Somewhere [S]

Inspired by Somewhere, from the musical West Side Story.

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This wasn't right.
Josh could feel the tears running down his rosy cheeks, but he ignored them until one rolled down between his lips, and he tasted the bitter-salty water. He would have grimaced, but his face was already brutally contorted by the sheer unfairness of it all.

A soft voice whisper-spoke from the metal hospital bed, a sight that he had long since devoted himself to hating with all his soul, and he jumped.
"Josh, are you crying? C'mon," - and this the voice punctuated with a too-enthusiastic laugh, interrupted with a sharp cough - , "it's not the end of the world..."

This he registered with a sudden, deep irony, and let out a snicker - then another. And then it hit him, and he stood up from the rickety, stiff, plastic hospital chair.
"You really think that, do you?"

From the bed he could hear Marc's head turn, and he felt a slight pang of pain for making him feel like, well, shit.
But that was quickly brushed off.

"You really think that after you're --" - and here he choked on his words for a second, "- you're gone I'm going to settle down and live life like I always have and always will. Sure, I might cry a couple weeks, think about you, write some fucking gothic death poetry, but I'll get over you sometime, right? And like I always do, I'll forget about how I-I lost you and I'll just -- I'll just live and let live and forget and all those things they say to bereaved spouses, right?"

"Josh, that's not was I was saying--" Marc insisted, before getting cut off.

"-- but that's what it sounds like, and that's what you hope, isn't it? That I'll just forget about you except for maybe a picture in a photo album, and I'll go off and marry some nice girl, and when my son looks through my old photos he'll point to me and you together and ask me who that is and I'll laugh and tell him it was a mistake, right? That's it, isn't it? Well, I'm not going to lose you that easily, Marc --"

"Josh, will you listen to me for one moment[i]--"

"Goddammit Marc, I love you! I love you like I've never loved [i]anyone in my entire life! I love you like I could just burst out of feeling, and this is how you want me to remember you? This is how you want me to go off after the best fucking two years anyone has ever lived? This is how you..."
Somehow Josh had made his way over to the bed during his speech, and at this point, he'd had it.
Two months. Two months of holding it in, being strong -- for Marc. Two months of hiding his feelings, restraining himself from alternatively weeping on Marc's deathbed and jumping off his apartment building. For Marc.
Marc, Marc, Marc, Marc. The name was like a prayer to him. Please, whatever's out there, make him better. Please, whatever's out there, don't take him from me. I'll give you anything, I'd let you take me, but just don't take such a beautiful, innocent boy's life.

And now, he had fallen to sobbing on the siderails of Marc's bed then burying his face into the bedsheets, the rollers sliding a little before Josh had realised and started supporting himself on his own. He couldn't take it, watching his boyfriend, his best friend, die so slowly and so pathetically. Especially like this.

It seemed like a century before he noticed a soft, warm hand patting his arm. He looked up, his field of vision obscured by the flood of tears, and saw Marc smiling at him, though he too was brushing off drops from his face. Once he noticed Josh looking straight at him, he started whispering something.
He recognised it.

"There's a place for us, somewhere a place for us, peace and quiet and open air wait for us somewhere..." Marc started, each line like an invocation, inviting him to join him.
And despite the tears, Josh could still sing.

"There's a time for us," Josh stammered, his voice heavy and shaky, "someday a time for us, time together with time to spare, time to look, time to care -- Marc!" he cried out, then started crying on the sheets again, groaning words into the fabric. "I -- can't! I just..."

"Someday, somewhere, we'll find a new way of living..." the other boy continued patiently, running a hand through Josh's hair and pushing his face up out of the hospital blankets to meet his warm, loving gaze. "We'll find a way of forgiving..."

"Some... where..." Josh whispered tremulously, and sighed.