mcfly-slash ... I'm living with what you've done
okay so ...
my nan died. this morning.
and i'm ill and just ...
there's a whirlwind in my head and i just want it to stop, really.
more than anything, i want it to stop.
thank god i still have my writing, otherwise i'd go insane.
Title: I’m living with what you’ve done
Author: me
Rating: PG13
Chapter: 1/1 … Standalone
Genre: Angst
Pairing: PoynterJudd
Summary: He didn’t believe in promises. Promises were worth nothing.
Word count: 4,288
Disclaimer: I’m pretty sure this didn’t happen.
Dedication: mostly my Puddner in crime manuanya and my CazzaBUMFACE. And everyone else who was there for me in the past days and kept me from breaking down.
Author’s note: This happened when I listened to nothing but 'Down goes another one' for almost a day. I analysed. Of course. But I thought that just Dougie had written the song until manuanya told me that it was actually Dougie, Danny and Tom. So when you read this, just imagine that it was Dougie alone. Because … that would help, really.
Dougie Poynter had many talents for a guy his age. Pretty much all of them had to do with the band he was in. Playing bass, singing, songwriting, entertaining people with nothing but thin air sometimes. He could do it all.
When it came to his private life, Dougie found himself thinking quite often that he was a failure though. He thought that, if it wasn’t for the band, he would probably be some guy roaming the streets of Essex, doing dodgy things to earn a little bit of money, and go home every night where his mother awaited him for dinner.
And what Dougie really wasn’t good at, at least in his opinion, were relationships. When it came to those he wasn’t just a failure. He was … well, worse than a failure.
Dougie blamed it all on his father. Because the bastard had walked out on the family. Dougie was 15 years old and when something like that happens when you’re a teenager, you know what’s going on. When you’re a child you may wonder why Daddy isn’t there anymore and you find silly reasons for it or believe the lame excuses that others have for that kind of behaviour. But when it all happens when you’re old enough to understand the adults you don’t need to find silly reasons or believe lame excuses. Because you know the truth.
His father walking out on Dougie, his mother and sister had broken Dougie’s trust. In anybody. Because his father had once sworn to be there for better or worse and then he just fucking left. He broke his promise just like that, with a note on the kitchen table. A little piece of paper had broken Dougie’s ability to trust people before he even had fully developed it.
Sure, he trusted his band mates. He’d be screwed if he didn’t because, in some twisted way, his life as he knew it depended on them. He trusted Tom to write one song after the other because, seriously, his songs defined the whole band and kept it alive. He trusted Danny to always improve on this producer-thing and his guitar-playing because it was thanks to him that what Tom wrote sounded good in the end. And he trusted Harry to always want to be better and make the impossible possible because he drove the whole band forward and didn’t allow anyone to mess up.
But that was pretty much as far as Dougie’s trust went. As soon as something or someone came in too close to him, he closed up.
So, when it came to relationships outside the band or his family, Dougie was at a loss. It’s not that he never tried. He did. He’s been with Hannah for almost two years. They even spoke about marriage, despite them both still being under-age. But then all those issues and insecurities suddenly were there again and sooner than he knew, his perfect relationship was over.
His other relationships, they were barely worth a mention. They lasted no longer than six months and Dougie didn’t even miss anything when they were over.
Dougie had learned to live with it. What else could he do anyway? Be a bastard like his father and make promises he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep?
But suddenly things had changed. In the past months something had happened.
Dougie had no idea how or when or why it had happened but suddenly Harry was there. And because Harry had this drive to make the impossible possible and he never allowed anyone to push him away, he just kept staying there. No matter how hard Dougie tried to push him away, Harry always came back again.
Dougie didn’t know what to do because yes, he liked Harry. Maybe he even loved him. And if there was one person in the whole universe he wanted close, it was the blue-eyed drummer. But he couldn’t let him in. Harry might loved him now but it wouldn’t last. When Dougie’s father met his mother he loved her so much that he promised her forever, only to leave after more than 15 years. Who guaranteed him that Harry wouldn’t do the same? Exactly, no one.
Still, Harry never stopped trying, never gave up getting close. And it irritated Dougie, so much. Why couldn’t Harry read the bloody signs? How brutally honest would Dougie have to be? Very brutal, probably. This was Harry, after all.
===
“Oi Dougs, lemme in, will ya?” Harry’s voice sounded through the closed door of the flat.
“I’m busy.”
“It’s not like I’ve never been in earshot when you had a wank. Believe me, I can take it.”
“I’m writing, you idiot. Bugger off!”
“What you writing?”
“A fucking novel. A song, what do you think?”
“Can I hear it?”
“No, you fucking can’t. And now just … please … just go!”
“Can I have a listen when it’s done?”
Harry sounded sad. Maybe Dougie had been a bit too brutal.
Dougie sighed. “I’ll email it to you, the second it’s done.”
“Promise?”
Dougie swallowed. He didn’t believe in promises. Promises were worth nothing.
“I’ll do it.”
“Okay.”
