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“Where the hell even are you?”
“Does it matter?”
Keith could practically hear Mick biting his lip to keep from snapping.
“I simply want to know where you’re coming from. Is that a crime now?”
“Want to know or want to-”
“If you’re coming from a far distance, I was merely going to suggest that you leave a few days in advance, so you’re not jetlagged for the day of.”
A laugh burbled up, bitter and weary, and he did nothing to shove it back down.
“I’m the same place I always am this time of year, sweetheart. Or have you forgotten that, too?”
If the (supposed) endearment were delivered with any more acid, it would have burned through the phone line.
“Jamaica, then.”
“Yep.”
The guitarist popped the final consonant, clawing back at the stiff formality of Mick’s tone.
“Fine. Then get to London on-”
“I can figure out my own bloody travel plans. I just wanted to make sure you were gonna show.”
“Of course I am. This hasn’t got anything to do with you.”
“Yeah, screw you too, ‘ya old bitch.”
Fingers going loose, he allowed the phone to crash back onto the receiver, uncaring if it was actually properly hung-up.
He’d always hated the bloody thing anyway.
◑ ◐
Ronnie had taken him out the night before, ever eager to celebrate their (nearly) shared birthday.
Though he wouldn’t say it aloud, Charlie had thoroughly enjoyed his night on the town with his younger bandmate, and the lengths to which he went in order to make what otherwise would have been quite an ordinary day special.
He knew, too, though, that that wasn’t the entire extent of Ronnie’s motives.
Last year, neither of his partners had arrived for any festivities, and, once he’d finally abandoned waiting, he’d given himself a quiet, uncelebratory day. Tea for one in the drafty kitchen, an afternoon thumbing through books he couldn’t focus on, nothing for supper (the persistent feeling of emptiness which gnawed at his gut was more than enough), and a sleepless night in bed.
Two gifts, apology notes duly attached, had arrived the next week.
◑ ◐
They had done this before, in ‘85, and Keith had every confidence they could do it again.
Well, perhaps not every confidence, but he figured they could at least attempt to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Charlie deserved that much. Especially considering it was a defeat entirely created by him and Mick.
Plastering a sly grin on his face, he strode into the restaurant.
◑ ◐
By unanimous decision, they retired back to Charlie’s London bolthole.
Mick’s flat was far grander, and Keith’s city address was at the Ritz, but both of them, loathe as they might have been to say it, were craving the intimacy of that space which spoke so very much to their partner’s way with creating a home.
Lately, it was rare they more than popped in (individually) for a day, and, even if the necessity of staying over came about, they were politely directed to the guest bedroom.
“So, birthday boy, what’s the last wish of the night?”
A few glasses of wine had made the situation feel far rosier, at least to Keith.
“Nothing. You’ve already given me far more than I need.”
Shaking his head, Mick reached across the couch to pinch one of Charlie’s earlobes between his fingers, and merely laughed when the other man swatted him off, allowing his head to rest easily on the angular shoulder.
He didn’t miss Charlie’s little gasp at the contact.
“C’mon, in this instance, I’ll grant that Keith is right. You’ve still got another two hours until June 3rd, what do you fancy? Any wish, we’ll make it come true.”
“Really, tonight was enough for this and the next ten birthdays.”
The singer wondered if they had ten more birthdays ahead of them, and hated himself for it.
“Love, it doesn’t have to be anything grand. Just stroke our egos by making us feel a bit useful ‘round here.”
With eyes keener than the four glasses of Merlot he’d ingested would suggest, Keith watched Charlie’s gaze travel to his lap, a faint pink dusting his impish cheeks.
“Could you stay the night? Both of you?”
“Certainly, I’ll-”
“With me.”
An emotion, some strange stepchild of longing and horror, lodged itself in Mick’s throat, and he guessed, based on Keith’s expression, that the guitarist had been felled by the same beast.
