breddy nocturnes

adagio

"i can see how it represents our lives if we hadn't chosen music, but i realized that the plot kinda also represents...you know...what could've been if things went wrong." eddy swallows. "last year."

it's one thing, jotting down undefined ideas and guiding notes into a script, filming beneath lights and cameras afterwards and bringing it to the world after a year of work. that part's over and done with.

but having his thoughts altered all at once and seeing through a light he'd hoped to avoid, laying with his lover in his arms tonight and talking about it, however, is a completely different story. he remembers it all in a blur of hospital visits and fear more than a year ago.

"you would've given up on music completely if..." brett's eyes widen as he pieces the puzzle together, and eddy realizes: if things had truly gone wrong, brett wouldn't feel for the aching despair within eddy—he wouldn’t hear the desperation echoing in adagio.

"it's just...is there a point of doing what you love without the person you love?" he asks, thinking of that clip with the five lines on the heart monitor symbolizing empty staves. "the music would've left with you."

it's a recurring motif in everything they've created together: music is both their whole lives—it's made a home inside them both, impossible to separate. even if it did, they'd find their way back to eachother—in any universe, over and over again.

brett stays quiet for a few moments before speaking again. "you know, i remember there was one point when i was bedridden where i just questioned the whole point of living altogether."

"really?"

"yeah." he rolls onto his back and gazes up at the ceiling, gently taking eddy's hand in his own. "and i know in the long run, you should be living for yourself, but when that wasn't..." he trails off. "i realized it was okay if i was, just for a bit, living for the people who stay tougher in tough times and hold me together."

"you make sure i'm really living and not just surviving, eddy. you and this life we've built together on music," brett says finally. the music lives inside both of us: it goes unsaid.

"brett, don't," eddy whispers as he hastily brushes away an unchecked tear on his cheek.

"eddy." the way brett touches his lips to eddy's is so achingly gentle that it's almost painful in eddy's chest. "the idea of what could've gone wrong and all the other what ifs are always going to scare us. but what matters is that i'm healthier now. i'm still right here with you."

"i'm—we're both in a better place now, yeah?" brett pulls back to cradle eddy's face between his palms, brushing his thumbs across eddy's cheeks and wiping away stray tears. "get some sleep, love."

eddy smiles at him then, pulling him closer and closing his eyes. we're okay. we're both okay.