Archive of Our Own

All prompts:

1 - embers
2 - sound of rain
3 - the smell of a season
4 - pitch blackness
5 - the morning sun
6 - alone
7 - the sound of birds
8 - pie
9 - static
10 - feeling safe
11 - towel
12 - distant laughter
13 - the feel of the wind
14 - shivering
15 - lost in the moment
16 - coffee/tea
17 - wheat field/corn field
18 - sad memory
19 - favorite song
20 - afraid
21 - deserted beach
22 - sharing warmth
23 - acceptance
24 - the stars
25 - sports
26 - happy tears
27 - wrapping a gift
28 - walking
29 - borrowing clothes
30 - the passage of time
31 - (free day)

1- embers

The love Eddy feels for Brett is a fire, yet it never burns.

Even in the early days, when everything Eddy felt for him was enormous and inexplicable and terrifying, all it took to temper the flame was to turn to the person fuelling it, to expel the heat in his heart with a warm whisper into Brett's neck, an I love you so much, I'm sorry, and it's as if Brett reached into him, moulded the roaring wildfire into a carefully guarded hearth. Don't be sorry, dumbass, I love you too.

He appreciates the slow crackling of it now, steady and warm. The fire has aged the same way they have, tired of the roaring, content to sizzle quietly most of the time, only occasionally flaring up with their heated touches, sending sparks flying high into the air. Yet, Eddy never fears that it'll burn out - every breath that leaves Brett's lungs, every exhale of laughter, every kiss is as if he is blowing directly on the embers, caring and kind and loving, like always.

Eddy lives with fire in his heart, and he never wants to do anything else.

2 - sound of rain

"what're you doing out here?"

even though the voice is intimately familiar, the suddenness of the question makes eddy jump. he relaxes after a second, lifts his chin from where it was resting on his tucked up knees, turns in the loveseat to look up at brett, sleepy and warm-looking, duvet wrapped around him like a cloak. it's like he's the cuddliest vampire in existence. it's a sweet ache, looking at him like this and not nestling into his arms right away, but Eddy feels frozen in place.

"felt restless," he says, eyes shifting back to what he was looking at before - the heavy rain pounding down just inches away. eddy would need to take a single step to the edge of the balcony and reach out his hand from under the roof to have the water patter into his open palm. but he can't move, not when his thoughts are like this.

"bad brain hours?" brett asks, stepping closer, and it's as if he's radiating warmth - or as if his mere presence holds back the tidal wave of anxiety encroaching on eddy's mind.

eddy only hums in response, feeling too exhausted to say anything else. brett is quiet too, simply crowds into eddy's space, unfolds the duvet from around himself to spread it over them both as he sits down next to him.

"you'll go grey by spring if you think too hard," he says quietly, linking their hands together, fingers neatly crisscrossed, and presses a light kiss to his temple. he falls quiet after that, simply stays next to him, an anchor, a fixed point in a tumultuous world, and eddy breathes him in, feeling his body slowly unwind and unfurl from the rigid, anxious stillness.

"how do you always know what to do?" he asks after several minutes of silence, of only rain pattering loudly all around them.

"its been over half our lives, eddy," brett replies, eyes closed, his thumb slowly caressing eddy's. "you make perfect sense to me."

3 - the smell of a season

Finland is freezing.

It’s hard to even remember the mid-January heat currently reigning back in Australia when everything around them is almost twenty degrees below zero, blanketed in snow. It feels like they haven’t seen the sun in years and the darkness of the night never quite leaves, even midday feeling hazy and fleeting.

Eddy had insisted they take the twenty-minute walk back from the venue after their show. It’s late so no one’s around, and it’s quiet and snowing, he’d excitedly listed in his sales pitch, even though he’d probably already known Brett would follow him anywhere, even to the frigid wilderness of late-night central Helsinki. They’re bundled up well, there’s no real fear of illness or hypothermia (however likely the latter may feel right now), but their faces, fully exposed to the evening air, are definitely feeling the chill.

It’s beautiful, Brett can say that much. The late hour means that cars haven’t turned the fresh gleaming snow into a brownish sludge just yet. The barren trees, freshly coated crystalline, glisten with the glow of the streetlights. The snowfall isn’t too heavy, the flakes entirely soundless in their descent. But as he breathes in, the cold seems to burn his way inside, and it feels like his lungs are suddenly full of beautiful six-pointed stars, each one unlike any other. It smells sharp, clean, the chimney smoke and the exhaust muted in the face of all-encompassing whiteness.

“I think my eyelashes are frozen, man. My eyelashes,” Eddy grumbles, apparently much less excited about his idea now. Brett turns to look, and sure enough, at the very tips of his lashes, moisture has solidified into tiny spheres of ice. Brett laughs, entwines their hands. It’s a little awkward with the thick gloves, but Eddy looks happy about the contact regardless. It’s late and they’re in Helsinki, no one will care, if anyone even sees them like this.

“We don’t have long to go, come on,” Brett replies, tugs him forward, and breathes in deep again. The air feels jagged on its way in, but Brett doesn’t mind.

4 - pitch blackness

Everything is easier in the dark.

The daylight is terrifying, too revealing, too real. Eddy never dares to reach out to Brett when he can see it, fears rejection with everything in his heart despite the mountain of evidence to suggest it would never come.

But here, when the lights are out and the curtains shut, it is easy to give in to the desire constantly swimming around in his mind, to slide out of his bed and into Brett’s, and take what he wants.

In the dark, he can’t see a thing.

All he can smell is mint and rosin and aftershave and sweat and home, a mixture of aromas so uniquely Brett’s he could never fully decode it even if he spent his whole life breathing it in (and he intends to).

All he can hear is Brett’s breathing, easy and measured and slow at first, then faster, shallower, stopping and starting at odd times, escaping Brett’s lungs in quiet sighs and strangled moans, in choked sobs and low chuckles, in desperate pleas and precious praises.

All he can feel is Brett’s soft skin under his calloused fingers, his chest under his palm rising and falling a touch too quickly, Brett sliding his hands all over him, as if he’s trying to commit every inch of him to memory, both of them teasing and touching in all the right places that they’ve learned over an innumerable amount of dark nights.

All he can taste is the sweet swirl of adoration, the citric twinge of excitement, the heady weight of arousal, a hint of sour desperation, passion so fire-hot it burns.

In the morning, they’ll go back to looking at each other, pretending their nights are spent in separate beds, the darkness no more than a backdrop to their sleep. But more often than heʼd dare to admit, Eddy hopes the sun never rises.

5 - the morning sun

“why do we always fly at the absolute asscrack of dawn?” eddy had asked, chin on brett’s shoulder, eyes most likely shut, standing in line to board their plane.

“because it’s cheaper that way. you’ll get to go back to sleep after takeoff,” brett had responded, patient and serene despite his own eyelids threatening to give in to the unexpectedly overwhelming pull of gravity and fall shut.

“and wake up with my neck all busted? no thanks,” eddy had replied, voice so low brett had felt it vibrating against his back more than heard it. he’d laughed, too tired himself to think of a response. neck pain be damned, he’d known he would fall asleep as soon as his eardrums were out of the danger zone of rapidly changing altitude.

and then they had boarded, and the few minutes spent in the surprisingly cold morning weather and the thrill of the plane speeding down the runway before lifting up towards the sky had shaken him awake somewhat - enough that now they were at altitude, he found himself entirely unable to fall asleep, instead looking out of the window at the ground far below and the dark blue sky all around them slowly growing lighter.

as the sun slowly crawled upwards, close to breaking above the horizon, the blue receded to give way to a stunning display of other colours - vibrant pinks and oranges, a touch of yellow. in awe, brett blindly reached his hand behind him towards the armrest next to his, smiled when eddy took it without question.

