Fic: Por Siempre (1/1)
Title: Por Siempre
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Richard/Miles, Richard/Jacob
Word Count: 1,318
Summary: In the end, neither of them really has anything to go back to. For joyyjpg, who requested “anything Miles/Richard post-island that involves driving and bonus past Jacob/Richard” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. Spoilers Through 6.17 - The End.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I’ve been wanting to try these two again for ages; thank you for the opportunity, doll!
Por Siempre
In the end, neither of them really has anything to go back to.
Richard’s traces on the world are few and far between: he’s made his way where he’s needed to, adapted like a shadow, casting shapes upon a changing universe, always the same, ever covering new ground.
Miles, well -- home means a roof and a place where his clothes are, where his keys wait on the counter and he can shut his eyes without hearing too many voices, too many screams and regrets.
They’re both adrift, now -- rustles on the wind.
_____________________
They don’t call it anything, don’t put a name to it or try to make it more than what it is. They touch in private, in the dark; they grasped wrists and fingertips above the ground with a broken promise of death before the fall. Richard cleans the wounds in his skin with careful dabs and practiced hands; Miles doesn’t mind that for hours, days, Richard still smells of smoke.
They have nothing to their names: Richard accesses accounts to provide for each of them as necessary, and something in him falls when he has to use Jacob’s name, has to remember things he’s ready to try and forget.
The pouch in his pocket is heavy.
_____________________
Miles gets a rundown room in a motel off a highway that wasn’t there, didn’t exist the last time Richard walked this ground, breathed this air -- the water stains curl around the corners, taint the ceiling. Richard follows, for lack of a reason not to.
Miles never asks him along, exactly, but he doesn’t complain when he comes anyway. Richard’s long past the point of needing an invitation from anyone, to go anywhere.
Richard spends more time sleeping than he’s earned -- there’s one Queen-sized mattress between two grown men, and it feels thin, soggy beneath him when he tosses, and he only wakes when he rolls into Miles’ body stretched out on the opposite side. They’re not quite ready to meet in the middle, just yet. And that’s okay.
Richard has time.
_____________________
He knows what he has to do, knows the obligation, the duty looming over him, still, reaching and pulling and tightening in his very soul, too deep to have left behind, to be purged of.
He wears black for more reasons that the world can understand when he slips away, orders coffee at an internet cafe filled with porn addicts and college students at two in the morning; he uses the Swiss accounts to pay for the fare.
It takes all of fifteen minutes to seal his fate, to take this step toward closing this door.
Technology. It will never cease to astound him.
_____________________
Miles is lying on the bed, on top of the bleach-white comforter, his booted feet hanging over the edge at the end when Richard comes out of the shower, towel slung low on his hips, too small for a grown man, open at the side and offering a peek, if one were so inclined to look.
We should go north, he says, out of the ether; whimsical, almost. Go west.
Richard doesn’t answer; reaches for the pouch among his things, precious.
Anywhere, really, Miles keeps on, and Richard smiles, weighs the pack against his palm and feels lightness -- the bud of it, the promise of it, one day -- in his chest.
That could be nice, Richard says softly, tucks his burden back into his bag and pulls out his clothes.
Yeah? Miles asks, and he sounds like a boy, hesitant and hopeful; Richard doesn’t remember what it’s like to be that young, and maybe that’s for the best.
Yeah, Richard says, warm, as he slips one leg, the other into his jeans, and then Miles is there, right in front of him, reaching down and letting his fingers slip beneath the waistband of the denim, working the button through its hole and slowly tugging up the zipper.
Their eyes meet for less than a moment before Miles pulls back and walks, wordless, out the door.
_____________________
Richard doesn’t tell Miles that he’s leaving, not until he’s almost gone.
It speaks volumes, the way Richard’s stomach plummets, the way his limbs feel leaden and weak when Miles’ expression steels, hard like stone and impassive when Richard tells him: I have to, I promised, it was written, there is no question. Some things, no one will ever understand. The place in Richard’s heart that was touched by a man who gave him life, cursed him and blessed him with words and a touch, used him and cherished him in turn, in kind, neverending -- too small a space in time -- is something impermeable, esoteric.
