There are lines flooding through half blinded windows and pooling on the floor. Only awash on the carpet due to streetlamps. Clear skies tonight. All the stars have gone blind ; the sun just far enough that not even a sliver of the moon peeks through the clouds in its reflection. It’s like a glimpse into the endless nothingness. Chance tries not to fall into it ; there's irony in there somewhere. Something about which side of the scale bares better odds. Chance tries harder not to fall into that. He does a lot of trying.
Everything involves a lot of trying these days. Try to get in bed, try to sleep, try to wake up, try to get out of bed. Remember to eat something, try to keep it down. Remember to breathe, try to stay sober. Remember to breathe. Remember to breathe. Remember to breathe. Inhale, exhale, repeat. The hardest part of living, someone once sang, is taking breaths to stay. Chance writes it down in his new journal ; lets the rest come easy. Builds himself back up. It takes a while. He gets there, eventually - knees scraped and hips bruised from stumbling his way to recovery.
He thinks of the blinds like a rib cage. Each breeze through the window another reminder that he's still out there. A reminder to breathe. Inhale, exhale, repeat. A car alarm goes off somewhere down the street ; he thinks of it like a heart beat.
Can you hear me?
Can you hear mine?
He falls asleep to the rain, thrashing against panes of glass, dampening the horrendously orange shag carpet ; he doesn't have the heart to suffocate the windows.
Morning brings the proverbial sunrise. At the very least it finds the proverbial sunrise like a door-jam just tucked out of range from the weather. Least, he figures that must have been the intention. Puddles have caused some backlash, splattering the sheer plastic. Rain still putters down from skies awash with shadowy greys, as well. No real sun to be seen. If there was one he's missed it, anyway, seeing as it's nearly midday. Bridging the gap between greeting-suffixes. Chance knows long before he sits down at one of the tables in the back to pick apart the damp paper and read the lines scrawled in familiar writing ; he knows before he even picks it up.
It settles somewhere uneasy in the pit of his stomach, reminding him that yes, he has forgotten to eat this morning, but more importantly that maybe he jumped the gun in thinking breathing is his most difficult task in recent times. It becomes painfully apparent once again that the hardest part is letting go. Try or not, there's is a budding knowledge somewhere behind burning eyelids that he is stronger than he once was - but he is not quite that strong ; a budding possibility that he might never be.
Unfortunately his lack of choice and bravery don't always coincide with one another. It comes first as a need. He locks the front door, turns off the lights to sit on the floor, back to counter and listens. To the Words That Aren't Words and the Words That Are Words and the silence, and the silence, and the silence before he leans forward to press play again. Manually. It comes first as a need. Gut wrenching, tear-open-his-own-flesh-to-make-it-stop agonizing. It comes with instinct to numb ; do anything to soften the impact, lessen the volume. Find me. Let me go. Find me. Let me go. Chance takes it like waves to the shoreline, wearing down his resolve little by little. He sits there until it is no longer a need. Rationality disappears for a while. Thoughts spin dizzy for a hot minute, or hours, or maybe it's a full day by the time he pulls himself off the floor. He turns the lights back on, unlocks the door - but he does not run through the streets to find him somewhere between here and there. Chance waits until it is not a need but a want. Figures that's what he owes him, more than anything. Addiction, however soft the brand, breeds no benefits. He does not need him. The sun can not always dry up all the rain. This is London, after all. He's not sure what a goodbye looks like anymore but he is well versed in the sound of one. He has heard far too many in the last couple of years alone.
Come find me, when you can. Let me go, if you can't.
He's not sure now who the lines belong to ; knows that morning and night have played both parts, equally. This not a game of cards, or open-chest hearts they're playing but perhaps, as the afternoon folds over into another evening, his stomach still sinks with the setting sun like the fiery orb itself burnt down his castle, strolled up to his king and muttered 'check'. Whether or not that was any part of Kai's intention: Chance only has one, final move left on the board before time runs out ; every single step he takes now is just prolonging the inevitable checkmate.
Someday even the sun will burn out and it will take everything in its solar system with it. There will be no light to reflect and no moon to reflect it regardless. Nothing lasts forever ; there is always an endless nothing at the end of the apocalyptic sunset. Today might not be the last, his lifetime probably won't see the last, but some day will see it. His exhaustion is nothing to compared to something that never stops moving ; never stops coming. The world will end with or without them. They're all going, eventually, into that dark night. Chance just wants a final say in which passenger seat he takes that ride.
The first time he sees him again, Chance chokes ; leaves. Putters home haphazardly on drunken feet through damp streets of a city he does not live in. He is not brave enough. Still not quite strong enough. 2 AM hits with the lights on and the steady ticking of a metronome heart beat. He does not know where to go ; how to find home, again.
When he gets there, it is still with uncertainly but far less. When he finally gets there, he has sparkles dusted on his eyelids. A few silvery specks fall like stars onto the crest of his cheekbones. He is comfortable in the skin still stretched a bit too thin across them ; this is the budding acceptance of is instead of allowed. It takes him weeks. Not to find him again, nor to find the words - only to build up his own foundation. Find his center. Chance waits, once again, until it is not a need. Until he is ready to face the music and the man behind it.
Knees tremble unsteady in the back corner the whole time. It's a long night. He walks in naked ; face first, full frontal, stone cold sober and fully clothed in a jumper quite optimistic for the weather.
It’s nearing twelve when he works up the bravery to approach the stage, some blond boy ( that he thinks is named after some body of water ) still helping Finn to cart equipment off to the right, but he doesn’t ask ; he doesn't intend to waste time. He's never been intending to waste time. Though he's fairly certain that he's done plenty of it, and there's not much he can do to remedy that now - the present is more pressing, currently. He means to leave him a note, even has the paper tucked into his pocket as he steps up to the scuffed keyboard casing, worn from too much love and use. Instead he sits there beside it, watching the crowd of people muddle about from behind the bright, hot lights ; watching the only one that matters make his last trip up to presumably pack away the instrument Chance has anchored himself to.
This is how they met.
This is not the proper place for confrontation.
This is where he plans to say:
I still hear you when you don't speak ; when you can't. Deaf and blind to everything we were, and are, and won't ever be. I still see you. Still hear you. It's not your fault. It was never your fault. Not any of it. Some things are so far bent it's easy to lose sight of their original shape but so help me, God, I still see the shadow on my bedroom wall the first morning you stayed and the last night you didn't. When I look up I still see stars and despite what I do and do not know, I see us.
What he does say, or rather half-sing, is "my feet are still sore, my back's on the fringes" and it's almost funny, except for the part where it's not. He has been running after him for so long he's forgotten to come up for air once or twice. Now, he remembers to breathe ; knows this is a want, as well as a need. Not all demons drown, after all. Some learn to swim. A hand twitches at his side, flits upward to brush fringe away from glittery eyes as if to prove the point. Some anchors just refuse to sink. His heart beats harsh bullets against his chest despite the fact that he knows now he can live without him, if he has to. "I'm sorry it took me so long. I didn't mean to be this late. I got lost for a bit. But I'm here now and if you are able — if you are willing to keep moving I will follow you anywhere. To the end of the line."