It was sometime past three in the morning when Harry knocked on Dougie’s door again, again yelling that he wanted to be let in. And again it irritated the bassist. So much, too. Harry had gotten the damned song, what else did he need, really? A plane with a fucking banner landing in front of his flat? An advert on TV?
Dougie opened the door and just looked at Harry. And the elder had obviously gotten the message of the email, of the song, because he looked like he was about to explode.
“What the fuck is this?”
Harry slammed his hand forward. He had held a piece of paper in it and said piece of paper connected with Dougie’s naked chest with such force that he stumbled backwards.
Too dazed to really comprehend what was going on because, in comparison to Harry, Dougie had been sleeping, Dougie held onto the paper and took it away from his chest to get a look. While Harry just walked past him into the flat, Dougie looked down at the email he had sent to Harry just a few hours ago. The song.
Tiredly rubbing his face, Dougie followed Harry into the bedroom, a litte thrown-off by Harry heading there instead of going to the living room. The bedroom was his own comfort zone, his cocoon. How dare Harry, really?
Harry sat on the bed, a stern look on his face and his arms crossed in front of his chest. It was scary how much he looked like Dougie’s mum who was about to give her son the lecture of his life.
“Got the email, I see.”
“Yeah. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Can’t you read?”
“I can.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Cos I wanna know what brought this up.” Harry gestured at the paper Dougie still held in his hand. He took a breath, calming himself down and when he asked his next question, his voice sounded a lot more softer, almost hurt. “What was going on inside your head when you wrote that?”
Harry knew Dougie had problems when it came to trusting people or opening up to them. He wasn’t blind, nor stupid. Like everyone else, he knew that Dougie’s father had left the family and it never needed science to see that the whole thing had left marks on the young man. Deep marks. But that was about as far as his knowlegde went.
And then, a few hours earlier, Harry had gotten that email from Dougie. The pent up anger and the fear and insecurities in the lines almost jumped at him. And after spending ages reading those lyrics again and again he got a slight idea what was laying behind all this. And he had decided to do what he hadn’t done in all the years until now. He decided it was time to confront Dougie with his past. Because this? It couldn’t go on. Whatever was going on with Dougie, inside of him, if he kept it inside longer, it would kill him sooner or later.
That was why Harry had been so angry. Because Dougie was very slowly killing himself. He kept it all inside of him and that fucking angered Harry. That Dougie was doing all that to himself.
Getting a glimpse of the look in Harry’s eyes, this deep want to just understand and help him, Dougie could barely take it. He avoided looking back into those blue eyes, studied the shadows the light created on the wall instead.
“Dougs?”
“I …” Dougie then looked at his band mate and he saw it, the want to understand and help. It hurt. “Damn Harry, you’re not stupid. You should get it.”
“It’s not about me not getting it. I want you to tell me. Say it.”
“I … I can’t, Harry.”
“Yes. You can and you will.”
Dougie felt a headache coming up. No matter how much he loved Harry for never giving up, right at this very instant, he wanted to kill him for it. Slowly and painfully.
He knew that there was no way out. Harry wouldn’t leave this room until he got what he wanted. And if it took him a fucking week and the band would have to cancel all their activities, Harry would eventually get it out of him. Because really, he was that good.
Sighing in defeat, Dougie sat down on the floor, leaning against the other end of the bed from where Harry was sitting. What? Harry wanted to hear it, he never said a word about wanting to look at Dougie too.
“It’s a bit …” Dougie started, still trying to get his act together, “It could go as a companion piece to ‘She falls asleep’. Like, the person who found her, it could be from their point of view.”
Harry made a confirming noise, letting Dougie know that he understood.
“It started out as that and it could still be seen like that, I suppose. But the more I wrote, it became … it’s sort of … When my dad left … how he left me, in what state I mean. And how I deal … live with it.”
“Okay.” Harry said, nodding even though Dougie couldn’t see it.
Dougie took a deep breath and picked up the paper to read. For a few moments he just stared at the letters and words in front of him. He saw his father behind so many of them, it was unreal. For a moment he even felt like back in the day, when he entered the kitchen in his old house and just saw the note and knew what it said without even looking at it. For a split second the neat printing even changed into the scrawl of his father and he saw the words from almost six years ago, right there in front of him.
“Did the best that I could … said I’d die for you and I would … But I drowned all those feelings in the flood …” Dougie read out with a shaky voice, “He made a promise, he swore to love her, and us, no matter what. And from one day to the other he buried those feelings, just like that. He just stopped loving us. He broke his promise and left.”
Dougie paused, finding it harder than anything else to get into this bit by bit. Never, never ever in his whole life, would he do that again. Questions about the song? Well, Tom or Danny could answer them, because no way, he wouldn’t. Not for a million pounds.
“Need to know if you’re there … if you’re listening to my prayers, to my tears … Feel like raindrops through the mud …” he read on, “I just … I can’t help wondering. I mean, surely he knows what I’m doing, you know. I wonder if he ever thinks about me, when he sees me on TV or something. If he feels proud, or sorry or whatever else. Is he actually still interested in me? Does he care about me in some, any, way?”