Even as he already feels his bones starting to creak, his blood thickening, slowing in his veins: that piece of him will forever remain immortal.
I’ll be back, he swears it, leans in to seal the promise but can’t, not as it deserves, because Miles turns, and Richard catches his cheek like a bad omen, a sour taste on the back of his tongue.
I’ll be here, Miles answers, a shrug, like he doesn’t believe it, like he wants not to care.
It stings almost as badly as if he didn’t care at all.
_____________________
He steps off a plane, onto another, lands on the tarmac and feels tar beneath his heels, and it feels like an epoch, it feels like relief. It really does.
There are contacts, here, still -- Tunisia remembers them, perhaps always will, in its way: the people have come to know the name, the whispers -- urban legends in the dust; they take him to where he needs to be.
In all his years, he’s never stood in this one place.
As close as you can get to here, he’d breathed against Richard’s bare skin, the center of his chest; as close as you can get without being here.
He takes the ashes and digs deeper, fingers out the bones, worn and brittle -- a mother, a brother, a family, broken; weathered, even, before time had its say.
A compromise, Jacob had always said; a compromise we were unwilling to make while it still might have mattered. When it could have made a difference.
Richard murmurs words outside his mother tongue, sends all that remains to the winds where they breathe.
_____________________
When he returns, Miles is where he said he’d be.
It makes all the difference.
He’s not expecting Richard -- perhaps not in that moment, perhaps not so quickly, perhaps not ever, but it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t matter because Richard is close behind him, arms against the muscles, the lines and curves of him, and he speaks into the angle of his jaw, a kiss and a word and a question and a desire, a hunger: Where to?
Miles packs and Richard eyes the car he’s procured for their travels -- not new, not flashy, like them in its way, and Richard’s fine with that.
Miles tosses him the keys and slumps close to him in the passenger seat as he turns the ignition and sets them on their way to anywhere, dark stains of sleeplessness fixed hard beneath his eyes, and Richard reaches out, strokes the man’s cheek with one hand as he sleeps, his other hand fixed tight around the wheel, and strangely, beautifully: he’s fine with that, too.
More than fine.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Richard/Miles, Richard/Jacob
Word Count: 1,318
Summary: In the end, neither of them really has anything to go back to. For joyyjpg, who requested “anything Miles/Richard post-island that involves driving and bonus past Jacob/Richard” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. Spoilers Through 6.17 - The End.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I’ve been wanting to try these two again for ages; thank you for the opportunity, doll!
Por Siempre
In the end, neither of them really has anything to go back to.
Richard’s traces on the world are few and far between: he’s made his way where he’s needed to, adapted like a shadow, casting shapes upon a changing universe, always the same, ever covering new ground.
Miles, well -- home means a roof and a place where his clothes are, where his keys wait on the counter and he can shut his eyes without hearing too many voices, too many screams and regrets.
They’re both adrift, now -- rustles on the wind.
_____________________
They don’t call it anything, don’t put a name to it or try to make it more than what it is. They touch in private, in the dark; they grasped wrists and fingertips above the ground with a broken promise of death before the fall. Richard cleans the wounds in his skin with careful dabs and practiced hands; Miles doesn’t mind that for hours, days, Richard still smells of smoke.
They have nothing to their names: Richard accesses accounts to provide for each of them as necessary, and something in him falls when he has to use Jacob’s name, has to remember things he’s ready to try and forget.
The pouch in his pocket is heavy.
_____________________
Miles gets a rundown room in a motel off a highway that wasn’t there, didn’t exist the last time Richard walked this ground, breathed this air -- the water stains curl around the corners, taint the ceiling. Richard follows, for lack of a reason not to.
Miles never asks him along, exactly, but he doesn’t complain when he comes anyway. Richard’s long past the point of needing an invitation from anyone, to go anywhere.
Richard spends more time sleeping than he’s earned -- there’s one Queen-sized mattress between two grown men, and it feels thin, soggy beneath him when he tosses, and he only wakes when he rolls into Miles’ body stretched out on the opposite side. They’re not quite ready to meet in the middle, just yet. And that’s okay.
Richard has time.
