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they meet in an orphanage, a wide and flat building covered in vines that the caretakers have long since surrendered against, surrounded by chipped white picket fences and a gate that always creaks. rooms were too cold in the winter, too warm in the summer, and when it rained the white tiles were hopelessly patterned in small, muddy footsteps. in the spring, however, the temperature was perfectly fair: the sun would light the halls in just the right way, and the scent of fresh air, freshly picked flowers, filled the building from room to room. the dull of winter, bare leaves and grey skies, recedes and everything around blossomed with color: rich greens and deep bark, an abundance of flowers by the gates in the front, and above glowed the color of storybook skies.
inigo comes with the spring, flowy limbs and floral scents like he’d been uprooted straight from the garden, and the way he smiles reminds gerome of the sunlike dandelions that grow near the playground. if their eyes meet like static, their hands shake in ten thousand volts, a quick touch-n-go like an electric shock. they become roommates and inigo talks gerome’s ear off to high heaven, about everything he can and everything he wants, continuing as a one-man conversation if gerome cannot even be bothered to grunt: gerome didn’t care about anything he had to say, the mundane humdrums of events around the orphanage, but instead found his curiosity peaked in the things he didn’t -- red eyes, wet pillows, bandages, blooming bruises over the tan of his skin.
“i’m really clumsy,” he laughs one night, when he catches gerome red-handedly staring. gerome turns his head and pretends to sleep. he did not care. he did not -- but he could not help but hear inigo across the room, later that night, softly crying himself to sleep with his face to the wall and back to the world; could not help but wonder how many tears he had cried, and if it would be easier to count drops of water in the ocean. so, he takes a risk, tears a wall down only for the night, just long enough to shelter a wilting weed by the side of the road. he grabs inigo’s hand, and puts a finger to his lip. quiet. don’t speak. inigo wipes the tears from his eyes, sniffling and hiccuping too hard to speak, and grips gerome’s hand too tightly when their fingers interlock. gerome squeezes back in kind and the electricity returns from the heat of their palms, sparks of a fire that burns too warm under the cold spring moon.
in the bottom drawer of the dresser, the one which is always kept just a finger’s breadth ajar, gerome reveals a young raven he had found injured by the playground and was delicately, steadily nursing her back to health. she rustles a little upon a pile of shredded paper and is quick to lean into gerome’s touch, who brings forward the hand locked with inigo’s. she inspects them, pecking gently, and spreads her wings in approval to allow inigo to stroke her back. inigo smiles, and in the dark of their room it is the only light, the only radiance; the moon illuminates his face, the corners of his mouth, makes his eyes sparkle like they belong in the sky. their fingers are still entwined.
the next day gerome is expelled from the orphanage when he steps outside to set the raven free, just in time to spot some kid from a circle of children painting bruises with his fist to inigo’s face, and that’s how it starts: gerome snaps and all color dissolves, the only thing on his mind is fight, fight, fight. he doesn’t realize he’s thrown a punch until someone’s on the ground, howling in pain, and it isn’t him. when the caretakers find him violently rounding on a group of children, inigo is curled up beneath the playground, cradling his face. people screamed (“someone stop that boy”, “get him out of my sight”, “you are no longer welcome here”), people whispered (“i told you he was dangerous”, “it’s always the quiet ones”, “he had dangerous eyes”). inigo pretended to be deaf.
after they finally manage to tear gerome away, they’re well bruised and battered -- two of them with black eyes, all of them in tears, and gerome in much better shape than he should be for a one-man army. gerome took the raven, and left everything else -- including inigo, who said “i’ll see you,” when he left, and heard “someday,” when he was gone.
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eight springs later, just after the snow has melted and the sun begins to beam through the thick canopy of winter clouds, inigo is running late to work and gerome had stopped by the coffee shop to jumpstart his brain, and within seconds they are both on the sidewalk and drenched in black coffee. their eyes meet, and there it is: the static, the spark, the electricity that pumps through the wires of their veins. the gears whirr frantically, processing, processing, processing, and then short circuit: they take several minutes basking in electric flow just staring in each other's eyes.
“g… ger-”
“please get off-- you’re heavy.”
