glance over his shoulder towards the open doors, the space that malachy will soon fill. he will make a quip about tristan having shite taste in music, he will reach out for edward’s hand, and they will slot against each other as though they were hewn from the same block of marble. tristan will turn his gaze to the skyline yet again, the tower glowing golden in the distance, and he will bite down hard on his bottom lip--pretend that he is past the point of feeling the keen sting of absence. “i think there is someone inside right now who would argue that you came out of everything alright, mon ami.”
he takes another sip of wine, savors the way it goes down sweet and bitter all at once, and shrugs his shoulders. “if this is your way of saying you’re worried about me, edward, you needn’t phrase it in such a way.” a slow exhale of breath is swept up in the breeze, gently loosens another dark hair across his friend’s forehead--he reaches out, gently tucks it behind the man’s ear with a smile he’s certain is just the wrong side of ragged, sad around the edges in the way that all of his actions seem to be these days. “i’m not there yet, i admit--christian still lingers in the corner of my vision, sometimes i swear i’m going to roll over and brush a hand across his chest. but i don’t doubt that i will get there, one day--and that it will be in so small part because of you, and malachy.”
as if drawn in by the sound of his own name, malachy emerges--a grin settled on his sharp features that softens the moment it finds purchase between edward’s shoulders. if he senses that the conversation had been anything less than trivial, than genial discussion of the patisserie that tristan intends to take them to for breakfast tomorrow morning, he does not show it--he comes to stand on tristan’s other side, drawls in that slow, deliberate way that he has that, most cities are absolute shite, but this one has its merits.
he could swear he can hear christian in that moment, from that place in the back of tristan’s mind where he lives, soft around the edges as a mixture of memory and longing.
tu iras bien, mon amour. vous serez très bien.
