Some Day One Day (Maylor AU)

Chapter 62

It started when Tim woke up yesterday, with a blaring headache, a pair of boxers hanging loosely around his thighs, and the sheets kicked off the bed that he had all to himself. This certainly wasn't the first morning he'd woken up to an empty bed—even back in London he was accustomed to waking up alone, the blonde either still with a client or making his way back—but it didn't occur to him that Roger was truly gone until he got up and rolled out of bed to see the plane ticket missing from the kitchen counter.

As Tim stared at the cleared countertop, a wave of emotions crashed over him. He felt lonely, lost, conflicted, all at the same time. When he asked Roger what he was supposed to do the night before he left, it wasn't some romantic, last-ditch effort to get the blonde to change his mind—he'd made it very clear that he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. What that question was, was Tim asking for help.

All these years, the brunette had had the blonde to guide him along, bringing him out of the darkness and misery that living with his father encompassed and showing him that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Most of all, he taught him that being broken wasn't something permanent; that if you find the right person, you can glue those shattered pieces back together and become whole again. Roger was his glue, and he knew that without him, he was nothing. He fell apart; he crumbled, back to the fragments of a man that he was before the blonde had entered his life.

That's why Tim didn't want Roger to go; why he became so defensive and discouraging when the blonde mentioned his new opportunity. Without Roger, he was like a puppeteer without a puppet; a magician without his assistant. Things just didn't feel right without him, and the longer he stayed in that dingy, small, three-room apartment by himself, the more unbearable the solitude became.

He first sought refuge in his friend, the landlord, who he ended up spending most of the day with—smoking, drinking, and taking whatever his friend had to offer that would get his mind off the blonde. Tim found himself in a haze of drugs and alcohol, similar to the one he wound up in after visiting Roger at the bar he worked at and being handed off to his coworker. Little did he know that this night would play out much the same.

The sun had made its entire journey across the sky and behind the horizon before Tim sobered up enough to will himself out of the landlord's apartment, his friend too strung out to respond to the brunette's slurred goodbye and drunken waltz back to his apartment. After taking a piss and throwing on the same Beatles' record Roger had put on the night he decided to cut his hair, Tim wandered out onto the balcony and plopped down in the chair, puffing a cigarette and grabbing the phone that had been set on the ground. He heaved a dejected sigh and waited for the calls to roll in.

When they didn't—the night still too young for his callers to be reaching out to him—he gave up and decided to go out, knowing there wasn't enough alcohol in their fridge to make hanging around the empty apartment again sufferable. He was about to leave when he opened the door and saw someone standing in the hallway, their hand raised in a fist as if they were about to knock. His eyebrow arched in recognition of the face, but for the life of him, he couldn't put a name to it.

"Can I help you?" Tim asked bluntly, snatching up one of Roger's jackets that he'd left behind with one hand and bringing a new cigarette to his lips with the other.

"Yeah, uh, is Roger here?" the visitor wondered, leaning to the side to glimpse into the apartment behind him. All the lights were on and the LP was still playing in the bedroom, the needle dancing along the vinyl's ridges without any intent to stop—even when it reached the very center.

The brunette blew a stream of smoke into the stranger's face and answered, "No. He left this morning." He pinched the cigarette between his lips and slipped into the garment that still carried a hint of the blonde's cologne. "Why? Were you looking to take him away too?"

"Well, only for the night," the tall man before him replied with a slight chuckle, the corner of his lip pricking upward into a smirk. Tim stared at him with undoubtable disinterest, causing the visitor to clear his throat and address the elephant in the room. "You don't remember me, do you?"

Tim tugged at the jacket to get it to fit more comfortably. "Not really. Should I?"

"I'm Geoff," he reintroduced himself, not an ounce of shame in his voice. "I work with Roger at the bar?" The brunette's indifferent gaze remained unchanged. "I was the one who brought you home that other night?"

He clicked his tongue. "Oh, right! Because you got me so fucked up, you had me thinking that I died and went to hell."

Geoff nodded his head in affirmation and shoved his hands into the pockets of his puffy jacket. "Well that's certainly one way to look at it."

"Yeah, I remember exactly who you are, and how I never wanted to see you or your...your creepy, piercing blue eyes ever again." The brunette grabbed the doorknob and shut the door of his apartment, brushing shoulders with the bartender sporting a raised eyebrow and heading down the hallway, taking a deep drag from the white stick.

He didn't get very far before Geoff called out to him, "You said Roger had left this morning? For where?"

Tim stopped in his tracks and dropped his head back, annoyed with Roger's coworker. "He went to London," he begrudgingly shared, exhaling the smoke he'd inhaled and glancing back over his shoulder. "'Got a gig playing in some band."

"A gig, huh?" the bartender entertained, crossing his arms over his chest and shortening the distance between him and the brunette. "You know, I think I remember him saying something about that...getting his dream gig."

"Our dream gig," Tim grumbled pettily, matching Geoff's stance as he turned to face him. "He got our dream gig, and he wants me to be fucking supportive of him." He scoffed and shook his head, taking a quick drag before asking with a disbelieving laugh, "Can you believe him?"

"The nerve of that guy," Geoff played along, recognizing the pain that Tim was trying to suppress and knowing just the cure for it. He draped an arm around Tim's shoulder and pulled him close, suggesting, "Say, why don't you come to the bar with me? You look like you could use a drink, and lucky for you, your boyfriend started a tab just before he left. Drinks will be on him."

Fueled by his anger and his initial desire to go out, the brunette agreed to tag along, and before he knew it, he was right back where he started—early morning, plastered, dialing Freddie's number from a payphone outside the bar and letting Roger know how he really felt. Standing outside the booth and waiting for him to finish was Geoff, struggling to light a blunt with shaky hands and his lower half dressed like a woman.

It certainly wasn't what Tim had planned for when he decided to leave his apartment, but he found himself a new friend in Geoff that night. Their friendship would prove great for the brunette, filling that void in his life that Roger's absence created. However, for the blonde, it would prove detrimental—their loyalty to one another something dangerous.