“look outside,” he whispered, turning his head only for a second. eddy leaned closer, once again nestled his chin to where brett’s neck met his shoulder, wrapped an arm around his midsection.

“that’s beautiful,” he murmured, reverence loud and clear despite the low volume. “so much pink.”

“mmm,” brett replied, fingers toying with eddy’s at his waist. “pink and blue look good together.”

“we should remember that, for merch,” eddy concluded, clearly in no state to remember anything, then pulled away, eyes already closed again. “go to sleep. the sun’s coming up, you’ll go blind looking at it.”

brett laughed, pressed a kiss to eddy’s shoulder, and took one last look outside before settling back down. even though the insides of his eyelids were dark, brett could still see the pink and blue, intermingled.

6 - alone

Eddy is a worrier, and sitting alone in an emergency room with nothing to do but wait is an excuse for worrying like no other.

Because obviously, Eddy would not let Brett go to the hospital alone, as out of it and prone to passing out as he was, but being not sick and getting into a hospital while there was a worldwide pandemic going on had been a series of uphill battles. He’d had to fight tooth and nail to even be allowed inside - he assumes the only reason theyʼd let him in at all was that Brett had been barely responsive (a horror in and of itself) and Eddyʼd had all of the information they couldn’t get from anywhere else. Well, that, and the death grip Brett had had on his hand the entire time. But when they’d whisked Brett away to run some tests, the barriers had come back up. Of course, he’d be banned from the examination room. Even if the world were currently normal.

Which leaves him here, sitting on a bench that’s getting more uncomfortable by the minute, his thoughts uncontrollably skipping from bad scenarios to worse ones. It had taken a disconcertingly short time for him to consider the possibility of losing Brett, and a much longer time to talk himself down from the verge of a panic attack - a task he's still not sure heʼs accomplished. It’s just that he’s going crazy from the 45 minutes he’s spent apart from Brett, and merely imagining the lightless void the rest of his life would be if he lost Brett now is enough to make him hyperventilate, his glasses fogging up more than normal. He takes them off, shoves them into his shirt pocket, hides his face in his hands, and sighs.

The thought keeps bouncing around in his head, smashing against his skull so loudly Eddy thinks it might break through the bone and his skin any minute, put him out of his misery. What if Brett dies from this? It doesn't get any less horrific no matter how many times it repeats, and Eddy thinks he might be losing it. He will be, one way or another, until Brett is safely back with him soon with answers and a path towards improvement. The probability of that diminishes with every minute, the downward spiral gathering momentum, and he can't do this. He can't do this alone.

Brett needs to pull through whatever this is, because Eddy couldn’t bear any alternative.

7 - the sound of birds

aka i am not the only one who thinks navarra sounds like songbirds, right?

Playing ‘Navarra’ together is probably the closest they will ever get to having wings.

Since they first attempted the duet, each of them has felt it tickling in his ribcage - this ever-present tug upwards, into the boundless blue. Even at first, when they stumbled through the piece, harmonies ear-screeching from sketchy intonation and rhythm all sorts of wobbly, they knew that one day, they could soar. And now, after years of practice - but more than that, after years of living in each other’s pockets, of living the same life, breathing the same air, in sync and in harmony -, each ‘Navarra’ feels like they’re songbirds leaving their nest for the first time, like they could take a victory lap around the entire world.

When they’re playing, the piece is theirs alone. Even with their eyes open, focus shifting from their own violin to the other’s playing, they are somewhere else entirely. From the first notes, they’re outside of themselves, both little birds perched on a treetop, and with one last look at each other, they dive down. They spread their wings in unison - they’re not sure they could be out of sync if they tried - and curve back upwards, the perfect harmony of their song ringing out for what feels like miles. Twirling around each other, backs and bellies to the sky in turns, they taste freedom and sing a hymn to it from the tops of their little lungs. They both would be terrified of this unbridled rollercoaster, feeling like they are careening towards solid earth without control, but a simple glance at the other beside them, wings spread and beautiful high-pitched chirping emerging from their little bodies, is the wind they need beneath their wings.

It’s exhilarating every single time, and neither of them ever want to land.

8 - pie

The pie they’d bought on impulse from a new bakery down the street had smelled incredible, homey in a strangely déjà vu kind of way. Barely resisting the urge to rip it apart and eat it with their bare hands on the street like the absolute animals they can be sometimes, theyʼd hurried home, laid it on their kitchen table like a glorious centrepiece, admired it for a minute before Brett had gotten out the knife. And now, after leaning in to smell his slice one last time, Eddy takes a generous bite.

And suddenly, he’s seven years old again, sitting at the kitchen table of his childhood home, mouth stuffed too full of the delicious pie his mom had baked. The flavour is so similar that Eddy needs to think back to the bakery to make sure it wasn’t actually his mother behind the counter.

He’s sure he’d still recognise her after eight years apart.

“Are you okay?” Brett asks, seemingly out of the blue, voice full of a confusing amount of concern, and when Eddy lifts his gaze to look at him, he realises that he can only see a blurry shape of where his boyfriend should be and that his eyes feel suspiciously watery.

He thinks about the question for a second, swallows the bite heʼd taken.

“No,” he says, finally, more wobbly and choked than he expected, and the tears spill.

Brett’s arms are around him in an instant.

“What’s wrong?” he asks quietly, lips grazing Eddyʼs ear, presses a kiss into his hair. Eddy needs to take a few seconds to be sure he’ll get his words out.

“It tastes exactly like - like mom’s,” he replies, dropping into a whisper when his voice breaks. The tears feel hot on his cheeks.

“Oh, Eddy,” Brett replies, holding him even tighter, and the love and kindness in everything about him knocks something loose in Eddy’s chest. He lets out the first loud sob, hides his face into Brett’s shoulder.

He doesn’t think of her as much nowadays. In the eight years since they last spoke - yelled, really -, the wound caused by her razor-sharp fury and blunt-clawed disappointment at Eddy’s choice of life partner had closed and healed, even if it did leave an ugly scar. But in more melancholic moments, he still thinks back to the better parts of her, yearns for her with a bone-deep ache.

None of that ache compares to the vise gripping his insides now, though. The innocuous pastry had reached for him with hidden talons, ripped him wide open after a single bite, and Eddy feels like a child, all of a sudden.

He misses his mom so much.

9 - static

It’s all white noise.

If you asked him, Eddy wouldn’t be able to tell left from right and up from down right now. His entire being is currently concentrated into his brain, to the amorphous mass of anxiety seemingly taking up his whole body, his room, his entire universe. His eyes see nothing, squeezed tightly shut to block out information he has no brainpower to deal with, but the mental image is in front of him nonetheless, too sharp and real to bear: an endless screen of static, a greyscale nightmare that moves too quickly to make any sense of. It’s too much and everywhere, silencing all coherent thoughts, making him want to tear his itching flesh apart to let it out.

His heart is hammering too hard, his hands are yanking at his hair too viciously, he’s breathing too fast, too loud, and he’s entirely powerless to anything to stop any of it. Any attempt at a deeper inhale leaves him gasping, all exhales stuttering out uncontrollably. He’d like to cry, let any of this out somehow, but the tears won’t come. It’s just the static endlessly shifting in front of him, the white noise deafening him.

Until it isn’t.

“Eddy.”

The first sound to break through is Brett quietly calling out his name. It’s so soft it shouldn’t be audible over the roaring all around him, but it’s there all the same. And then, other sensations penetrate the static - Brett’s fingers around his, gently prying them free from his hair. Brett on his knees in front of him, soothingly shushing him. The rest of the world begins to reform around him - their hard kitchen floor heʼs sitting on, the handle of the kitchen cabinet painfully poking into his back. He reaches for comfort, for Brett, and blindly climbs halfway into his lap.

