#snowbun

–

Rosé isn’t sure how they become friends. She doesn’t believe in destiny or cosmic jokes. She doesn’t think that there’s a higher being out there that writes a script to the whole universe in the stars.

Being friends with her feels more like a reflex. A meeting of the eyes across the room to stimulate, react with a friendship that feels so real she can almost hold it in the palm of her hand.

Look at me the way you do and that’s it, I’m yours.

“Can we talk?”

There are 11 other drag queens and a small but very present television crew in the room, but there is nothing else in her line of sight but Denali. All she can see is the way she dabs at her eyes and the way that they’re flitting from light bulb to light bulb in an effort to look anywhere that isn’t Rosé.

“I don’t know what it is about you,” She throws out her arms with a little laugh, like she’s about to explain that this all just some ridiculously mean joke that’s unfolding before them. “But I couldn’t even look at you. There’s just something about you.”

“You don’t have to look at me. You wanna know why?”

“Why?”

“Cause you’re going to have a lot of time to look at me.”

Every word that tumbles out of her mouth is a reaction to a tear that Denali blots away with a balled-up tissue paper in her fist. She encourages, even jokes, until she sees her crack a smile that reminds her of the way the sun breaks through hotel room curtains.

She doesn’t realize she’s holding her hand before her thumb is already stroking skin.

“I need you to do it not just for you, but I need you to do it for me; because I really need you here with me.”

Rosé is many things. She is a queen with unending wit and talent. She is that person who won’t stop toeing the line between hot mess and professional, purely for fun. She is the girl that everyone in the werkroom is eyeing with cautious curiosity.

“I know I can make it to the top.”

One thing she has never been is a crier.

“I know you can too.”

Well, at least she didn’t think she was.

Glass beads form in the corners of her eyes, so unlike the bright plastic ones that Lagoona had bought bags of weeks ago. No, these are Denali’s beads. Crystals of chandeliers draping from ceilings, as clear as the fact that she’s barely holding together.

She’s about to say something, even lets the air pass through her teeth so the words can come out; but then she feels her bottom lip quiver and she buries the reflex with things she prays she can admit to later.

“You know what to do.”

–

Denali shuts her eyes. Well, the non-prosthetic ones at least. Against the stark black of her dress, the orange hue of the setting sun washes her skin a beautiful shade of orange. Her radiance only serves to remind Rosé that she hates the way she looks right now.

“You okay?”

“Just tired.”

They lean against the wall, holding hands as they bathe in the last vestiges of daylight. She hums the disco number that’s been on repeat for the past two days if only to make Denali laugh, all low and breathy. It’s these small quiet moments that make the stamp of ‘you’re safe’ more sweet than bitter.

“You were amazing out there, angel.”

“So were you.” Denali turns her head to look at her and she can’t help herself from laughing when all eight black eyes stare back at her. “Still wasn’t enough for the judges, though.”

“Oh no, baby,” Rosé tuts. “I don’t need the judges to tell me shit. I’ll let my delusion tell me how great I am.”

They look out at the lot, watch crew members bustle about as they keep their distance. It’s simple really, how one person is point A and the other is point B. So easy to model with mathematical functions that distance is proportional to safety.

Even easier to prove that distance is proportional to the loneliness that threatens to swallow her whole when she’s trapped in her hotel room.

The thought of having to return to it in a few hours feels like a punch to the gut, the type that’s so strong that tears form in her eyes. To have thoughts, hopes, fears that she can only voice to a void sends her spiralling down.

She presses the back of her head into the concrete wall so she doesn’t cry. She still has to return to the runway after all. She blinks away her tears like the exhaustion and loneliness will disappear with them.

“Rosie?”

“Yeah?”

“Ever want something so bad it hurts?”

She knows Denali is talking about the competition. She knows that she’s talking about hearing, “condrag-ulations,” instead of, “you’re safe,” the next time they step out onto the stage. She knows that she’s talking about the things that they’ve both come here to achieve.

But then she notices that she’s been drawing on the back of Denali’s hand with the pad of her thumb this whole time. She feels the weight of loneliness lift ever so slightly off her shoulders and she knows without giving it any serious thought that she has all she wants right here. At least for now.

