Drabblish thing.
So, prompted by Ann: "A city he had loved with his whole heart."
Warning: un-beta-ed, written in about half an hour. Also severe angst, because that scene broke my heart more than any other - and also because, you know, it has Alec in.
Richard says, “You’ve changed so much”, kisses his neck.
He pushes his face further into Richard’s hair and insists, “I haven’t.”
Richard tells him, “You are assured.”
It horrifies him, it breaks his heart. He turns his cheek and says, “Time is a great teacher; unfortunately she kills all her pupils.” The most lauded line of one of the popular new playwrights. Grew up in Riverside, hadn’t learnt to write until he himself, hiding in a overly large and deliberately tattered hood, heard the man reciting on a street corner and took him back up to the Hill. He has his own theatre now, reviewers and fans and people analysing his themes at the University. Bile rises in his throat, and then tears.
Richard has always been able to read his body. He moves him in his arms so that he can see his face and says, “What?”
He casts himself against the open chest, tearing his hair and Richard’s clothes, and eventually manages to howl, “I ruined it. I ruined everything. It will never be able to happen again!”
For once, Richard has to pull back and ask again.
And he tries to make him see, that he destroyed what he loved the most by loving it, that orphanages and hospitals and builders have healed away the flashing glamour that had drawn him, kept him, fed him and given him this man who is not holding him as stoutly as he should. That never again will someone pay a whore in a crooked cul-de-sac to wash the blood from his shirt and keep out admirers who want the gossip from the other universe of the respectable. That time might kill him, but he doesn’t care - he hates himself for having killed a time like no other.
He pushes his fingers against his eyes, to make himself see the stars rather than to clear the tears. He sees, suddenly, Kyros on the horizon. It is a strange thing, made of ragged peaks the likes of which he has only read about. He stares at them, not breathing, and again Richard asks, “What?”
“We can start again,” he says, fierce and desperate. “We won’t try to change it. We’ll get it right. It will last.”
Warning: un-beta-ed, written in about half an hour. Also severe angst, because that scene broke my heart more than any other - and also because, you know, it has Alec in.
Richard says, “You’ve changed so much”, kisses his neck.
He pushes his face further into Richard’s hair and insists, “I haven’t.”
Richard tells him, “You are assured.”
It horrifies him, it breaks his heart. He turns his cheek and says, “Time is a great teacher; unfortunately she kills all her pupils.” The most lauded line of one of the popular new playwrights. Grew up in Riverside, hadn’t learnt to write until he himself, hiding in a overly large and deliberately tattered hood, heard the man reciting on a street corner and took him back up to the Hill. He has his own theatre now, reviewers and fans and people analysing his themes at the University. Bile rises in his throat, and then tears.
Richard has always been able to read his body. He moves him in his arms so that he can see his face and says, “What?”
He casts himself against the open chest, tearing his hair and Richard’s clothes, and eventually manages to howl, “I ruined it. I ruined everything. It will never be able to happen again!”
For once, Richard has to pull back and ask again.
And he tries to make him see, that he destroyed what he loved the most by loving it, that orphanages and hospitals and builders have healed away the flashing glamour that had drawn him, kept him, fed him and given him this man who is not holding him as stoutly as he should. That never again will someone pay a whore in a crooked cul-de-sac to wash the blood from his shirt and keep out admirers who want the gossip from the other universe of the respectable. That time might kill him, but he doesn’t care - he hates himself for having killed a time like no other.
He pushes his fingers against his eyes, to make himself see the stars rather than to clear the tears. He sees, suddenly, Kyros on the horizon. It is a strange thing, made of ragged peaks the likes of which he has only read about. He stares at them, not breathing, and again Richard asks, “What?”
“We can start again,” he says, fierce and desperate. “We won’t try to change it. We’ll get it right. It will last.”