It took me four days to write this before I finally gave up and said fuck it and just posted it.
Title pulled from browsing my unrequited tag.
I've been in a weird mood and this was born of that. Or something. Mostly it was a product of me giving up.
Works as a semi-sequel to Symbiotic if you want it to be.
He doesn't remember falling in love with Harry. You hardly ever do remember falling in love. It's virtually impossible to figure out when it started or how fast it went. You just realize one day. You look at the person, or hear them laugh, and you realize oh hey I'm in love with this person. Usually this is followed by a 'well fuck.' Because when you fall in love… it's hardly ever with someone you want it to be with. And Thomas? He would rather it not be with anyone at all. But we don't every time get what we want.
So, here's how it goes:
It's been a long day. Unreasonably long. At least 36 hours and both of them have been going for almost all of it, though Thomas had noticed Harry napping in the handful of downtime they got. But finally, finally they make it home and into bed and they're too tired to pretend, too tired to try to process the things they dealt with in the past day on their own, so they just fall into Harry's bed together at some unreasonable hour of the morning. Except Thomas couldn't seem to fall asleep. Harry had dropped off almost immediately and here he was staring at his brother's shoulder where the covers had slipped off of it.
There was nothing in particular that sparked the realization. Just a random moment, one breath among the hundreds he'd already watched Harry take, one rise and fall of the bare shoulder in front of his face and I'm in love with him. He didn't even register the thought as a realization at first. Not until it had already passed and he had to chase after it and retrieve it to examine it more closely.
The next thing that crossed his mind was, fuck. Fuck I really am in love with him. How did this happen. And then he took what seemed to be the only logical course of action at the time, rolled over, shoved his face in the pillow, and proceeded to shout several choice expletives into it. He'd been hoping muffling them wouldn't wake Harry. He was wrong. He'd also been hoping it would make him feel better. It didn't.
He actually flinched at Harry's sleepy question of, "Thomas?"
Mostly he flinched at the way it made his stomach do a back flip and his heart skip a beat, because once you realize you have feelings there's no going back. "'s fine Harry, go back to sleep."
He turned his head to see Harry giving him a worried look and sighed, sitting up and slipping out of the bed. "Go back to sleep." I can't sleep next to you right now. I can't sleep at all, knowing you exist.
Hopefully it would settle down, eventually. He didn't know how he'd live if it didn't. With Harry. In general. He didn't look back at his brother as he left the bedroom. Didn't look back as he left the house. Just walked.