FicWad

"Do you realize how late it is?" Sid asked, yawning and sitting up at the edge of the bed, trying to clear his head of the last remnants of the sleep that had fled with the ringing of the phone. He ran his left hand through his short brown hair, mussing it, trying to create order through destruction, and it settled in a messy halo around his head as he listened to his lover's slightly-static ridden voice; as Nancy slept beside him in the bed.
"What time is it over there? My watch is still on Tokyo time, but I left it in the other room, and I don't really feel like looking for it now." Her voice sounded sleepy, too, but it was more a getting-ready-for-the-day sleepy than an up-in-the-middle-of-the-night one. Sid glanced over at the glowing red numbers of the clock on the bedside table, wincing at the hour they displayed.
"A bit past two in the morning. Which means it's...9 am?...for you. Right? I've never been good with time zones."
A soft giggle, barely audible through the bad connection, but still obvious in its warmth. "Yeah, the sun's long up over here. I'm sorry, if I'd thought..."
"No, it's fine," he said. "Tell me what New York mornings are like, Adele." He'd been to New York himself before, of course, but in the whirlwind of touring, all big cities began to look alike, and his impression of that particular city from the "My Way " shoot had been limited at best. He would rather hear a description from the lips of his lover than try to dredge up what hazy memories he retained.
"Well, there's not really much to tell," Adele said. "It's a morning. More smoggy than we generally have, a bit darker... It's raining now. Earlier, though, when the sun came up...there's so much pollution in the air here that the sky seems lit on fire when the sun rises and sets. All these amazing colors..." Sid could almost hear Adele shaking her head through the telephone lines. "I wish you were here to see them Sid," she said, softly.
"I miss you too baby ," he said quietly so Nancy wouldn’t hear and feeling it come out warm and gentle and far more intimate than he had intended. And he did: It had only been a couple of weeks, true, but the absence felt like a missing part of him. Something that Nancy wouldn’t be able to compete at. This thought caused him briefly to digress: Which part? An arm, a leg, an eye?
An ear, probably. Despite all their claims that they needed to be apart, for a little while, to "sort things out," he had barely written a note since Adele left. He suspected that his lover hadn't fared much better in her modeling job.
"No, it's not just that, Sid," Adele was saying. "I feel like I should share this place with someone. It's dark, and cold, and there's trash all over the streets, but there's a certain...majesty to it that London doesn’t have. It's so big...and the lights shine brighter through the gloom."
Sid stood, turning to the window nearest the bed, letting the tips of his fingers run and glide across the smooth glass. "I miss you..." he said again, suffusing the words with more feeling, making them echo the loss he felt. "It's darker here, though."
"I figured as much." A slight rustle; Adele must be up now, too. Was she standing at the window as well? "Tell me what kind of night it is, Sid."
"It's clear," he blurted, and his fingers stopped their movement as he ducked his head, trying to see the sky past the outcropping of roof jutting out overhead. "The stars are very bright tonight. The moon is out..."
"Yeah? Is it full?"
Sid rolled his eyes. "Was it full last night in New York?"
"No, a crescent."
He laughed, a mostly-involuntary sound, pushed out of him by his lover's inadvertent silliness. "Then don't be daft! It's a crescent here, too."
A sigh caressed his ear, a breathy, longing sound. "At least the moon is the same. I wish it was night here." She paused, and the rustling noise sounded again. "I'm at the window now, and I was admiring all the different shades of grey. The rain is letting up a bit, and the sun is starting to show through the clouds...but it would be so much better if it were night."
Sid could almost see the pale hands: The skin soft, not calloused like his own, the long, delicate fingers brushing along the window there, mirroring his own motions. He could almost see the intent focus of the ocean-blue eyes as they surveyed the view from Adele's hotel room, could almost see their pale reflection in the glass.
Almost...but not quite.
Sid was always so talented at putting him at a loss for words...
"I should go," Sid said, letting him off the hook. "I know you must be exhausted, and..."
"No, it's alright," he replied, carefully keeping his tone light. "I wanted to talk to you."
"That's why I called you, Sid," Adele said, and Sid could hear the smile in his voice. "So, goodnight, sleep tight, yadda yadda bedbugs, and...Sid?"
"Yeah?"
Adele's voice dropped, becoming a low whisper, as if she wanted no one in the world to hear but him. "I love you."
Sid opened his mouth to reply, but stopped: His realization that he had no idea what to say silenced him. It didn't matter, anyway. Adele had already hung up.