rob/misha | some silly love song (verse, chorus and such song)
SOME SILLY LOVE SONG (VERSE, CHORUS AND SUCH SONG)
rob/misha (pre-slash). pg. for kadiel_krieger. ~4,100
Misha is not surprising to Rob. He might be a little alarming, though.
(c) title from underwater by tegan & sara
a/n: for the awesome kadiel_krieger: you're patient and i love you. apparently, drinking leads to falling in love with possibly psychotic men. take note, children. p.s. craven country jamboree does exist.
Some silly love song (verse, chorus and such song)
Rob's taken to adding up the hours he's spent with Misha. They don't amount to much. Fifteen minutes between takes on set here and there, the two hours just before sunrise when they stayed behind on set in Jared's trailer after the last take of the finale, drinking what was left of the beer and scotch and cherry whiskey, casual passing-bys when Misha so conveniently lets himself get caught in mid-conversation and whatever he says makes no sense to Rob.
They don't add up to much, these hours and minutes, or anything at all, really. Rob can say he knows Misha in the way that most people know anyone--distorted snippets of gestures and conversations, broken down pieces of personality that never fit together, but become something distantly intriguing, turning into that familiar want to know that everyone feels more often than they care to admit. But Rob thinks that might just mostly be Misha.
He doesn't know Misha and doesn't bear the pretence that he does; not intricately, anyway. Yet, he's not surprised when Misha calls him early on a Sunday morning, asking him to accompany him to Jensen's wedding in a week.
“It says plus one guest on the invitation,” Misha explains.
Rob sits up in his bed, turning onto his side to stare imploringly at his phone receiver. It doesn't have any answers. “That's interesting,” Rob yawns.
“It is,” Misha agrees. “Would you like to be my plus one?”
Rob laughs. “I honestly don't think I've heard anything more romantic, Misha.”
-
They're booked in the same hotel, separate rooms, which has to be a good thing, Rob tells himself. Misha calls him five times though, at least, asking if they should try to match, since that’s what couples do. Rob could only ask if Misha had gotten into the mini-bar. He never got an answer, a crackle of unintelligible comments followed by the quiet click of a phone hanging up.
Rob dresses slowly, methodically, suddenly and unnervingly aware as he pulls on his shirt, slipping the buttons through the holes with clumsy fingers. He looks down at himself, worries about whether anything matches, maybe the colours aren’t right, what was he thinking wearing such a pale colour, it makes him look washed out, before realizing that he's never really cared before.
He leaves the room without looking in the mirror, just to be safe.
Misha is sitting on a grey leather armchair in the lounge area, legs crossed at the ankles, reading Time magazine; Rob notices the black pants, lavender dress shirt, tucked and unbuttoned at the top, perfectly oblivious by choice, humming and clicking his teeth as Rob got closer. He looks up when Rob clears his throat, a listless smirk tugging on his lips. He drops the magazine on the table beside him, stands up and offers his arm.
Rob raises an eyebrow.
“It's only courteous,” Misha says, shrugging.
-
Rob realizes that Misha allows people to learn him quickly. He has the air of complicated actions and thoughts, but in all the truth that Rob knows, it's only the surface of construed ideas and tangled philosophies and the mistreatment of boundaries that Misha calculates and plans that makes him seem so reckless and erratic. Rob doesn't know Misha, not like a lot of people might know him or how people think he should know him by being his friend, but he knows him enough now to not be shocked. Never surprised (expected of Misha for his obvious demeanour, at least that much is certain), but usually alarmed by his blatant crudeness, the easiness of his twisted knowledge, how he picks and chooses every word he speaks. Rob thinks it must be tiring after so many years of deliberate madness.
Rob’s passing in and out of girls in spring-coloured, floral, striped dresses and boys in clean, wrinkled ivory dress shirts, the low thrum of music along the floor, through his feet, lacking a difference he's come to cherish, a typical waltz, smooth rhythm, basic melody. It grates on him and makes him feel uncomfortable and excited. This is usually why he hates weddings: the music.
Misha is holding two glasses of champagne, standing in a corner by an ice sculpture that possesses no visible form, admiring the feet of people dancing.
Rob skirts around the edge of the dance floor, stands beside Misha and asks, “Do you ever think about getting married?”
Misha glances sideways at Rob, a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, a look that Rob has no desire to uncover. He finishes off one of the glasses, spins the stem in his fingers and sets it down on the table. “I'd rather be in love first.”
Rob sees Jensen in a brief moment, shaking hands with someone hidden, smiling around at everyone and no one. “You don't think they're in love,” and it's not a question, more of statement, possibly an accusation, if he could ever take the time to figure out what he means by the words he says. It’s only one night in Misha’s company and Rob knows already to be unyielding, unforgiving. It's freeing, in a safe way.
Misha shrugs, grins at Rob's own candour. “I don't know, are they?” He brings the other glass to his lips. Stops. Sets it down, still full, beside the ice sculpture. Rob's been trying to figure out what it is, standing at an odd angle from where he can't distinguish its curves and corners and shape, but it’s probably not that important anyway; just a mild distraction, is all, needed at times like these for reasons unexplained. “You don't have to be married when you're in love, but you don't have to be in love to be married. I'd like the former.”
