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To the surprise of precisely no one who had ever met him, David Rose held strong opinions on the topic of colour . He had been an opinionated child from the time he could talk, to the surprise of precisely no one who had ever met his mother. David had always known he held a lot of opinions, and held them strongly. Perhaps more than the average person. Probably more than the average person. The crux of the issue was, however, that David just had a lot of thoughts , and he thought each and every one of them so fucking intensely. Definitely more than the average person, if he were to believe the string of therapists his parents threw money at in vain to fix him - and that one holistic naturopath he ever so briefly dated. They had all thrown around phrases like ‘obsessive-compulsive tendencies’, ‘excessive rumination’, ‘social anxiety’ and ‘misaligned chakras’. They threw remedies at him like Xanax or Zoloft or Serepax or Vitamin D supplements or acupuncture. Nobody ever seemed to actually hear a goddamn word that came out of his mouth, least of all his family.
He tried talking to one of his therapists about his feelings on colour once. The only one with whom he’d ever stuck long enough to feel comfortable actually talking about actual feelings. He tried to articulate it, tried to explain it - how colours weren’t just colours, they held emotions and memories and meanings. He even tried to explain why he hated the colour blue so much, but then she’d started talking about ‘post-traumatic stress’ and ‘sensory triggers’ and so he nodded and hummed thoughtfully and said things like ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about’ and made a new appointment and smiled and said ‘See you next week’ and walked out to the footpath and waved through the window and blocked the clinic’s number and never saw her ever again. Because that was bullshit. He wasn’t afraid of the colour blue. He just didn’t fucking like it. So. No.
Sure, maybe his repulsion started after the whole thing with Alexis, but that didn’t mean it was because of the thing with Alexis. Right? Anyway. Blue was David Rose’s least favourite colour. This opinion he held strongly, an unwavering facet of the armour that was his carefully curated persona. David didn’t sleep on couches. David didn’t like children. David hated the colour blue.
Which is why it makes total sense, to him at least, that he is well and truly fucking losing it right now.
He’s freaking out. He knows he’s freaking out. He’s probably scaring Patrick. Oh god. He is definitely scaring Patrick. It had just happened all so suddenly.
They were sitting there on the couch, in Patrick’s apartment - their apartment! - with his computer on his lap and Patrick’s steady, solid warmth pressed up against him. Patrick’s left hand was absentmindedly toying with the cool gold rings on David’s hand while his right hand scrolled down the page slowly.
“Huh,” was all he had said. “Huh.”
“You hate it,” David grimaced. It’s our wedding, not my wedding, he reminded himself. If I have to start a new moodboard from scratch, that’s OK. That’s fine. Yep. Allllllll good here. Our wedding, our wedding, our wedding.
But Patrick was looking up at him with that look, the one that said I Can’t Believe You’re Real and You Are So Ridiculous and I Must Have Dreamt You Up and Don’t Ever Change and I Love You So Damn Much . “No, I love it. I just…” David held his breath. ‘I just…’ was never the start of a good sentence. But then Patrick was pressing his lips against his temple and wrapping his arms around him tightly. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting so much blue,” he chuckled into David’s skin.
Oh.
Relief flooded through him.
Wait, what?
“What?”
There was that fond grin again, those sparkling eyes that crinkled at the edges as he answered. “You know, I guess I just thought you’d want something more... monochromatic. Black and white. Something aligned with your personal aesthetic ,” he teased with another chuckle. The eye roll and sigh David let out in response was immediately betrayed by the entirely obvious twitching of the corner of his mouth.
“OK, yes, but no. This isn’t my aesthetic we’re talking about.” Our wedding, our wedding, our wedding. “This is our aesthetic. And yes, while I pledged my allegiance to monochome at the age of 17, you are basically the human embodiment of the colour blue!” Ignoring his fiance’s raised eyebrows, he continued. “Besides, since technically black is actually the absence of colour…” “Oh, of course, yes.” “..technically, blue is my favourite colour.”
“Huh,” was all Patrick said again, this time with a grin threatening to split across his face. His mouth began to move but David didn’t hear a word he said. David didn’t hear anything at all. David couldn’t hear anything other than the ringing in his own ears.
“Technically, blue is my favourite colour.”
what
“Technically, blue is my favourite colour.”
the
“Technically, blue is my favourite colour.”
fuck
No, the fuck it isn’t.
David doesn’t sleep on couches. David doesn’t like children. David hates the colour blue.
Hates.
Hated?
Fuck.
It’s not possible. David Rose hates the colour blue. This is a fact. An immutable rule of the universe. David doesn’t make these rules, he just enforces them. And David hates all shades of the colour blue because that was the colour of the scarf wrapped tightly around Alexis’s head when he picked her up from the airport that first time.
