Take my heart

Chapter VI

His worries reach ceiling-high levels the third consecutive day Connor just happens to miss his calls. Sure, he's busy finishing a rather important commission, but he can talk while he works, damn it. Wasn't he the one to insist on Caesar to call him everyday?

The fourth day this happens, he's ready to chew him out through text, as it seems to be the only way they're communicating lately. His intentions drown under a wave of confusion when Connor's excuse isn't work, but Ali. They were 'hanging out', it seems, and he forgot to check his phone. Fair enough, Caesar can forgive that, he should be paying attention to the girl in this situation. Still, something doesn't sit right with him.

"You think it's a date?" says Ash when he shares this development with them.

"I guess. Did you have something to do with this? I told you we don't mess with friends' love lives, for fuck's sake."

Ash raises their hands in front of them, unconvincing act of innocence.

"I mean, I did meddle, but I told the girl to give it up, actually," they confess. Caesar quirks a disbelieving brow. "It's true! Like, sure, I'm all for baby Connor finding love and all that, if that's what he wants, but this is not it. You must agree."

Caesar rolls his eyes and paces around in his hotel room. They're having dinner with his parents later in the evening, but he's feeling less excited for it by the second.

"Fuck. Maybe she told him what we did and now he's mad at us for getting involved," he mutters, turning on his heel to glare at his sibling. "This is all your fault! I told you it was not our business!"

"Oh shut it. I'm just trying to save everyone some trouble, alright? The girl will get hurt, Connor will feel guilty, and you'll be left to deal with the fallout. You know I'm right, don't fucking deny it," Ash defends themselves, always ready for a fight.

It goes on for long enough that they arrive twenty minutes late to the restaurant, which grants them ten more of scolding. His sour mood lasts until he's back at his room, sprawled over the bed and scowling at the ceiling.

It's the distance, he reassures himself. If he were at home, he would have known about Connor's annoyance far sooner. The idiot can't ever hide those things from him—not like he should, either way. Distance is a bitch. He tries asking Connor if everything's okay, he says it is, and it's much harder to catch a lie through texting. Throwing the phone somewhere uncertain, he turns his back to the ceiling and buries his head on a pillow, but he's too upset to get any sleep.

Distance is a bitch, so Caesar is not even around when Darren announces he has a boyfriend. He video calls them one night to mess with him and ask for details, and makes a point to have a serious talk with Lee once he gets back home. They have to look out for the baby of the group, right? Even Adryan would agree on that much.

Now, Darren dating a boy opens a whole new world of possibilities. Caesar gets a smack to the head from Ash when he voices his musings aloud. 'Did you just now realize you can go out with boys?' they say, exasperated and disbelieving at once. Not the brightest on his part, but yes, he's only now realizing, thank you very much. Someone could have just told him.

The siblings go out that night and lose track of each other upon setting foot on the nightclub. By the end of the night, he's made out with one guy, gotten a date with another, and flirted around enough to almost forget his best friend is being weird with him.

His newfound interest in boys —is it newfound? Acting upon it certainly is— is promptly shut down after the third one he goes out with, by Ash nonetheless. Everything's cool up until that point, all the guys he's been with look rather similar, which might be a Prague thing—black haired and well mannered to a fault. And then:

"Funny, he looks like Connor."

Thanks, Ash.

He turns down the guy's offer for a second date without even considering. Now that it's been brought to his attention, he can't unsee it. Ash won't stop bothering him either.

"Do you have a type? Why is it Connor? That's some weird shit. Are we unlocking some hidden knowledge about yourself? Oh my god you're attracted to your childhood best friend, aren't you."

They get a pillow to the face after that, and a well deserved one. Caesar finishes getting dressed, glares at his sibling one last time, and goes out for a walk. No fucking way he's attracted to stupid Connor who won't even call him back or speak out about what's bothering him. Shitty best friend that is.

Existential crisis or not, distance remains the real bitch. Prague is so beautiful it pisses him off to no end. He stops at one of the bridges and scowls at the river underneath it, colored in gold and orange with the sunset. Beauty becomes rather bitter when he can't enjoy it, and of course he can't.

Connor would love this. He would, right? Except for the fact that he's very much not here, something Caesar is made aware of with every damn breath he takes. It feels like walking around on one leg, without so much as a cane to support him.

It sounds pathetic, but he carries Connor with him everywhere he goes. Soft hum at the back of his mind, rhythmic like a second heartbeat, fading into the background unless he actively pays attention to it. Caesar suspects it's the same for his friend, and it's a weird thought if he really focuses on it, to have someone so intrinsecally aware of him. Sometimes, Connor brings a hand to the pulse point on Caesar's neck, or Caesar touches two fingers to the inside of Connor's wrist, as if to calibrate.

It's comfortable, most of the time, unnoticed like the feeling of clothes on his skin, or like the weight of the air on him. When they're apart, it's a tether, quiet knowledge that his other half—when did they start thinking of each other as such?—is out there somewhere. Now, though.

Now it kind of stings.

With a heavy heart, he takes a picture of the sunset and sends it to Connor. A minute later, his phone buzzes with a call.

"Put me on video, we'll watch it together."

Caesar complies. Connor's face appears on the screen and beams at him, childish excitement glinting in his eyes. He flips the camera to show him the view around, and can't help but smile at the amazement on his face. The beauty that was once bitter now becomes welcoming and magic, the city lights go from mocking to warm, the river from cold to cheerful.

After showing him around, Caesar rests his elbows on the edge of the bridge and sets to film the sunset for Connor.

"That one's candlelight orange, Ash used it a lot in primary school. And the cloud over there is starfish orange."

"Looks pink."

"I know, right. Oh, and over there, that's butterfly orange. It goes well with the water, don't you think? And that one..."

Caesar couldn't care less about color names, never has, but he lets Connor name every single one of them without complaint. By force of repetition, he's learned half of them, though he pretends to forget so his friend will have a chance to name them again.

As Connor watches the sunset, Caesar watches him. His round cheeks and his dark eyes and his dimples all tug at his chest. Something aches there, like he's missing half of his heart, and the void gap stings with every beat.

"Now it's periwinkle purple... and iris, over there... that one's heather, I'm pretty sure."

He goes on until the sun is gone and the sky is turning dark blue. They fall silent then, a satisfied smile still playing on Connor's lips. Twenty days can't go by fast enough.

"I miss you, hey."

"Yeah. Me too."