“At least you're a romantic.” Rob takes Misha's discarded glass and drinks it.
“Everyone's a romantic,” Misha says, his eyes moved up, now roaming across the faces of the dancers. The music has changed, a quick transition, into another formless song. “Just in different ways.”
Rob chuckles. “That logic might be flawed when it comes to asexuals and lunatics.”
“I never said it was logic,” Misha replies, quick and sharp. He leans back, hands in his pockets, head, shoulders, chest turned towards Rob, that glazed, see-through stare he's common for not going anywhere without. “And no one ever said that asexuals and lunatics couldn't be romantic.” He turns his stare to Jensen, who's moved to the bar, his back turned, talking to someone tall, someone who is probably Jared. “You can be romantic and not be in love.”
“Then I take back what I said about you being romantic.”
Misha looks back to Rob, slightly appalled, noticed in the twitch of his lips. “You can't do that.”
Rob looks down at his empty glass, contemplating nothing, and hands it to Misha. “You should just drink the champagne.”
-
The reception starts to disperse and quiet after one, something insignificant and warm settling in the summer air; someone’s opened the windows, let a soft breeze crawl across the floor, white and blue lights drawing patterns on the floor, something like crushed petals and summer in the air. If Rob could remember being that young, he thinks he’d remember being a kid, being out at unexceptional lake with pine trees and flooded back roads, thinking he was invincible, like all people typically do.
Rob looks at Misha, ignores the glint in his eyes, just the turn of his head and the light catching. Invincible, like people typically think.
They’ve pulled up chairs to the ice sculpture, clear glasses and champagne flutes scattered around them. They haven't seen Jensen or Danneel, forget that it's even their wedding half-an-hour after the bar shuts down and their supply is running low.
“I don't think I can nurse this whiskey any longer,” Rob says ruefully.
“Then we move onward,” Misha says loudly, loudly enough to draw the attention of a few girls standing nearby. He gives them a two-fingered salute, unable to stand straight, and they turn into their circle again. Rob thinks he hears giggling, but it could be the music.
Misha is already halfway to the door when Rob turns back and looks at the sculpture. Now he sees it, even through the haze and blur.
“Hey,” Rob says and Misha stops himself against a wall. “It's two swans.”
“How romantic,” Misha comments, pushing off from the wall, his arms thrown out to his sides, partially blocking the door. “Truly the epitome of--deep and powerful endearment.” He throws his hands up and cries out, “Now, there's a mini-bar in my room calling my name.”
-
Rob chooses to forget the rest of the night (art of selective memory that he has perfected over too many moments like these) and wakes up tangled in sheets in a room not his own. He slips on a miniature bottle of tequila when he gets up, manages to find his clothes and only run into the table once, and leaves without waking Misha.
He still tastes champagne and whiskey and something spicy, something unfamiliar and intoxicating, when he boards his plane to Baltimore two hours later.
-
Rob doesn't hear from Misha for well over a month (save for a Twitter friend request). He's not surprised, no. He tells himself he's not alarmed either. He doesn't know Misha, not well, anyway. He forgets the champagne, the misaligned virtues and vices that Misha carried like skin, the wasted spicy taste that only comes back on late nights when he can't sleep. He's taken to losing himself in the vibration of guitar strings, the tenor and change of his voice, the lyrics he rewrites in the rides back to the hotel at a time he never keeps track of, the captivating rush and stillness that stepping in front of microphone gives him.
Yeah, he's lost and he's forgot, even though it's still there. He just doesn't think about it.
-
He's back in Baltimore, short tour over, expected back in the recording studio in two days, one last show in three; plane landed at midnight and running the last few days on energy drinks and adrenaline gets him only a few steps into his apartment before he collapses on his couch.
His cell phone rings just as he’s drifting into the place where he never dreams, the annoying blare of polytone chimes forcing him awake. He fumbles with his phone on the table before he flips it open and rests it against his cheek. “Hmm?”
“I have a bottle Canadian rye.” It's Misha.
“Great,” Rob growls into the phone. “It's--” He turns over, squints at the microwave clock, little green numbers telling him the time. “Misha, it's three in the morning.”
“Come drink it with me.”
Rob sighs, pulling a throw cushion over his eyes. “I'm in Baltimore.”
“So?” He sounds kind of annoyed. Something new, something different. Rob tries to imagine exasperation on Misha--he grins, the look of it odd and misshapen. It doesn't fit, Rob doesn't like the way it looks.
“You're in--what?” Rob can't remember. “LA.” He pauses, still unsure. “You still live there, right?” He’s expected Misha to be preparing an escape route, to move away to Bali on short notice, plane tickets in his hands two months in advance.
“I'm in Baltimore, actually,” Misha says. There's the self-deluded pride, like he's so clever, like you were never going to catch on until now. That's more familiar.
Rob sits up. “What?” He regards his living room and kitchen fervently, as if it could have explanations. “How?”
“There's these things called planes. New invention, but incredibly handy--”
“What are you doing in Baltimore?” Rob interrupts impatiently.
There's a pause, a beat. The line crackles. Rob thinks Misha is going through a tunnel, caught in bad service, all lines busy, suddenly afraid to lose the call, the tightening in his chest that he hasn’t recognized for awhile.