***
He hadn’t really slept in two days. He’d spent untold hours pacing endlessly around his apartment between calls with the consulate. David Rose was not what you would call a patient man, he had no trouble with that particular admission, and all this fucking waiting was killing him. Literally, probably. If he didn’t already have a stress ulcer bubbling away inside of him, he sure as shit had one now. Could stress ulcers kill you? Probably. Although, to be honest, from the way it was pounding, his heart was likely to give out before it ever came to that. In the middle of lap #1734, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His eyes were wild, his face as white as a sheet, lips swollen and close to bleeding from all the aggressive biting he wasn’t even aware of. All of a sudden, he couldn’t breathe. He needed air. The walls of his apartment were suddenly closing in on him.
It was 3:47am on a Wednesday morning and the second David stepped foot onto the sidewalk he knew that he’d made a mistake. The city was eerily quiet and a cold wind blew down the avenue. The silence seemed to amplify the volume of the thoughts screaming for attention, the ones he’d been fighting to push to the very back of his mind. It was as if escaping the confines of the building had finally unleashed the full fury of David’s very vivid imagination. He only made it three blocks before he found himself hunched over the gutter, puking his fucking brains out.
It was 7:02am when the call came through - she was out. She was actually on a plane; the plane was actually in the air; she was actually on her way home. He collapsed onto the couch and squeezed his eyes tight. His eyes were already disgustingly puffy; he couldn’t handle the thought of them looking any worse. He pushed down on his eyelids with the heels of his hands, forcing his breath to slowly steady. He should probably try his parents again. He picked up his phone and stared at the list of attempts left unanswered that filled the call history. Did they even know yet? Would they even care? whispered the voice in the back of his head he usually tried so hard to ignore. The phone fell to the floor with a dull thump. His whole body felt like it was vibrating but his limbs were suddenly made of lead. So he just lay there for hours, staring at the shadows moving slowly across the ceiling as he drifted in and out of fitful, unrefreshing sleep. Thank god it hadn’t been long since the last raid of his mother’s medicine cabinet, he thought with a grimace as he finally forced himself upright. There was no chance he would make it to the airport in one piece without a little assistance.
As he found himself standing outside international arrivals with arms tightly crossed, he recognised he must have looked literally insane, what with the unwashed hair and the manic eyes and the scowl carved into his face. His jaw was aching from being so tightly clenched, but he knew if he released even a single muscle in his face, he was liable to do something truly awful. Like start crying uncontrollably. In public. Which, no, was not fucking happening. So instead, he stood up straighter, pulled his arms in tighter and deepened his glare as his eyes roamed through the throng of exiting passengers.
He honestly didn’t recognise her at first. Not until she was standing right in front of him, clutching only a nondescript black duffel bag. She looked awful. She was wearing a wrinkled sundress with sneakers, for god’s sake. Her face was completely bare of makeup, revealing dark circles under her eyes, with a frankly hideous royal blue floral scarf wrapped around her head. David genuinely couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Alexis without makeup and perfectly styled hair. She looked so much younger than he remembered. So much smaller than he remembered. His 14-year-old sister could easily pass for an adult most days, but the girl standing in front of him had never looked more like a child. The two of them stood there awkwardly, staring at one another in silence as the terminal continued to bustle along around them. David’s mind was screaming at him to break the stalemate, but for perhaps the first time in his life, he was truly speechless. Alexis dropped her eyes to the ground and began to wring her hands nervously. Oh, no. Nope. He knew she was about 10 seconds from doing something insane, like reaching out to hug him or some shit like that. His eyes began to sting. Again, not fucking happening.
Instead, he grabbed the duffel bag from her hand and turned on the spot in one swift motion. He began to walk briskly towards the exit doors, checking over his shoulder intermittently to make sure she was following. The crowd surged around them and he briefly lost sight of her. He felt like he was about to vomit, or pass out, or maybe both. When she finally reappeared from behind a wall of confused tourists, he grabbed her hand roughly and pulled her close without a word. As they walked, he glanced down at their entwined hands; they were both clutching so tightly that their knuckles had turned white.
They drove back to the city in silence. Alexis was slumped against the window, staring ahead with a faraway look in her eyes. She still had that horrendous scarf on. Every so often, she would reach up and readjust it just so. It made David irrationally angry. How typical Alexis to be worried about how her fucking hair looks at a time like this. He was furious about everything, to be honest - about the traffic, about the sun setting right in his goddamn eyes, about the obnoxious songs playing on the radio. He was angry with his parents - for being wherever the fuck they were, doing whatever the fuck they were doing. He was angry with Alexis - for putting herself in this fucking situation, for making him feel like this. Most of all, he was angry with himself - for being so fucking angry with Alexis in the first place. Brother of the year award material, David. Great work.
