It was 8 pm, right after dinner...

LXXXIX

The scorching heat of the day had finally been chased away by the soft evening breeze and the temperature was getting more agreable by the minute. Eddy had laid his head on Brett's lap, Brett was playing with his hair and drawing lines on Eddy's graceful neck with his violinist fingers.

"I'd like to get rid of the imbalance in our relationship", Eddy said kind of lazily despite the topic he started.
Brett chuckled. "What imbalance? What are you talking about?" He curled a strand of soft Eddy hair around his index finger.
"You know all about how it was for me!"
"Not everything...", Brett mused.
"What could I have possibly left out?"
"That thing you said and didn't explain properly till today."
Eddy scrunched his brows. "What?"
"Dude, you don't know? You were always so dodgy about it!"
"About what?"
"'He's mine!', remember? You said that to that guy at the beach there..."
Eddy laughed. "Brett, I told you. I told him the truth."
"So you meant it like this...", Brett gestured at both of them, "...back then? Already? Didn't you say your feelings didn't come back before I've gotten sick?"
Eddy scratched his chin as he answered: "I said that because I wanted to bite that guy's head of, but I also meant what I said back then. Of course, technically you belonged to no one, but I guess my instinct just took over and I blurted out what I believed was true all along. Or what I wished to be true..."
He gazed at Brett, a mischievous twinkling in his eyes. "Wasn't it true then?"
Brett grinned. "I guess it was..." It probably always had been. He'd always belonged to Eddy, as his best friend and now as his love.
"And for the record, my feelings did come back at full force when you fell ill, but they had always been lingering just under the surface." Eddy sighed deeply. "You just too damn cute, you know!"
Brett blushed.

Eddy smiled and his eyes glinted. "Now, since I answered all your questions, it's your turn!"
"Shoot! What do you want to know?"
"When did you fall in love with me?"
"Honestly? I think it kind of started when I got sick... when you took care of me the lovely way you did."
Eddy sniggered. "So my nurse identity swept you off your feet?"
"Kinda. That's what I thought first. I thought I was just fond and grateful for what you did for me. Because you were so selfless, so mature and so much in control. You were, are, my life saver!"
Eddy took Brett's playful fingers and kissed the tips of them. Brett shivered ever so slightly. It was his right hand, with which he held his bow. The one without any callouses ...
"And then?", Eddy asked quietly.
"Well, at some point I noticed my feelings went beyond what a best friend would feel for his bro. It was kinda new to feel like this for you and it took me forever to figure it out."
"That you were in love with me?"
"Yeah. I was in denial. I thought you were straight and I was too and that there was simply no way. To be honest, I think I was just too much of a wuss to go down that road. It was Ray who first suggested I could be in love with you."
"Ray?"
"Yeah, I needed to talk to someone about all of this, because I was just too fucking confused. I've never felt as strongly for anyone as I did for you and I didn't know what that was. So I called Ray for help occasionally."
"Ohhh, so that's why you've been talking to him? Like back at the hospital or when you accidentally called my sister?" Eddy looked like a cartoon character with a lightbulp being lit over his head.
"Yup. And he suggested I should think about it. But of course I didn't. I was scared and sick. I had no energy left for shit like that."
Eddy nodded but stayed silent for Brett to continue.

"But it got worse. Everything. The feelings... when you touched me or sometimes when you were just looking at me, I went crazy! You can't imagine the storm of emotions you released in me and you know me, I'm not the type who gets feels that easily..."
Brett felt the tension in Eddy's body intensifying the more Brett shared, like Eddy was a kid listening to an adventure story.
"And I got so fucking jealous sometimes. Like when we filmed that non-musician line up and you talked to that violinist girl..."
Eddy frowned. "Wait... So you WERE jealous of her!"
"Of course I was. But I had to lie so you wouldn't get suspicious. I wasn't even sure what I felt back then. But me wanting to contact that violinist girl? All bullshit."
Eddy punched him lightly on his upper leg.
"Hey!", Brett exclaimed and ruffled Eddy's hair.
"So that time when I thought you were soon to be taken and going to be with some girl, I worried for nothing?"
Brett grimaced and shrugged apologetically. "Kinda... I'm sorry, Eddy."
If Brett had been so jealous it had almost made him sick to his stomach, how must Eddy have felt, thinking Brett was going to start something with a random girl?

But after a short while, Eddy sniggered, causing Brett to relax a bit. "Don't be... I found it sus from the beginning, you weren't really good at lying. You didn't even know her name, bro!"
"Yeah, guess what? I was busy with not freaking out completely."
Eddy laughed loud. "You're a terrible liar sometimes."
"Am I not the deadpan king?"
"Maybe for everyone else. Not for me."
"Yeah", Brett sighed, "you almost always read me like an open book..."
"That's because you're the most important thing in the world."
Brett looked down at his boyfriend, his face carrying a soft smile.

"Anyway", he continued after a short, sweet silence, "it was during that blind dating video when I realized I was in love with my best friend, who's also a guy and probably straight."
"Wait...", Eddy's eyes widened, "back when you just froze?"
Brett nodded, his thoughts wandering back to that one life changing moment.
"It felt so wrong blind dating those girls and I finally realized why, because all I wanted was to talk to you and listen to you play..."
Eddy squeezed Brett's hand, hard.
"I had no idea... I just thought you felt sick."
"I did, but I don't know if it was my illness or the fact that I had an epiphany which had the potential to destroy our lives."
"Jesus..."
"I just thought there was no way that you'd ever like me back. I thought I would ruin our friendship, and twoset."

Even if it was painful for Brett to recall these times, it was also liberating to finally tell Eddy all this. To know that it was okay now and that nothing he'd say or what he felt could potentially destroy them. He brushed through Eddy's hair again, relishing the feel of his silky strands between his fingers and breathed in deeply.

"And then we were at the hospital, and that's when I accidentally called your sister. I later did talk to Ray and he asked me something that made me realize that this was serious."
Eddy held his breath.
"He wanted to know, if what I felt for you was just a temporary thing. Something triggered by what we were going through with my sickness rather than real love, that would last. He was worried I would feel different after I'd be better."

There was no "And?" or "What did you say?". Eddy just listened, his perfect pitch hearing probably trying to catch every inflection, every undertone. As if he didn't know the result of all this already.

The result being the wonderful, beautiful ending and beginning of everything.