“Breathe, love,” Brett whispers and starts taking loud, exaggerated breaths himself. With this compass to guide him and Brett’s fingers sliding up and down his arm reinforcing the pattern, it still takes a few minutes, but he learns to breathe again.

The third phrase out of Brett’s mouth is an apology, because he’s dumb like that.

“I’m sorry I left you alone,” he murmurs.

“No, no, it’s-” Eddy croaks, finally sounding more miserable than he feels, if only by a little. He clears his throat, carries on. “It’s okay. You weren’t gone long.” It had felt like forever, but, realistically speaking, Brett had probably barely been out of their apartment for half an hour.

“Still,” Brett replies, but neither of them want to keep pushing it. Instead, Brett holds him a little while longer, before he shifts, the floor hardly any kinder on him than it is on Eddy.

“I got us bubble tea. Let's just go be lazy on the couch for a bit, yeah?” he asks, laughs a little when Eddy lifts his head as if on instinct at the mention of his favorite drink, finally opens his eyes. Brett’s gently smiling face is the best possible alternative to the intrusive static.

“Yeah.”

10 - feeling safe

Brett doesn’t make a habit of regretting things, but this horror movie is definitely going on the short list of things he wishes he hadn’t experienced.

He’s not sure why he agreed to this nonsense, really. He’s at the ripe old age of thirty, maybe he should start looking after his heart a little better, not overload it with adrenaline because of bullshit like this. He knew exactly how this would end, for both of them.

How it ends is with him curled up halfway on Eddy’s lap, doing his best to possibly meld into one with him, hiding his face into his chest, while Eddy holds onto him way too tight and screams loud enough at every jumpscare that if Brett didn’t already have tinnitus, he would now.

“This is so stupid,” Eddy says between screams, voice alarmingly hoarse. Brett only whines in response, not deeming it worth it to extricate himself from where he’s nestled into the general vicinity of Eddy’s armpit. He’s definitely developing some serious stress sweat, but Brett doesn’t mind yet. It’s nice and dark here. Safe. Or at least safer.

“You wanna turn it off?” Eddy asks, and Brett thinks before nodding against Eddy’s side. Eddy laughs.

“I have no idea if that was yes or no, bro,” he says, lifting an arm to allow Brett a way to wriggle free. He grumbles only a little before poking his head out, straightening up.

“Yeah, you can turn it off. You know I’ve not been watching for, like, the past twenty minutes,” he says. Eddy laughs again, runs his hand through Brett’s (probably incredibly messy) hair, the other reaching for the remote. The anxious soundtrack stops and something in Brett loosens a little. He sighs, falls back down against Eddy, slips an arm around his midsection.

“I don’t wanna go to sleep yet, though,” he mumbles, lips brushing against Eddy’s neck. “My heart’s still going at like 200 beats per minute.”

“No, yeah, mine too,” Eddy agrees immediately, wraps his arms around Brett tighter. “You wanna just sit here for a while?”

“Mhmm, cuddle me,” Brett replies, somehow wriggling even closer.

“Alright.” Eddy feels like he’s on the edge of laughter, but the kiss he presses into Brett’s hair is incredibly sincere. Brett closes his eyes.

Yeah. This feels safe.

11 - towel

The bathroom door clicks open and Eddy’s face stretches into a grin as soon as he sees Brett step into the bedroom, only a towel hanging low on his hips. Eddy, still shower-fresh himself, wearing only boxers, looks at him from where he’s sitting on the bed, waits for Brett to notice him. (It might take a while without his glasses.)

He snorts when Brett finally does notice, because his steps falter comically and he stops in the middle of the room, eyebrows raised and hair still slightly dripping.

“Well, hello,” Brett says, his tone somewhere between joking and flirtatious, and the unspoken invitation kicks Eddy into gear. He gets up, takes a couple of steps until he’s a foot or so away from Brett.

“Hey, you,” he responds, aiming for teasing and landing somewhere in the vicinity of smitten. He reaches out his hand, hooks a finger into the edge of the towel around Brett’s waist and pulls, grins when it falls open and to the floor. Brett seems unperturbed by his sudden nudity, follows the tug and takes one last step closer to Eddy so they’re almost nose to nose.

Eddy gently places his fingers under Brett’s chin, tilts it upwards and leans down to meet him, his other arm resting on Brett’s lower back. The kiss is gentle, a slow simmering warmth. He feels Brett’s lips curve upwards before he pulls away.

“How chaste and proper,” he comments, then places his hand on Eddy’s sternum, pushes a little. They take a step towards the bed together.

“Sorry, how could I forget you like it hot and dirty,” Eddy teases in return, but presses kiss after kiss on Brett’s lips, with just a hint of a bite. Another step.

“How dare you, I’m a pure and precious little guy,” Brett mumbles between the kisses, and Eddy snorts again, too busy kissing to argue. A third step, and Eddy’s calves hit the edge of the mattress. Brett’s hand moves to his shoulder, guides him to sit down. When he does, Brett climbs onto his lap, kissing him gently with entirely faux innocence at first, but growing more passionate by the second.

“You are aware we’re gonna need another shower later, right?” he asks, lips so close to Eddy’s, still, that they brush against each other as he speaks.

“Worth it,” Eddy replies without missing a beat, closes the distance between them again, hands already finding their way downward.

12 - distant laughter

Eddy is only still settling into his new life at the con. It’s exhausting and thrilling all at once - the satisfying ache of endless hours of practice, the sudden unflinching focus on music and nothing else, and the rediscovered constant closeness to Brett, the year spent in different schools having created a new kind of co-dependency between them now that they’re back together. Strangely, it feels like they didn’t know exactly how much they missed each other until they no longer had to.

Eddy sits on a couch in a house he’s never been to before, sipping on a drink with entirely unknown contents - itʼs citrusy, thatʼs all he can tell - and fighting against the urge to take his phone out for the seventh time in five minutes. They’re at a party which Brett had half-dragged him to with promises of getting to know people better and having a nice time. They’d stuck together for a solid hour, two rounds of drinks, and small talk with so many people Eddy can barely remember any of them. Then, Brett had suddenly vanished with a ‘be right back’ - like, fifteen minutes ago. Eddy tries not to mind, but he’s still growing out of his awkward and shy phase and he can’t do any of this alone.

Then, a loud cackle rings out from the next room and Eddy knows the source of it immediately. He gets up from his cosy sofa, steps into the doorway, eyes seeking the source of the laughter still ringing out. He sees Brett in a circle of people, doubled over, somehow still sitting on the armrest of a soft-looking chair, eyes crinkled, loudly wheezing with laughter. It makes his insides warm, seeing his best friend so unabashedly enjoying himself. Eddy feels happier just from watching him.

And then, as Brett begins to calm down, he turns his head just a little, catches Eddy’s eye from all the way across the room, and the wide smile turns impossibly soft. It lasts no more than a few seconds before Brett tilts his head invitingly and then turns back to his conversation.

Eddy thinks for another second, then takes the first step, destination clear in front of him.

13 - the feel of the wind

“Okay, no, get off me, we’re so fucking sweaty,” Eddy groans as soon they’ve settled down in a cuddle, both still breathing hard, naked and spent. Sex is great, but good god, does it generate heat.

“And they say romance is dead,” Brett jokingly grumbles in response, noses at Eddy’s chest, but lazily rolls away from Eddy anyway.

“Can you open the window?” Eddy asks, and Brett would complain about having to move even more, but after all of the very literal manhandling Eddy just did, he deserves a lie-down, so Brett gets up. He gives Eddy a full view of his backside as he reaches his arms above his head, stretches, lets out a gratuitous groan for the hell of it. Eddy laughs at him, but it’s full of sleepy affection.