“I have rye and I want to drink it with you.”
“So you flew across the country, in the middle of the night?”
“Why not?” Misha says and Rob can hear the smile in his voice, the calculated spontaneity and carelessness that Misha holds, so convinced that this will surprise him.
It doesn't even alarm him. Not really.
-
Misha arrives in a cab half-an-hour later. Rob is still curled up on his couch and Misha has no problem letting himself in, taking two cups from the drying rack, sitting down, opening the bottle and filling the glasses. Rob sits up, groaning and mumbling, and takes the glass when Misha offers it to him. Misha just smiles.
Ten minutes later, Misha is laughing around a swallow of rye and Rob is wide awake, staring at the stout bottle incredulously.
Rob takes another sip and winces. “Jesus, Misha, where did you get this stuff? It's potent.”
“Canada.” Misha leans back in the chair, legs crossed at the ankles again. Rob falters, stutters, his hands don't move; remembers the champagne, Misha in the lavender dress shirt, scuffed black shoes, something spicy at the back of his tongue.
Misha tilts his head, eyebrows furrowed.
“Obviously,” Rob says slowly, forced ridicule stumbling in his words. “It is called Canadian rye for a reason.”
Misha watches Rob for a moment before he moves, grabs the bottle, fills his empty glass. “I don't know,” he murmurs, shrugging, looking around Rob's apartment with disinterest. Rob flushes. “I picked it up on my trip across the country.”
Rob can't stop himself or the indignation that seeps into his tone. “So that's where you were this last month.”
Of course Misha picks up on it, like he does most things. The ever diligent observer, so keenly aware and making himself so. Rob sets down his glass and lies back down, still under the scrutiny of Misha's overwhelming interest in anything anyone does.
“Upset I didn't call back?” Misha asks, his words tight and glib. “I ended up buying a ticket from some guy at a gas station to this country music festival in Saskatchewan--”
Rob chokes out a laugh.
Misha grins, lifts his glass, doesn't drink. He looks up at the ceiling and sighs, “Craven Country Jamboree.”
“Sweet Christ, it even has the word jamboree in it.” Rob settles back against his pillows, the rye bitter and sweet in his head, bringing sleep back round again. “How horrible was it?”
Misha frowns suddenly and this time it reaches his eyes, the expression so easy to read and Rob turns away from it, a clawing sense of shame settling into his nerves. “As a musician, you have a lot of hatred towards some music.”
“It's country, Misha,” Rob tries to justify. “In Canada.” Admittedly, he knows nothing of Canadian country music, but he doesn't need much of imagination to guess as to what it could be like. But Misha has a habit of proving Rob wrong, most of the time without intention.
“Hey, Kenny Chesney was there,” Misha says defensively. Rob nods sagely. Misha mirrors the approval and swallows the rest of his glass. “Anyway, I ended up drinking with a bunch of farmers the entire weekend. Never seen people hold their liquor so well,” he chuckles. He won't look at Rob, lost himself, forgetting the things around him, Rob's sure. “And their local beer is disgusting, but it gets the job done, that's for sure.”
“You should write a book about that adventure of yours,” Rob comments, stretching his arms over his head. “It's truly compelling.”
There's edges of morning light coming in through the window, yellow and orange, slanting across Misha's chest and shoulders, soft and warm and unreal, like Rob can touch it and taste it and hear it, his senses heightened, sleep slowing the things he sees. And in this stupor, this sudden rush of the rye coming over him, making him think stupid things, making his stomach twist and making things suddenly fly apart, coming undone in a way that should have been expected, he watches Misha stare out past him, out the window, his chin resting against his knuckles.
Rob thinks he might be realizing something here, something he should understand like no one else, but all he realizes is that he thought he knew Misha, confused alarm with surprise all this time and he was wrong from the beginning. He thinks Misha knows this too, throwing him off, red-herring sly, leading him on, faking intricacy to hide the confusion and the wrong messages because he knew Rob when he didn't know it.
He knew it all along, the clever bastard, letting Rob think he had him mapped and counted and known. Like anyone could ever know someone like Misha all the way through, have him figured out and not have them notice.
There's something else Rob should notice, he knows, but he can't figure out what it is. Maybe he's not supposed to.
“You get mean when you drink,” Misha whispers and Rob can only laugh.
-
It has to be a peculiar and unstable friendship for it to have its roots of being drunk at a wedding, with a night that followed that they never talk about, and a chance that only brought them together because of convenience. Somehow, they'll still talk about romance and marriage, lunatics and the logic that Misha denies to have, a call-back to this shiftless thing, never pushing or demanding and they're okay with it. Nothing is wanted or expected and they get just as much.
It's turned into something they never agreed on, nothing more than the company that they give, just Misha spending his days reading books that come from nowhere while Rob is at the studio, watching Rob with a childish delight as he tunes his guitar, Rob taste-testing Misha's attempts at foreign cuisine, drinking on the balcony, all their nights giving way to fighting over the couch, the bed, the floor, Misha threatening to leave and sleep on a park bench, Rob not caring and Misha staying all the same.
Sometimes Rob recognizes the spicy taste and he thinks, now, he knows where it came from, still chooses to forget the details of the night beyond flicking broken caps against the window and watching a Survivor marathon in that hotel bed, but he won't say it, he'll never say it.
