The Story

By: KellyCRocker59

Part Two

Take It All

In his realm of consciousness, Sean Jackson flickered in and out. Some days he would be fine, walking down the street with his coffee, heading into meetings, discussing PR. Other days, he would feel a noose around his neck, bricks fastened to his calves. He would lie in bed for hours and memorize the velocity of his ceiling fan. He would listen without speaking, without hearing. He would leave tasks uncompleted, wouldn't go out with friends. Some days he was fine. Others, he could function only at base level.

He tried sex once. He went to a club, picked up a cute guy and brought him back to his house. They kissed a little bit, and that was fine. But when it came time for the intimacy, Sean could feel his stomach in knots, threatening to purge the alcohol inside him. So he went out to his balcony and took a few deep breaths, lost himself in the stars, tried to piece together his thoughts. When the guy came outside to check on him, he asked him to go home. His request fell like liquid ice from his lips, he surprised even himself. But he still did not ask the man to stay, instead spending another night lost in his bedroom.

Sean Jackson tried to rehabilitate himself. He tried to grab the pieces of his heart and match them up, get them to fit together again. But it was an endless task, infuriating and impossible. He would look at himself in the mirror, searching his own reflection for some truth. He would converse with himself, trying to ease himself with the sound of his voice, like it was some sort of compass for sanity. It was fruitless; all the self-searching in the world could not return him to what he had been.

It was one day when he was brushing his teeth, refusing to think about anything at all because that only led to further deprecation, when he came to the only logical conclusion, the one that had been so blatant from the moment he was left in his driveway. When Holden had left him, he had unstitched their souls so clumsily that part of Sean had managed to stay with him and leave its original owner trapped in his memories.

Mechanics of the Heart

Holden was building his life around a world without Sean Jackson. He was stabilizing the walls, fastening the ropes, nailing down boards and tightening bolts. He had constructed his own entity, his own reality, yet somehow there was were missing pigments in the picture, glaring errors in the blueprint. He had calculated it all to perfection, so that he would not feel the ache of solitude or the plea of his own desperation. Yet somehow down the line, there was a hole in the plan.

So when it happened, when Holden found himself back at Sean's door, unlocking it with a key he had just removed from his keychain, when he stepped across the hardwood and found those hazy eyes fixated upon him, brow creased, he felt a light filling him again, bane to the darkness that had established itself and grown like a cancer. It was banished with such ease that Holden wondered if it had even existed, taken by the conviction in Sean's gaze. Holden pressed the tips of his fingers to Sean's temple, feeling the gentle pulse. The soothing exhalation of Sean's breath sent a warm radiance through Holden's chest, dismantling the exterior planes of distance he had forged within himself. He had spent months exiling himself into his own realm of loneliness but here Sean was, open and willing and ready, finally ready.

Sean sat up, muttering words that Holden could scarce hear. Instead, he let the other man seize his arm and pull him into his arms. Their lips were a botched exercise in memorization and recollection, Sean reclaiming every breadth of skin he could touch, as Holden became the willing subject, grasping at Sean's hair. Gun smoke in the still air, this was peace. Waves against the shore, this was tranquility. The breath before the leap, this was euphoria. The gasp before the touch and the promise before the commitment, this was love.

Promise This

Being together was work. Not the kind of work that logs some time and sees payoff. It was legitimate and frustrating. Holden knew from the beginning that being with Sean Jackson the professional football player was far different than being with Sean, the man who woke him with his favorite coffee and kissed him when he least expected. Yet it was still jarring, being thrown into a world of photographs and lights and attention deficit social media.

Don't talk about it. That was a big rule that Sean's PR had established early on. If Holden was approached, he was to ignore the paparazzi and continue his business as he would in any other instance. The scrutiny was another aspect he had not anticipated. Scrutiny from men, mostly, when he went to the gym. When he walked to a bookstore or went grocery shopping. There was at least one odd look every time, and he should be used to it. He should know that this was part of the life he had chosen, but he had never before realized how much value he put into his own privacy.

Then there were the football games. He would go, of course. He had never been a regular attendee prior to dating Sean, but he would go and park himself in special seating and wince through ever blow Sean took. Sean would never admit it, but Holden's presence was momentous, and Holden would do this for him. He would endure watching Sean get himself beaten up, and he would not intervene when people threw themselves on Sean after the games even though the poor man was exhausted. He would bear it all, week after week, in silence.

Sometimes, Holden would be lost in his head, thinking of all the things that they would not get to do in public. Paula was adamant that Sean was not to show Holden affection when they were out for a while, so that people could be eased into their relationship. Sean agreed to it grudgingly, and Holden had thought nothing of it. But then there were the times he would reach for Sean's hand as they walked down the street and Sean would eye him in caution and that commitment became an aching reminder of the repression he had thought they had expelled after Sean came out.

But then there were the nights. Nights when Holden would lie down over Sean and press his fingers along the other man's aching back, summoning groans of appreciation. Nights when they would make tea and tangle their limbs together on the couch, appreciating the silence. Nights when love could be made without pretense or interruption, when it was all that mattered in the world and Holden could die in the arms of his lover.

It was nights like these, when their breaths melded and Sean would kiss a promise to Holden's lips, that he knew this was where he would spend the rest of his life.