“Would you want him to?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes, when I get angry, I want him to see me do good and I want him to hate himself for leaving. You know what I mean? Like, I bought Mum a car and I took her and Jazzie on holiday and stuff. I want him to hate himself because if he hadn’t left, he could have gotten his piece of the cake too. Because … he’s my dad, you know. I mean, Mum and him could have gotten a divorce and that would have been fine, I guess. I would still be talking to him, I suppose. But this was like … he didn’t even care. I was about to start something great and he didn’t fucking care. I felt like, even though I made something out of myself, I was worth less than nothing to him.”
“Like a raindrop in the mud.”
“Yeah.” Dougie said silently.
“But your mum … the rest of your family … they’re all proud of you. They care. I’m proud of you too, so are Tom and Danny. Because back then, you had a million and one reasons to break but you sucked it up and battled through it and gave all you could to the band. And look where you are now. You don’t need him, Dougs.”
“But I do! He’s my dad, Harry. Of course I need him. And he fucking promised to be in my life. And now, where the fuck is he?!”
Harry didn’t know what to say about it, how to reply. This was the first time Dougie actually spoke about his father. Not about how he was, what kind of person, but he spoke of him, how he was in his life and, from one day to the other, he suddenly wasn’t there anymore. It was something Harry couldn’t really comprehend. His parents were still going strong and he couldn’t imagine it to be different. Ever. But that was obviously the thought behind it. Dougie had thought that too, that his parents would just stay together. And even if they weren’t together, with each other, he had always seen both of them in his life.
“How was I to know that a year ago I’d need to read between the lines … and every lie and that’s why …” Dougie spoke again, bringing Harry’s attention back to him, “There were signs.” he said calmly, “They weren’t getting along like they should’ve. I saw it, felt it, knew it. But it was … I had other things on my mind. Stuff that I was getting up to. Gigs and those things.”
“It wasn’t on you to save your parents’ marriage, Dougs.”
Ignoring Harry’s comment, Dougie kept reading. “Every time I fall asleep my dreams are haunted … every time I close my eyes I’m not alone … and every time I cry I’m right back where you wanted … I try to drown you out so down goes another one …” He sighed. “It’s still there. Not as often and not as intense as it used to be. But it’s still there. The guilt never leaves me. Never. Thinking that maybe I could’ve done something to prevent it. And it fucks me over. My dad was a bastard. An utter bastard for leaving us like he did. And I know I shouldn’t give him the satisfaction but … it still bothers me, still makes me think. And if that’s not bad enough already … I’m like him. I’m going down like he did.”
Harry could barely believe his own ears. Dougie thought he was like his father? In a flash, he was off the bed. He sat down right beside Dougie and brought his arm around his younger band mate’s shoulder, pulling him closer.
“Don’t you dare even think that, Dougs! That’s not true!”
Dougie leaned into Harry’s side, not brushing him off or moving away for once.
“But I am. Every relationship I have, I destroy it. Because I don’t believe in promises. Or love. Or being with someone. Because I can’t trust.”
“Dougs, your relationships, they ended because … it wasn’t just because you. So what if you have problems trusting someone? A relationship is based on two people, on giving and taking. It’s a constant fight and it’s everlasting work. You think you have issues? Well, so fucking what? We all have them. But if you’re with someone and you really want to be with them and they really want to be with you, you’re both going to fight and work for it. If you have problems, you need someone who helps you facing up to them. Someone who won’t let you run away. Someone who won’t give you up.”
Dougie looked at Harry. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
A tiny smile spread on Dougie’s face and he leaned back against the bed again, Harry’s arm still around him. He looked back down at the paper in his hand.
“Living fast, dying young … But I’m living with what you’ve done … Now I face accusations, I won’t run, no …” He paused. Thinking. Remembering. “He’s had a good life with Mum and us, he really had. Jazz or me, we never caused trouble, least not too much. And he was young. He had it all at a really young age. I guess that was one thing that made him leave. He probably thought he lost some good years of his life because he had it all so early. And then he suddenly turned into that big coward who left. He left me, his 15-year-old son who was barely able to deal with his own life. He left me to deal with it all, to be the man in the house who had to take care of two women.”
“And you did it. You did the right thing.”
“You think? I left Mum and Jazzie, two weeks after he left.”
“But you left them for a better reason. You left them to take care of them, in your own way.”
“I did what he did.” Dougie tried to reason.
Harry tightened his grip on Dougie. “No, Dougs! No!”
“But it’s …”
“No, it’s not!”
Dougie paused again. “People talked. The neighbours. When I left home. But I wasn’t running away from the responsibility, right?”
“Of course you weren’t! You may went away but you didn’t leave. And I know for a fact that no one ever thought of you that way, that you ran away from it all. We all, Tom and Danny and me, we admire you so much for what you did. You were 15 and your life was about to change and still, you always kept your family in mind. You made sure that what you did was good for them as well.”
Dougie nodded. “I did. I still do.”
“And your mum knows. Everyone who matters knows it too. Fuck everyone else.”
“I guess.”
“And I know.”