-
Rob's sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the couch, guitar in his lap, fingers dragging across the strings, rolling at pen between his teeth. He's been there since early morning, knowing where this inspiration has come from, but afraid to say it out loud. He can't find the right melody, the words all forced and strange when he throws them around in his head.
He hears the soft pad of feet across hardwood, sun not even up yet, what seems like days later, time moving in surges of flickering lights and green digital numbers.
Misha sits down on the couch, peering down over the armrest, tousled hair and sleep-weary eyes, regarding Rob for a few minutes before asking, “What are you doing?”
“Trying to write a song.” Rob spits out the pen and rubs his eyes. “Songs. Trying to write songs.”
Misha leans forward, reaches out a hand, plucks a string, the sound echoing through and around everything. Rob watches his pale fingers move across the strings, tired and captivated by the stop-start motion, the hesitant curiosity. “Is it about me?” he asks, tucking his hand under his chin again.
“Why would I want to write a song about you?” Rob sets his guitar down beside him and pushes the papers around, deterred by the pen scratches through lines and entire pages. “You're the most boring person I know.”
Misha quirks his lips, turns his head. “I could be interesting for a day if you need me to be.”
-
“We're all different in the ways we show affection.” They're standing on the balcony in Rob's apartment, finishing off the rye that Misha kept in Rob's living room when he never left two weeks ago.
Rob turns to Misha, his only chance to ever address whatever this could be, and asks, “How do you show yours?”
Misha just smiles, licking his lips, and hands his empty glass to Rob.
-
Misha's making pad thai, cooking the chicken, spices spread out around him on the counter as he goes between the stove and the recipe book. Rob is cutting the vegetables, tossing them into the frying pan, humming notes and chords under his breath. He can see Misha grin out of the corner of his eye, doesn't notice the strain of it, how it flickers across his face.
Rob's turning to Misha, going to ask him to pass the red pepper sitting beside the jar of cumin, when he's pushed back against the stove, Misha's hands in his hair, his mouth on his, arms flying out, knocking over the frying pan. Rob doesn't hear the crash, sure he should, but sound ceases at the warm press of Misha's lips, fingers tightening their grip, Rob squirming into Misha's slender body, quick grip, hips pushing against his. Something familiar, now, spicy and oh god.
Not ready for this, not yet, he's not ready, is this what it always was, Rob doesn't know.
Misha pulls back, thumbs brushing across Rob's temples. He's smiling, breathless, eyes glinting in the dim light.
“I--” Rob licks at his lips, rubs them with the back of his hand. He pushes Misha back gently, can only stare at his bare feet. “I'm not hungry anymore.”
Misha touches the back of Rob's hand, that smile faltering, but staying, trying to comfort, it won't do any good, Misha should know. “Hey.”
Rob side steps Misha, rushes through the living room and down the hall. “I'm going to bed,” he yells, voice shaking, he wasn't ready, this isn't fair, he thought he knew what it was, what it would be. God, of course he never knew, he realized this already, how could have he expected this.
Rob closes his bedroom door quietly, turning the lock, shutting off the lights and sliding to the floor. He waits to hear Misha call him back, for him to tap on the door, ask him to come out. There’s nothing.
-
When Rob wakes up, it's still early, really damn early, the sun just cresting the window pane and Misha's gone. The bottle of rye sitting on the counter to greet him after he's called Misha's name, no answer, found the blanket folded on the couch, no note on the door, the coffee table, anywhere. He looks and tears the apartment apart, checks the messages on the phone, no one has called, no one will. The spices are still set in rows from the night before, the vegetables scattered across the floor, the chicken half-cooked on the grill.
And Rob's surprised, he really is.
-
Lost in the same faint blur of melody and words and things he vaguely recognizes, it's steady and makes him sick, he just always forgets. Somewhere in between sleeping and waiting, he writes a song and he's not sure what it's about and he plays it to no one and the melody sounds off, the words shoved into the beat.
He likes it, how it doesn't fit, how it's wonderful and strange. He's going to keep it, he's sure.
He plays it for two weeks straight, watching the sun spread out across his living room floor each morning. He’s waiting for something, but he won’t say what. He doesn’t have to.
-
Rob's phone rings on an early Sunday morning.
“So, I have this ticket,” comes Misha's gentle slip of an effortless request.
Rob swallows around the lump in his throat, switches the phone to the other ear and rests his hand on the bedside table, steadying after the shudder along his bones. “What kind of ticket?” he asks; his voice, how quiet and hesitant it is, gives him away.
“Plane ticket,” Misha answers after a pause. “It's to New Zealand.” Now, he waits and Rob feels his heart trip against his chest. “The weird thing is I've got another one, too. Same place, same date. The seats are even beside each other.”
Rob thinks this is an apology. “Is that so?” he says.
“Yeah, it is. So--would you like to be my plus one?”
And Rob's not going to ask why Misha left and where he went because he doesn't need to know, he's sure he understands a little bit why. It's not like Misha is such a great mystery, something that can't be tamed and revealed with a few shots of gin and some gentle coaxing, but Rob would like to keep him as one, likes the idea of not knowing all of him, just enough of him, okay with that idea, too. Rob realizes that, yeah, that was never really the point.
