lost tapes.

three // AU - 'far away and few between.'

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The first thing that arrives is a large square, mostly flat, haphazardly wrapped, and addressed in a chicken scratch scrawl that could only ever belong to one person.

It's a record, and the first thing Nora thinks is, it's a miracle it's gotten all the way here, to Miami from the city, without being shattered into a thousand pieces.

But, that would be just his luck.

There's no note, no explanation. It just is. And so Nora puts it on and tries not to wonder about the why of it all while she floats around the apartment listening, thinking of him, and remembering.

A few days later, she picks up a book while she's buying a hoard for herself — too much time on her hands these days, and nothing to keep her racing mind busy enough. She thinks of him as soon as she spies it, and so she gets it, and sends it back his way, all the way from the beach to downtown.

He knows it's from her as soon as it falls out of his overstuffed mail box and into his waiting hands, her loopy handwriting the most obvious thing in the world to his ever-sleepy eyes.

The first move he makes is to tear it open, greedy to see what might be inside. But then he stops and goes slowly, preserving the way her hand has carved his name across the paper, just in case.

It doesn't surprise him in the least that it's perfect, the book she's sent. She knows him, better than probably anyone, and so it makes sense.

He had plans, but he cancels them to stay tucked up in the apartment that's now only his, and then he spends an uncharacteristically calm night in, reading and thinking, wondering, and missing her.

-

Fab must have told him, that's the first thing she thinks.

She's far away from home, any of them she's ever known, and with her hotel breakfast comes a parcel covered in stamps and messy, perfect letters.

It's a scarf. Not new, one she's seen before — worn before. Because it's his. And once she'd shared it, but now it's here.

Still no note, though. Just the sentiment to keep warm, and to make her think on him.

In return she sends him back the one she'd been wearing since she first arrived, and so when he gets it, all he can smell is her.

It's citrus and coffee and the hint of whatever it is in the world that only ever makes itself known in her, and he wears it until it becomes his own, just like she does with his.

-

The first thing he thinks when he wakes, is that he might actually murder whoever it is that's banging down his door. Because he hasn't slept in what might be months, and now he's awake, and he doesn't want to be.

The new album is done, and everything is terrible, but it's finished. And he's alone and she's still gone but maybe if he can just get back to sleep, he thinks, the world won't seem quite so cold and lonely.

It's a good plan, a sound plan, if only the idiot outside would stop knock-knocking. But they won't and they're not going to, so he gets up and he stomps his way to the door, reefing it open and meaning to be mad, only to immediacy be confused by the bunch of flowers being shoved in his tired face.

There's a florist at the end of them, or a florist's delivery person in any case, and they don't say anything except for his name before handing the bunch over and then making a swift exit.

There's no note — still, no note. But he knows.

It's a cloud of sweet-peas and poppies, petals waving in the balmy air like tiny, delicate flags, and right in the middle of it all there's a single sprig of forget-me-nots.

Because, of course there is.

He sends back Irises, as many colours as they can manage to find, just to cover all of his bases.

He knows she'll know, but he can't bring himself to care. He wants to say it and so he does, even if not with words.

-

The irises are still sitting, loved, in the centre of Nora's little kitchen table on the morning when there's knock at the door.

Julian had always been suspicious of how long she was able to keep flowers alive. They're dead, he used to say. Technically, they're dead. And yet here you are, magical or some shit, keeping bouquets looking brand new on our kitchen table for weeks.

And it had been weeks — two, to be exact — since first they'd arrived. And truthfully, by now, they were looking a little worse for wear. But she hadn't been able to bring herself to bid them farewell quite yet, and so she was hanging on to them, just until she could figure out the next best move.

Or that's what she had been doing, until he appeared in her doorway.

-

'Hey,'

He says it like it's nothing, like this was nothing — him, being here.

'Hi.'

She says it like she's not surprised, because there was a part of her that wasn't, and like her heart wasn't rattling against her ribcage, which it definitely was.

'Can I, uh, come in?'

'Yeah, yeah, sorry. Come in.'

He fits, and that's the first thing Nora thinks. He fits here, just like she'd known he would. That's why she'd picked it in the first place, this would-be home. Because it was meant to be theirs, and he was supposed to belong in it.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Julian laughs, and Nora looses the thread of whatever else it was that she'd been thinking.

Her eyes dart to him, his smiling face, and his gaze settled on the vase.

'You and your fuckin' flower magic, man.'

Nora smiles back, blushes, then smiles again. And he does the same.

'You want coffee?' She asks, and he nods, so she passes him her half-empty cup, the everything about him fogging up her dizzy head.

He takes a sip, then puts the mug back down again, letting his eyes wander for just a second to this place where she now belongs.

She makes sense here, he thinks. And for a second, just one, it makes him doubt himself. But then he takes a step anyway, and she does too, and just like that, he's home again.

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