Dougie smiled again, picking the paper up again.
“I’m starting to remember things that you said … I’m unravelling what they meant …” His eyes left the page again and he looked straight ahead, a vision of what he was about to say right in front of him, almost close enough to reach for it. “When we spoke to each other, shortly before he left actually, he was joking about me being old enough to get more responsibilities soon. I never thought much of it. I mean, that’s quite your typical father-son-conversation, isn’t it? Bet your father gave you the speech too.”
“Yeah. Though his came when the band was starting. He still wanted me to do something ‘real’.”
“I got that too. ‘You can’t be in bands forever. This whole Mick Jagger still running around on stage at 60 years only worked once’ he said. Never told him Mick Jagger’s a singer not a bassist, though.” Dougie smiled faintly, “And when he was gone, I suddenly got the meaning behind all those things. He wanted me to do something ‘real’ too. Maybe because he knew he wouldn’t stay around.”
“Or maybe not. Could’ve still been him joking.”
“We’ll never know.” Dougie looked down again. “But the world moves on, you’re just another one …” he read, “But no matter what he did to me, I’ll live with it. And he’s just another wanker on the planet.”
“True.”
They both paused for a moment, both letting the lyrics settle in.
“There’s still … in the song, there’s still a bit left.” Dougie broke the silence after a moment.
“Let’s have it.”
Dougie took a final breath and looked down at the paper. And again, there was this odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. The feeling he had a few years ago. The feeling that this was final.
“And how can I go on cause when I’m in the sun I see your shadow on the ground … but you’re never there when I turn around …” He paused once more, “I think that’s self-explanatory.”
“Yeah.”
Still, Dougie spoke again. “He’s there. He’s just always there. And that sucks so much. Because I don’t fucking want him to be there. I want him to go away. Like, properly. He’s been gone for almost six years, how can he still be so present? He’s not even around but he messed my whole life up. You, Danny and Tom, you’re like brothers to me, or even more, and I can’t bring myself to trust you completely because of the things that he did six fucking years ago.”
Without realising, Dougie had started to cry. He tried to control it, force the tears back, but that only made them pour out of his eyes stronger.
Harry didn’t say a word when he brought his other arm around Dougie as well, pulling him towards himself, letting him cry on his chest. Feelings and thoughts that had been locked up for six years all released themselves onto Harry’s chest and he did the only thing that was right at that moment. He let them flow.
“It sucks so much.” Dougie repeated into Harry’s chest, his voice choked and interruped by hiccupping sobs, “I can’t bring myself to open up and let you into my heart because I’m so scared that you’ll do what he did and leave me.” He looked up at Harry, eyes red and cheeks tear-stained. “But I want to. I want to let you in. You. Tom and Danny too. But it’s mostly you. Because …”
Dougie trailed off. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t tell Harry that he wanted to open up to him because he loved him. It was too hard. If he said it, it was there, between them. And maybe Harry would say it back and maybe he wouldn’t. In the end it didn’t matter anyway because love was just a promise like any other. Something he didn’t believe in.
Harry cupped Dougie’s face in his hands, bringing their eyes on the same level. With his thumbs he wiped away the tears that still ran down Dougie’s face.
“You just did, Dougs. You let me in. I know that what you just did was extremely hard for you and I know that you probably want to kill me for making you do it. And I’m sorry that it hurt you, I really am. But in the end, it was what you needed to do. You needed to let it out. And you let it out to me. How much more in could I be?”
“You don’t really want me to answer that, do you?” Dougie replied, his attempted laughter still somewhat choked by his tears.
Harry let out a light laugh and pulled Dougie close again, pressing a tender kiss to the other boy’s head.
“Harry?” Dougie uttered after a while.
“Hm?”
“I don’t want you to leave me.”
“I’m not going to, Dougs. Promise.”
Dougie violently shook his head and looked back up at Harry. “Don’t. Don’t promise.”
“But I …”
“I know but … Promises are something I don’t believe in. At least not yet.”
“I want you to believe me, Dougs. Believe in me.”
“I … I do.”
Saying those two words almost broke Dougie apart again. Saying those two words meant that he was setting himself up for all the things he had avoided for such a long time. He was setting himself up for love and commitment and opening up to someone else. Setting himself up for trusting someone. Trusting Harry.
Harry’s heart almost exploded in his chest when he heard Dougie stammer out his last words. Because he knew how much it took the younger man to say them. He now knew about the constant fear and insecurity they brought with them, for Dougie at least. He was proud beyond belief and could barely get his head around the fact that Dougie had said those two words to him. Automatically, he held the younger blonde even tighter.
“Hey Dougs?”
“Yeah?”
“The song’s amazing.”
“Thanks.” Dougie smiled.
“And I know you don’t want promises or anything but just … I want you to know that I will do everything humanly possible so you won’t write something like that about me one day.”
And that, Dougie believed. More than any promise. Harry wanted to make this whole thing with them work and what Harry wanted, Harry got. And that, Dougie trusted in.
The End
Comments are appreciated.