Ever the diplomat, Charlie raced ahead to correct his presumed mistake.
“You don’t have to, really! That was cruel of me to suggest, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Lurching across the coffee table, Keith grabbed the drummer’s hand and squeezed until the words trickled away.
“Of course. No question, of course we will.”
◑ ◐
It wasn’t difficult to guess, though the thought made Keith feel sick, why Charlie had asked them to sleep with him.
He’d never slept well alone.
And they’d been making him do it for the past two years.
Glancing to his side, he caught a glimpse of a suit jacket, then a bowtie, and finally a slightly rumpled dress shirt, colliding with the nearest chair, before the body they’d hung on vanished to find a dressing gown. Mick had commandeered the bathroom to change, and he’d agreed, quite easily, to do it in the bedroom.
Just observing the precise, measured steps of Charlie’s bedtime ritual made him wish he could find a vessel to the past, infinitely preferable to the painful present.
With a punched out sigh, he collapsed onto what had long ago been designated his side of the bed, finding himself with an armful of drummer far sooner than expected. Slipping an arm under the smaller man’s shoulders, he felt Charlie’s hand travel across the expanse of his body, stopping to give an affectionate pat to the paunch he tried so hard to hide before crossing entirely and moving to lace a hand with his own.
The bruised skin under his eyes was unmistakable up-close.
Mick appeared a second later and took his place on their partner’s other side. Charlie swiftly linked their hands, which knocked against each other, and placed a kiss on the hollow of his cheek, right next to the lines which time had carved with cruel prominence into his expressive face.
Soon enough, Mick had a gray haired head resting on his chest, and Keith a lithe leg entwined with one of his own, the faint sounds of sleep filling the room.
He’d never realized how hungry Charlie was for touch.
Their touch.
◑ ◐
“Mornin’.”
Keith had awoken, at a time the bedside clock helpfully informed him was 3 am, to find the bed emptier than it should have been. After waiting for 15 minutes, it had become clear that their wayward partner (if, indeed, he was still that) had not just gone for a soothing nighttime cup of tea.
The greeting met him when he stepped out onto the balcony, his first sight Mick’s artificial brown locks turned upwards as he observed the inky London sky.
“What’re you doing out of bed?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And I have a 6 am flight. New York.”
The final part of the sentence was tinged in shame, but Keith couldn’t find it in himself to care.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You know how security is, with the priors, and-”
“Do you really think I want this whole spiel right now?”
“I only wanted you to understand.”
A landmine of a phrase that he wouldn’t even consider touching.
“Yeah, I understand pretty well what kind of selfish bastard you are.”
“Life goes on.”
“Is life going on a redhead or a blonde?”
“Don’t start this.”
“Fuck you.”
It was hardly the first time he’d said those two words, but they never really lost their incendiary effect. The lines of Mick’s gym perfect shoulders tightened, and Keith took pleasure in the fact that it was costing the singer an extraordinary amount of effort not to start a screaming match right then and there.
“Will you at least stay ‘til morning, tell him that I’m sorry but I had to run, and wish him one last happy birthday.”
“Are you?”
“What?”
“Sorry?”
“Would you believe me if I said yes?”
“Would you believe me if I said I don’t care?”
Hatred dripped from his tone, though he made an effort to keep his voice down, terrified of waking Charlie and situating him smack dab in the middle of this nightmare.
“Yeah, I would.”
“I’ll stay with him a few more hours, but you know the rule.”
“'All three or none at all.'”
“I’ll have to be gone before he wakes up.”
Thinking of how desperately Charlie had clung to him, to both of them, and imagining what it would be like when he woke for yet another day in that cold, lonely bed, he wanted nothing more than to throw a punch. Or to do some damage to himself.
“Aren’t we always?”
◑ ◐
The next morning, Charlie wondered if he’d simply dreamed the whole thing.
He turned his back to the rising sun, and closed his eyes, hoping to find the fantasy he had left behind.