Brett stumbles to the window to crack it open, but once he’s there and feels the cool breeze hitting his sweaty body, he opens it fully so it would work its magic faster. After taking a deep breath of fresh air, tempting fate by staring out of the window completely naked (although thankfully covered from the waist up by solid wall), he turns back towards the bed. He lets his eyes wander over his boyfriendʼs body. Eddy is taking up the maximum possible space, gangly and long-limbed and breathtaking. His eyes are closed and the smile on his face is so serene Brettʼs breath hitches. He lingers for just a moment, enjoys the view for a little longer, then climbs into bed, lays his head on Eddy’s chest. The breeze washes over them, gentle and cooling.

“This feels so nice,” Eddy says, eyes closed, wraps an arm around Brett. “Thank you.”

Brett looks up at him, grinning, closes his eyes too. Just for a little while.

14 - shivering

“Eddy, I don’t think I can do this.”

Eddy lifts his gaze and looks at Brett, pale-faced and shaking in the middle of their backstage room. They’ve still got half an hour to go before Brett needs to be on stage, but he is more on edge by the second, it seems.

“Of course you can,” Eddy replies simply. There is really no way out now - the Victoria Concert Hall is rapidly filling up with people, their two Strads wait for them on the table, they’re wearing suits and their fingers are all warmed up. This is happening, no matter how nervous they are.

None of that helps Brett in any way, though, so instead of saying any of it out loud, Eddy reaches out for him, pulls him into a hug. He can feel Brett’s entire body shaking, and as Brett wraps his arms around his neck, his fingers are ice-cold.

“I really don’t think I can. I’ve never been this nervous in my life,” Brett mumbles into his neck, slipping his fingers under the collar of Eddy’s shirt. They really are fucking freezing and clammy. Eddy can feel the hair in the back of his head stand up.

“I mean, it’s okay to be nervous, but you really don’t need to be. We absolutely destroyed our upload schedule for a good cause, you sound incredible after all that practice. You’re gonna smash it.” Eddy takes Brett’s hands in his to warm them up.

“Not if I get shaky bow on the first note. Or if my fingers freeze into place.” Brett looks into his eyes, pleading, and Eddy can clearly see the spiral he’s tumbling down. He can feel Brett’s fists clench in his hands as another strong shiver runs over him.

“Can we just skip the Mendy and play the whole concert together? We could do Navarra. Or the entirety of Fantasia. Everyone would love it,” Brett attempts, but falls quiet as soon as Eddy’s lips stretch into a smile.

“Sure, let’s ditch the entire Singapore Symphony Orchestra for Navarra,” he replies, but lets go of Brett’s hands to hug him again.

“I can’t do this without you, man,” Brett whispers into his neck.

“I’ll literally be right there, Bretty.” Eddy runs a hand up and down Brett’s back, turns his head to press a kiss into his hair. Finally, the shivering seems to subside and Brett begins to breathe a little easier.

“God, I love you sometimes,” Brett murmurs after a long silence, and Eddy laughs, squeezing him a little tighter.

“Sometimes, my ass.”

15 - lost in the moment

There’s nothing Eddy loves more than playing the violin. Watching Brett do it, though, comes scarily close.

Brett Yang might be a goofy little guy and the undisputed master of the deadpan on most occasions, but when he plays with his entire being, Eddy can’t take his eyes off of him, admires every single little part of him.

He watches Brettʼs hair, messy more often than not, flopping around a little as he moves to the rhythm. It falls into his eyes sometimes, sticks up at odd angles at others, and Eddy always, always wants to run his fingers through it, mess it up even more.

He watches Brettʼs eyebrows, scrunched together in concentration as he listens for the tiniest errors in intonation, then occasionally shooting up to the music in a way that he has to have learned from Ray. Something in him aches to reach out, run his finger over the frown until it smooths out.

He watches Brettʼs eyes, singularly focused on the movement of his left hand or closed altogether if he knows the piece inside and out, undoubtedly seeing some secret daydreams behind the shut lids. It’s not rare for Brett to devote the same kind of attention to Eddy, to listen to him with his eyes closed, too, but some jealous part of Eddy always wants to intrude, wants Brett’s gaze on him, only ever him.

He watches Brett’s lips, their small movements and twitches that follow the ebb and flow of the music. Brett purses them at times when a passage is particularly demanding, lets his tongue run over his lower lip every now and then, and Eddy feels weak with how much he yearns to bite down, to steal kiss after kiss after kiss from him.

He watches the rapid movement of his left hand, fingers expertly carving out gorgeous melodies and double stops and smooth vibratos and his deadly left hand pizzicato that look so effortless to the untrained eye. Eddy knows the amount of hours it took to practice that precision into him, but also thinks of all the things he would like those fingers to do to him.

He watches Brett’s entire body sway to the music, unexpected and yet entirely logical in his movements, a pliant tree in the storm of every piece he plays, only bending, never breaking. Eddy wishes he could run a hand down his back, his chest, his arms, take hold of his hips, claim and grasp and never let go.

And the best part of all of it that Eddy can watch as much as he wants, never needs to fear getting caught. Brett is always as lost in the music as Eddy is in him.

16 - coffee/tea

Brett blinks a few times to get used to the morning light. It seems to be relatively early still, and he doesn’t need to turn his head to know that Eddy is still fast asleep next to him, but because he always loves the sight, he looks anyway. He takes in Eddy’s eyelashes gently twitching from some dream he seems to be having, his quiet breaths, the way he’s drooling onto the pillow a little bit, and gets up before the desire to crawl closer and cuddle up overpowers him.

With well-practised movements, repeated what must be hundreds of times by now, he puts two mugs’ worth of water into the kettle, turns it on. While the kettle starts to quietly hiss, he opens up the bag of coffee beans, can’t resist the urge to shove his nose in there and inhale, letting out a happy sigh at the smell. He measures the right amount of beans with the deep spoon they have for this singular purpose, pours them into the grinder. The hissing of the kettle grows steadily louder.

Brett is no longer afraid that the coffee grinder will wake Eddy up - he knows by now that this man sleeps like the dead in the mornings. Once the beans are measured, he closes the lid, presses the button. The whiny, high-pitched whirring of the grinder is still louder than Brett would like it to be, but nowhere near loud enough to cause problems. Once he’s satisfied with the results, he empties the grinder into the French press. The kettle vibrates on its stand with the force of the near-boiling water inside, then clicks and settles back down. Brett pours it into the press, leaves it to brew.

He looks at his phone in those couple of minutes, scrolls through Instagram and checks the subject lines of the emails he’s received overnight, but doesn’t open any. With his free hand, he opens the fridge door to get the milk, then shuts it with a nudge of the shoulder, pulls the sugar bowl closer, all without looking up from his phone or putting it down. The phone only goes back in the pocket of his sleeping shorts once the coffee’s finished brewing, and then it’s easy to add the exact right amounts of milk and sugar, stir both mugs at the same time, and carefully bring them to the bedroom.

He keeps his own mug in his hand and puts Eddy’s on his bedside table, knowing the smell will work its magic sooner rather than later. After kissing Eddy on the temple, he lies back down to slowly sip on his coffee and spends some time scrolling on his phone, thinks of maybe even answering an email or two. He smiles when he can hear Eddy take a sudden deep breath, lift his head the tiniest bit. He looks over to see Eddy snake his arms around him, eyes barely open.
“You made coffee,” Eddy mumbles, as if heʼs still surprised by the daily occurrence. “I love you.”

If brewing a cup of coffee is all he needs to do to hear that first thing every morning, he’s a lucky guy.

17 - wheat field / corn field

It’s ridiculously American, the idea of corn mazes and pumpkin patches. But they’re in the States for their world tour in late October, so they can’t NOT go - they simply have to see what the fuss is about. Brett seems much more sold on it than Eddy, already bouncing in his seat with excitement on the drive there while Eddy maintains a sense of cool cynicism about the whole thing.