“Such a romantic,” Rob says and Misha laughs.
end.
rob/misha (pre-slash). pg. for kadiel_krieger. ~4,100
Misha is not surprising to Rob. He might be a little alarming, though.
(c) title from underwater by tegan & sara
a/n: for the awesome kadiel_krieger: you're patient and i love you. apparently, drinking leads to falling in love with possibly psychotic men. take note, children. p.s. craven country jamboree does exist.
Some silly love song (verse, chorus and such song)
Rob's taken to adding up the hours he's spent with Misha. They don't amount to much. Fifteen minutes between takes on set here and there, the two hours just before sunrise when they stayed behind on set in Jared's trailer after the last take of the finale, drinking what was left of the beer and scotch and cherry whiskey, casual passing-bys when Misha so conveniently lets himself get caught in mid-conversation and whatever he says makes no sense to Rob.
They don't add up to much, these hours and minutes, or anything at all, really. Rob can say he knows Misha in the way that most people know anyone--distorted snippets of gestures and conversations, broken down pieces of personality that never fit together, but become something distantly intriguing, turning into that familiar want to know that everyone feels more often than they care to admit. But Rob thinks that might just mostly be Misha.
He doesn't know Misha and doesn't bear the pretence that he does; not intricately, anyway. Yet, he's not surprised when Misha calls him early on a Sunday morning, asking him to accompany him to Jensen's wedding in a week.
“It says plus one guest on the invitation,” Misha explains.
Rob sits up in his bed, turning onto his side to stare imploringly at his phone receiver. It doesn't have any answers. “That's interesting,” Rob yawns.
“It is,” Misha agrees. “Would you like to be my plus one?”
Rob laughs. “I honestly don't think I've heard anything more romantic, Misha.”
-
They're booked in the same hotel, separate rooms, which has to be a good thing, Rob tells himself. Misha calls him five times though, at least, asking if they should try to match, since that’s what couples do. Rob could only ask if Misha had gotten into the mini-bar. He never got an answer, a crackle of unintelligible comments followed by the quiet click of a phone hanging up.
Rob dresses slowly, methodically, suddenly and unnervingly aware as he pulls on his shirt, slipping the buttons through the holes with clumsy fingers. He looks down at himself, worries about whether anything matches, maybe the colours aren’t right, what was he thinking wearing such a pale colour, it makes him look washed out, before realizing that he's never really cared before.
He leaves the room without looking in the mirror, just to be safe.
Misha is sitting on a grey leather armchair in the lounge area, legs crossed at the ankles, reading Time magazine; Rob notices the black pants, lavender dress shirt, tucked and unbuttoned at the top, perfectly oblivious by choice, humming and clicking his teeth as Rob got closer. He looks up when Rob clears his throat, a listless smirk tugging on his lips. He drops the magazine on the table beside him, stands up and offers his arm.
Rob raises an eyebrow.
“It's only courteous,” Misha says, shrugging.
-
Rob realizes that Misha allows people to learn him quickly. He has the air of complicated actions and thoughts, but in all the truth that Rob knows, it's only the surface of construed ideas and tangled philosophies and the mistreatment of boundaries that Misha calculates and plans that makes him seem so reckless and erratic. Rob doesn't know Misha, not like a lot of people might know him or how people think he should know him by being his friend, but he knows him enough now to not be shocked. Never surprised (expected of Misha for his obvious demeanour, at least that much is certain), but usually alarmed by his blatant crudeness, the easiness of his twisted knowledge, how he picks and chooses every word he speaks. Rob thinks it must be tiring after so many years of deliberate madness.
Rob’s passing in and out of girls in spring-coloured, floral, striped dresses and boys in clean, wrinkled ivory dress shirts, the low thrum of music along the floor, through his feet, lacking a difference he's come to cherish, a typical waltz, smooth rhythm, basic melody. It grates on him and makes him feel uncomfortable and excited. This is usually why he hates weddings: the music.
Misha is holding two glasses of champagne, standing in a corner by an ice sculpture that possesses no visible form, admiring the feet of people dancing.
Rob skirts around the edge of the dance floor, stands beside Misha and asks, “Do you ever think about getting married?”
Misha glances sideways at Rob, a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, a look that Rob has no desire to uncover. He finishes off one of the glasses, spins the stem in his fingers and sets it down on the table. “I'd rather be in love first.”
Rob sees Jensen in a brief moment, shaking hands with someone hidden, smiling around at everyone and no one. “You don't think they're in love,” and it's not a question, more of statement, possibly an accusation, if he could ever take the time to figure out what he means by the words he says. It’s only one night in Misha’s company and Rob knows already to be unyielding, unforgiving. It's freeing, in a safe way.
Misha shrugs, grins at Rob's own candour. “I don't know, are they?” He brings the other glass to his lips. Stops. Sets it down, still full, beside the ice sculpture. Rob's been trying to figure out what it is, standing at an odd angle from where he can't distinguish its curves and corners and shape, but it’s probably not that important anyway; just a mild distraction, is all, needed at times like these for reasons unexplained. “You don't have to be married when you're in love, but you don't have to be in love to be married. I'd like the former.”
“At least you're a romantic.” Rob takes Misha's discarded glass and drinks it.