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“Another cocktail.”

“I hate you so much.”

“I love you too.”

She colors those words shades of orange and black, permanent marker and invisible ink just for her.

–

“You’re going to win.”

It’s hard to be sure of things when the world is falling to shit. Being sure of things is reserved for statements like, “the earth isn’t flat,” or, “my dress is definitely a warm yellow and not orange.”

But Denali sounds so sure of it. She sounds like she’s turning theories into laws, like anything else is a deviation from the reality she’s living.

Rosé is holding a cocktail in one hand and Denali’s in the other, and the only thing she can really be sure of is that she isn’t willing to let go of either right now.

“I swear to God, if you’re jinxing this for me–”

“I’m not!”

Thank you.

It’s the first thing she writes on the skin of her hand in a code only they will ever understand. There are ancient languages lost to time, but she knows that when they leave this competition, those words etched into flesh will be a relic only she can read.

“I’m going to sue you for $5000 if I don’t hear RuPaul say, ‘condrag-ulations, Rosé’ by the end of tonight.”

“Shut up.” She giggles. “I promise that you’re going to win this. There is literally no way you won’t.”

Rosé doesn’t have to think too hard to know that Denali is right. In fact, her reflex is to believe her; but if she pauses, lets the lull of laughter set in for too long, then she hears that little voice in the back of her brain, telling her over and over again that it wasn’t good enough.

You’re right.

Of course, she can’t admit it out loud, but she knows whispers of fingertips will be enough for her to understand.

“In case I do win, I’m going to have to ask you to promise me shit like that every week.”

“Mmm, no way.” She pops the plastic straw of her drink out of her mouth, leaving a ring of black staining bright pink. “I have to leave some of those promises for myself. You know, share the love.”

The room is buzzing with nervous energy from the idea of either Kandy, Tina or Symone having to lip sync, but on the couch alone with her, it feels like a bubble. All she can hear is laughter and promises bouncing off fragile walls.

“I’m proud of you, Rosie.”

Her drink is halfway to her mouth when she says it. It takes a moment for her brain to process, but her body reacts right away. The tears in her eyes don’t come from the pain of having just laughed too hard or from the exhaustion that keeps threatening to knock her out.

No, they come from the way Denali looks at her, like her color blindness takes off the green on her face so she can see all the dreams she hides underneath.

I love you.

“Thank you, angel.” She gives her hand a final squeeze before letting go.

–

It doesn’t register that the hand he’s holding isn’t Denali’s.

Most of the queens have fallen asleep, the emotions from the long day leaving them all drained of energy. There are snores and whispers filling up the empty seats of the van, but he doesn’t notice. All he knows is that something is wrong, something he can’t quite place.

The way he writes it’s okay is more than just a habit that he’s acquired over the past few weeks. It’s become a reflex, no different to breathing. The words he writes need no introduction or conclusion. It’s something he knew how to do before he learned he was doing it.

When he turns his head, he’s almost surprised to find that it’s actually Olivia, hiding half his face in the sleeve of a baggy sweatshirt so no one can hear him sniffling. One look at him and everything comes rushing back.

Denali is gone and no one can understand the words now.

He isn’t angry at him, couldn’t be even if he tried. He sees the bloodshot eyes when they pass under a streetlamp and he knows the way it feels. He knows how it feels because all he can think about is how Denali used to sit there, buzzing with the idea of making his dream come true.

“Sorry, Liv.”

Rosé isn’t sorry that he can’t let go of his hand or that he’s caught him crying. If he’s honest, he isn’t really sure what he’s sorry for. It just seems like the right words to say to tell him he’s not suffering alone.

Is this what it feels like to lose half of something that’s still whole? Things won’t fall apart now that he’s gone. He’ll still push to get to that finish line until his lungs give out and breathing turns into a sting in his chest.

But how he wishes he could get there holding his hand.

“Me too.”

Olivia lets out a shaky breath before leaning against him. Rosé is thankful that he can’t see his face. All the easier to hide the tears that threaten to pour out of him.

