A/N:
Based very, very loosely on spoilers for E4s Friday 28th (so if you're spoiler free, good on you, but you may wanna miss this one out). However I wrote this when I only had the photo to go on, so it's not entirely accurate (still think there's no way Ste would have avoided going to see Brendan after that phone call though
This chapter is more like a 13 but it's me so we know where it's going ;D
I really do love reviews :D – enjoy!
The caress was meant in comfort. That's clear in the firmness of your hand, the deep look in your eye. You're fingers trailing my skin were nothing more than inspection of broken skin. But your touch tingles through every cell and in a breath your presence here is more real than anything has been since… since then. To the outside world I've been awake for seven days. In my reality my week is composed of blocks of sounds and colours and black, a lot of black. And you. I feel as if I've been submerged in water, dosed with morphine, blocked from sensation. But now in the Iris tint of your blue eyes and the smell of your scent against my skin I'm coming back. I twist my hands together, and I feel the pain of stretching skin. Steven Hay, your presence is my reality.
I saw you. You will never know that, but in that otherworldly blackness you were there - no-one else but you. You're the reason I fought to come back to this place, with the evil history, and the anguish of regret, and the torture of that look in my baby sister's eye. You were the reason. Because I can't leave it the way it was in my kitchen, I can't leave you as just one of the people around my dinner table, I can't have you defined as a friend. Do you understand that? How even keeping you as an enemy means so much more. Because that six letter word, friend, blunts everything you were, everything you are. The man who made my heart restart it's beat. But your hand is on my cheek out of comfort, friendship. Nothing more.
I awoke to you. You were the first thing I sensed, like the sun rising on an early morning. As I opened my eyes you were asleep. The arch of your back and crumple of your brow depicted your dreams by my side. I watched you as you twisted in dreams and even though your skin was blanched and your eyes were dark you were the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I couldn't take my eyes from you, finally able to investigate every inch of your skin, after so long without. I could test the differences, the deeper tan, the stronger definition; and I could remember the similarities, the curl of your lip, smooth of your neck. I drank you in. As now, when your proximity offers me more than just the sight of you. I could lean an inch forward and taste the curves of your body, I know where it gets darker; I could press my fingers against your chest, I can almost feel the strong beat of your heart. But although you're sitting this close to me you're further away than ever before.
You visited more than you should, you know that. I thought after that day, the day you told me your live changing news in three words, that I wouldn't see you again. I thought you'd accept my asking you to leave. It would be some beautiful irony if the first time you actually you listened to my request that you go, was the first time I meant anything but. But you came, and it was you and me, and calmness. I can't remember how it started, the spread of a smile over your lips like a sunrise, and my words pulling a small giggle, and more words releasing a louder laugh and till we were finally laughing properly. Afterward, you sat back, relaxed and I could see in your eyes that you'd forgotten that you could laugh like that. It possessed my mind – the fact that I could make you laugh again, freely, openly like we were right at the start of this game. Do you remember? Or when you look back do you only see the bad? The times I wish I was somebody else. Do you look back at all? I could ask you now. Now, here where it all started, we could finally talk about everything, and I could tell you that sometimes those memories rupture my present. But I don't. Maybe it's because as I sit here wrapped in the confident drift of your gaze, drenched in your smiles, I can almost pretend that it isn't us in our history. Because the knowledge that is keeps us forever separated.
On your fifth visit you were different. Your endless chatter was clipped, your eyes were forever on the clock, and your fingers were tightly fisted. It was in the simple action of passing me a glass of water that I caught the reason why – the thin band of silver on your finger.
"Wearing jewellery now?" I teased and your jaw locked in the way I hadn't seen for months. You were scared.
In the tension you muttered his name.
I felt my breath dissolve.
You looked away.
"He thought, you know, it would be nice to have rings, I mean some men wear them don't they and they're not too cheesy and-." Your mouth did that thing you do when you're nervous, had a conversation with itself - spouting a hundred words a minute.
I was surprised when I heard appreciation, or something similar, muttered in my voice. But the smile you gave me was worth anything. And over the fracture of my life we played with words about diamonds and dresses. But in my reality my mind was screaming all the things that I can't possibly say to you, all the things I have no right to ask you for. Like those two perfectly flawed words, "be mine". I can feel the cold slab of silver now. Amongst the warm press of your hand against my cheek there is a reminder of a bind that holds you away from me.
"It looks like it's healing," you whisper as I feel your thumb brush against the tenderness on my cheek.
"Told you," I say thoughtlessly.
"I know Brendan OK? I get that there's no need for me to be here, but…" As always your anger is a surprise. As always you're beautiful eyes cloud over with the sharpness of your tongue.
"You've always been shit at looking after yourself, though," you save yourself with a joke, but I know you.
You wait for me to speak and there's a multitude of things I should say. I could tell you that you're wrong and I do need you, that I'm scared of a reality without you. But that doesn't sound like me does it? At the very least I should thank you for everything you've done this past week but that would mean acknowledging that you've done it out of kindness, and not duty. It would mean breaking the spell. So instead I greet you with a smile and you blink like you're confused.
Then I lose your gaze, and minutes drag in silence. Your hand is left against my cheek, the only warmth I have felt in so long. It becomes the only thing I can sense.
Finally a sigh heaves from your lips.
"You scared me, you know," you say the words to my couch.
"When I, when the doctor phoned, I thought, I thought I'd lost you, that we'd-"
"And that would have been important?"
My question is asked out of doubt. It pulls your gaze back to me, still angry. I see the passionate mauve twinkling. The room buzzes with you, and my body heats impulsively. I forgot how fucking hot you are when you're like this – I just prevent myself from telling you.
"God I fucking hate you sometimes," you breathe.
A smile creeps across my lips as I wonder at the times that you don't. Your lips purse in vehemence. Then my mouth is slammed against yours.
The instant you kiss me my breath is taken into all that you are. Your eyes are closed, but I have to watch you. The beauty of you. Your hand drags around to my neck, your fingers twisting and pulling at my hair. The discomfort makes me moan into your mouth shaping mine, and I feel your lips tilt to a smile.
I can feel everything you are in this kiss, hear everything you don't say. Like how much your dying for a simple touch, how, like me, you don't think you've forgotten for a second how I fit inside you. How there's doubt and guilt behind this but you don't think you could stop if the world ended. You didn't kiss me like this last time, and I know it's because this right now is real. This is what you want. And despite the fierceness of the kiss I loose myself in the beauty of you.
As you leave the kiss for want of air, your eyes blink slowly open. And as I watch the slow movement of your long eyelashes I see your surprise dawn. Your lips press together, the way you use to try and rid yourself of our caresses. There's a creep of grey in your eyes, you're closing off from me. I know I should let you. There's no safety, no comfort if you stay here with me. If I was half the man I want to be for you I'd let you leave.