Work Text:
~Mats~
The evening breeze, sighing through my hair, reminded me of his caresses, of his eager fingers slipping through my locks. I was lost for a split second, feeling…
"I'm scared, Marco… I don't know what's wrong with me…" I tell my friend, letting my head fall back against the garden chairs.
The distant song of a bird, surely seeking shelter, added another note of anxiety to my feelings and to my waiting.
"I don't understand your fears, Mats. Everything seems to be going well between you two… or not?" he asks, taking a sip of his coffee and leaning back comfortably in his seat.
I slide my hands over the fabric of my jeans and stay silent for a moment.
"Yes… but I'm terrified of what I feel. Julian makes me feel good and he makes me feel awful…"
"Wait, Mats, stop and think," he interrupts me in a calm tone. "What exactly are you afraid of?"
It's not easy to say it out loud, but suddenly the words bloom like a painful, unstoppable flowering.
"I'm afraid of losing him, of him leaving me…" The image of Julian, smiling at the wheel of his car on his way to Bremen, pierces through my chest. "Of something happening to him on the road and me not being there for him." I look at my cup of coffee, now cold and almost untouched, thinking about the eight years that separate us; they aren't many, but they carry a specific weight in the core of my insecurities. "And I'm afraid that those eight years will end up pushing him away from me…"
I let the air out of my lungs painfully, but I tightened my abdominal muscles hard, as if I wanted to hold myself together, to hug myself, to contain everything all at once in a desperate act.
Marco thought for a moment, then leaned forward and placed his cup on the saucer on the table; the *click* sounded clean, like marking the end of a pause. His eyes slid towards me with a tender curiosity.
"Mats… Mats… Mats," he repeated my name, as if he wanted to anchor me in the here and now. "You're telling me you're afraid of losing him, of something happening to him on the road, of your own humanity ending up suffocating him… That doesn't sound like a simple relationship, Mats. You sound too scared, like someone who's drowning in the depth of his emotions, like someone who has fallen in love for the first time…"
I rubbed my sweaty hands again on the fabric of my pants, trying to catch the voice that was escaping me and the life that was leaving me through my throat. That. It was that. But acknowledging it sank me even deeper into the fear, because it was everything and yet nothing.
"Now I understand, Marco… now I know I had never truly been in love before. What I feel for him now is overwhelming," I confess, pressing my head between my hands.
"This stage of insecurity will pass, you'll see. Just talk to him about what you feel… I'm sure he's going through the same thing," he tells me, moving his hands gently and resting his elbows on his legs as he finished the sentence.
"And if I tell him… and I end up ruining everything?" I express with anguish, removing the hands that were gripping my head and leaving them suspended in the air.
Marco smiled tenderly and placed his hand, warm and comforting, on my thigh, firmly. As if he knew more about me than I did.
"That won't happen, Mats… relax, I'm here. You can always trust me."
"I know, Marco… thank you," I tell him, looking at him with an expression of total gratitude, without terms or conditions, as I squeeze his hand, which still rests on my leg, tightly.
I don't want a life, a world, where Julian isn't by my side. I can't conceive of my existence without him. And I know I'm clumsy, that I might end up suffocating him, that one day he'll leave me… and that terrifies me.
My son runs towards me with a radiant smile and throws himself into my arms, holding a bouquet of white roses.
"Daddy… daddy, when is Julian coming? Why is he taking so long…?"
"He'll be here soon, sweetie, be patient," I whisper while hugging him gently and leaving a kiss on his fine blond hair.
Julian was going to spend a few days in Bremen with his parents, taking advantage of the days off the club gave us, and then he would come to see me and spend a day with my son, who had been looking forward to seeing him for weeks.
"And those very pretty flowers?" Marco asks my son, stroking his head.
"It's a gift for Julian!" he says with a smile. "We bought them with Dad."
"Although the idea was purely his," I tell Marco, smiling with pride.
"How sweet… it's so beautiful," whispers Marco, his voice full of tenderness.
