A little bit of randomness created in a couple of hours before a nightshift. Also, I've always wanted an ostrich. No idea why, but they're cool. Enjoy :) xx
Ostriches
…
"Just be honest, Boyd."
The words echo inside his skull. Rattle around and around, battering his brain and setting off a throbbing, pulsing ache.
"Just be honest, that's all I'm asking."
He missed it.
The point behind those words – it eluded him.
He did lie. Not to her.
Never.
But he missed the point.
And that's exactly the bloody same.
The snarl inside his head is building, the pressure behind his eyes quite agonising.
There are unshed tears there, but they won't fall.
There is rage in his chest, but it won't escape.
There is frustration in every muscle, every sinew, but it will stay contained.
Just.
The rain helps.
One foot in front of the other, road after road, street after street.
He walks and he thinks and he lets it all soak in with the chill of the rain that is seeping deeper and deeper, layer by layer.
Time is meaningless, traffic is forgotten. Other people don't exist. It's just him and the rain and the pavement.
The repetitive motion of endless walking, and the swirl of the thoughts badgering his mind.
Honesty. Integrity.
Both traits he values highly.
Both values he wonders now if he hasn't fallen short with.
Friendship.
It means more than he realises.
But he knows it's importance.
She's always been there, hovering in the shadows at his elbow. A fallback in the darkness; a smile, a few sly words or a pesky sparing partner in the light.
A constant.
A steadiness.
An unwavering presence.
Warmth.
And that is what he associates with her, Boyd realises. Warmth. Light. Continuity.
Permanence.
It's a crossroads in time.
That's the problem, one that has taken him by surprise.
One that bears upheaval in its train like no other.
He could walk through the rain and the darkness forever, but the sunlight without seeing that smile…
It seems rather pointless.
Boyd is a fool, and he knows it.
Resigns himself to the brutal honesty of it all.
He's been playing the ostrich for years. Probably without knowing, mostly, but there is culpability there as well.
She fell, and he picked her up.
She was threatened, and he offered his life instead.
She cried, and he snarled on her behalf.
She bristled in defiance, and he fought back.
He should have seen it coming.
Shouldn't he?
It's an interesting question. One he allows himself to ponder at length.
His feet squelch in his shoes; rain runs through his hair, the droplets tracking down over his forehead, dripping off his eyebrows, his nose.
He doesn't notice.
There have been rumours for years, but nothing worth paying heed to. People gossip, but why should it be true?
She was widowed, he was married, if only on paper.
They argued. Raged. Differed on seemingly everything.
Except… not when it mattered.
Highly driven, both of them. Still deeply embedded in their careers and professional advancement.
Commitments, age, interests, restlessness, stubbornness, regulations, time.
Everything he finds as a roadblock, that scornful inner rationality rips apart.
Because in the end none of it matters. In the end, he is still a fool.
And what of her?
How much guilt does she carry in this mess?
Probably some, Boyd finally concludes. But haven't there been oh so many tiny signs over the years? Opportunities he could have taken? Moments he could have yielded, surrendered?
Times he could have yanked his head out of the sand and simply taken what was right there in front of him all along?
The choice is there in black and white.
Don't answer the question, lie, obfuscate, or do whatever it takes to keep on avoiding.
Or.
Or take the other path.
Frost.
Of all things, Robert Frost leaps to mind, and Boyd grimaces internally at the triteness of the timing of the recollection.
It's all inevitable really, all beyond his control.
Looking up at the destination his feet have finally brought him to, he surrenders and sighs.
Impressive creatures, ostriches. Biggest eggs he's ever seen.
The front door looms ahead in the darkness, a solid threshold blocking his path.
If he's an ostrich, it's about time he grew a set to match.
…
"I want you to go," he tells her. It's entirely honest.
The flicker in her eyes is all he needs to see the huge crack splitting open inside her. The sorrow, the fear.
The deep, desperate devastation.
So raw, so bruising.
So unbelievably agonising.
Still, she says nothing. Nods quietly.
Accepts defeat with quiet grace and a silent strength that squeezes his already aching heart.
Entirely solidifies his decision.
"I want you to go," he repeats, taking a step, subsiding with a squelch down onto the third stair of the case. The rain and the numbing cold are forgotten, so are his sodden clothes as he watches her and feels more alive, more aware than he has in years.
Boyd reaches out, grasps her hand. Slides his icy fingers between her warm, soft knuckles. "I want you to go, Grace," he repeats, "and I want you to take me with you."
Surprise. Shock.
Incomprehension.
A wordlessness that lights a tiny flame of hope inside him, for she is never without that unparalleled ability to tell him exactly what it is she thinks.
Gently, Boyd tugs, and, muscles slack, seemingly unknowingly, Grace moves toward him. When he can, he reaches for her, pulls her down into his lap.
Presses his palm to her cheek, runs the tip of his thumb slowly, so slowly across her lips.
Lifts his free hand to the midnight blue fabric of her thin tee shirt, rests it there on her chest where he can feel the beating of her heart.
Strong, steady.
Grounding.
A metronome for his own heart.
Her eyes are holding him, and Boyd is pinioned in place.
He is positive she is unaware of what she is doing, that there is nothing remotely conscious about it, but still, he cannot decode what he's seeing in her eyes, what she's thinking.
And then, without having planned it or thought it through, his lips have found hers and his hand is cradling her head.
Darkness descends as his eyes close, but then a riot of warmth flashes through his veins in its place, colour and heat and emotion engulfing him in a mighty storm.
Muscles and resolve fail, and, clutching her to him, he subsides backwards against the wall, its solid brickwork becoming the support, the grounding he needs right now.
Touch and taste and smell; warmth and happiness and desire.
It's all there.
All an enchanting, overwhelming tangle as the kiss grows and they tremble of the precipice of a vast new territory begging to be explored.
Everything he wanted, everything he was hiding from.
Even what he thought was impossible.
They linger together in that all-encompassing first kiss, a mutual agreement passing silently between them that this has been so long in coming that the moment must be savoured.
Until in his arms, she shivers involuntarily and they part. Where they touch, the rain water has soaked her to the skin, too.
Blue and brown, questions and answers; all of it meets in mid-air.
In the stunned silence that has overtaken everything else.
His pulse is through the roof, his eyes are overbright and his skin feels alive, taught with excitement and tension and possibility.
With what might just be.
"Peter," she breathes, and then stops, whatever else was to come failing.
Boyd opens his mouth, tries, and fails, too. Manages to croak a single word in the air around them. "Ostriches."
It's insane.
Ludicrous.
A monumental failure at such a pivotal point in time.
But in the silence of the hall and the stairs, Grace smiles at him with every fibre of her being.
Smiles and laughs, and knows.