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His frustration reached a boiling point as he’s been lying here, on his back, staring at the dark space above him for what felt like hours. He looked at the nightstand where bright green numbers of an electronic clock informed him it’s almost 2 a.m. already. He groaned unnecessarily loud and turned to the other side.
“Having trouble falling asleep again?”, Sergio jumped up, startled by the sudden sound after being surrounded by dead silence for so long.
“Yeah, a little,” he answered, reciprocating soft smile Leo was giving him. All the annoyance pent up during the night seemed to immediately evaporate from his body. The smaller man was scanning his face for a while, gaze turning sterner.
“You didn’t take your meds tonight, am I right?”
Sergio shrugged in response and smiled even wider when Leo rolled his eyes with the amount of sass only he could convey with a simple eye-roll.
“You’re impossible,” Leo huffed, but his tone wasn’t as reprimanding as usual. “Though maybe this time it’s actually not such a bad thing.”
“Oh? How is that?”, Sergio raised his eyebrows.
“You tell me. What day is it?”
“Uhm… Monday?”, he guessed, feeling a bit lost at where the conversation is heading towards. Leo blinked once, twice and then bursted out laughing. Sergio was genuinely clueless about what could be this funny, but seeing the way his boyfriend’s eyes crinkled, whole body trembling and arms clutching at the stomach in what probably was an attempt to calm down, he didn’t really care. He was more than happy to be able to watch the little Argentinean like this.
“Sorry, it’s just-“, Leo tried explaining but interrupted himself by another wave of laughter.
“Oh yeah, don’t mind me babe. Keep going. I love hearing you laugh like a maniac in the middle of the night. It’s not creepy at all.”
Leo rolled his eyes, although nowhere near as sassy as before.
“You know Sergio, you really should put more effort into your facial expressions if you want to tease me. It just doesn’t work when you say those things while looking at me with this stupidly fond grin of yours.”
“I guess it could be because I was simply being honest and not trying to tease you, actually.”
“Such a sap,” Leo mumbled with a third eye-roll of the night, however a slight blush creeping up his cheeks gave him away. “Anyway,” he said after meeting Sergio’s triumphant look, “I didn’t mean it’s Monday. Well, it might be for all I care, but that’s not the point.”
He stopped, locking gazes with the Spaniard.
“Wait, you’re not joking. You really have no idea,” the smaller man let out a disappointed sigh after staring at each other for quite a while. “It’s 30th of March, love.”
“Oh,” is all Sergio could say, blinking slowly. He forgot about his own birthday.
“What kind of reaction is that?”, Leo furrowed his brows, something in his eyes changed.
“I don’t know. It just slipped my mind. Why are you so bothered about it?”
“Slipped your mind?”, Leo repeated in disbelief. “Maybe I’m making it a bigger deal than it is, but it’s just… It used to be ridiculously important to you. Always making such a fuss about it, annoying every person in your proximity and practically bullying them into giving you the most elaborate birthday wishes”, Leo let out a small laugh. He paused for a moment and his expression changed into more serious one, his voice getting quieter, “but lately-“
“Well,” Sergio decided to interrupt because Leo started to look miserable and he could never bare the sight of it, “birthdays are fun to celebrate up until thirty. After that, each passing year is only more and more depressing, so maybe that’s the reason I’ve been trying to erase this date from my memory. Thank you for reminder, though, my dear. I can always count on you.”
“Okay, I’m sorry then, old man. I didn’t realize it’s become such a sensitive topic for you”, Leo answered, laughing again, and Sergio felt content with himself. “Or maybe that’s not the case here and you’re just trying to save your face in front of me?”
Sergio looked at him questioningly, a shit-eating grin on Argentinean’s lips grabbing his attention. He felt a desperate urge to kiss him senseless; to keep kissing him until they both grow tired so Sergio could finally fall asleep.
“Be honest now, grandpa,” Leo’s teasing tone stopped him from fantasising any further, “is it that you’re trying to forget or rather your memory is genuinely failing you at this point and you’re only coming up with lame excuses when I catch you?”
“Such serious accusations, and during my special day on top of it. Lionel, I didn’t expect that from you”, Sergio sighed, working hard to put on the best disappointed expression he could manage. “I’ll have you know, my memory is excellent. I also think you’re being a bit ridiculous, calling me grandpa and whatnot, considering you’re only a year younger-“
A blinding, pulsing blue light flashed in front of his eyes as one unwanted thought appeared at the back of his mind. That’s not true. He used all his strength to ignore it, along with the unpleasant shiver on his back, and after blinking a few times returned his gaze back to Leo.
He looked paler now. A sad, knowing smile on his lips. His big brown eyes full of sorrow. No. No, no, no.
“Happy birthday, Sergio” he whispered, extending his hand to grace his boyfriend’s cheek.
Sergio closed his eyes for a while waiting for the touch to come, an involuntary reaction more than anything. He felt a streak of cold sweat sliding down his nape. Heard a lot of agitated voices surrounding him, all blending into an incoherent noise rather than actual words. The annoying, rhythmic sound of a machine in his ears suddenly changing into high-pitched, continuous one. A green zigzag line on the screen flattening right in front of him, becoming completely straight, mercilessly running from one end of the monitor to the other; running, and running, and running, without an end.
He snapped his eyes wide open, breathing heavily, all covered in sweat. His entire body was shaking as he was trying to recover from an overwhelming flood of memories. He quickly looked at the place where Leo was lying just a moment ago. Unsurprisingly, the bed was empty. He felt his heart aching and sinking yet again.
Sergio let out a painful scream into the void of his room. He raised an arm to cover his face, drowning in tears now. He knew there’s no sleep awaiting him tonight as well.