“-ome, it’s you! it’s definitely you!”
inigo smiles blindingly, gerome is seeing stars, and it’s just like the start, when they were twelve and young and stupid -- except now, they’re dripping in coffee and on the cement in a public area.
they dry up and spend the rest of the day smelling like coffee and embarrassment, and later they catch up by the old playground, overrun by weeds and vines that climb up even to the top of the slide. the building is still wide and flat but the walls have been covered by vulgar graffiti, holes and cracks shame the paint that now flakes off, and no window is in it’s original condition. the amount of damage totalled brings surprise to the fact that the building is still standing. gerome says he heard the place will be torn down soon to be covered by a taller, wider building for daycare, and inigo thinks they will make good use of the playground, hopes it will be a peaceful place full of happy children. he doesn't even finish his sentence when tears choke the words from his mouth.
"s... shit, i -- sorry, it's -- you were the only person who put up with me even... even though you always told me to shut up, and then you were gone and…"
"would you like to get coffee with me?" gerome interjects suddenly. inigo is taller, broader, but had not changed in the least: he still cries at the drop of a hat. inigo looks at him, face scrunched and eyes glassed over, nods once. it is enough. just like that, their lives entwine once more.
it’s nine in the evening in the winter-turned-spring. inigo has work the coming morning but buys coffee anyways, and another for gerome to make up the morning's catastrophe. they swap numbers and inigo demands they stay in touch. when they part ways, each living on the other side of town, gerome lets go of a hand he hadn't realized he'd been holding. he pauses and the sky behind him breaks in golden yellows. it is someday -- a new day -- and gerome will not leave him.
not this time.
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the chill bites through the layers of inigo’s clothes as he opens the door, the frost pouring in from the outside. quietly and quickly, he shuts the door behind him, gently leaving his shoes to the side. the house creaks under his tread, but it’s barely a noise above the rain. he’s hardly two steps into the kitchen when he spots gerome napping peacefully on the couch, a soft and breathing pile of feathers sleeping atop his chest, hand still resting on her wing like he fell asleep mid-pet. his posture remains so inanely stiff, even in his sleep. it’s a little ridiculous, but it suits him all the same.
“minerva,” he whispers, and the raven ruffles a little, shakes herself out of sleep and looks up to inigo waving across the room. he gestures towards gerome and she rolls her neck, but just before she goes to peck gerome’s face, he sits up slowly, running a hand through his hair. he lets out a sleepy groan, then looks up towards inigo, tilting his head a little. the lights are all out, even the little nightlights inigo insists on keeping around the house (the kind that changes color automatically, because inigo is twenty-five but still so childlike -- but didn’t gerome always love that), because there’s a storm outside; it rattles the windowpanes, and minerva flutters about the window sill, pressing her cheek against the glass.
“you’re home early,” gerome says finally. inigo places a bag on the counter from one hand, a pile of freshly cut daisies in the other.
“always a light sleeper, huh, gerome,” he hums, grooming the daisies. setting them aside, he moves towards the sink and removes the old camellias from their vase. there’s a series of rustling noises; stringing up dead flowers to preserve, then replacing the vase with daisies.
“i suppose,” gerome replies after some time, lying back down when inigo pulls some groceries out of the bag and into the fridge. inigo puts the bag in the can where they keep plastic bags to recycle and glances at the candles neatly lined up next to it. there are matches in the drawer, but opts against it. the light would only illuminate what he is already aware of -- weary lines that collect under gerome’s eyes like the rings of a tree, a dull gleam of tiredness. he moves to sit next to gerome on the couch and gently places a warm hand upon the cold skin of his cheek. closing the space, inigo leans in and presses lip upon lip ( i missed you, i’m back). gerome’s hand moves up to cover his own.
“i’ve always wondered,” gerome begins, quietly, sleepily, “why you always put your hand here, when you kiss me.”
inigo only places his other hand on gerome’s opposite cheek, kisses him again, and turns away to finish with the groceries. “oh, i don’t know. habit, i guess?”
gerome rolls his eyes like he doesn’t believe it, but the smile is evident in inigo’s voice. he hums a happy, sleepy tune against the melodic rain that softly drums upon their roof. it brings weight to gerome’s heavy eyelids, so he lets them fall shut, resting his head against the arm of the sofa and drifting off to a sweet, chipper voice. he wakes up under a warm blanket, and wrapped between inigo’s arms, and when inigo greets him with some cheap pick-up line he holds back the urge to sock him in the mouth.
