Songbird (Tradley AU)

Chapter Fourteen - When You're Tired and Blue

"Tristan?" Brad whispered, slowly stirring from his sleep, I had woken up a couple of hours ago and was playing on my phone in the eerily silent apartment, so the small whisper of the boy on my lap was easily heard.

"Yes Curley?" I hummed sympathetically as I looked at his sleepy brown eyes.

"Thank you." He mumbled, putting his head back on to my chest "For coming over, for keeping me safe, for listening to me. For coming back trissy."

"Don't worry about." I smiled, brushing his chestnut curls away from his forehead "Thank You for letting me in Curley. Thank you for letting me back into you life, I'm so sorry for how I treated you before and how I tried to use you to fix my broken heart whilst not paying attention to how I was tearing you apart and destroying you. I'm so fucking sorry for who I was when you met me."

"The past is the past." The Curley boy smiled quietly "Today is today."

"Mhm." I agreed

"...Trissy... I have a question." Brad stated after a few minutes of laying silently as I played with his hair, wrapping the already Curley strands around my fingers and running my hands through it, admiring the softness and smoothness of it.

"Ask away." I replied, continuing to play with his hair.

"When Dan found you outside the apartment, how long were you out there for?" He asked quietly, his voice staying quiet as to not ruin the perfect silence that had settled into the house. It wasn't the eerie silence that had settled before the younger had work up, it was a lot more comfortable and a lot more fluid, it just felt peaceful.

"Uh, honestly? About forty-five minutes." I admitted

"Oh...so you heard my song?" He asked, and I could see a rosy tint begin to creep onto his round cheeks

"That's why I stayed so long." I hummed "Listening to it, thinking about every lyric and who it could possibly be about, who could have hurt you that badly that you wrote something so beautiful, and honestly, I cried a little."

Brad nodded slowly "... That... That song was about you, Tris." He admitted very quietly and my heart dropped.

You were the one who hurt him

To be completely honest I had guessed that he might've written it about me, I had always hoped it hadn't been though, purely because I hated the thought of knowing I broke the poor boys heart enough that he felt creatively inspired. There's always something beautifully tragic in the way many artists work and it's the fact that their best pieces rarely come out of happiness, but more often out of the realest heartbreak and most gut wrenching sadness you can imagine. James was just the same, he'd always write at his best at the times we were barely hanging on to each other by a thread.

"Oh." I hummed.

It's funny how two letters can hold and entire world of hurt and pain and distaste. It's funny how two letters can hold months of healing in them, how it holds the pieces of a heart that could be shattering in a way so that the light can give the illusion of a heart that's fully whole.

It's also funny how Brad can see straight past the illusion.

"Trissy... That was never meant in a negative way... I've written so many songs about you, you fascinate me, I can't not write about you." Brad explained "Just because you made me sad once does not mean you always do, just because I wrote one sad song about you does not mean that they're all like that, in the same way that just because I'm sad right now does not mean I'm going to be sad forever. Same to you Trissy. I know you're still hurting and I know you still miss him, but we're working towards a happier life for the both of us. I know it's dark right now for you, and as much as you deny it, James is still a very big part of you life, and I accept that, I had trouble accepting that before, I found it so frustrating when you'd moan his name instead of mine when we were fucking, or how you'd constantly compare me to him. But I understand why now, because I had never loved anyone like that before so how could I understand? But now I've experienced love that runs so deep you can feel it running through your veins, you can feel it coursing through your entire body, mind, and soul as if it were electricity, I understand. I don't want you beating yourself up because I wrote a sad song about you."

I nodded but stayed silent, amazed at what Brad had just said to me, amazed and how well he really knew me, and evidentially how much he cared about me.

"I have a song I was to show you." Brad hummed after a few seconds, untangling himself from my embrace and slowly made his was over to the White, slightly shabby looking piano in the far corner of the room and walking past it, instead picking up a traditional looking acoustic guitar and perching himself on his piano stool

"I called it 'Shout About It'." He told me before beginning to strum and began creating melodic sounds that were perfect enough without words.

If you want words to put your mind at rest tonight
Come and shout about it
We can talk for a hundred miles and drive
Where you're less surrounded
Cause I can see that the candle you hold inside
Has a cloud around it
How can a heart like yours be that high and dry
When it burns the brightest?

As he began to sing my breath was completely taken away, being able to hear his voice so raw and close and not though thick brick walls made the entire experience so much more meaningful and special, and they lyrics themselves made me want to break down crying because he clearly meant every word, and every word was felt and conveyed in such a way it was so hard hitting and emotional.

I'm so sorry I can't stop myself from staring at you
When you're tired and blue, my dear
It's just any reason I get to be closer to you
I wanna shout about it
Oh, I wanna shout about it

The way Brad looked when he sung was everything I had imagined it and more, I could feel myself falling even harder for this boy, but I still stood by everything I had said in the night prior to having Brad sing this song to me. If he wanted to remain just friends, I was perfectly okay with that.

Was I?

(A/N hi guys, I don't normally do this but I just wanna say a huge thank you to everyone who reads, comments and votes, this story means a lot to me and I really hope you're enjoying this. If you wanna help support me even moreeeeeeee there's two things you can dooooooo if it's not a massive trouble for you

1) please tell as many people as you can about this story :) let's try and get to 1K reads!!!!
2)  pleaseeeee go and read my new project, it's a Jonnor fic called Sinking Ships and it's going to be a really dramatic story full of drama and love and frustration and horny teenage boys ;)

Thanks so much guys :) )