Author's Notes: Up until now my favorite of my own fanfics has been Moment. I think this one is going to replace it - appropriate, perhaps, given that this is a whole lot of moments strung together. I am honestly, humbly proud of this piece. It has been years since I put so much sheer craftwork into any of my writing, and I didn't realize how much it took out of me until I finished it several days ago. It has taken me almost a month to write it.
Thanks so much to their_kingdom for her helpful feedback while I was proofreading. PLEASE NOTE that the vignettes are not in chronological order! They are in order, yes, but it's not chronological.
"I've had time to write a book about
The way you act and look,
But I haven't got a paragraph.
Words are always getting in my way.
Anyway, I love you.
That's all I have to tell you.
That's all I've got to say."
~The Last Unicorn
Break is aware of how he feels for quite some time, but he keeps it to himself for the most part. It's not that he's afraid, or ashamed, or unsure. It's that the feeling is so natural that it calms him, and he's perfectly content to just sit back and enjoy it. No weak knees and butterflies around Liam, no; Break really isn't the sort for that anyway. There's just a familiarity he can find in little else, something so simple and deep under his skin that he's not sure he could say it aloud if he wanted to.
Liam himself misses it at first, because he's grown up with it, really; it's like his affection for the other man has always been there, wrapped up in a lovely package of frustration and awe. He runs across it for the first time when he starts to realize that Break might not always be in his life, as he had assumed. After that he pays more attention to it.
He doesn't mention it either, though. Not because he's afraid, or ashamed, or unsure. It's because no change in their routine seems necessary when already, for years, Liam says, "Xerxes Break, you are the worst," and Break hears, "You are very dear to me."