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the house smells so strongly of flowers, the way it always does; there is never a shortage of floral decorations around the house. when they first moved in, their things were neatly separated, and then inigo’s essence began to leak out, little reminders of his company in primroses in their room, lilies by the window sill, peppermint twists on his -- and later, their -- desk.
gerome doesn’t have to wake when inigo does, but he can’t help but feel the bed rise from the weight of another warmth, another body next to his. he was never one to find peace in slumber, and instead cycles through restless wandering and restless sleep. inigo worries about the darkening circles under his eyes, and gerome tries to apologize but inigo laughs it off, if only because he doesn’t want to hear an apology.
clouds from last night’s storm still linger, looming about, threatening to spill. it will likely rain on the night of the party. that gerome says so is what reminds inigo that he has somewhere to be, something to do. a job, maybe.
“aw hell, i’m late,” inigo grimaces. he places a light hand on gerome’s chest to peck him on the cheek. “i’ll be back late, so don’t wait up,” he smiles, which is a silly thing to say, because gerome leaves for his job before inigo returns, but gerome nods anyways as inigo hurries on his jacket and swirls out the door, and when it’s shut, all is quiet. with great strength he swallows the rest of the ridiculously seasoned food in his mouth; courtesy of inigo's homemade cooking.
minerva hops onto his shoulder as he washes the dishes to perfection. he wipes the sink, the counter, sweeps the floor, sets the bed, and organizes everything except for inigo’s items, because his mess is organized to his own tastes. it’s not so much out of a need for cleanliness as it is a need for something to do, and by the time all the things that need to be done are done, the sun is still making its way up, the day still young and restless. minerva, still loyally upon his shoulder, rubs her face against his neck and flies over to her cage, and he follows to clean it.
minerva’s cage is a little pointless in itself, in that the door is always left open, but they keep it anyways. inigo suggested they just remove the door completely, but gerome declined.
“she’ll have days where she’ll want to be alone,” he had said, and inigo chuckled then, muttering something about apples not falling far from their trees.
minerva cocks her head questioningly as gerome pauses mid-wipe of the cage, flicking the door of the cage with his finger, and when he closes his eyes, he can hear inigo’s laugh as clear as crystal.
gerome snorts, finishes up with cleaning everything possible, turning the kettle on, and counting everything blue until it’s time to leave.
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the tea on the counter is still warm when inigo returns on the evening.
“it’s a bit weird how you always know these things,” he says to no one at all, taking a large swig. though, it’s not quite no one after all -- minerva is resting peacefully in her cage, small feathers flickering as she breathes. “whoops,” whispering, he takes his shoes off and makes his way towards the couch. “forgot you were home, minervy.”
inigo doesn’t notice the house is spotless until his foot slips just a little on the linoleum floor, and within seconds he’s sliding from counter to counter, and then into the living room, in some sort of abstract one-man-waltz. he stumbles into the couch and crashes back on the table behind him in a loud clatter of colorful vocabulary, and minerva wakes up looking all puffed up and bothered. “sorry love,” he groans as minerva shakes her head and moves further into her cage. chuckling, he rights himself onto his feet, toeing the furniture back into what was probably their original positions. inigo was never good with figuring that stuff out and didn’t understand why it mattered so much to gerome. then, an ache in his stomach brings inigo to the kitchen. a sticky note is on the fridge door.
dinner in the fridge.
with a smile, he sighs, “it’s really weird how you always know these things,” and pulls the plate out from the fridge and carries it with him, along with his tea, to the window seats in the living room. often he doesn’t bother with taking his meals at the table the way gerome always does; in the mornings, there’s a magnificent view of the sun rising slowly over the edge of the earth, and in the evenings, if the clouds permit, the sky is full of stars that sparkle white against the black sky. during these hours, so late in the night that it becomes morning, and so early in the morning that it is still night, cars do not pass, birds do not chirp, and the ticking clock fades into the sound of time slowing to a halt. without fail, gerome scolds him about leaving crumbs here and there, but minerva is quick to clean his mess, if it is with an eager beak and stomach. it’s harder for gerome to complain when she looks so happy.
gerome joins inigo on the window seats sometimes, and they watch the long summer days through the long winter nights together. he does not bother counting the days; instead, he entwines their fingers, and counts them instead, pretending they are the only people in the world.
on the window seat, with his head resting against the window wet with rain, he falls asleep on the memory of the warmth of gerome’s hand in his, waiting for it to return.
