A/N: I am kind of very nervous about posting this fic. Not only is it my first attempt at writing in the first person but it is also my first attempt at a multi-part fic. I miss my safety blanket that is one-shots, I am not going to lie. This story is based off the song "Catalyst," by Anna Nalick. It also features the songs "Blackbird," by The Beatles, "Hold on to What You Believe," by Mumford and Sons, and "Do You Love Me," by Guster. I have edited these songs to fit the story. If that offends you, I am really sorry and didn't mean to. Also, this story is unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine to claim. If someone wants to volunteer to read through future parts, I would love you for forever. As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy.
He is music, really, breathing in the silences between notes and thinking in lyrics yet never voicing the choruses of those that only play in his mind. Those rampaging thoughts, the arpeggios of his life, that bounce, pinging through his emotions, are written down in a little spiral memo pad no bigger than a wallet in a series of jumbled words and music notes, sometimes actual chords or phrases, that mean nothing yet everything to him. In some ways, that little notebook of unfinished ideas is a sketchy metaphor for his life, his need to dig, to submerge himself, and live in music. I have become intimately aware of these things. Of the way that he lays himself bare, open before a sea of faceless people in dingy bars and dark coffee shops (occasionally assaulting wandering strangers in the park on a sunny Sunday morning) as he carves an electric heart on the sleeve of his shirt and his soul oozes out in waves that crash tangible and heady over those that are listening before disintegrating, crumbling in jigsaw pieces that slide silently to the floor just out of reach. I have held these pieces, in the form of a song, quietly to my ear so that they vibrate, buzz in perfect time (a simple 4/4 count) and then set it on repeat until the murmured words and steady strum become synonymous with breathing. It runs through my veins now – a slow, steady thrum that is not unlike his heart, during the calm of night when everything but the city sleeps, which beats the rhythm of a love song cultivated from that spark, that minute glimmer of hope that is never fully extinguished even when steeped in sadness.
I met him through a song. Some cover of a poppy top forty hit that signified this youthful abandonment, a reckless bravado brought on to challenge margins of perspective that are much too narrow, much too set in stone. It was a blatant fuck you to the unwritten laws of society. At the time, it defined him. It was his heartbeat and I wanted it to pulse through me. I wanted it to consume me. I wanted to be able to crawl into his mind, wrap myself around his heart, and find a stronghold, an anchor to weather the storm that is growing up in a small, conservative town that preaches the status-quo – that scares kids into the status quo. But I was never really good at hiding (God did I try, though) and he could easily have but never wanted to; instead, we limped through learning to live in a world where hate and fear of the unknown dominated acceptance, where the simple act of loving someone could threaten your life. So he continued to sing songs that defied gender barriers that made people raise their eyebrows, created a whirlwind of stagnant silence, a frenzy of collective judgment, interspersed by muttered slurs and I fell in step besides him, harmonizing, learning, creating a united front. It is easy to see why I fell in love with this boy and the song that was inscribed into his heart because it's my song too.
He didn't love me right away. Maybe he did, in his own way, but that was overshadowed by his need to fix, to show me that it is ok to be whatever I wanted to be. And life with all of its messy emotions got in the way, I suppose. I don't think I was ready for the responsibility of belonging to someone. How does one belong to someone when they don't know how to belong to themselves, anyways? So I settled not for the unrequited crush (I had mixed up the need to have someone with love before), no, but for a friendship, a kindred spirit that invested every ion of his being in the belief that it would get better. We were still kids at the time (still are in the grand scheme of things) trying to stumble our way through adolescence with as much elegance as we could muster. But growing up, finding yourself, with its discordant chords and fumbling words, is not something that can be accomplished with any amount of sophistication. Regardless of our lack of grace, we continued missing more notes than we were able to hit, finding fingerings that fit, slamming into and echoing off each other in a cacophony of sound that hung ear splittingly silent between us. Not surprisingly, it is a song with its simple, somber melody that rang out crystalline and breakable in the antique air of the common room that not only settled the restless discontent but twisted, sharpened, redefined his vision.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
He told me once that he used to curl up in the space between notes and turn his back on loneliness, on the world. It's a whispered revelation murmured over a canny telephone line to the quiet whoosh of steady breathing. It becomes a ritual to breath out secrets into the inky night (the grin of the sun and glare of fluorescent lights are too harsh for this kind of soul expansion) breaking down our heartbeats the way that a ball point pen scribbles truths across the lined expanse of a memo pad kept tucked into a pocket does. That night in the quiet rustle of a sleeping house, separated by miles of telephone wires, in a voice that only belongs to the night, I sang him a song:
I, I can't promise you that I won't let you down
And I can't promise you that I will be the only one around
When your hope falls down.