“I just don’t see the point of it,” he says for probably the fifth time, but smiles despite himself when Brett’s happiness doesn’t decrease by a smidge.
“It’s a full-size maze! In corn! A… maize maze!” Brett replies, also for probably the fifth time, and Eddy fondly rolls his eyes.

Eddy still doesn’t think much of it when they arrive and listen to an almost concerningly friendly teenage girl rapid-fire her way through an introduction of the place. Their options are the corn maze, the pumpkin patch, and a little shop selling, unsurprisingly, pumpkin pies and pumpkin spice lattes. Brett insists they get a latte each and leave the pie and pumpkins for later, and Eddy is both easily persuaded and aching for caffeine, so he doesn’t argue, only eyes the tall corn a couple hundred feet away from them distrustingly.

Brett almost drags him into the maze by the hand, starts walking in the first direction that appeals to him, and Eddy fears they’ll get hopelessly lost in there, have to scream until someone comes over and leads them out. He tries to remember which way they’re turning, but… you know. It’s a maze and he’s got a pretty boy holding his hand.

Said pretty boy stops as suddenly as he took off, turns to face Eddy.

“Isn’t this nice?” he asks, and before Eddy can even think of an answer, he tugs him downwards by the lapel of his coat, kisses him all hot and giggly and knee-buckling. Eddy takes a second to respond, place his hands on Brett’s wind-touched cheeks, kiss him back with equal enthusiasm. When Brett pulls back, he’s wearing his most devious little smile, and he’s an idiot, but god, Eddy loves him so much.

“Brett Yang, did you drag me into a corn maze just to make out with me? You must know there are easier ways,” Eddy asks, equal parts exasperated and endlessly, hopelessly fond.

Brett keeps smiling. “The easier ways aren’t as fun, though,” he replies and pulls Eddy closer for one more kiss. “Come on, now,” he says, then. “Get lost with me.”

It’s the best idea Eddy has ever heard.

18 - sad memory

Is this the world I was meant to be in?

The gigantic poster feels like a slap in the face.

Honestly, Eddy just wanted to go for a jog before his shift, to wake himself up and maintain a routine for the benefit of his mental and physical health, forget for a few brief moments heʼs almost 30 and single and teetering on the edge of a burnout. When he’d gone to med school, he’d known his chosen profession wouldn’t be easy, but nothing had prepared from the shitfest of 2020 onwards. He’s left hollow from it, from death and hopelessness and feeling like he’s not enough.

Seeing the supersized face of his former best friend with the words “world-renowned soloist” and “Sydney Symphony Orchestra” and “Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto” plastered over it does not help.

Brett always did love the Tchaik.

Eddy comes to a complete standstill, paying little mind to the way his calves grumble at it, and stares at the poster, feeling like he’s ripped open, the memories he’d kept at bay for years suddenly spilling onto the sidewalk in front of him.

“What do you mean?! You can’t go to med school, Eddy! What about the con?”

“Bretty, we both know I’m not… you. I’m not gonna get anywhere with the music degree, anyway. Med school will give me a future.”

“You know I love your mom, but this is her, verbatim, I bet. I wanna hear what you think. This isn’t what you said, what, two weeks ago? We were gonna do this together, man! I’ve been waiting all year for you to come join me!”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just… This isn’t gonna work out.”

Eddy doesn’t want to look at the tears in his best friend’s eyes. He doesn’t want to hear his desperate pleas. Deep inside him, something thrums along with every word Brett says, aches to say yes to him, to follow him to the ends of the earth, but… someone needs to be the adult, here. He’s got a future to think about, a family, wife and kids, maybe. The life of a musician is fickle and terrifying even with someone like Brett by his side, and Eddy can’t shake the fear he’ll be left behind if he follows him.

“Eddy. You don’t get it. I need you there. I’ve missed you so much, it’s stupid. I -” Brett chokes on his words, grabs hold of Eddy’s hand. Eddy stares at him, dumbfounded, before recognising something in Brett’s eyes. It terrifies him even if he can’t put a name to it yet. He tries to pull his hand away, but Brett holds on, crowds closer.

“Eddy, I fucking love you, and you can’t leave me, do you hear me?!” Brett says, desperate, pained, reaches out his other hand to touch Eddy’s cheek, leans closer to kiss him, and Eddy panics.

“I - I can’t do this. I’m sorry,” he says, moves away before their lips manage to touch. Brett looks like Eddy punched him. His tears spill and this time, he lets Eddy go, no longer meeting his eyes.

They don’t see each other again.

Eddy comes back to the present, annoyed but unsurprised to find tears on his cheeks. He takes another long look at the poster in front of him. Brett is glowing, gorgeous, ethereal, and yet, something about him is exactly the same as it was all those years ago, when he was Eddy’s best friend.

Eddy sighs and takes out his phone. “There better be tickets left for this,” he grumbles out loud.

If I had followed my heart back then, would things be different?

19 - favorite song

Eddy felt a complete turmoil of all kinds of emotions when they released Fantasia for everyone to hear - it felt like introducing their music baby to everyone. They’d never written anything of that calibre, never poured so much of themselves into a project. Eddy was a little scared to even talk about it for months after, felt like the music they’d created and the meanings it carried were too much to dive into any deeper. Despite the happiness the achievement brought, the vulnerability left him feeling a little frayed.

And then, “The Thought of Us” happened.

Eddy didn’t plan on writing it, much less letting anyone else hear it, but the melody ate away at him until he sat down and felt his way through it. Tentatively pressing the keys, changing things until they felt right, humming the violin part over his playing was a sweet ache that left him a little raw every time he worked on it in quiet solitude - he wasn’t ready to show it to even Brett, especially Brett. It became something bigger than he’d thought - a part of his heart given a physical form, his emotions laid bare on ledger lines, and he wasn’t sure he was the only one the message was glaringly obvious to.

He didn’t expect to cry when they first played it together.

Brett, surprised but excited about Eddy’s “So… I wrote something for piano and violin”, had looked at the sheet music for a while, tried out the fingering on his arm, first. “Okay, play it for me,” he’d said then, all business and no awareness of what he was seeing, so Eddy did as he was asked. He heard Brett quietly play along to some fragments, hum to some others, and when Eddy finished the first playthrough of it, he felt his heart in his throat, suffocating and heavy.

“You know, it’s dumb, we don’t have to do it,” he said, already grabbing the lid of the piano to shut it. This was too much, he was going to break and nothing they had now could survive this. It wasn’t worth it.

“No, what? No, Eddy, this is so good,” Brett rushed to him, laying his free hand on one of Eddy’s, stopping the lid from falling any further down. “Let’s play it.”

And Eddy could never say no to him, so they did.

He’d spent weeks on this piece, tearing away at his insides to put them to paper in the hopes of making sense of himself. And he had - as it took shape, as the melodies and chord progressions began to make sense, so did his feelings. But to have the person who these feelings were aimed at sharing this piece with him was too much to bear. Eddy played the last chords of it blindly, tears already dripping onto his hands. And when he heard Brett exhale, come out of his performance stance, he couldn’t stop the first broken sob from escaping his mouth.

There was a hand on his back in what felt like an instant, then another on his cheek. Brett said something - asked what was wrong, maybe - but all Eddy could focus on was the feeling of his insides falling out, an autopsy before he’d even died. He looked at the blurry shape of Brett in front of him, saw his lips move but couldn’t make sense of what he was saying, and he couldn’t think, couldn’t stop himself.

He kissed him, and somehow, Brett kissed him back.

20 - afraid

Seeing Eddy fall deeper and deeper down a depressive spiral hollows Brett out in a way he didn’t think it could.