“Everyone's a romantic,” Misha says, his eyes moved up, now roaming across the faces of the dancers. The music has changed, a quick transition, into another formless song. “Just in different ways.”
Rob chuckles. “That logic might be flawed when it comes to asexuals and lunatics.”
“I never said it was logic,” Misha replies, quick and sharp. He leans back, hands in his pockets, head, shoulders, chest turned towards Rob, that glazed, see-through stare he's common for not going anywhere without. “And no one ever said that asexuals and lunatics couldn't be romantic.” He turns his stare to Jensen, who's moved to the bar, his back turned, talking to someone tall, someone who is probably Jared. “You can be romantic and not be in love.”
“Then I take back what I said about you being romantic.”
Misha looks back to Rob, slightly appalled, noticed in the twitch of his lips. “You can't do that.”
Rob looks down at his empty glass, contemplating nothing, and hands it to Misha. “You should just drink the champagne.”
-
The reception starts to disperse and quiet after one, something insignificant and warm settling in the summer air; someone’s opened the windows, let a soft breeze crawl across the floor, white and blue lights drawing patterns on the floor, something like crushed petals and summer in the air. If Rob could remember being that young, he thinks he’d remember being a kid, being out at unexceptional lake with pine trees and flooded back roads, thinking he was invincible, like all people typically do.
Rob looks at Misha, ignores the glint in his eyes, just the turn of his head and the light catching. Invincible, like people typically think.
They’ve pulled up chairs to the ice sculpture, clear glasses and champagne flutes scattered around them. They haven't seen Jensen or Danneel, forget that it's even their wedding half-an-hour after the bar shuts down and their supply is running low.
“I don't think I can nurse this whiskey any longer,” Rob says ruefully.
“Then we move onward,” Misha says loudly, loudly enough to draw the attention of a few girls standing nearby. He gives them a two-fingered salute, unable to stand straight, and they turn into their circle again. Rob thinks he hears giggling, but it could be the music.
Misha is already halfway to the door when Rob turns back and looks at the sculpture. Now he sees it, even through the haze and blur.
“Hey,” Rob says and Misha stops himself against a wall. “It's two swans.”
“How romantic,” Misha comments, pushing off from the wall, his arms thrown out to his sides, partially blocking the door. “Truly the epitome of--deep and powerful endearment.” He throws his hands up and cries out, “Now, there's a mini-bar in my room calling my name.”
-
Rob chooses to forget the rest of the night (art of selective memory that he has perfected over too many moments like these) and wakes up tangled in sheets in a room not his own. He slips on a miniature bottle of tequila when he gets up, manages to find his clothes and only run into the table once, and leaves without waking Misha.
He still tastes champagne and whiskey and something spicy, something unfamiliar and intoxicating, when he boards his plane to Baltimore two hours later.
-
Rob doesn't hear from Misha for well over a month (save for a Twitter friend request). He's not surprised, no. He tells himself he's not alarmed either. He doesn't know Misha, not well, anyway. He forgets the champagne, the misaligned virtues and vices that Misha carried like skin, the wasted spicy taste that only comes back on late nights when he can't sleep. He's taken to losing himself in the vibration of guitar strings, the tenor and change of his voice, the lyrics he rewrites in the rides back to the hotel at a time he never keeps track of, the captivating rush and stillness that stepping in front of microphone gives him.
Yeah, he's lost and he's forgot, even though it's still there. He just doesn't think about it.
-
He's back in Baltimore, short tour over, expected back in the recording studio in two days, one last show in three; plane landed at midnight and running the last few days on energy drinks and adrenaline gets him only a few steps into his apartment before he collapses on his couch.
His cell phone rings just as he’s drifting into the place where he never dreams, the annoying blare of polytone chimes forcing him awake. He fumbles with his phone on the table before he flips it open and rests it against his cheek. “Hmm?”
“I have a bottle Canadian rye.” It's Misha.
“Great,” Rob growls into the phone. “It's--” He turns over, squints at the microwave clock, little green numbers telling him the time. “Misha, it's three in the morning.”
“Come drink it with me.”
Rob sighs, pulling a throw cushion over his eyes. “I'm in Baltimore.”
“So?” He sounds kind of annoyed. Something new, something different. Rob tries to imagine exasperation on Misha--he grins, the look of it odd and misshapen. It doesn't fit, Rob doesn't like the way it looks.
“You're in--what?” Rob can't remember. “LA.” He pauses, still unsure. “You still live there, right?” He’s expected Misha to be preparing an escape route, to move away to Bali on short notice, plane tickets in his hands two months in advance.
“I'm in Baltimore, actually,” Misha says. There's the self-deluded pride, like he's so clever, like you were never going to catch on until now. That's more familiar.
Rob sits up. “What?” He regards his living room and kitchen fervently, as if it could have explanations. “How?”
“There's these things called planes. New invention, but incredibly handy--”
“What are you doing in Baltimore?” Rob interrupts impatiently.
There's a pause, a beat. The line crackles. Rob thinks Misha is going through a tunnel, caught in bad service, all lines busy, suddenly afraid to lose the call, the tightening in his chest that he hasn’t recognized for awhile.
“I have rye and I want to drink it with you.”
“So you flew across the country, in the middle of the night?”