–

The hotel door shuts behind him, the sound reverberating all throughout his mind, soul and body until all that’s left in his brain is a single thought:

I did it.

His reflex is to belt, “The winner is Rosé!” to his hotel room. Then he looks around, sees the grand emptiness of it all, and lets the pain in his chest shock his body, a billion volts to the parts of him that even he can’t see.

The void pokes, prods, stimulates, and his body’s first response is to turn and look for Denali. He knows that the doors are locked, that telling him he’s in the top four is nothing short of impossible when he’s probably already hundreds of miles away.

What would it be like if he’d been there?

What would it be like to see him wipe off the makeup, revealing nothing but the look of purest joy and pride underneath? What would it be like to hold his hand until the end so he can learn how the words we did it feel on his skin?

What would it be like if the vision of him that still lives in his mind actually paid its three weeks long overdue rent?

What happens when he comes home? What happens when he has to tell him that he’s achieved something that they both deserved to have?

Questions, questions, and more questions. They occupy his brain and it spins the way he does across the stage. There’s a hurricane in the room, tearing everything apart, and he can’t find his way into its eye.

For the first and last time during the entire competition, he lets himself cry. It is free, messy, ugly with its heaving sobs that wrack through his whole body. It’s the type of crying that would be a meme tomorrow if it had gotten caught on the set of Drag Race.

He isn’t sure why he cries, not when his dreams are literally coming true. He’s always known that things will never be as he sees it in his head, but he never imagined that the pleasure would come with a pain he can’t even understand.

It takes a moment for the hurricane to pass. It leaves him drained of emotions he didn’t know he had, but he’s alive and it’s all he really cares about. He lifts up the covers of his bed and crawls in, hoping that he’ll forget the complex cocktail of emotions that he’s just unearthed when he wakes up the next day.

Before he falls asleep, he rehearses his script in his head.

Hey, D. You were right, I did it.

–

It’s in the last few seconds before falling asleep and in the pauses while finishing his makeup that he spends thinking of what he’ll say to him when he gets home. When he finally gets a chance, none of what he plans ever gets said.

The first thing he does when he gets home from Drag Race is to collapse onto his bed. He fills his senses with the smell of his sheets. It’s a familiar embrace that pulls him into the deepest, most comfortable sleep he’s had in months.

When he wakes up, the room is so dark that he can’t tell he’s even opened his eyes. He drinks in the idea that he can leave it behind, that there is light beyond these walls and he can touch it with his bare hands again.

Instead, he grabs his phone off the nightstand. He forgets what he’s meant to do in the first place, but his fingers are already searching for the message that Denali sent as soon as he got home to Chicago. He doesn’t realize what he’s doing until the words are jumping out of the screen at him, breaking him until he smiles.

Denali: hi rosie! Idk when you’ll be back but since you’ll probably make it to the finale, that might be a while. Ilysm and i’m already so proud of you. Call me when you get back, miss you!

Denali: PS it’s all your fault that i keep singing pretty witty fashion clown, i hate you

The picture of Denali sitting on his couch, typing out something so incredibly sweet then following it up with his own brand of ridiculous, is so vivid in his mind that he can’t stop himself from laughing. Otherwise, he might start screaming about how the feeling of the bones caging his poor heart are breaking.

“Hello?”

“Rosie!”

Nightmares start where dreams end, and this one had started the moment she’d walked off the stage, leaving her hopes at Rosé’s feet, clad in chunky Tina Burner heels. He wakes up when he hears him say his name, even if it isn’t the real thing.

“Oh my god, you just got back. Does this mean I was right?”

“Why do you sound like you were doubting me, baby?”

If he’s honest, he’d been scared of this moment. It was an unspoken contract: we’ll be there together. It felt like breaking his end of the promise, even if it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

“I knew it!” He paints the dark of the room with the joy in his voice and Rosé watches all the colors she’s ever worn on runways tint the bare walls. “I swear Rosie, I knew from the day I met you that you’d make it there.”

I thought the same about you.

He bites back the words, swallows them like a bitter pill.

“Aww, you’re so sweet, D.”

“God, I miss you so much.”