_____________________
He knows what he has to do, knows the obligation, the duty looming over him, still, reaching and pulling and tightening in his very soul, too deep to have left behind, to be purged of.
He wears black for more reasons that the world can understand when he slips away, orders coffee at an internet cafe filled with porn addicts and college students at two in the morning; he uses the Swiss accounts to pay for the fare.
It takes all of fifteen minutes to seal his fate, to take this step toward closing this door.
Technology. It will never cease to astound him.
_____________________
Miles is lying on the bed, on top of the bleach-white comforter, his booted feet hanging over the edge at the end when Richard comes out of the shower, towel slung low on his hips, too small for a grown man, open at the side and offering a peek, if one were so inclined to look.
We should go north, he says, out of the ether; whimsical, almost. Go west.
Richard doesn’t answer; reaches for the pouch among his things, precious.
Anywhere, really, Miles keeps on, and Richard smiles, weighs the pack against his palm and feels lightness -- the bud of it, the promise of it, one day -- in his chest.
That could be nice, Richard says softly, tucks his burden back into his bag and pulls out his clothes.
Yeah? Miles asks, and he sounds like a boy, hesitant and hopeful; Richard doesn’t remember what it’s like to be that young, and maybe that’s for the best.
Yeah, Richard says, warm, as he slips one leg, the other into his jeans, and then Miles is there, right in front of him, reaching down and letting his fingers slip beneath the waistband of the denim, working the button through its hole and slowly tugging up the zipper.
Their eyes meet for less than a moment before Miles pulls back and walks, wordless, out the door.
_____________________
Richard doesn’t tell Miles that he’s leaving, not until he’s almost gone.
It speaks volumes, the way Richard’s stomach plummets, the way his limbs feel leaden and weak when Miles’ expression steels, hard like stone and impassive when Richard tells him: I have to, I promised, it was written, there is no question. Some things, no one will ever understand. The place in Richard’s heart that was touched by a man who gave him life, cursed him and blessed him with words and a touch, used him and cherished him in turn, in kind, neverending -- too small a space in time -- is something impermeable, esoteric.
Even as he already feels his bones starting to creak, his blood thickening, slowing in his veins: that piece of him will forever remain immortal.
I’ll be back, he swears it, leans in to seal the promise but can’t, not as it deserves, because Miles turns, and Richard catches his cheek like a bad omen, a sour taste on the back of his tongue.
I’ll be here, Miles answers, a shrug, like he doesn’t believe it, like he wants not to care.
It stings almost as badly as if he didn’t care at all.
_____________________
He steps off a plane, onto another, lands on the tarmac and feels tar beneath his heels, and it feels like an epoch, it feels like relief. It really does.
There are contacts, here, still -- Tunisia remembers them, perhaps always will, in its way: the people have come to know the name, the whispers -- urban legends in the dust; they take him to where he needs to be.
In all his years, he’s never stood in this one place.
As close as you can get to here, he’d breathed against Richard’s bare skin, the center of his chest; as close as you can get without being here.
He takes the ashes and digs deeper, fingers out the bones, worn and brittle -- a mother, a brother, a family, broken; weathered, even, before time had its say.
A compromise, Jacob had always said; a compromise we were unwilling to make while it still might have mattered. When it could have made a difference.
Richard murmurs words outside his mother tongue, sends all that remains to the winds where they breathe.
_____________________
When he returns, Miles is where he said he’d be.
It makes all the difference.
He’s not expecting Richard -- perhaps not in that moment, perhaps not so quickly, perhaps not ever, but it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t matter because Richard is close behind him, arms against the muscles, the lines and curves of him, and he speaks into the angle of his jaw, a kiss and a word and a question and a desire, a hunger: Where to?
Miles packs and Richard eyes the car he’s procured for their travels -- not new, not flashy, like them in its way, and Richard’s fine with that.
Miles tosses him the keys and slumps close to him in the passenger seat as he turns the ignition and sets them on their way to anywhere, dark stains of sleeplessness fixed hard beneath his eyes, and Richard reaches out, strokes the man’s cheek with one hand as he sleeps, his other hand fixed tight around the wheel, and strangely, beautifully: he’s fine with that, too.
More than fine.