He’s upset he didn’t see it coming, didn’t feel the burnout creeping closer, didn’t pay close enough attention to Eddy’s aches and pains until he was bound to a wheelchair. He feels like he’s let Eddy down, not taking care of him enough. Being older, he still feels protective over him sometimes, like he needs to watch out for him, and missing the signs of Eddy’s illness feels like an egregious oversight.

But most of all, he’s afraid.

Watching Eddy let day after day pass him by without the slightest interest in what any of them bring fills him with a brand new kind of dread. He is terrified that even if Eddy gets better physically, he won’t wrestle his way out of the complete mental health hole he’s in. He tries, of course he tries to keep him active and involved and doing things, to blow life into the lungs that seem to have given up on air completely, but none of it feels like enough.

And most of all, Brett fears this stress-induced illness is the bane of Eddy’s musician career. Staying away from his instrument for months is bad, but can be overcome. But if this dulls the sparkle that is still somewhere deep in his eyes, if it rewires his beautiful memories and emotions of music into painful sensations, if the negative associations fully outweigh the positive ones, Brett will have no idea what he’ll do.

Sometimes, when they’re sharing a bed, holding each other a little too tight and desperate, Eddy whispers things that leave Brett shaken for hours, days after. Hearing him say “I feel like I don’t care if I wake up tomorrow” or “I don’t know if I can ever play again” is terrifying, chills him right to his bones, and every counterargument feels hollow. He knows that if he were in Eddy’s situation, he wouldn’t care either.

But Brett has dreams for the two of them, and Eddy needs to be there to help him bring them to life. That’s the only thing he can tell him that doesn’t feel like lying, and it’s the only thing that makes that sparkle in Eddy's eyes show up for just a few precious moments.

So Brett dreams enough for the both of them.

21 - deserted beach

Brett is a bad idea generator and Eddy goes along with every wild idea the chaotic little gremlin ever has. Skinny dipping is honestly very mild as far as the crazy shit he comes up with goes.

It seems to be a pretty low-risk endeavour when they make it to the beach a little after midnight. The moon, a few days short of fullness, shines bright enough to light their way and it seems like they’re the only ones who had the stupid idea to come here.

Brett embraces the circumstances, tears his clothes off and sends them flying in random directions without even stopping his beeline towards the water, waddles straight in, letting out a high-pitched “ooooh!” at the temperature of it. Eddy takes a more modest approach, wraps a towel around himself before wriggling out of his shorts and underwear, then going as close to the waterline as he can before dropping the towel, too, taking the first cautious steps in. Brett, boisterous and bratty as ever, lets out a loud wolf whistle, and Eddy looks around in a panic for a second. The beach still looks empty.

Brett comes back towards the shore to join him, now, gets up on his tiptoes to kiss him, and that, Eddy can go along with without hesitation.

“Let’s swim a little before I get too distracted by you,” Brett says, voice lower than Eddy expects, slides a teasing hand down Eddy’s back, squeezes his ass before letting go. Eddy laughs, but feels a tinge of satisfaction and pride anyway at Brett’s newly found self-control issues. He takes a few longer strides next to Brett until the water covers his thighs, winces a bit at the feeling of cool water against everything that’s usually a little more protected by swimming trunks, then presses forward.

“My balls have receded back into my body, so you don’t need to worry about the getting distracted thing, actually,” Brett complains without any filter, stopping two steps behind him. Eddy laughs again, runs his fingers through the cool water.

“Come on, you baby,” he says to Brett, takes a few more steps.

“Aw, I like it when you call me baby,” Brett answers, mockingly saccharine, then rushes past him before diving in. Eddy follows suit, does a few calm strokes before settling into a comfortable back float. Brett swims a lazy semicircle around him, eyes him, unwavering.

“You know, I’m not enjoying the swimming as much as I expected,” he says. “Let’s get you sitting on that nice rock that’s jutting out of the water back there and I’ll suck you off instead. Like a mermaid.”

Eddy throws his head back in loud laughter. It echoes back to the empty beach.

“That’s not what mermaids do at all,” he replies when he’s collected himself, but as he follows Brett without hesitation, he thinks that maybe Brett does know mermaids better than him. After all, Eddy would follow him to the deepest trenches.

22 - sharing warmth

They tumble through the door side by side, uncoordinated, squelching and shivering. The sudden torrential downpour is quieter in their apartment, but it has already done enough damage that the noise level hardly matters anyway.

“I’m freezing, Brett,” Eddy complains, fighting to tear off his waterlogged shoes.

“S-same,” Brett replies, teeth clacking, and attempts to climb out of his drenched hoodie. Eddy has to help him, in the end, and when Brett emerges, lips pale, hair dripping, glasses entirely useless with the raindrops clinging to them, Eddy decides he needs some support right now. He holds on to the hoodie, guides them towards the bathroom.

“Hot shower, now,” he orders, trying to unbutton his shirt with one hand, the other on Brett’s back. His fingers fail him entirely, too cold to work properly, so when they get to the bathroom, he lets go of Brett to yank it over his head, too. Brett is already shirtless by the time he’s done, but they both take slightly too long to open the buttons on their jeans. After that, though, taking off their underwear is smooth sailing, as is turning on the shower. Brett groans loudly when the warm water gushes over him, snuggles close to Eddy so they’d both fit under the stream. His skin is still cold from the rain, but as they stand there together, feeling slowly creeps back into their extremities, a stinging at first and then a nice buzz.

“Bed?” Brett asks after a couple minutes, lips grazing Eddy’s shoulder, so quiet Eddy barely hears the question over the rush of water.

“Yeah,” he replies, turns off the shower. The cool air that invades their space makes Brett shiver, but he obediently follows when Eddy guides him out. Eddy wraps his own gigantic towel around them both and they waddle their way to Brett’s bedroom, just because it’s closer.

When they settle next to each other under the warm blanket, Brett wastes no time in shoving his still-icy toes between Eddy’s calves and laughs at the desperate yelp it causes.

“God, Brett! How are they still this cold?!” Eddy yells, and there’s way too much concern in there to actually sound angry.

“I don’t know, but please warm them up. I might die,” Brett replies with excessive despair, clings to Eddy to stop any potential attempt to leave. There isn’t any, just Eddy sighing before pulling him even closer, until they feel fully intertwined. The toes are firmly pressed between his thighs, already starting to warm up. He presses a kiss to Brett’s forehead, already feeling the sleep pull him under.

23 - acceptance

“What’s up with you? You’ve been on edge all day.”

Eddy looks up at Brett a little too fast, looking a little too caught out.

“Nothing,” he says immediately, and even he winces at how fake it sounds. Brett tilts his head, raises his eyebrow, and that’s all it takes - suddenly there’s Eddy all over his lap, his face hidden in his thigh. Their homework is forgotten in an instant as Brett’s hand intuitively finds its way into its hair.

“That bad?” he tries to lighten the mood, but Eddy doesn’t move.

“I’m scared you’re gonna… be different,” Eddy mumbles, and Brett’s eyebrows pull together in confusion.

“What do you mean? Why would I be different? I’m not planning on changing,” he says, winces a little when he feels Eddy’s fingers grip his ankle a little too tight.

“No, when I tell you,” Eddy clarifies, making absolutely nothing any clearer. Brett is so confused.

“I have no idea what you could tell me that would make you treat you any different,” he says sincerely, running possibilities through his head as his fingers trace calming patterns onto Eddy’s shoulder. He’s quitting the violin? Impossible and painful, but survivable. He’s got a girlfriend? Unlikely and upsetting, but nothing he couldn’t stand. He’s in love with Brett? Ridiculous and confusing, but Brett can’t imagine it being something they can’t work through.

Eddy lifts his head after a long silence, looks at Brett for a long time. “I think I’m bi,” he finally says, eyes full of absolute dread, and it takes Brett just a second of calculating.

