jet black heart ⁸¹

He remembers the day Charles got the tulip tattoo. He'd been going on about it for weeks, wanting to get something new for just Max. 

--

“You already have the 33,” Max had said, kissing him lightly where the numbers were inked behind his ear. 

“Yes, but — well someone decided they weren’t wanting to match with me anymore,” Charles said with a wink, digging his fingers into Max’s side. 

“You can’t keep bringing up the– we were children,” Max scolded lightly, squirming at Charles’ attempt to tickle him. “And anyway, I got the mimosa branch, surely that’s enough.”

Charles’ fingers pressed into where the flowers sat on Max’s bicep. They were beautifully done, Max can admit – delicately etched into his arm, the yellow flowers subtle along his skin. He had worried about the design for the entire day leading up to the appointment, but one look at Charles and he had felt settled. 

Max hadn’t gotten the tattoo to even anything out, tie up their imaginary scorecard (though it was always fun to use as leverage) – but because he wanted to. Because he knew Charles was always going to be a part of him permanently, ink on skin or not. And the mimosa flowers reminded them both so vividly of their years in Monaco together as children, how they bloomed alongside Max and Charles’ own relationship.

Charles let go of his arm to continue scrolling through options. They were sitting on the couch, legs tangled, and Charles started to rattle off various things that reminded him of Max. The list was getting more and more ridiculous, and Max was giggling while he tried to read through his latest student’s paper. 

“What if I covered my leg in a Delft pottery pattern?” Charles asked, turning his phone towards Max. On the screen was a photo of a Delft tile, undeniably beautiful, the delicate blue and white design. 

Max chuckled. “I'm not even from there, Charles, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Charles pouted, that same pursed-lipped look Max knew from when they were teenagers. 

“What about a tulip?”

“Charles, you can’t just pick whatever Dutch thing you—“

“But you’re Dutch, it makes sense!” Charles said, poking his thigh with his toes. “You got the mimosa, and now I could do this. Why not a tulip for you?”

“When have I ever mentioned tulips? If I were British, you'd, what, get a rose?” Max asked, placing his pen down and looking at Charles through his glasses. He'd been needing them more lately, to read through the small print of the students' papers. Charles had made fun of them, and then bought a stand for the bathroom, this wacky little thing that holds them while he showers. Max had caught him more than once cleaning the lenses for him, something that Max lets go unnoticed until the lenses are practically foggy. 

“Maybe I will get a rose. Maybe I should,” Charles said back, turning to look back at his phone. “Well I've booked the appointment already, so you have two days to decide.”

Max sighed, going back to the papers. It was always hard to focus when Charles was in the room. He rearranged his body to continue scrolling, the fire crackling in the living room. Charles insisted on having one every time they moved because he loved the one in their first proper house so much. It wasn’t even a good fireplace in that first house – the fan never seemed to quite work so the living room would get too smoky, and then Charles would open up all the windows and cancel out the heat of the fireplace anyway. But Charles loved it, and he often sat on the couch with his feet hanging off the armrest, toes unintentionally dancing along to an unknown beat as they warmed up by the flames. 

Max was never sure if it was the fireplace or Charles that warmed him up, really.

Two days later, when Charles left the house for his tattoo appointment, still dead set on the tulip, Max waited for him to disappear around the block, and then left the house to dash to the store. 

Charles got back not that long later, the simple line art of the flower hidden beneath the bandage. Max sat at the kitchen table, watching Charles enter the room. He had that same giddy look about him, green eyes lit up so brightly. Charles looked at Max, then looked at the new bouquet of tulips that sat on the kitchen counter. Max had picked these light pink ones, hoping they would complement the blues of their kitchen. 

Charles burst into tears. He hugged Max tightly, pressing a kiss into his lips, then his eyelids, his nose, his forehead. 

“One for me, and many for you,” Max said, thumb caressing the bandaged skin of Charles’ arm. 

“I love you so much,” Charles said back. 

—

That day remains clear as day in Max’s mind, so vividly detailed even now, even after over fifty years have passed. 

He tells the story with a shaky voice, knowing his words come out much slower these days, trying to grasp the right sounds and syllables. 

A tear falls and lands on the worn piece of paper that shakes in his hands. He keeps going. 

“Charles wasn’t wrong when he picked the tulip — I am Dutch. Tulips are, of course, our thing.”

He pauses, the silence disturbed by a sob from someone, a sniffle from another.

“But they meant nothing to me, until Charles. The tulip never existed to me until Charles turned them into something which I could never find the words to thank him for. I had never thought twice about them, and now every time I think of tulips, I think of Charles. He became a part of me as much as anything else.” Max voice breaks, the raspiness of old age choking up the words. 

There’s people here whose names he will never remember, whose faces he may have seen before but won’t recall, and he wishes he could thank each and every one of them. Charles would have loved it. 

There was a time, years and years ago, when Max had more ego than sense, and Charles was full of wild ideas, where Max hoped his funeral would be so large and grand there would be people lining the streets. Where that was the only marker of a life worth living, where so many people would need to mourn him. 

Charles had always rolled his eyes and furrowed his brow, and said that wasn’t the goal of life. That some big funeral and hoards of mourners wasn’t what mattered, wasn’t what defined a good life, and Max dismissed him time and time again. 

But here, now, in a room not very large, full of a collection of people from across Charles’ life — this is all Max could have ever wanted.

To have lived a life so full of love. 

“Everyone knew that Charles lit up a room. but he did more than that. He added a warmth to my whole life that I never knew existed.” He takes a deep breath. 

He thinks of Swiss sunsets, of dishes in the sink, of wine-stained glasses and paint brushes in cups of water.

“To sit with Charles, was to sit in the sun.”

He closes his eyes, then looks up towards the ceiling. Towards Charles. 

There’s not long to go for Max. Not without Charles in this world. His hands shake now, and his legs don’t move very quickly, and the other side of the bed is perpetually cold. 

He turns around to face the casket. 

It has been over fifty years of buying tulips for Charles, placing them in vases at different houses watching them bloom and wilt and refilling them with water.