Fic for a Pic- Out of Town
WOW this is going to be such a tough competition!!! *___* Remember guys, you've got an extra 10 days to get those entries in, so until the 17th!
Title: Remember
Category: Out of Town
Rating: PG
Words: 980
Pic:
It’s not really that I miss him that much.
I know he’s coming back in four days - or is it five? Well, the important thing is that he’s coming back soon enough, and I know that. I’m not stupid enough to sit here and pine after him when he’s gone, especially not when my schedule takes me away from him for any number of days out of the year anyway.
And besides, we’re not that kind of couple. We’re independent. We have our own lives, our own obligations, our own friends that don’t overlap (and some that do, unfortunately) and we’re just…we’re good together. And we’re good apart too. We don’t need to be around each other 24 hours a day in order to maintain each other’s happiness, we’re happy, we’re…
Okay, so maybe I miss him after all. But I really don’t want to think about it that way, and I definitely don’t want to tell him. It’s not because I’m afraid of my feelings, I’ve admitted that much and more many times over, but because I know him, and I know that as strong as he is he’s exhausted right now and I don’t want to make him think about this if he isn’t already.
Takashi is…despite his confidence and his goofiness and all that infectious charm and that good-natured attitude that puts everyone at ease and that smile that can set my heart on fire even when I’m furious with him, despite all of that, Takashi is just…he’s the kind of person who needs people. And I’m not saying it’s just me - there are a lot of people who are important to him, and he needs everyone. He needs to feel support from a lot of different directions, I think. I know that it’s hard for him to be so far away, regardless of how quickly he jumps at the chance to go.
I don’t want him to be lonely, so I don’t want to remind him that maybe that’s how I’m feeling. I don’t want to remind him of how much I need his support too. I don’t want to admit that when he’s not around everything is just a little harder to manage, and a lot less fun.
I tell myself that I’m sure he’s fine, and I’m fairly certain that he is, that he’s having fun, and that regardless, he’s too busy to think about who’s not there with him anyway.
I have to think about it this way, otherwise I’d be doing exactly what I know is the stupidest thing in the world. Missing him.
The touch of his skin, the soft, clean lines of his body, and how easily and naturally his back curves in next to my chest when we’re lying in bed together on those days when we actually have time to meet and are lucky enough to be able to fall asleep at the same time… When he’s lying there next to me like that, it’s kind of like he rights everything that’s wrong, or uncertain between us. Or maybe we both do. It erases all the misunderstandings, the missed phone calls, the drunken insults (most of which he’d argue are entirely my fault) - all the wrong decisions we’ve made over the past few days, or weeks, even if we’ve gone to sleep angry, it doesn’t matter. Everything disappears when he’s next to me like that.
And when I wake up in the middle of the night to find him gone, having escaped to the couch in a fit of restlessness, sitting it front of the computer, his face illuminated by the soft glow of the monitor, or thumbing through a script, huddling in a corner of the room with the lamp from his desk moved to the floor because he didn’t want to wake me up - when he’s not there next to me, for whatever reason, I’ve gotten pretty good at just remembering the last time he was.
The shape and weight of his body, the warmth of his skin, the light movement of his eyelashes behind those heavy eyelids when he’s asleep - I’ve gotten really good at remembering all of these things. In my mind, I can run my fingers down his bare arm, and the bruises and marks on his skin from whatever rehearsal he’s overdone himself at (again) blend into the darkness. I know that the imperfections are there but in this light, and to the tips of my fingers he’s just soft and smooth and perfect and it’s pretty much the most amazing thing in the world, lying here like this with him.
Or, you know, the fantasy in my mind is amazing.
The reality is that I’m sitting on the floor of my apartment, sweating in the late summer heat, even though all I’m wearing are my boxers. I’m smoking my second cigarette in about 10 minutes, and staring at my phone, willing him to call so that I don’t have to call him, because as much as I want to hear his voice, I really don’t trust my own or the words that I’d probably come up with to say to him tonight. I can’t remember what time it is over there anyway, and if I wake him up again like I did the other night he’ll kill me. More than once, maybe.
So I force myself to put out my cigarette, draw the blinds, close my eyes and just remember...
Because even if it’s just this - the memory of his warm skin under the curve of my arm, the ends of his hair tickling my chest, and his fingers moving quietly in place between mine - the support that I feel so strongly in this gesture, and the fact that I feel this support even when he’s not here… This is really all I need.