By the time he pulled the car into the parking garage below his building, David was so worked up he could feel himself vibrating. He turned the car off and tried to force himself to calm down. But then Alexis reached up to adjust that damn scarf one more time, and he snapped. “Oh, my god!” He ripped the hideous cloth off her head and time suddenly seemed to stand still. Alexis let out a choked cry and froze.
Her hair was… gone. Completely gone. The long, blonde locks she took frankly obsessive care of had vanished, replaced with short, uneven stubble. It wasn’t even a cute Sinéad O’Connor type of thing. This was a hack job. Some maniac had taken a pair of scissors and chopped his sister’s hair off at the root. For the millionth time that day, David was pretty sure he was about to puke. Without meaning to, he reached out a hand to touch what was left of Alexis’s locks, but recoiled when she flinched. Forcing himself to breathe deeply and evenly, David dropped the scarf gently in her lap. “Wait here,” he finally managed. It was supposed to be a command, but it came out more like a whispered plea. Alexis nodded, blinking rapidly. Upstairs, he quickly gathered the essentials with shaking hands and ragged breaths. Within minutes, they were back on the road, speeding north.
The silence stretched on as they drove. This was by far the longest Alexis had ever gone without speaking in her entire life, he was sure of it. He hated it with every fibre of his being. Desperate for anything to break the spell, David almost made a joke - something about how Alexis better fucking know where her passport was when they reach the border crossing. But that felt a little dark, considering, even for him. He didn’t know how she would take it and the last thing he could possibly handle right now was tears. So he didn’t. But then he did. Because Alexis not talking was intolerable and maddening and he desperately needed to hear her voice. So he spat out the words and stared fiercely ahead at the unfolding highway. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw her mouth begin to quirk upward. After a beat, she returned the volley with a quip about needing extra time to search through her copious amount of luggage.
They drove on through the night. The spell had been broken and Alexis was talking now, thank god – a sentiment David had never in his life expected to express to himself – but the conversation was stilted and awkward. They took turns blurting out inane and innocuous statements and observations, as if commenting on the changing weather or in-flight entertainment or the best new restaurants would somehow obscure the giant fucking elephant in the room they were both desperately and furiously dancing around.
Alexis fell asleep at some point. David drove on, eyes now open only through sheer force of will. Well, OK, maybe with a little help from the 20oz energy drink he picked up at the gas station. And maybe also the contents of the blue bottle he’d grabbed from the medicine cabinet, which he had downed along with said energy drink. By the time they reached the border crossing, he could barely remember his own name, let alone how to converse with an official-type human person. He shoved Alexis awake with a rougher-than-intended push to the shoulder and gestured wordlessly to the booth ahead. He watched as she slowly blinked awake, shaking the tension from her shoulders and pulling the cloth around her head into place. David watched as her face transformed into what he had always secretly called The Alexis Face - a wide, confident grin with sparkling eyes. A look that could convince anyone anywhere of anything. Seeing it grace her face without makeup, without fucking hair, without anything genuine behind her eyes, was unnverving. He was equally repulsed and impressed. With a grimace, he glanced in the mirror and tried to school his own features into a look that could vaguely resemble just-a-normal-human-man-casually-entering-the-country-at-4am-with-a-bald-teenage-girl.
The sun was peeking over the horizon when they finally, finally reached the estate. The property was dark and still. Thank god. David still had no fucking idea where his parents were, but it clearly wasn’t here. None of the telltale signs of their presence were present. But they didn’t have long until the staff would begin to arrive for the day. He parked his car haphazardly under the porte-cochere and roused Alexis once again. Without a word, he wrenched both duffel bags from the trunk and unlocked the oversized double door to the foyer. Their footsteps echoed through the dark, empty halls as Alexis followed him up the stairs, through their wing, into her suite. David saw, rather than heard, the enormous sigh that left her lungs as she crossed the threshold into her bedroom. David tried very hard not to think about a tiny girl with long blonde braids sitting cross-legged on that very floor, messily painting her brother’s nails. He shook his head roughly to banish the unwanted images and watched as Alexis slowly approached her bed. She sat delicately on the edge, as if she were afraid it was going to dematerialise underneath her. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and breathed deeply and suddenly David could feel that stress ulcer again, burning a hole right through his gut and then onwards and upwards throughout his whole chest.
He dropped both their bags unceremoniously and stalked out of the room. He didn’t exactly know where he was headed until he found himself at the door. With a groan, he realised where his feet had taken him and what it was he needed to do. He slumped forward against the door, softly banging his forehead against the cool, smooth wood. He forced a deep breath into his lungs and turned the handle.