“Why not?” Misha says and Rob can hear the smile in his voice, the calculated spontaneity and carelessness that Misha holds, so convinced that this will surprise him.
It doesn't even alarm him. Not really.
-
Misha arrives in a cab half-an-hour later. Rob is still curled up on his couch and Misha has no problem letting himself in, taking two cups from the drying rack, sitting down, opening the bottle and filling the glasses. Rob sits up, groaning and mumbling, and takes the glass when Misha offers it to him. Misha just smiles.
Ten minutes later, Misha is laughing around a swallow of rye and Rob is wide awake, staring at the stout bottle incredulously.
Rob takes another sip and winces. “Jesus, Misha, where did you get this stuff? It's potent.”
“Canada.” Misha leans back in the chair, legs crossed at the ankles again. Rob falters, stutters, his hands don't move; remembers the champagne, Misha in the lavender dress shirt, scuffed black shoes, something spicy at the back of his tongue.
Misha tilts his head, eyebrows furrowed.
“Obviously,” Rob says slowly, forced ridicule stumbling in his words. “It is called Canadian rye for a reason.”
Misha watches Rob for a moment before he moves, grabs the bottle, fills his empty glass. “I don't know,” he murmurs, shrugging, looking around Rob's apartment with disinterest. Rob flushes. “I picked it up on my trip across the country.”
Rob can't stop himself or the indignation that seeps into his tone. “So that's where you were this last month.”
Of course Misha picks up on it, like he does most things. The ever diligent observer, so keenly aware and making himself so. Rob sets down his glass and lies back down, still under the scrutiny of Misha's overwhelming interest in anything anyone does.
“Upset I didn't call back?” Misha asks, his words tight and glib. “I ended up buying a ticket from some guy at a gas station to this country music festival in Saskatchewan--”
Rob chokes out a laugh.
Misha grins, lifts his glass, doesn't drink. He looks up at the ceiling and sighs, “Craven Country Jamboree.”
“Sweet Christ, it even has the word jamboree in it.” Rob settles back against his pillows, the rye bitter and sweet in his head, bringing sleep back round again. “How horrible was it?”
Misha frowns suddenly and this time it reaches his eyes, the expression so easy to read and Rob turns away from it, a clawing sense of shame settling into his nerves. “As a musician, you have a lot of hatred towards some music.”
“It's country, Misha,” Rob tries to justify. “In Canada.” Admittedly, he knows nothing of Canadian country music, but he doesn't need much of imagination to guess as to what it could be like. But Misha has a habit of proving Rob wrong, most of the time without intention.
“Hey, Kenny Chesney was there,” Misha says defensively. Rob nods sagely. Misha mirrors the approval and swallows the rest of his glass. “Anyway, I ended up drinking with a bunch of farmers the entire weekend. Never seen people hold their liquor so well,” he chuckles. He won't look at Rob, lost himself, forgetting the things around him, Rob's sure. “And their local beer is disgusting, but it gets the job done, that's for sure.”
“You should write a book about that adventure of yours,” Rob comments, stretching his arms over his head. “It's truly compelling.”
There's edges of morning light coming in through the window, yellow and orange, slanting across Misha's chest and shoulders, soft and warm and unreal, like Rob can touch it and taste it and hear it, his senses heightened, sleep slowing the things he sees. And in this stupor, this sudden rush of the rye coming over him, making him think stupid things, making his stomach twist and making things suddenly fly apart, coming undone in a way that should have been expected, he watches Misha stare out past him, out the window, his chin resting against his knuckles.
Rob thinks he might be realizing something here, something he should understand like no one else, but all he realizes is that he thought he knew Misha, confused alarm with surprise all this time and he was wrong from the beginning. He thinks Misha knows this too, throwing him off, red-herring sly, leading him on, faking intricacy to hide the confusion and the wrong messages because he knew Rob when he didn't know it.
He knew it all along, the clever bastard, letting Rob think he had him mapped and counted and known. Like anyone could ever know someone like Misha all the way through, have him figured out and not have them notice.
There's something else Rob should notice, he knows, but he can't figure out what it is. Maybe he's not supposed to.
“You get mean when you drink,” Misha whispers and Rob can only laugh.
-
It has to be a peculiar and unstable friendship for it to have its roots of being drunk at a wedding, with a night that followed that they never talk about, and a chance that only brought them together because of convenience. Somehow, they'll still talk about romance and marriage, lunatics and the logic that Misha denies to have, a call-back to this shiftless thing, never pushing or demanding and they're okay with it. Nothing is wanted or expected and they get just as much.
It's turned into something they never agreed on, nothing more than the company that they give, just Misha spending his days reading books that come from nowhere while Rob is at the studio, watching Rob with a childish delight as he tunes his guitar, Rob taste-testing Misha's attempts at foreign cuisine, drinking on the balcony, all their nights giving way to fighting over the couch, the bed, the floor, Misha threatening to leave and sleep on a park bench, Rob not caring and Misha staying all the same.
Sometimes Rob recognizes the spicy taste and he thinks, now, he knows where it came from, still chooses to forget the details of the night beyond flicking broken caps against the window and watching a Survivor marathon in that hotel bed, but he won't say it, he'll never say it.