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it’s a quarter past seven in the darkened morning and the clock is ticking, ticking, ticking, a quiet monotone lullaby against the silence. gerome is pacing to the beat of the clock while inigo, under the spell of a fever, rests under thick blankets on the couch. there’s a large encyclopedia on top of the fridge that he pulls down. gerome bought it for inigo at a garage sale a couple of years back, before they moved in, and flowers have been neatly pressed between nearly all the pages. the encyclopedia naturally opens to the middle; to viscaria flowers. inigo gave them to gerome the day they began to date, when the spring had almost turned to summer, but the heat had already settled in. they stood in the playground of their old orphanage -- now a well established daycare -- and inigo blurted it out so abruptly that gerome had to take several minutes trying to understand even a word of it.
smiling, he runs his fingers along their stiff petals, closes the book, and puts it back. he has a quick call on the phone with a store that ends with his order having arrived, so he needs to pick it up.
“gerome?” inigo blinks his eyes blearily, trying to focus his sight in the shadows, and moves to sit up.
“go back to sleep,” gerome replies, walking back to the couches to gently push inigo back down, and move the blankets back over him. “it’s still early.”
“wait -- where --”
“i’m just going to a store -- don’t worry about it. just go back to sleep.” he stands and fusses with his jacket in a hurry, but it only piques inigo’s curiousity and concern. he grabs onto gerome’s hand before he can walk away, and his feverish hand burns hot on gerome’s fingers.
“don’t go,” inigo drawls dizzily, eyes unfocused and face flushed.
“let go,” gerome tries to move away, but inigo tightens his hold. “inigo.”
“don’t leave me again.”
gerome pauses and inigo hangs his head, burying it in his pillows, but the tremors that shake the grip on gerome’s hand betrays his attempt to hide the tears on his face. again , he said -- and gerome knows. the past cannot be so easily forgotten.
“hey,” gerome kneels down and places another hand on inigo’s, “hey. it’s alright, it’s alright,” he whispers, again and again, so lovingly and so tender. “i’m here. i’m not going anywhere.” inigo is shaking so, so terribly. it is all his effort just to breathe.
“do you remember,” inigo begins, slowly, “that day, when we found each other again?” gerome nods and inigo laughs, but it’s vacant. “i thought i’d lost you after… you know. you always seemed so distant from me… i just miss you all the time. i don’t want to lose you again.”
they stay there like that for hours on end. inigo falls asleep with his face in the pillow and gerome removes his jacket and sits there, next to the couch, even when the phone rings. when the sun’s rays break through the clouds, the navy night of the room disappears and lights up in warm hues. the yellow paint of their walls almost glow. gerome leans over and puts his jacket on top of inigo’s heap of blankets, kisses his forehead, and whispers an apology, but he is sorry for all the things he cannot say:
it’s a quarter past eight and they have loved for years; gerome was a castle of walls within walls, caged in upon itself with brick and stone; inigo is still a flower in a vibrant bloom that finds its way through the smallest of holes . the day before gerome left the orphanage, inigo found a crack in the bricks, and that was it -- his first wall came tumbling down, and then the next, and then the next, in a domino effect, because inigo is armed with nothing but words, and words break more bones than sticks and stones can ever hope to.
he is sorry he paved roads where the flowers tried to bloom.
breakfast is toast because neither of them are particularly hungry, and inigo makes gerome eat at the window so they can watch the stars disappear from the sky. minerva tries to nibble on inigo’s bread between each bite and he lets her; fever has robbed most of his appetite. gerome watches him, closely, like inigo could wilt at any given moment, but when he turns to gerome, he smiles so brightly that the sun may have stopped glowing. gerome leans forward and kisses him deeply, in one fluid movement, and when inigo places his hand on gerome’s cheek, so lightly it may not have been there, gerome finally understands why he does it.
