Title: the sound of you walking away
Fandom: Original, definitely nothing to do with any real-life bands/musicians
Rating: T
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: m/m kissing, rock music, references to drug use, lots of sadness
Author notes: I got mentally stuck on musicians this time around for some reason, so here's an awkward reunion.
Summary: Two musicians meet again for the first time in ten years.



You're in front of a door you haven't seen for the better part of ten years, in a part of town you've actively been avoiding for at least half of that time.

Just like the first time, you're clutching the handle of your guitar case in the scorching July sun. The last time you saw that door - slammed it closed after you - it was raining, and you walked in it for a mile and nearly caught your death.

Your finger's shaking a little as you raise it to press the buzzer, but it has to be done sooner or later. Your heart leaps into your mouth as you hear the sounds inside. A shuffle of feet and then the latch clicking and the door opens.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi."

"How've you been?"

You're relieved he's the one asking the question - it would be so awkward for you to say it, as if you and the rest of the nation didn't know every last detail about "how he's been", whether they read the NME or the Telegraph. But he's been out of the headlines for a while now - a life that's not on a collision course with a wall doesn't make great copy - and he looks well enough.

So you answer, "alright, yeah," and step in as he lets you through.

If this was ten years ago he'd crush your bones against his and you'd let him; he'd sag against you , drunk or high or both, and you'd hold him up steady; he'd say things he didn't mean and wouldn't remember afterwards and you'd stroke his hair and wait for it all to pass.

But it's not, it's now, and so you amble past him and down the corridor. You briefly smile up at the line of golden records and photos on the walls mirroring the walls of your own house. You only had the heart to put all of that in plain sight again last year, to be fair.

No one measures record sales in the number of nights you held his hand in A&E, the amount of alcohol he
vomited on your shoes, how many times he called you a cunt when he was using.

"Rest of the band's getting here later," he says and you nod because of course that's what's happening. It's a one-time thing, you've told your agent and you're sure he's done the same. He'll sing and you'll play, it'll raise some money for a good cause, and all that jazz.

Except nothing that ever happened in this place, this house, was a one-time thing.

"Romantic," you say as you undo the case - and you regret it the second it comes out. It's the kind of thing you would have said, back then, but you've not been that person for so long. You can feel his reaction right across the room and it makes you struggle for breathe for a moment.

He's always had emotions more intense than anyone else you know, and you forgot how overwhelming they were, how overwhelming everything about him is.

He goes out and comes back with drinks - a beer for you, a coke for him. You have a sip and start setting up properly, plugging in, tuning, and the pressure lessens, but it's still there in the background, like feedback that doesn't quite fade. You look at him and feel there's a conversation that you should be having here, about how he looks well and the way that his arms are clear of scars and track marks and how you're both still here when you never would have thought either of you would see thirty. But you can't think of how to start it and he's already had it, so you decide to keep to business.

"Ready," you say and set your drink down to move the mics around. He counts you in. You play and he sings and as you watch and listen, it's like you only walked out of that door yesterday. He's upright, his voice is clearer than it's ever been, and everything about the song meshes just so. You finish and he looks at you, triumph on his face. You smile and nod, say "not bad".

You ignore it and keep playing, go through all the songs from your golden days. Three beers and five cokes later you decide to call it a day. He looks at you, smiling and triumphant, and you have a vague notion of wondering who on Earth you were kidding anyway.

You set the guitar down and take two steps towards him.

You crush his bones against you and he lets you. Your lips find his and he responds, holds you up; and you say something very foolish as he strokes your hair. The feedback from before is louder, a buzz in your blood and your bones.

You let yourself slide, buoyed up by his strength, irresistible as his vulnerabilities were back then, and as you pull him in again your only conscious thought is that you'll feel bad in the morning, but that's not important right now.