-
Rob's sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the couch, guitar in his lap, fingers dragging across the strings, rolling at pen between his teeth. He's been there since early morning, knowing where this inspiration has come from, but afraid to say it out loud. He can't find the right melody, the words all forced and strange when he throws them around in his head.
He hears the soft pad of feet across hardwood, sun not even up yet, what seems like days later, time moving in surges of flickering lights and green digital numbers.
Misha sits down on the couch, peering down over the armrest, tousled hair and sleep-weary eyes, regarding Rob for a few minutes before asking, “What are you doing?”
“Trying to write a song.” Rob spits out the pen and rubs his eyes. “Songs. Trying to write songs.”
Misha leans forward, reaches out a hand, plucks a string, the sound echoing through and around everything. Rob watches his pale fingers move across the strings, tired and captivated by the stop-start motion, the hesitant curiosity. “Is it about me?” he asks, tucking his hand under his chin again.
“Why would I want to write a song about you?” Rob sets his guitar down beside him and pushes the papers around, deterred by the pen scratches through lines and entire pages. “You're the most boring person I know.”
Misha quirks his lips, turns his head. “I could be interesting for a day if you need me to be.”
-
“We're all different in the ways we show affection.” They're standing on the balcony in Rob's apartment, finishing off the rye that Misha kept in Rob's living room when he never left two weeks ago.
Rob turns to Misha, his only chance to ever address whatever this could be, and asks, “How do you show yours?”
Misha just smiles, licking his lips, and hands his empty glass to Rob.
-
Misha's making pad thai, cooking the chicken, spices spread out around him on the counter as he goes between the stove and the recipe book. Rob is cutting the vegetables, tossing them into the frying pan, humming notes and chords under his breath. He can see Misha grin out of the corner of his eye, doesn't notice the strain of it, how it flickers across his face.
Rob's turning to Misha, going to ask him to pass the red pepper sitting beside the jar of cumin, when he's pushed back against the stove, Misha's hands in his hair, his mouth on his, arms flying out, knocking over the frying pan. Rob doesn't hear the crash, sure he should, but sound ceases at the warm press of Misha's lips, fingers tightening their grip, Rob squirming into Misha's slender body, quick grip, hips pushing against his. Something familiar, now, spicy and oh god.
Not ready for this, not yet, he's not ready, is this what it always was, Rob doesn't know.
Misha pulls back, thumbs brushing across Rob's temples. He's smiling, breathless, eyes glinting in the dim light.
“I--” Rob licks at his lips, rubs them with the back of his hand. He pushes Misha back gently, can only stare at his bare feet. “I'm not hungry anymore.”
Misha touches the back of Rob's hand, that smile faltering, but staying, trying to comfort, it won't do any good, Misha should know. “Hey.”
Rob side steps Misha, rushes through the living room and down the hall. “I'm going to bed,” he yells, voice shaking, he wasn't ready, this isn't fair, he thought he knew what it was, what it would be. God, of course he never knew, he realized this already, how could have he expected this.
Rob closes his bedroom door quietly, turning the lock, shutting off the lights and sliding to the floor. He waits to hear Misha call him back, for him to tap on the door, ask him to come out. There’s nothing.
-
When Rob wakes up, it's still early, really damn early, the sun just cresting the window pane and Misha's gone. The bottle of rye sitting on the counter to greet him after he's called Misha's name, no answer, found the blanket folded on the couch, no note on the door, the coffee table, anywhere. He looks and tears the apartment apart, checks the messages on the phone, no one has called, no one will. The spices are still set in rows from the night before, the vegetables scattered across the floor, the chicken half-cooked on the grill.
And Rob's surprised, he really is.
-
Lost in the same faint blur of melody and words and things he vaguely recognizes, it's steady and makes him sick, he just always forgets. Somewhere in between sleeping and waiting, he writes a song and he's not sure what it's about and he plays it to no one and the melody sounds off, the words shoved into the beat.
He likes it, how it doesn't fit, how it's wonderful and strange. He's going to keep it, he's sure.
He plays it for two weeks straight, watching the sun spread out across his living room floor each morning. He’s waiting for something, but he won’t say what. He doesn’t have to.
-
Rob's phone rings on an early Sunday morning.
“So, I have this ticket,” comes Misha's gentle slip of an effortless request.
Rob swallows around the lump in his throat, switches the phone to the other ear and rests his hand on the bedside table, steadying after the shudder along his bones. “What kind of ticket?” he asks; his voice, how quiet and hesitant it is, gives him away.
“Plane ticket,” Misha answers after a pause. “It's to New Zealand.” Now, he waits and Rob feels his heart trip against his chest. “The weird thing is I've got another one, too. Same place, same date. The seats are even beside each other.”
Rob thinks this is an apology. “Is that so?” he says.
“Yeah, it is. So--would you like to be my plus one?”
And Rob's not going to ask why Misha left and where he went because he doesn't need to know, he's sure he understands a little bit why. It's not like Misha is such a great mystery, something that can't be tamed and revealed with a few shots of gin and some gentle coaxing, but Rob would like to keep him as one, likes the idea of not knowing all of him, just enough of him, okay with that idea, too. Rob realizes that, yeah, that was never really the point.
“Such a romantic,” Rob says and Misha laughs.
end.