A/N 2: Sometimes it scares me how much my stories reflect my own life, actually.
my nan died. this morning.
and i'm ill and just ...
there's a whirlwind in my head and i just want it to stop, really.
more than anything, i want it to stop.
thank god i still have my writing, otherwise i'd go insane.
Title: I’m living with what you’ve done
Author: me
Rating: PG13
Chapter: 1/1 … Standalone
Genre: Angst
Pairing: PoynterJudd
Summary: He didn’t believe in promises. Promises were worth nothing.
Word count: 4,288
Disclaimer: I’m pretty sure this didn’t happen.
Dedication: mostly my Puddner in crime manuanya and my CazzaBUMFACE. And everyone else who was there for me in the past days and kept me from breaking down.
Author’s note: This happened when I listened to nothing but 'Down goes another one' for almost a day. I analysed. Of course. But I thought that just Dougie had written the song until manuanya told me that it was actually Dougie, Danny and Tom. So when you read this, just imagine that it was Dougie alone. Because … that would help, really.
Dougie Poynter had many talents for a guy his age. Pretty much all of them had to do with the band he was in. Playing bass, singing, songwriting, entertaining people with nothing but thin air sometimes. He could do it all.
When it came to his private life, Dougie found himself thinking quite often that he was a failure though. He thought that, if it wasn’t for the band, he would probably be some guy roaming the streets of Essex, doing dodgy things to earn a little bit of money, and go home every night where his mother awaited him for dinner.
And what Dougie really wasn’t good at, at least in his opinion, were relationships. When it came to those he wasn’t just a failure. He was … well, worse than a failure.
Dougie blamed it all on his father. Because the bastard had walked out on the family. Dougie was 15 years old and when something like that happens when you’re a teenager, you know what’s going on. When you’re a child you may wonder why Daddy isn’t there anymore and you find silly reasons for it or believe the lame excuses that others have for that kind of behaviour. But when it all happens when you’re old enough to understand the adults you don’t need to find silly reasons or believe lame excuses. Because you know the truth.
His father walking out on Dougie, his mother and sister had broken Dougie’s trust. In anybody. Because his father had once sworn to be there for better or worse and then he just fucking left. He broke his promise just like that, with a note on the kitchen table. A little piece of paper had broken Dougie’s ability to trust people before he even had fully developed it.
Sure, he trusted his band mates. He’d be screwed if he didn’t because, in some twisted way, his life as he knew it depended on them. He trusted Tom to write one song after the other because, seriously, his songs defined the whole band and kept it alive. He trusted Danny to always improve on this producer-thing and his guitar-playing because it was thanks to him that what Tom wrote sounded good in the end. And he trusted Harry to always want to be better and make the impossible possible because he drove the whole band forward and didn’t allow anyone to mess up.
But that was pretty much as far as Dougie’s trust went. As soon as something or someone came in too close to him, he closed up.
So, when it came to relationships outside the band or his family, Dougie was at a loss. It’s not that he never tried. He did. He’s been with Hannah for almost two years. They even spoke about marriage, despite them both still being under-age. But then all those issues and insecurities suddenly were there again and sooner than he knew, his perfect relationship was over.
His other relationships, they were barely worth a mention. They lasted no longer than six months and Dougie didn’t even miss anything when they were over.
Dougie had learned to live with it. What else could he do anyway? Be a bastard like his father and make promises he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep?
But suddenly things had changed. In the past months something had happened.
Dougie had no idea how or when or why it had happened but suddenly Harry was there. And because Harry had this drive to make the impossible possible and he never allowed anyone to push him away, he just kept staying there. No matter how hard Dougie tried to push him away, Harry always came back again.
Dougie didn’t know what to do because yes, he liked Harry. Maybe he even loved him. And if there was one person in the whole universe he wanted close, it was the blue-eyed drummer. But he couldn’t let him in. Harry might loved him now but it wouldn’t last. When Dougie’s father met his mother he loved her so much that he promised her forever, only to leave after more than 15 years. Who guaranteed him that Harry wouldn’t do the same? Exactly, no one.
Still, Harry never stopped trying, never gave up getting close. And it irritated Dougie, so much. Why couldn’t Harry read the bloody signs? How brutally honest would Dougie have to be? Very brutal, probably. This was Harry, after all.
===
“Oi Dougs, lemme in, will ya?” Harry’s voice sounded through the closed door of the flat.
“I’m busy.”
“It’s not like I’ve never been in earshot when you had a wank. Believe me, I can take it.”
“I’m writing, you idiot. Bugger off!”
“What you writing?”
“A fucking novel. A song, what do you think?”
“Can I hear it?”
“No, you fucking can’t. And now just … please … just go!”
“Can I have a listen when it’s done?”
Harry sounded sad. Maybe Dougie had been a bit too brutal.
Dougie sighed. “I’ll email it to you, the second it’s done.”
“Promise?”
Dougie swallowed. He didn’t believe in promises. Promises were worth nothing.
“I’ll do it.”
“Okay.”