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they call it a party, but if it is then it’s a party of two, plus one raven and a plethora of flowers. inigo spends two eternities setting up and then trying to wrestle minerva into a small bow before he figures his hands have suffered enough pecks for the day. inigo has at least allowed the absence of a cake, if only because gerome has an extreme distaste for sweets. the rain falls true to gerome’s suspicion, the temperature dropping steadily, frost painting patterns on the windows. minerva pecks the glass impatiently, loving the feel of wild wind and fresh rain, and inigo opens the window to let her out. a surge of cold pours inside in the few seconds it opened, and the temperature drops even more.
inigo had taken the day off work, bought him a present, decorated the house, cooked dinner -- things gerome has long since recognized the futility of opposing. it was the first of their fights: when gerome called everything associated with “birthday celebration” pointless, calling everything inigo had done for him on that day, by extension, pointless. the dispute drove a wedge of silence between them. gerome confessed he didn’t want inigo to think he was obligated by tradition, and inigo insisted it wasn’t obligation. he wanted to; so he did, and that was that; the dispute dispersed like clouds after a storm and they shed their skin to leave it behind. it’s different now: the summer is gone and september comes with yellowing leaves, crunched and scattered across the roads. it is the first of september and gerome is a year older, a year wiser and a year spent on top of five past loving a man for flowers, six years total learning and unlearning the best and worst of each other, accepting faults and finding weaknesses, tearing themselves open and trusting the other to patch the rips.
presently inigo washes the dishes, refusing to let gerome lend a hand. perhaps it is an attempt to balance the scale -- gerome always cleaning and straightening and wiping, inigo always messing and wrinkling and spilling. still, he stands restlessly, itching impatiently for something to do until his arms find their place around inigo’s waist, his chin resting in the crook between inigo’s neck and shoulder, and like that, they fit so perfectly together. gerome can almost feel inigo smiling. he has always been so warm, like the sun lived beneath seven layers of his skin.
inigo complains about the cold of gerome’s touch, and gerome hums along without really listening, and soon the dishes are done. the sun has well set behind the horizon, the warmth of the sky still receding in trails of an autumn sky, sugar maples and sumac to deep forest pansies peeking out from clouds that have wiped their tears and are now moving along in bits and pieces. they step outside, onto the trodden path and past inigo’s well kept, well loved garden. gerome takes his hand and leads him to the backyard.
in the beginning their lawn was full of dandelions, large patches of small yellow suns that later turned to white puffs of seeds. gerome wrinkled his nose in disgust, such weeds must be removed at once, but inigo uprooted them carefully and moved them to the backyard. they recall memories that have seen better days, but inigo gazed at them with such fondness. it would be sin to oppose him now.
when the seasons changed and the yellow petals receded again into seeds, inigo pulled an unwilling, groggy gerome out into the backyard. gerome knows this memory better than his own face: it was half past six, inigo threw himself on the weeds and laughed , look, gerome! we’ve got a lot of wishes to make!, and when the sun kissed his face, he looked like he was glowing; the sun had always loved him so.
“i have something for you,” gerome reaches into his pocket, and inigo raises an eyebrow.
“this is your birthday, and you got me a present?”
when gerome gets down on one knee, all the color drains from inigo’s face, and his mouth is left agape.
"wait," inigo interjects, alarmed, "are you--"
"inigo, i am but a simple man, and i’m no good with words when it comes to these sorts of things, but would you grant me the gift of being by my side, until death do us part?"
"you bastard," he mutters without bite, which is the wrong thing to say because gerome is absolutely appalled -- until inigo shakily reaches into his pocket to pull out a small box, and gerome freezes. "i'll never forgive you for this, stupid, stupid gerome!"
but then gerome laughs, laughs free and open like new autumn air, laughs full and vulnerable, and he kisses inigo for all he is worth.
engines from distant cars start and stop, birds chirp with the rise of the sun, owls hoot at the rise of the moon, and when night falls the city lights up the way the sky lights up with stars. people come and go, buildings rise and fall. their old orphanage was taken down and not a bit of it looks the same, save for the grass on the lawn and the trees across the road. weeks, months, and years from now the world will change around them, and the people in the world will change accordingly -- but no matter how many times the cement will crack, the earth will bloom through it in flowers.