Breathe (Tronnor One-Shots)

I'll Be Home

Genre: Hurt/comfort with some subtle feelings on Connor's part. I actually might play around with this idea and make it something longer, eventually. Happy holidays!

Word Count: 3.8k

"You always say that," Troye notes, sinking back onto his bed with a sigh. It creaks beneath his weight, groaning in protest as the sheets bunch uncomfortably around him. He doesn't bother moving despite the stitched patterns digging into the base of his spine where his shirt's ridden up, too busy staring at the cracked white ceiling of his bare apartment and wondering if this is the part where they fight and Matthew yells and Troye hangs up and in the end they call each other back barely three hours later.

A deep breath crackles down the phone line, Matthew's voice floating in with a mixture of both exhaustion and exasperation. "Do we have to do this now?" he questions tiredly, a distinct change from his usual defensive response. Troye can easily picture him rubbing at the bridge of his nose, reading glasses shoved up by the motion. It makes him sigh even heavier this time, knowing exactly what Matthew looks like in this moment but not being able to actually see him. Something twinges in his gut, despite his best efforts to douse all his feelings in ice-cold water.

He takes a minute too long to answer, his own tired gaze not moving from the chipped roof above his head. He can still make out the boxes piled high out of the corner of his eye, heaps of things he hasn't gotten to unpacking in the entire month and a half he's been living here. Matthew's stuff is scattered about in varying degrees of organization, no boxes containing anything but nothing really put where it was meant to go. Troye distinctly remembers watching him dump three cardboard cases of knickknacks in the middle of the floor, tossing the cardboard in the recycling bin and leaving the teaming pile of useless shit for Troye to find a place for.

It was a great start to their whole 'moving in together' adventure, if only because it made Matthew grin sheepishly and kiss him for two minutes straight when Troye tucked it all into various corners of their new apartment with a fond shake of his head.

Running a hand down his face, Troye fights the heaviness sinking into his heart like lead poison from a pencil stabbed viciously under his skin. "Fine," he says, tone dead and impossibly emotionless. He draws the phone away from his ear, swipes his thumb across the red end call button, and drops it back onto the bed beside him without even saying goodbye. It buzzes a moment later, incessant until he swipes the obvious red button again, and when it simply starts up again immediately after, he switches the device to silent.

He doesn't really have it in him to feel sad, gazing absentmindedly up at that stupid white ceiling. He's gotten used to Matthew's excuses as to why he won't be coming home when he said he would be, why he won't be able to go out with him like he said he would, why he won't be coming to see Troye at all, why he's never ever there when he says he will be.

Troye laughs, breathy and self-depreciating. It really isn't sad anymore. A little pathetic, maybe, but not sad. It's just...

It's just the way it is. He's gotten used to the disappointment by now and he really shouldn't get his hopes up that Matthew will be home for Christmas like he'd said he would before Troye hung up on him. Matthew doesn't keep his word and Matthew doesn't come home and Troye sits in an empty apartment all alone, staring up at a boring white ceiling and wondering how he can be so in love with someone who's practically a ghost.

🎄

"Go home, Troye," his manager instructs him softly, a gentle hand on his shoulder and a somber look in her eyes. He brushes her off with a mutter of 'just this last verse' and turns back to scribbling furiously on the studio's standard issue notepad. There's ink stains on his hand to counter the heart stains on his skin and he's a mess, he knows he is, but he doesn't really have it in him to care.