It was sometime past three in the morning when Harry knocked on Dougie’s door again, again yelling that he wanted to be let in. And again it irritated the bassist. So much, too. Harry had gotten the damned song, what else did he need, really? A plane with a fucking banner landing in front of his flat? An advert on TV?
Dougie opened the door and just looked at Harry. And the elder had obviously gotten the message of the email, of the song, because he looked like he was about to explode.
“What the fuck is this?”
Harry slammed his hand forward. He had held a piece of paper in it and said piece of paper connected with Dougie’s naked chest with such force that he stumbled backwards.
Too dazed to really comprehend what was going on because, in comparison to Harry, Dougie had been sleeping, Dougie held onto the paper and took it away from his chest to get a look. While Harry just walked past him into the flat, Dougie looked down at the email he had sent to Harry just a few hours ago. The song.
Tiredly rubbing his face, Dougie followed Harry into the bedroom, a litte thrown-off by Harry heading there instead of going to the living room. The bedroom was his own comfort zone, his cocoon. How dare Harry, really?
Harry sat on the bed, a stern look on his face and his arms crossed in front of his chest. It was scary how much he looked like Dougie’s mum who was about to give her son the lecture of his life.
“Got the email, I see.”
“Yeah. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Can’t you read?”
“I can.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Cos I wanna know what brought this up.” Harry gestured at the paper Dougie still held in his hand. He took a breath, calming himself down and when he asked his next question, his voice sounded a lot more softer, almost hurt. “What was going on inside your head when you wrote that?”
Harry knew Dougie had problems when it came to trusting people or opening up to them. He wasn’t blind, nor stupid. Like everyone else, he knew that Dougie’s father had left the family and it never needed science to see that the whole thing had left marks on the young man. Deep marks. But that was about as far as his knowlegde went.
And then, a few hours earlier, Harry had gotten that email from Dougie. The pent up anger and the fear and insecurities in the lines almost jumped at him. And after spending ages reading those lyrics again and again he got a slight idea what was laying behind all this. And he had decided to do what he hadn’t done in all the years until now. He decided it was time to confront Dougie with his past. Because this? It couldn’t go on. Whatever was going on with Dougie, inside of him, if he kept it inside longer, it would kill him sooner or later.
That was why Harry had been so angry. Because Dougie was very slowly killing himself. He kept it all inside of him and that fucking angered Harry. That Dougie was doing all that to himself.
Getting a glimpse of the look in Harry’s eyes, this deep want to just understand and help him, Dougie could barely take it. He avoided looking back into those blue eyes, studied the shadows the light created on the wall instead.
“Dougs?”
“I …” Dougie then looked at his band mate and he saw it, the want to understand and help. It hurt. “Damn Harry, you’re not stupid. You should get it.”
“It’s not about me not getting it. I want you to tell me. Say it.”
“I … I can’t, Harry.”
“Yes. You can and you will.”
Dougie felt a headache coming up. No matter how much he loved Harry for never giving up, right at this very instant, he wanted to kill him for it. Slowly and painfully.
He knew that there was no way out. Harry wouldn’t leave this room until he got what he wanted. And if it took him a fucking week and the band would have to cancel all their activities, Harry would eventually get it out of him. Because really, he was that good.
Sighing in defeat, Dougie sat down on the floor, leaning against the other end of the bed from where Harry was sitting. What? Harry wanted to hear it, he never said a word about wanting to look at Dougie too.
“It’s a bit …” Dougie started, still trying to get his act together, “It could go as a companion piece to ‘She falls asleep’. Like, the person who found her, it could be from their point of view.”
Harry made a confirming noise, letting Dougie know that he understood.
“It started out as that and it could still be seen like that, I suppose. But the more I wrote, it became … it’s sort of … When my dad left … how he left me, in what state I mean. And how I deal … live with it.”
“Okay.” Harry said, nodding even though Dougie couldn’t see it.
Dougie took a deep breath and picked up the paper to read. For a few moments he just stared at the letters and words in front of him. He saw his father behind so many of them, it was unreal. For a moment he even felt like back in the day, when he entered the kitchen in his old house and just saw the note and knew what it said without even looking at it. For a split second the neat printing even changed into the scrawl of his father and he saw the words from almost six years ago, right there in front of him.
“Did the best that I could … said I’d die for you and I would … But I drowned all those feelings in the flood …” Dougie read out with a shaky voice, “He made a promise, he swore to love her, and us, no matter what. And from one day to the other he buried those feelings, just like that. He just stopped loving us. He broke his promise and left.”
Dougie paused, finding it harder than anything else to get into this bit by bit. Never, never ever in his whole life, would he do that again. Questions about the song? Well, Tom or Danny could answer them, because no way, he wouldn’t. Not for a million pounds.
“Need to know if you’re there … if you’re listening to my prayers, to my tears … Feel like raindrops through the mud …” he read on, “I just … I can’t help wondering. I mean, surely he knows what I’m doing, you know. I wonder if he ever thinks about me, when he sees me on TV or something. If he feels proud, or sorry or whatever else. Is he actually still interested in me? Does he care about me in some, any, way?”