But we are young, open flowers
In the windy fields of this war torn world.
And love, this city breathes the plague
Of loving things more than their creators.
Hold on to what you believe
In the light
When the darkness has robbed you of all of your sight
Hold on to what you believe
In the light
When the darkness has robbed you of all of your sight.
That summer, in the dancing light of a bonfire with the waves of summer happiness radiating off of friends gathered roasting marshmallows, moving to their own beat, he pulled me to a corner hidden in the long shadows of the night and murmured a song, his song, against my hairline:
I've got marbles in my mouth
A thousand words I want to say
But it's impossible to spit them out
I can barely make a sound
Do you love me?
It's these first few months when we grow, expand to infinite lengths so that we can wrap around each other that I think about as I slowly make my way down the cracked sidewalk as the city whirls passed at the speed of sound. It's late but that means nothing to the tires slushing away on wet pavement nor does it stop the low murmur of crickets from harmonizing with the sirens, with the sound of my own feet slapping against the pavement. I take my time, a fine counterpart to the bustle of those coming and going, letting the slight breeze of change cool warm cheeks. Autumn is in the air hinting at a bold new color palette that bathes the city in bright reds and oranges – a refreshing change from the suppressing haze of heat that dulls the senses. The cement is alive beneath me, throbbing and pulsating in time with the silent bass that leaks out through walls, spilling out doorways. It's the undercurrent for the city's song; a kind of kinetic electricity that sneaks up through the soles of one's feet and is absorbed into the bloodstream. This buzz, humming in a familiar constant, propels me across the street and up the stairs where the creaking of the old worn floorboards adds its distinct melody to the night before quieting at the innocuous, slightly beat up door on the fourth floor. The door gives with a quiet swoosh and a squeak of rusty hinges revealing the dark lines of night that creep across the floor smudging corners soft before being disrupted by the soft glow of neon lights that floats unhindered through the window on the far wall. My eyes wander over the diminutive details of the room – the small crack on the surface of the laminate breakfast bar that spider webs under a haphazard stack of mail, the keyboard and guitar cases resting spent against the crème colored wall, the framed print the always hangs slightly crooked over the entertainment center – as I toe off my shoes and pad softly across the dark gray carpet that retains an impression of my foot for a second or two before fading. It is in the darkness that I find him sitting, elbows to knees, head to hands, on the worn, overstuffed couch. He doesn't move when I sit, heavy and knowing, with my thigh pressing against the length of his. The clock ticks a metronome on the wall as I try to match my breathing to his.
"You are leaving me, aren't you," I say once I learn the tempo of the night.
His head tips forward, black curls spilling uncontrolled over his forehead, before turning towards me in recognition and, maybe, acceptance. The night makes his eyes glow gold and warm; I have always known this, but tonight, they swirl with apprehension, with fear mixed with an eighth note of excitement.
"They," He starts, voice a soft juxtaposition to the wail of a car alarm that echoes throughout the room, "Offered me a contract. Told me to be in L.A. by the beginning of January."
This was his heartbeat.
"I can't come with you, Blaine." I whisper out into reality.
"I love you." He says, those swirling eyes never leaving my face.
My eyes close weighty and so tired, head falls back against the couch, "I know."
A strong arm warps around my waist, a current pulling me closer, so our bodies can mold together and find solace in the tangible warmth radiating between us. I always knew that I would lose this boy, this man that tattooed his song onto my heart, to music. My secret that I breathe out on this particular night, with the hum of the refrigerator and the clock ticking tempo, is that he is my heartbeat and I am afraid to learn how to live without him.