color me in gold (lips like petals on my throat)

appoggiatura.

It's a fantasy in the dark, a prayer for the ungodly hours. It's a question he only dares ask himself when he is all alone in the quiet of his room, when the search for answers wears him down, when the exhaustion permits his mind to wander where it ought not to. (The night will forgive his delusions.)

What if—

What if Brett Yang is the subject of Eddy Chen's letters?

It's a question, he thinks, that's definitely on par with will pigs ever get to fly and will world peace ever be achieved, etcetera, the sorts. Improbable. Impossible, really.

It's a question with two definitive answers. There's a yes. There's a no. One choice is way too painful to be discussed; the other is way too hopeful to be allowed. And so here we are in the in-between. Maybe.

For such a simple word, it bears so much weight.

It's a knife through the chest, warmth in the cold. It's light and darkness both. Salvation and damnation in equal measure.

It's the maybe that he entertains late at night, wandering through the pathways of memory. He ruminates, he wonders, he yearns. And as always, come morning, he tucks all his hopes back into the shadowed grooves of his brain, spills all his dreams down the rusted cranial drain, again and again and again. It's nothing he isn't already used to, this longing, but these days, the weight of Eddy's words on paper feel more brick than feather the longer they trail on and on.

He imagines he can relate a little bit to what Atlas must've felt: the earth on his shoulders, a burden worth the world over. In the face of a love he's long wanted for his own, it's difficult to maintain his cool. The foundations of his world have forever shifted; they'll never be able to right themselves.

Maybe—that glimmering word lightens the load, just a little bit. Carries him into the air, into a sky of possibilities where he can look and touch and love all he wants.

And yet.

Maybe is also a dangerous word. He is not going to let it hurt him.

(He's smarter than that, at least.)

*

As much as he might want to, he can't hide in his room or anywhere else that's an Eddy-free zone in the apartment forever. They've got work to do, and surprise, surprise—Brett's a fucking professional. Eddy's a fucking professional. They know how to separate business from personal matters, even if Twoset is in fact the extension of their friendship and is almost inextricable from their personal lives. They can make things work, goddamnit.

Though if Eddy keeps shooting him wounded puppy looks, Brett will strangle him.

Jordon's on the laptop screen, talking animatedly about the new compositions he's writing up for them and blissfully unaware of the tension simmering between his two friends. At this rate, it won't be long until he'll notice anyway, so Brett's trying his best to move the meeting along so they can get the hell out of dodge.

"Just need to tweak the last few bars. There's something off about those notes." Jordon buries his face in his hands, a staticky groan emanating from the laptop's speakers. "Okay. Thursday's good for you both?"

Brett glances at his planner and then nods. "Yeah, that works."

"Mmm," Eddy contributes.

"Great, okay. I'll send you the email." Jordon claps his hands together, a satisfied smile making itself known on his face. Brett's about to breathe a sigh of relief—he hadn't noticed; they're almost in the clear—but then the man's squinting his eyes, moving his head closer to the webcam like he's spotted a streak of dirt. In a way, maybe he has. "So, uh. You guys okay?"