Post by Bobby Drake on Oct 24, 2006 19:52:18 GMT
(( OOC1: Y’all can stop hiding now… no explicit content, just moody post-coital introspection. Also, very, very long. ))
((OOC2: Py, I was gonna let you end the thread but this sorta wrote itself, and I’m rather proud of it. We can end the thread here, or take the last word if you want it.))
Bobby doesn’t know how long he stayed on the ground afterwards, staring up at the stars through the trees, feeling on top of the world and capable of anything. No more than a few minutes. It doesn’t seem fair that the feeling should drain away so fast, and now he doesn’t want to get up… doesn’t want to acknowledge that this moment, this strange little honest passionate space they’d created for themselves, has finally imploded.
Objectively, he feels no worse than usual – better, even. But for a few minutes the world had been sharp and vibrant and there, like it is sometimes in Danger Room sessions or in the gym only much more so, instead of the blurred, dingy, remote thing it had gradually become during the last year. And if he and John had been lovers – like, normal lovers, not this fucked-up half-enemies thing they had going – they could cuddle and murmur reassuring things at each other and feel content and complacent and secure while the world gradually reset itself. But what they have isn’t like that, and the sudden contrast makes “usual” seem intolerable.
You may be granted a sign to encourage faith, but it's the faith and not the signs you count on to get through the dark nights.
He remembers thinking that, just before… just before. He’d thought he could accept it, then… but then he’d known he’d touched something deeper than John ever admitted to. Now, the way John responded is like a memory of a dream, crumbling like brittle steel in his fingers, and he knows that soon he’ll have nothing but faith.
It’s not enough.
Eventually he pulls his pants back up, laughing at the rip in them. He’d dressed anticipating having to destroy another set of clothes, but he hadn’t anticipated the mechanism. The laugh helps, somehow. It brings him out of himself, lets him finally look at John, back in his leathers with shirt-fragments scattered around him, curled up into himself, rocking fitfully on the swing.
Bobby looks away as the image blurs, knowing that seeing his tears would just make John feel worse… but he looks so horribly lost that he can’t help it. And in a weird way that’s reassuring, because even if everything about this night fades away the thing that brought him here in the first place – that he’s not letting John go – won’t.
(" Not from you… never from you. " He remembers John saying that, about running away. Of course it isn’t literally true, but Bobby holds tightly onto the memory anyway, because knowing that underneath all the bluster John doesn’t want him to let go is an ember in his chest to warm him through the cold, dark nights.)
Bobby finds his own shirt where John had tossed it. (" Fucking pervert… only if I can have this one. " Another fragment, an unexpected gift... the words, the breathy rasping of John’s voice, the desire in his eyes, a memory to warm Bobby in entirely different ways.) He walks over to John, intending to give him the shirt, then suddenly thinks better of it.
" Shirt’s yours, John." He tries to keep his voice casual, reaches for the tone of calm confident control that had worked so well a moment before, but not quite managing it this time. He puts the shirt back on and adds. " Whenever you want it. "
It takes an effort of will to turn away, then, but he knows it’s the right move. Sometimes the best way to move John isn’t to push, but to create a space for him to move into on his own. Granted, he ruins it by looking over his shoulder after a few steps, but he does it.
((OOC2: Py, I was gonna let you end the thread but this sorta wrote itself, and I’m rather proud of it. We can end the thread here, or take the last word if you want it.))
Bobby doesn’t know how long he stayed on the ground afterwards, staring up at the stars through the trees, feeling on top of the world and capable of anything. No more than a few minutes. It doesn’t seem fair that the feeling should drain away so fast, and now he doesn’t want to get up… doesn’t want to acknowledge that this moment, this strange little honest passionate space they’d created for themselves, has finally imploded.
Objectively, he feels no worse than usual – better, even. But for a few minutes the world had been sharp and vibrant and there, like it is sometimes in Danger Room sessions or in the gym only much more so, instead of the blurred, dingy, remote thing it had gradually become during the last year. And if he and John had been lovers – like, normal lovers, not this fucked-up half-enemies thing they had going – they could cuddle and murmur reassuring things at each other and feel content and complacent and secure while the world gradually reset itself. But what they have isn’t like that, and the sudden contrast makes “usual” seem intolerable.
You may be granted a sign to encourage faith, but it's the faith and not the signs you count on to get through the dark nights.
He remembers thinking that, just before… just before. He’d thought he could accept it, then… but then he’d known he’d touched something deeper than John ever admitted to. Now, the way John responded is like a memory of a dream, crumbling like brittle steel in his fingers, and he knows that soon he’ll have nothing but faith.
It’s not enough.
Eventually he pulls his pants back up, laughing at the rip in them. He’d dressed anticipating having to destroy another set of clothes, but he hadn’t anticipated the mechanism. The laugh helps, somehow. It brings him out of himself, lets him finally look at John, back in his leathers with shirt-fragments scattered around him, curled up into himself, rocking fitfully on the swing.
Bobby looks away as the image blurs, knowing that seeing his tears would just make John feel worse… but he looks so horribly lost that he can’t help it. And in a weird way that’s reassuring, because even if everything about this night fades away the thing that brought him here in the first place – that he’s not letting John go – won’t.
(" Not from you… never from you. " He remembers John saying that, about running away. Of course it isn’t literally true, but Bobby holds tightly onto the memory anyway, because knowing that underneath all the bluster John doesn’t want him to let go is an ember in his chest to warm him through the cold, dark nights.)
Bobby finds his own shirt where John had tossed it. (" Fucking pervert… only if I can have this one. " Another fragment, an unexpected gift... the words, the breathy rasping of John’s voice, the desire in his eyes, a memory to warm Bobby in entirely different ways.) He walks over to John, intending to give him the shirt, then suddenly thinks better of it.
" Shirt’s yours, John." He tries to keep his voice casual, reaches for the tone of calm confident control that had worked so well a moment before, but not quite managing it this time. He puts the shirt back on and adds. " Whenever you want it. "
It takes an effort of will to turn away, then, but he knows it’s the right move. Sometimes the best way to move John isn’t to push, but to create a space for him to move into on his own. Granted, he ruins it by looking over his shoulder after a few steps, but he does it.