The pill gets stuck in his throat, making his eyes water. He knows he’s been missed and he knows he’s missed him too, but to hear the words burst into a flash of light that fills up the darkened corners of his room makes him remember that everything they have is more than just an intersection of a dream and a nightmare.

What they had in quiet conversations on van rides and tipsy chats in the werkroom was real, and he had come home to it, even if it’s just a phone call that will never be enough.

“I miss you too.”

–

It doesn’t hit him how lonely he’s felt for months until he isn’t alone anymore.

After his third glass of wine, he settles on the edge of Symone’s bed. He watches his sisters talk about nothing and everything all at once. He tries to cut in every once in a while with a song or a joke or his usual mixture of both, but he’s perfectly content just to see all of them together again.

Days, weeks, months have passed and not all of them are spent alone, but loneliness still mars every interaction he has. In the middle of a world that’s going forward and nowhere all at once, he can’t help but feel like he’s in the middle of the ocean with water filling his lungs.

Then he hears them all laugh and he rises to the surface with a breath of fresh air and the sun shining down on his face.

“Rosita!”

Denali whines and immediately plops down beside him, laying his head in his lap. Rosé knows that he’s drunk or at least close to it, but he’s almost certain that he’d do this to him completely sober too.

It’s been four hours since they’ve reunited after months apart, but how they are hasn’t changed. The safety that he’d thought had just been there to shield him from the impending doom in a bright pink box is still there.

He won’t admit it to anyone, least of all to himself, but as he runs his fingers through his hair, he knows that he’s missed this the most.

“I’m going to fall asleep if you keep doing that.”

“Are you a fucking cat?”

“I’m a pussy, sweetie.”

He looks around the room again and it sinks in how lucky he is to have this. In a universe that he believes is constantly on the brink of implosion, he’s found people like them to hold on to. They didn’t know it at the time, but all the sacrifices they’ve made have led them to this.

Most of all, he’s found the living embodiment of growth and joy, and he has strands of his hair slipping between his fingers. He blames the fact that he almost cries on how Denali won’t stop making feminine moaning noises, causing everyone in the room to break into laughter.

Soon, he will have to go home to empty spaces. He will return to the loneliness, but the dullness of its knife will have faded. When it comes to him in the night, making the world stop again, he will greet it with this memory of contentment.

–

There are millions of things that she’s willing to do to make it stop. He could turn the universe upside down, inside out for him. He could yell at the top of her lungs for highways and mountains to move for him. He could fly a damn plane to Chicago for him.

Nothing is too much to stop being a helpless soul, watching him cry over Facetime calls.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“Your feelings will never be stupid, angel.”

Denali tries to laugh, but it doesn’t come out quite right. It is too full of tears and fears, too loaded with emotions that Rosé begs to understand. It is the saddest sound she’s ever heard and shards of glass appear where her heart used to be.

“Everyone loves me now.” He says as he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, because your lipsync was that fucking good, diva.”

“And what happens when I disappoint them?”

Rosé takes a deep breath, lets it settle where shattered glass lies. After a long night alone, he’d once seen a video where they turn the pieces into the most beautiful new figures. He wonders if he’ll know he’s turning his heart into something new for him.

“Listen to me, Denali. You are not and will never be a disappointment to anyone.”

“What happens when I’m eliminated? What happens when people figure out that I’m not as good as they thought I was?”

They’ve only talked about it once before, while drunk in his room after a long day of promo. If the others noticed that Denali was talking to him in whispers and holding his hand too tight, they didn’t mention it.

Does he know that he cuts her fingers when he tries to pick up the pieces for him? Does he know that he believes that nothing in the world could ever be so wrong? Does he know that he loves him too much to ever think of him the way he thinks of himself?

Months ago, he’d questioned how he could ever be so sure of anything. Oh, how the tables have turned.

“Yes, you will.” He doesn’t know how he manages to keep his voice steady for him. “One bad day won’t change how much people love you. You’re a fabulous performer and an even more fabulous friend. Don’t ever doubt it for one minute, bitch.”

“But–”

“No buts here, baby. The only acceptable one is the fat ass you’re sitting on.”