“Would you want him to?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes, when I get angry, I want him to see me do good and I want him to hate himself for leaving. You know what I mean? Like, I bought Mum a car and I took her and Jazzie on holiday and stuff. I want him to hate himself because if he hadn’t left, he could have gotten his piece of the cake too. Because … he’s my dad, you know. I mean, Mum and him could have gotten a divorce and that would have been fine, I guess. I would still be talking to him, I suppose. But this was like … he didn’t even care. I was about to start something great and he didn’t fucking care. I felt like, even though I made something out of myself, I was worth less than nothing to him.”
“Like a raindrop in the mud.”
“Yeah.” Dougie said silently.
“But your mum … the rest of your family … they’re all proud of you. They care. I’m proud of you too, so are Tom and Danny. Because back then, you had a million and one reasons to break but you sucked it up and battled through it and gave all you could to the band. And look where you are now. You don’t need him, Dougs.”
“But I do! He’s my dad, Harry. Of course I need him. And he fucking promised to be in my life. And now, where the fuck is he?!”
Harry didn’t know what to say about it, how to reply. This was the first time Dougie actually spoke about his father. Not about how he was, what kind of person, but he spoke of him, how he was in his life and, from one day to the other, he suddenly wasn’t there anymore. It was something Harry couldn’t really comprehend. His parents were still going strong and he couldn’t imagine it to be different. Ever. But that was obviously the thought behind it. Dougie had thought that too, that his parents would just stay together. And even if they weren’t together, with each other, he had always seen both of them in his life.
“How was I to know that a year ago I’d need to read between the lines … and every lie and that’s why …” Dougie spoke again, bringing Harry’s attention back to him, “There were signs.” he said calmly, “They weren’t getting along like they should’ve. I saw it, felt it, knew it. But it was … I had other things on my mind. Stuff that I was getting up to. Gigs and those things.”
“It wasn’t on you to save your parents’ marriage, Dougs.”
Ignoring Harry’s comment, Dougie kept reading. “Every time I fall asleep my dreams are haunted … every time I close my eyes I’m not alone … and every time I cry I’m right back where you wanted … I try to drown you out so down goes another one …” He sighed. “It’s still there. Not as often and not as intense as it used to be. But it’s still there. The guilt never leaves me. Never. Thinking that maybe I could’ve done something to prevent it. And it fucks me over. My dad was a bastard. An utter bastard for leaving us like he did. And I know I shouldn’t give him the satisfaction but … it still bothers me, still makes me think. And if that’s not bad enough already … I’m like him. I’m going down like he did.”
Harry could barely believe his own ears. Dougie thought he was like his father? In a flash, he was off the bed. He sat down right beside Dougie and brought his arm around his younger band mate’s shoulder, pulling him closer.
“Don’t you dare even think that, Dougs! That’s not true!”
Dougie leaned into Harry’s side, not brushing him off or moving away for once.
“But I am. Every relationship I have, I destroy it. Because I don’t believe in promises. Or love. Or being with someone. Because I can’t trust.”
“Dougs, your relationships, they ended because … it wasn’t just because you. So what if you have problems trusting someone? A relationship is based on two people, on giving and taking. It’s a constant fight and it’s everlasting work. You think you have issues? Well, so fucking what? We all have them. But if you’re with someone and you really want to be with them and they really want to be with you, you’re both going to fight and work for it. If you have problems, you need someone who helps you facing up to them. Someone who won’t let you run away. Someone who won’t give you up.”
Dougie looked at Harry. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
A tiny smile spread on Dougie’s face and he leaned back against the bed again, Harry’s arm still around him. He looked back down at the paper in his hand.
“Living fast, dying young … But I’m living with what you’ve done … Now I face accusations, I won’t run, no …” He paused. Thinking. Remembering. “He’s had a good life with Mum and us, he really had. Jazz or me, we never caused trouble, least not too much. And he was young. He had it all at a really young age. I guess that was one thing that made him leave. He probably thought he lost some good years of his life because he had it all so early. And then he suddenly turned into that big coward who left. He left me, his 15-year-old son who was barely able to deal with his own life. He left me to deal with it all, to be the man in the house who had to take care of two women.”
“And you did it. You did the right thing.”
“You think? I left Mum and Jazzie, two weeks after he left.”
“But you left them for a better reason. You left them to take care of them, in your own way.”
“I did what he did.” Dougie tried to reason.
Harry tightened his grip on Dougie. “No, Dougs! No!”
“But it’s …”
“No, it’s not!”
Dougie paused again. “People talked. The neighbours. When I left home. But I wasn’t running away from the responsibility, right?”
“Of course you weren’t! You may went away but you didn’t leave. And I know for a fact that no one ever thought of you that way, that you ran away from it all. We all, Tom and Danny and me, we admire you so much for what you did. You were 15 and your life was about to change and still, you always kept your family in mind. You made sure that what you did was good for them as well.”
Dougie nodded. “I did. I still do.”
“And your mum knows. Everyone who matters knows it too. Fuck everyone else.”
“I guess.”
“And I know.”
Dougie smiled again, picking the paper up again.
