Disclaimer: Not mine.
Pairing: Martin/Danny
Rating: G
Summary: Everything in life is held – your hands, your heart. Your past.
Notes: Inspired by 15 minute ficlets' picture #9.
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Held
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Martin stood quietly by the table, one arm pressed against the shiny wood. Everyone had gone, including the janitors and he figured that he was the only person still in the building at the hour of ten.
The picture stared up at him from the hard surface as though it were accusing him of leaving behind the past for an indeterminable future.
("Daddy! I can't."
"Yes you can, Martin. Take my hand.")
His mother had taken the picture, back before she'd become a woman of lazed life. When she still liked taking pictures of her family because they were happy and she liked to capture the moment.
A small hand grasped his own as they learned to climb the ropes set up for the young children at a family reunion.
Victor had sent it, claiming that he wanted his son to remember how he was loved, but the son could only what they had once had. What both had gradually given up through the years, because Martin refused to be his father's puppet.
Fate seemed to be laughing at him.
Then the phone rang to drag him from his harsh self-loathing stupor, and a voice demanded to know what was wrong because it was late; could he drive?
Martin stared at the wall, noting the indentation where he had punched it earlier when the letter was placed in his hands by one of the mail guys. ("I'm fine. I'll be there soon.")
He blamed paperwork then shut his lips. Lying would not help him, would not stop Danny from coming to get him especially since he could hear when the car started up through the cell phone. Then he stopped talking and the sound of breathing calmed the jangled nerves enough that Martin could finally reach for the photograph…
And rip it to shreds.