Knowing How To Feel
Eye contact, a spark. He takes the boy's hand on that staircase and everything begins.
He spend months imagining what it would be like if only the other shares his feelings. He sketches out the myriad of possibilities; what would happen in a world where it is obvious what the other thinks, detailing the perfect scenarios in his journal. Just in case.
In his head it's all fireworks and orchestras and romance and so many feelings. The "what if" of an innocuous brush of the fingertips and a throwaway comment.
It's the equivalent of a teenage-bedroom-poster fantasy.
Until it's not. One day he sings, not thinking of the boy, just wanting to express himself in the best way he knows.
A confession.
A kiss.
The years pass by, they stay together. Of course. They were always meant for each other, after all.
They get their happy ending: moving in together, chasing their dreams in New York, the inevitable wedding, a family, a lifetime together.
Sometimes he looks back and remembers his teenage fantasies. He still has his old journal from those months. It's battered and dog-eared but he can never quite bring himself to throw it out. After all, it holds a record of "the best years of his life"
He can see what people mean by that now.
He misses the depth of feeling he had back then, encompassed in the pages written late at night, the endless K+B doodles, the tear stains from when everything nearly got too much for him to handle, the very best of his thoughts and daydreams.
Not that his life isn't all anyone could hope for, it's all he wants, all he needs.
It's real. Making memories, not fantasies.
But it's not quite how he imagined it would be.
Then again, nothing ever is.
Author's Note:
This is my first FanFic, let me know what you think :)
The title is derived from Stephen Fry's letter in Dear Me – "I am perhaps happier now than I have ever been and yet I cannot but recognise that I would trade all that I am to be you, the eternally unhappy, nervous, wild, wondering and despairing 16-year-old Stephen: angry, angst-ridden and awkward but alive. Because you know how to feel, and knowing how to feel is more important than how you feel." By the way, if you haven't read that book I would recommend it!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.