“Okay,” is all he says in the end, before hugging Eddy tightly, because that’s the first thing he wants to do. He can feel the relieved sigh, can feel the slight dampness on his shoulder where Eddy has hidden his eyes, and hugs tighter.

---

“Hey, remember when you came out to me last year?” Brett asks tentatively, entirely focused on twirling a loose thread from his hoodie tightly around his finger. His fingertip is starting to turn purple.

“One of the scariest moments of my life, yeah, couldn’t forget it if I tried,” Eddy replies with a laugh. “Why?”

“Hey, it all worked out fine,” Brett protests, and it would be such an easy way to derail the conversation from the scarier things, but Brett wants to follow the example of courage Eddy set for him, so he sighs. Eddy looks at him, serious now, waits patiently for Brett to put the words in order in his head.

“I’m gay,” Brett blurts out before he can get too scared to say anything. He looks down at his fingers, unwinds the thread from around his finger before he cuts off the circulation entirely, then looks back at Eddy, who’s been very quiet.

“Really?” Eddy whispers, almost reverent, and Brett nods, feeling a prickling in his eyes. Eddy looks at him for another second, soft and sweet, before crawling over to him to take him into a rib-crushing hug.

“Welcome to the club,” he whispers, but his chuckle is a little wobbly, his eyes a little shiny when he pulls away. Brett is too scared to poke at it now.

“I don’t know when I would’ve told you if you hadn’t done it first. You have such fucking balls,” he admits honestly, watches Eddy get even softer despite his wording.

“Thanks,” he says, then laughs as if to shake himself free of something.

“At least I can always marry you if no other guy wants me,” Eddy says, still a little wobbly, but there is an unmistakably bratty smile on his face.

“...Bold of you to assume I want you,” Brett shoots back without hesitation, but there’s a hint of a lie in there, and they both catch it.

24 - the stars

Under the shining dome of millions of stars, it’s easy to feel small.

They're lying side by side in the grass, shoulders pressed together, fingers loosely entwined. The evening dew is slowly seeping into their sweatshirts, but they haven’t noticed yet - they’re too busy looking up to feel anything below.

“I can’t believe how many there are,” Brett says, his voice a reverent almost-whisper.

“Yeah, you never see this many in Brissy or Sydney or Singapore,” Eddy replies, his thumb brushing Brett’s. Facts are bouncing around in his head, something about light pollution in big cities, but none of it feels important enough to say out loud. Not in the face of this, just a small section of the universe stretched out so brilliant and infinite above them.

“God, just this makes the trip worth it,” Brett says quietly, and Eddy hums in agreement. There are lots of reasons why they took a week off to embrace the nature with some of their friends, but this… this one he hadn’t even expected, and it’s blowing his mind.

“That’s the Southern Cross, right?” Brett asks, raising his free hand to point upwards. It takes a moment for Eddy to find the small cluster of stars.

“I think so,” he says. “I know, like, four constellations total.” They both chuckle quietly.

“I do know that’s the Milky Way, though,” Eddy adds after a few moments, sweeps his hand across the sky where the galaxy shines, enormous and breathtaking.

“We really are just tiny bugs on a small rock,” Brett says after another breath. Eddy turns to look at him.

“Are you getting existential on me?” he asks, nudges Brett a little.

“Hard not to,” is Brett’s distant answer, but then, the spell breaks and he meets Eddy’s gaze.

“But a bug’s life isn’t all that bad,” he says, smile already curling on his lips, and Eddy can’t help it, gets up on one elbow to kiss him stupid.

25 - sports

Brett is waiting for Eddy on the corner of his bed when he gets out of his post-jog shower, and he’s got plans. Eddy can tell. Before he can ask -

“You look really hot when you’re all tired and sweaty.”

Yeah. Those kinds of plans.

“I can’t imagine what you could find hot about my splotchy face and smelly body,” he replies, nonchalantly walking over to his dresser to grab underwear. Drops his towel onto the bed, bends over a little bit, tries to make it seem accidental. Brett hums behind him, gets up. Eddy can feel his hand ghosting over his hips.

“Your muscles, dude. You look all athletic, like you could manhandle me to oblivion,” he replies, presses a kiss between his shoulders when Eddy stands up straight, a pair of boxers in his hand.

“I couldn’t,” Eddy teases, still. “I’m very tired after my runs. Exhausted, even.” He smiles when Brett rubs up against him a little bit.

“Oh, like you want someone to take care of you while you lie there and rest after your exhausting workout?” Brett continues, honey-sweet and flattering, guides him a step back towards the bed. Eddy chuckles but obeys, letting go of the boxers, tossing them back on top of the dresser.

“Yeah, like I don’t wanna do anything, just lay there and be pampered,” he replies, turns around in Brett’s arms, leans in for a kiss only to pull back at the last second. Brett frowns.

“Well, I’ll let you be a pillow princess if you promise not to be a brat about it,” he says, breaking character, and leads Eddy the rest of the way to the bed. And yes, being a tease sounds inviting, but the alternative sounds way better, so Eddy complies, lies down under Brett’s guidance and then pulls him in for a proper kiss, fingers tangled in his hair.

26 - happy tears

The last notes of the Navarra, the encore to their four million subscriber livestream, escape into the air like sparks from a bonfire, and there is a moment of silence before the room bursts into thunderous applause. It’s not the first one of the night by far, not even the first one for the two of them, but as it is the conclusion, it feels like it’s the loudest. Eddy feels his heart thumping so hard his ribcage feels bruised from it, the applause drowning out the stampede inside of him. Next to him, Brett takes his hand into his, shakes him out of his reverie, and they bow together before lifting their Strads high up in the air. The cheers intensify and Eddy can’t help the wide grin that spreads across his face. This moment feels infinite and Eddy wants to make a home in it.

But then, Brett tugs him off the stage, and high on adrenaline, Eddy follows him without question.

They don’t have long to decompress - fans are already waiting outside - but they will need a moment. As soon as the Strads are back in their case, Brett looks at him. They stare at each other for a few seconds and Eddy isn’t sure who moves first, but all of a sudden, they’re locked in a tight embrace. Eddy holds his breath against the tidal wave of emotions that washes over him as he hugs his favorite person in a way he never quite has before, but it’s futile - the tears spill over as if there is no resistance at all.

“I’m so fucking proud of you, Brett,” he whispers, shaky and hiccuping, and feels the hug grow impossibly tighter. There’s a second of silence, then, “I love you, Eddy.” Eddy sobs a little louder, overwhelmed with what they’ve achieved together, and pulls back just enough to press their foreheads against each other, look into Brett’s eyes.
“I love you too.”

27 - wrapping a gift

When Brett drags the dauntingly large box into the living room, Eddy’s first reaction is, “Where were you hiding this?” It’s a fair question - there aren’t many places in their apartment where a box that’s almost two feet long on each side could remain unnoticed.

“I only wrapped it today,” Brett explains, as if that explains anything. And then, equally confusingly, “It’s a matryoshka doll of presents, not one huge one. Come on, get on with it.”

“Bossy,” Eddy can’t help but comment, but he’s immediately intrigued by the contents, so he tugs on the honestly outrageous bow keeping the box shut. As the ribbon loosens, the lid pops open.

Most of the space is taken up by another, smaller box; however, it is very literally cushioned on each side with throw pillows covered in sheet music, white notes on dark canvas that matches their sofa perfectly. Eagerly, Eddy yanks two of them out at once, looks at them.

“Oh! Tchaik and… Sibelius,” he says after a few seconds of contemplation. “What are the other two, then? Mendy and…” he thinks out loud, picking up another one. “... oh,” he continues, a little quieter. “Not Mendy. Prelude. And…” He lets his arms fall to his side when he figures the last one out. “Really? The Thought of Us isn’t even… It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Dumb-dumb, of course it is. Keep going and don’t fight me on this.”