A few minutes later, Marco says goodbye: it's time to pick up his kids and his wife. We shake hands and bump shoulders. As we do, he holds my hand a moment longer than usual, with a firm, warm tension, transmitting his silent restraint and his unwavering support. Then he leaves.
We remain leaning back in the garden chairs, my son and I, when we hear Julian's car parking in the driveway. My son looks at me with wet, shiny eyes, lets out a little cry of excitement, quickly grabs the bouquet of roses, and runs towards Julian, who has just entered the garden, hugging him with all his strength.
As I walk towards them with soft steps, I feel happiness lifting me up, as if I were floating in the air.
Julian picks up my son in his arms and receives the bouquet of flowers, his face illuminated by a profound joy. He hugs him tenderly, and his sobs burst forth, halting, full of emotion and a love he cannot contain.
"Waaaaaah, Dad! I made Julian cry," my son tells me, sobbing with distress as he hugs him tightly, as if he wants to compensate him with all his affection.
"No, little one, I'm not crying from sadness… I'm crying from emotion. These are the most beautiful flowers in the world," Julian tells him with a warm smile, while gently stroking my son's cheeks and wiping the tears shining on his face.
"Do you promise…?"
"Yes, I promise," he says, with tears of happiness shining in his eyes.
"Then I'm crying from emotion too," my son tells him, looking at him with love.
I approach and gently kiss Julian's blond hair; his warm, familiar scent, mixed with the perfume of the roses, makes my skin prickle. My hand trembles as it closes around his waist, moved by a contained urgency, while he lets himself fall against me, as if with the weight of his body he wanted to show me his absolute surrender.
My son looks at me, overflowing with happiness, and hugs us both tightly, as if wanting to merge us into a single embrace. He's just a child, but he knows everything: the pure wisdom that resides in the innocence of childhood.
Julian laughs through his tears, strokes the boy's hair, and looks at me over his shoulder with an expression so beautiful I feel the whole world could stop right there.
Oh, God… they're two of a kind, I think tenderly.
For the rest of the day, the two of them spend their time playing and laughing in the living room while I review papers and contracts. With devotion, I watch as my son covers Julian's face with a rain of kisses, brings him all his toys, and even offers him his food. Every interaction between them makes my skin tremble and makes me dream… but also fear. My whole world is concentrated in those two beings, and I tremble.
At night, while we watch a movie, my son falls asleep in Julian's arms, and Julian on my shoulder as I hold them. Carefully, I take my boy in my arms and carry him to his room, signaling to Julian, who has just woken up, to go lie down in my bed.
In bed, I press my forehead against his.
"The kid is exhausting," I say with a tired smile.
"Yes, but it's beautiful. Today was a very happy day for me, Mats," he says.
"For me it was even happier, because I got to bring my son together with his favorite person," I reply, slowly kissing the corner of his lips.
Julian smiles, closing his eyes tenderly.
“The child is so intelligent, Mats… he’s just like you…”
My eyes cloud with tears.
My fingers sink into the nape of his neck and gently scratch where his hair begins, while a nascent tremor makes me sigh against his lips.
"What's wrong, Mats…?"
"So many things are wrong, Julian… but, mainly, I'm afraid."
"Afraid…?"
"Of losing you…"
"That won't happen."
"Julian … I love you."
The confession painfully opens up in my soul and escapes my mouth, unstoppable, unexpected.
Julian cries against my lips. His crying is clean and pure, with something held back, but the words simply don't come out.
I say nothing and wait. I just tremble and feel myself suffocate, and in the hypoxia of my brain, I hallucinate: I see his image, blue, transfigured, and I feel I'm losing him.
"Mats, I love you too," he says at last.
And then I breathe.
In the morning, I feel a warmth and a softness that caress me to the bone. At some point during the night, my son slipped into our bed and now sleeps between us, hugging his teddy bear and Julian.
Suddenly, my boy opens his eyes and, in his little voice, tells me:
"I love you, Daddy. Thank you."
I don't know exactly why he's thanking me, but I can sense it…
"I love you too, son," and I kiss his forehead.