It’s only when Denali laughs that he realizes he’s been crying too. How could he not when nothing in the world could be as clear? To love him is a reflex and to stop is in the realm of impossibility.

“I’m sorry I ruined your makeup, Rosie.”

“Don’t worry about it.” It’s easy to brush off, especially when it comes to him. “Maybe the people that booked Cameos are into the smudged mascara look.”

People never told him he could love someone’s laugh so much before.

–

Denali makes him realize what it means to daydream. One minute, he’s out of his own body, watching them dance in a whirlwind of giggling grace together. He spins across the dance studio and when he opens his eyes, they’re suddenly drunk off of bad cocktails in his living room, trying to do the choreography to Phenomenon.

“Wait, no!”  He almost falls over when he throws his arms over his head. “We really have to put our whole body into the wiggle. Like this.” It takes a single demonstration for Denali to crash onto the couch, burying his face into a cushion to hide his scream from Rosé’s neighbors.

“I’m just trying to be accurate here.” He says when he plops down beside him. “Utica said wiggle to the top, so I’m wiggling to the fucking top, baby.”

“You can’t make a top out of a bottom, Rosie.”

“Well, I made it to the top four, didn’t I?”

They’re both laughing so hard it hurts. It’s the type of laughing that makes their eyes tear up and their vision blur. It’s the type of laughing that makes them struggle for breath until they can’t tell if it’s them or the room that’s spinning.

The cocktail of alcohol and absurdity settles at the bottom of his stomach and he lets the laughter die. He reaches out for his hand, writes down words from memory to flesh.

Thank you.

You’re right.

I love you.

He wonders how many new words he’ll learn during his stay in New York.

Denali writes something back and it’s all Rosé could have ever hoped for. It’s not that he didn’t know it before, but having the words burned on the back of his hand is still the sweetest sensation he’s ever felt.

It happens so quickly that he doesn’t know where it starts and ends. All he knows for sure is that Denali kissed him, a peck on his lips that feels like the quick burst of a bubble.

When he wakes from this dream tomorrow, he’s not sure he’ll even remember what it felt like. All he’ll think of is the way Denali presses into his side, like none of it ever happened.

“Maybe you really are a cat.”

“Just go to sleep.”

Rosé doesn’t find trouble shutting his eyes. He doesn’t need to see him to know he won’t leave.

–

Maybe it’s the power of TV magic or maybe it’s the wall of makeup that Tina had plastered onto his face that makes it look like he isn’t holding back a gallon of tears. Instead, he looks as happy as he always does, bouncing across the runway like seeing Denali leave didn’t break his heart right in two.

The thought of having to act happy feels ridiculous now that they’re both sobbing silently over the phone. Neither of them have said anything since Ru told him to sashay away and as Untucked starts to play, they remember that they have to breathe again.

“Are you okay?”

Denali is almost uncomfortably quiet. The streaks of foundation missing from his face tell Rosé all he really needs to know but he asks anyway, if only to make sure that he doesn’t get trapped in his own head. Beautiful minds make the ugliest nightmares, after all.

“Why do you always dance like that during lipsyncs?”

He stares at him in open-mouthed shock. After the emotional ringer that they’ve both just been pulled through, all he can focus on is the fact that only his knees move when he’s dancing in the background?

“Are you fucking kidding me, Denali?”

“This episode is way too tragic.” He’s brushing it off so easily that the concern Rosé feels grows with each passing second. “My elimination, your makeup, your weird dad dancing. We have to address those things one at a time.”

“And can that first thing be your elimination?”

Denali quits rambling when he says it. They listen to the synced buzz of their TVs, watch as Rosé writes it’ll be okay on her hand. He wonders if the words are still there, wonders if he can still feel them when he needs them the most.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for it yet.”

To love him is to accept it.

Tonight won’t be the night for them to talk about it. It probably won’t even be tomorrow; but when he’s ready, Rosé will keep his end of the promise. There will be other times to love him in the ways he knows how.

“Why won’t people just leave my dad dancing alone?”

“Oh, Rosie,” he giggles and Rosé thinks it might be the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. “I think it’s adorable.”

–

Denali: have you seen the response online omg

Rosé: I told u so

Denali: what