He had been gone a solid ten minutes at least, but Alexis hadn’t moved a single inch when David returned to her room. Perched on the edge of the king-sized bed, with unfocused eyes staring into the middle distance and arms crossed tightly across her torso, she looked so tiny, so fragile, so everything that was not Alexis fucking Rose. She looked ephemeral, like a delicate wisp of smoke about to be blown away by the shallowest of exhalations. David wanted to throw up. David wanted to peel off his own skin. David wanted to scream and yell obscenities. David wanted to buy a handgun and fly across the ocean. David wanted to curl up and cry. David wanted to go back in time.
David did none of those things. Instead, he dropped the bundle of brown paper in his hands onto the plush duvet beside Alexis and cleared his throat. He opened his mouth, and nothing came out. He closed his mouth and nodded weakly at the parcel instead. Alexis pushed back the brown paper with a hesitant and delicate hand. He could tell the instant she recognised the contents, because she recoiled violently with a strangled gasp. Under any other circumstances, he would find the look of horror that crossed her face hilarious. A look to capture in his mind’s eye and perfect in the mirror later and have at hand ready to pull out to mock her with when the occasion saw fit. But right now, David could do none of those things. Instead, he cleared his throat again. “Valentina,” he managed to force out. “Hasn’t touched her since ‘93.” The colour match wasn’t exactly right - more champagne than butterscotch, annoyingly. But the length would work - long enough to graze her shoulders, he predicted, enough to buy her the time her own locks needed to grow back. Alexis’s hand still hovered mid-air, afraid to make contact of any kind. “She won’t notice,” he whispered, “I promise.” With a shaky exhale and a tiny nod, she allowed her hand to drop and softly stroked the golden strands. David squeezed his eyes tightly shut and forced himself to at least attempt to breathe evenly. “Go take a shower,” he muttered. “Then I’ll show you how to put it on so it won’t fall off.”
Hours later, as he lay on his beloved impossibly soft bed in a room darkened by his similarly beloved blockout curtains, the adrenaline and amphetamine flooding his system stubbornly refused to wear off. His eyes were still swollen and puffy despite the cooling eye gel and satin eye mask. His throat was still raw despite the honey-chammomile-tea-maybe-spiked-with-just-a-little-bourbon. Every part of his body hurt, and somehow his mind ached even worse. The room was dead silent but for the hum of the air-conditioning system and his own shallow breathing until the quiet whine of the door slowly opening and shutting with a dull thud. He didn’t move. He couldn’t possibly move. He felt a rush of cool air as the covers lifted behind him, followed by the radiating warmth of a small body pressing up against his back. He didn’t have an ounce of strength left in him to even attempt to fight back the hot tears that pricked his eyelids. Leaving the rapidly dampening satin mask in place over his eyes, he gathered what little energy he could find to turn himself over and wrapped his arms around her tiny frame. She burrowed her face into his neck. Warm, soft breaths ghosted over the exposed skin there. “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely. He squeezed his arms around her even tighter in reply.
Two days later, before he began the long drive south, he picked up that godawful blue headscarf from where it had been abandoned on Alexis’s bathroom floor. He threw it in the sitting room fireplace and watched intently until he could be absolutely certain that every single fucking thread had been reduced to ash and smoke.
***
He is definitely scaring Patrick.
The knocking on the bathroom door has ceased, but he can see the shadow of his fiance's body from where he sits, pressed against the other side of the door. He can't even really remember how he came to be here, slumped on the cool tile, chest heaving and heart racing.
"Baby? Can you tell me what's going on?" Patrick's voice is hesitant, choked with worry and concern.
With a ragged breath, David reaches up and unlocks the door. It opens slightly, just a crack, just enough for Patrick - his beautiful, wonderful, love-of-his-life Patrick - to peek in and meet his gaze with a furrowed brow and trembling lips. They stay like that, with held breaths and locked eyes, for what seems like forever. The longer he looks at him - his fiance, his partner, his soulmate, the human embodiment of the colour blue - the less he can remember why exactly he was freaking the fuck out just a moment ago. He reaches out his hand and can see the relief that floods Patrick's face as he crawls in the door and settles beside him. Warm arms wrap around him and soft lips ghost over the racing pulse in his neck.
Fuck the rules, a voice echoes in the back of his mind.
David Rose can sleep on couches, on tiny motel twin beds, in the cab of a truck.
David Rose can throw baby showers, mentor surly teens, be trusted to babysit children.
David Rose can fall in love.
David Rose can be somebody's soulmate.
David Rose can get married.
"Blue is my favourite colour," he whispers.
David Rose doesn't make the rules, but maybe sometimes he can break them.