“I’m starting to remember things that you said … I’m unravelling what they meant …” His eyes left the page again and he looked straight ahead, a vision of what he was about to say right in front of him, almost close enough to reach for it. “When we spoke to each other, shortly before he left actually, he was joking about me being old enough to get more responsibilities soon. I never thought much of it. I mean, that’s quite your typical father-son-conversation, isn’t it? Bet your father gave you the speech too.”
“Yeah. Though his came when the band was starting. He still wanted me to do something ‘real’.”
“I got that too. ‘You can’t be in bands forever. This whole Mick Jagger still running around on stage at 60 years only worked once’ he said. Never told him Mick Jagger’s a singer not a bassist, though.” Dougie smiled faintly, “And when he was gone, I suddenly got the meaning behind all those things. He wanted me to do something ‘real’ too. Maybe because he knew he wouldn’t stay around.”
“Or maybe not. Could’ve still been him joking.”
“We’ll never know.” Dougie looked down again. “But the world moves on, you’re just another one …” he read, “But no matter what he did to me, I’ll live with it. And he’s just another wanker on the planet.”
“True.”
They both paused for a moment, both letting the lyrics settle in.
“There’s still … in the song, there’s still a bit left.” Dougie broke the silence after a moment.
“Let’s have it.”
Dougie took a final breath and looked down at the paper. And again, there was this odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. The feeling he had a few years ago. The feeling that this was final.
“And how can I go on cause when I’m in the sun I see your shadow on the ground … but you’re never there when I turn around …” He paused once more, “I think that’s self-explanatory.”
“Yeah.”
Still, Dougie spoke again. “He’s there. He’s just always there. And that sucks so much. Because I don’t fucking want him to be there. I want him to go away. Like, properly. He’s been gone for almost six years, how can he still be so present? He’s not even around but he messed my whole life up. You, Danny and Tom, you’re like brothers to me, or even more, and I can’t bring myself to trust you completely because of the things that he did six fucking years ago.”
Without realising, Dougie had started to cry. He tried to control it, force the tears back, but that only made them pour out of his eyes stronger.
Harry didn’t say a word when he brought his other arm around Dougie as well, pulling him towards himself, letting him cry on his chest. Feelings and thoughts that had been locked up for six years all released themselves onto Harry’s chest and he did the only thing that was right at that moment. He let them flow.
“It sucks so much.” Dougie repeated into Harry’s chest, his voice choked and interruped by hiccupping sobs, “I can’t bring myself to open up and let you into my heart because I’m so scared that you’ll do what he did and leave me.” He looked up at Harry, eyes red and cheeks tear-stained. “But I want to. I want to let you in. You. Tom and Danny too. But it’s mostly you. Because …”
Dougie trailed off. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t tell Harry that he wanted to open up to him because he loved him. It was too hard. If he said it, it was there, between them. And maybe Harry would say it back and maybe he wouldn’t. In the end it didn’t matter anyway because love was just a promise like any other. Something he didn’t believe in.
Harry cupped Dougie’s face in his hands, bringing their eyes on the same level. With his thumbs he wiped away the tears that still ran down Dougie’s face.
“You just did, Dougs. You let me in. I know that what you just did was extremely hard for you and I know that you probably want to kill me for making you do it. And I’m sorry that it hurt you, I really am. But in the end, it was what you needed to do. You needed to let it out. And you let it out to me. How much more in could I be?”
“You don’t really want me to answer that, do you?” Dougie replied, his attempted laughter still somewhat choked by his tears.
Harry let out a light laugh and pulled Dougie close again, pressing a tender kiss to the other boy’s head.
“Harry?” Dougie uttered after a while.
“Hm?”
“I don’t want you to leave me.”
“I’m not going to, Dougs. Promise.”
Dougie violently shook his head and looked back up at Harry. “Don’t. Don’t promise.”
“But I …”
“I know but … Promises are something I don’t believe in. At least not yet.”
“I want you to believe me, Dougs. Believe in me.”
“I … I do.”
Saying those two words almost broke Dougie apart again. Saying those two words meant that he was setting himself up for all the things he had avoided for such a long time. He was setting himself up for love and commitment and opening up to someone else. Setting himself up for trusting someone. Trusting Harry.
Harry’s heart almost exploded in his chest when he heard Dougie stammer out his last words. Because he knew how much it took the younger man to say them. He now knew about the constant fear and insecurity they brought with them, for Dougie at least. He was proud beyond belief and could barely get his head around the fact that Dougie had said those two words to him. Automatically, he held the younger blonde even tighter.
“Hey Dougs?”
“Yeah?”
“The song’s amazing.”
“Thanks.” Dougie smiled.
“And I know you don’t want promises or anything but just … I want you to know that I will do everything humanly possible so you won’t write something like that about me one day.”
And that, Dougie believed. More than any promise. Harry wanted to make this whole thing with them work and what Harry wanted, Harry got. And that, Dougie trusted in.
The End
Comments are appreciated.
A/N 2: Sometimes it scares me how much my stories reflect my own life, actually.