Eddy shakes his head, but continues, setting the cushions aside with care.

Box number two contains yet another smaller box as well as some more soft fabric. Eddy pulls it out, shakes it until it unfolds. It is a black T-shirt, pretty comfy-looking and nice otherwise, but when he reads what’s written on it and decodes the notes accompanying it, he cringes so hard Brett almost falls off the sofa beside him with laughter.

“You can call me D-A-D-E? Fuck you, dude,” Eddy says, laughing too, now, and tosses it aside with much less care than he showed for the throw pillows. Brett is still cackling when he goes to the next box.

It contains yet another box and a journal. Eddy opens it, flicks through a few pages. He sees their faces on picture after picture, interspersed with plane tickets and other memorabilia.

“It’s a scrapbook,” Brett says even though he doesn’t really need to, laughter still crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Memories of what we’ve done together.” Eddy goes to the end - the last page is a photo from the stage of Victoria Concert Hall after their performance, both of them looking adrenaline-addled and blissful. It’s all much softer than anything Eddy would have expected from Brett, and a complete turnaround from the previous monstrosity.

“You’re giving me whiplash here, dude,” he says, places the scrapbook on the coffee table gently, reaches for the next box. As he looks inside, he chuckles again. “As I said…” He pulls out a fancy blonde wig, looking much more expensive and also much more decent than the one Edwina currently wears.

“Might keep this one for the bedroom,” Eddy says with a laugh, makes Brett grin too, even though there’s something nervous in his face now, and reaches for the next box. Something solid moves around inside, so he gives it a wiggle.

“That’s the last one. Don’t shake it so hard,” Brett says, laughing, puts a hand on Eddy’s wrist. Eddy notices how clammy it is, looks up at him. Brett’s face is entirely unreadable, so Eddy assumes the answer is in the box. He carefully pulls the lid open. It falls to his side when he sees the contents and he looks at Brett, eyes immediately brimming with tears.

“Are you for real?”

Brett’s answering smile is wobbly. “Open it up,” he says, nodding towards it.

Eddy takes it out of the box, holds it in his palm. It’s a dark wooden jewellery case, a violin carved into the lid. Eddy’s thumb runs over the carving, his hands shaking. Slowly, he opens that one, too.

A wide dark-coloured ring rests in the box, an elegant curved design carved into it, showing the white gold underneath, a flat diamond pressed into the centre. Its purpose is unmistakable, but Eddy still can’t quite process it. He lifts his gaze to ask Brett for some kind of confirmation and sees him a lot closer than he was before, looking at him with a similar reverence.

“Will you marry me?” he asks, and Eddy is crying before he has finished the question. He throws himself at Brett to hug him, holding the box gently aloft.

“You’re so fucking extra,” he mumbles into Brett’s shoulder, wet and soft, and then, “Yes. Obviously.”

28 - walking
Stepping out of the safety of their home is like flipping a switch - they’re different people to the outside world. Boyfriend mode off, platonic mode engaged.

It’s not as big of a heartache as it sounds. It’s easier to live without something if you’ve never had it, and they never got used to holding hands when walking in public places, anyway. Occasionally, one of them will ache to reach out, but it’s a passing notion, one easily buried by a reminder of who and where they are. They gravitate towards each other without a tether to connect them, and if they hold onto elbows or wrists for a few moments to not get separated in crowds, well, that’s just reasonable best friend behaviour.

They are the way they are not just because they’re what someone would consider famous. Other, regular human concerns come first, and the biggest among them is that neither of them is sure how the common (straight) people of Singapore might feel about two men holding hands in broad daylight. They’ve heard stories of all kinds, neutral ones outweighing the negative ones outweighing the positive ones, and the experiment to figure out where they land on that scale is not one they consider worthy of undertaking.

But also, yes. They’re YouTubers, people recognise them on occasion and don’t even make themselves known, just take photos from afar. It’s easier to assume someone has eyes on them at all times. They’ve kept their relationship close to the chest for so long, not wanting to let the world in on the miracle they’d painstakingly created on top of the foundations they started laying all those years ago as teenagers in maths tutoring, and it feels foolish to out their carefully guarded secret by holding hands on their way to get bubble tea.

Besides, there’s a positive side to all of it. When they get back home, they can put their hands wherever they want, and it’s difficult to miss holding hands in public when they can do that and so much more when they’re alone.

29 - borrowing clothes

It’s a symbiotic relationship, really. Brett loves Eddy’s clothes and Eddy loves seeing Brett in them. Brett is not a big guy to begin with, but seeing him drown in Eddy’s jackets and shirts and hoodies tickles Eddy in a very specific way that he doesn’t care to define. Brett looks adorable in clothes that hang off him like that, he seems to enjoy looking like that, too, and that’s it. All Eddy knows is that the open necklines and loose fits and sweater paws make him a little weak in the knees and the heart, and he doesn’t question the rest. So Brett keeps taking his stuff and Eddy keeps doing absolutely nothing to stop it.

And if he’s developed a liking to fucking Brett while he is wearing nothing but one of Eddy’s hoodies, then that is his right and no one should be allowed to stop him.

30 - the passage of time

It hits Brett out of the blue sometimes, how they’ve grown together over the years. It always knocks him sideways a little.

Brett can still remember the awkward little thirteen-year-old with a mullet he met in maths tutoring more than half his life ago, shy and quiet with a fire burning underneath. He remembers the beginnings, the way they stumbled around each other in unrefined excitement, learned each other’s quirks and oddities without trying to get rid of them. Both of their lives needed the tiniest amount of reorganising to let the other one in, and then they both immediately wound themselves around the other, a knot so tight and complex that even swords couldn’t break it apart.

Brett was there for all of it, growing and maturing and laughter and tears and loves and heartbreaks and music, always, always music, and it still bewilders him who Eddy’s become. He looks at Eddy sometimes, so confident, open, dirty-minded, with a loud mouth that equals Brett’s, and yet, he’s still the same person Brett has known for longer than he hasn’t.

Sometimes, Brett thinks they’re two vines that have curled around each other as they grew, now entirely inextricable, always relying on each other. It feels like a less desperate, less violent analogy than the Gordian knot they reminded him of at first, one that offers more beauty to the world, and really, that’s all either of them has ever wanted. Brett knows they’re better together, that despite spending seemingly eons together, they always keep improving and learning from each other. He wouldn’t have achieved any of this alone, and he wouldn’t have wanted to.

He knows without doubt that he’ll look back in another sixteen years - sixty, even, if he plays his cards right - and none of it will ever seem any more comprehensible to him. Eddy’s presence in his life will always be a miracle, and Brett will try to be worthy of it for as long as he lives.

31 - (free day)

I want to laugh with you for the rest of my life.

I want to brainstorm video ideas with you at three in the morning, watch your eyes crinkle at the corners when we stumble onto a good one, look at you as you cover your mouth to quiet the giggles the worst ideas get.

I want to play for you, make my violin, any violin - some Amazon DIY horror, a priceless Strad, whichever is fine - screech in the most horrific ways just to have you hide your face in your hands, shoulders shaking with the laughter you refuse to award me.

I want to spend hours making videos with you, react to the stupidest shit, drag the most ridiculous gags out for way too long just to make you lose it. I love your laughter in every form, but the unbridled guffaw you let out when something makes you forget the camera exists just might be my favourite.

I want to lie around on our couch in our downtime, spout absolute bullshit until you’re red-faced and halfway rolling on the floor. I want to hear your most demonic screeches, your most desperate howls, most cursed wheezes when you’re so out of breath you can’t even laugh anymore. No matter that we’re heaving and in pain afterwards - those totally boundless moments are the most treasured ones to me.

So much of my life is music, and yet, your laughter is the one sound I could happily spend the rest of my life listening to.