Past, Present and Future
Title: Past, Present and Future
Pairing: Boyd Gordon / Brooks Laich (Brooks' POV)
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Nothing but the voices in my head...in other words, completely fake.
A/N: For challenge #5, "Too Many", over at
hockeychallenge. Also x-posted to my journal.
“We really need to clean out this closet, Brooksie.”
I looked up from the TV to see Boyd standing in front of the hall closet, aka the dump where useless belongings went to die.
“Yeah, someday.”
“No. Today,” he said, looking at me pointedly.
I pouted back at him. “Do we have to?” I asked. I was whining but I didn’t care. It was Saturday, we had a day off on the weekend for the first time in weeks, and I wanted to do what I was doing - which was nothing. Cleaning had not even made the top ten list.
“Look at this! There’s shit packed in here so tightly we’re going to need a crowbar to get it out,” he said, frowning and shaking his head as he poked at the boxes with his finger. “Come on, come help me.”
He’s lucky I love him, I thought in annoyance as I heaved myself off the couch and shuffled over toward the closet where Boyd was still peering into it thoughtfully, his brow furrowed as he surveyed the damage. I moved behind him and slipped my arms around his waist, kissing his shoulder.
“Actually, I can think of some other things I could help you with,” I murmured as I pressed my body up against him. I felt him lean back against me slightly as my lips met his neck and I smiled to myself. Victory. My hands slowly moved down his front until they reached his crotch, my fingers brushing over him as I continued to suck on his neck.
“Brooksie…” he said softly.
“Mmm?”
“Nice try.” He squirmed out of my grip and turned to face me, an amused look on his face. “Did you really think that would work?”
I frowned. “Well…maybe.” He laughed. “Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Where do we begin?”
“Grab a trash bag.”
Scowling I slowly walked into the kitchen, pulled a handful of plastic trash bags from under the sink, and walked back to Boyd even more slowly.
“Here,” I said, thrusting the bags at him and plopping down onto the ground. Reaching into the closet I half-heartedly pulled out a sock with a hole in the toe, wrinkled my nose at it and shoved it into one of the bags.
Boyd joined me on the floor and patted my leg with a laugh. “That’s the spirit.”
“Since when are you a cleaner?” I asked as I pulled a tiny piece of crumpled paper off the floor and absently began shredding it into tinier pieces.
“I’m not,” he replied with a shrug. “I just thought we could do something productive today. Stop ripping up that paper, you’re making a bigger mess.”
Guiltily I dropped the paper into the bag.
“Besides,” he continued, “it would be nice to use this space for something.”
“Like what?”
“Like…all the stuff I still haven’t unpacked yet,” he said quietly, not looking at me.
Oh. Right.
We had just moved in together…of course when I say just, I mean three months ago, and when I say we, I mean Boyd moved in with me. I had almost forgotten that a lot of Boyd’s things were still packed away in boxes, sitting idly on the floor of our storage space in the basement. I bit my lip and glanced at him. I’m such an ass.
“That would be good.” I leaned in to kiss him guiltily, feeling a bit better when he kissed me back. “Okay,” I said, trying to make myself sound much more enthusiastic. “Should we have some kind of a system or just start throwing shit into bags?”
He grinned at me. “I think throwing shit into bags is probably our best bet,” he replied with a laugh. “I want to clear the space out, but let’s face it - neither of us is a ‘system’ kind of guy.”
“Right,” I replied with a businesslike nod. “Let’s do this!”
--------------
Two hours later we were still sitting on the floor sorting through things. It wasn’t that there was that much stuff in the closet…although dear god we had a lot of shit in there. It was taking so long because we kept getting distracted.
“Look, look at this one,” I said, laughing hysterically as I handed Boyd a picture. “Remember that?”
“Oh, man,” he gasped. “Look at your hair!!”
I frowned. “What’s wrong with my hair in that picture?”
“It’s so spiky!”
“I thought you liked it like that,” I said, running my hand through my hair to make it stick up even more and grinning at him. “I meant, check out where it was.”
“Where…oh shit!” He fell backwards, clutching his side as he gasped with laughter. “That horrible bar Stevie dragged us to with the drag queens!”
“Right!”
“Holy crap. And Mo getting a lap dance from that guy-girl-whatever - his face…oh, god!” Boyd erupted into a fresh bout of laughter and I joined in, the sight of him rolling around on the floor cracking me up until I was laying next to him. As our laughter subsided I rolled over on top of him and kissed him.
“That was a good night,” I said with a smile.
“Yeah…” he replied, grinning back up at me. I leaned in to kiss him again, deeper this time, and I felt him shift underneath me as he gripped my back tightly, a soft moan escaping from his lips only to have me swallow the sound.
“Want to move into the bedroom?” I whispered.
“After,” he said. “It can be our reward.”
“For what?”
“For cleaning…out…the closet.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled.
“Fuck you,” I said, rolling off of him with a smile and shaking my head in exasperation. “I was trying to be in the moment.”
“And I’m trying to get something done without quitting halfway to do…that,” he said with a laugh.
“You make it sound like we never get anything done,” I protested. “What about those bookshelves we built?”
“You mean the ones that took us two weeks?” he pointed out.
“Okay…bad example. How about…um…painting the bedroom?”
“You almost made me fall off the ladder by giving me a blowjob.”
I grinned at the memory. “Oh, yeah. That was…fun. Ow!” I said as he punched me in the shoulder. “Okay, so we have a little procrastination problem.”
“We? WE?”
“Fine. I have a problem. Hello, my name is Brooks, and I’m a serial procrastinator.”
“Hi, Brooks,” Boyd said dutifully and I laughed. Reaching into the closet I grabbed a box and pulled it into my lap as Boyd did the same, and I was sorting through it carefully when -
“What’s this?”
I glanced over and my eyes grew wide as I saw Boyd holding an address book in one hand and looking at me curiously.
“Um…uh…it’s, it’s nothing. Here, I’ll just throw that away,” I stammered, trying to grab it from him. He was too quick for me, though, pulling it out of reach with a frown and flipping it open. “No, Boyd, just - “
“What is this?” he repeated quietly, thumbing through the pages. “These are all guys names. These are…this is…Brooksie?”
I took a deep breath, my eyes glued on the book so I didn’t have to meet his eyes - which I knew were watching me carefully. “It’s just my old address book, Boyd,” I murmured.
“Your old address book.”
“Yeah.”
“Like…pen pals? Relatives?”
“Something like that.”
“So I guess ‘Rob from the bar’ is what, your cousin?”
Fuck. “Uh…look, Boyd, it’s…that’s from before. Before you and me. Really.”
“There are a lot of names in here,” he said softly. I glanced up at him and saw him flipping through the pages again, shaking his head. “A lot of names.”
“Well, I…”
“Too many names, Brooks.”
Brooks. He never called me Brooks unless I was in trouble. “There was a time in my life when I went out a lot,” I said with a nervous shrug. “But there aren’t that many…are there?”
“There are a lot,” he said again. His voice was barely above a whisper now.
“Well…maybe,” I said softly. “None of them mean anything, though, Boyd. You’re all I care about now.”
“You kept it.”
“What?”
He frowned. “You kept it even after we got together. Why didn’t you throw it out?”
“No, but…it…it was buried in there, I didn’t even know it was in there.”
“You shoved all this shit in here to make room when I moved in, right?” he asked, his voice eerily calm.
“Maybe…”
“So you had it out and available right up until I moved in.”
“I guess.”
He stared at me for a moment longer then sighed. “Fine.”
“Boyd, I’m sorry, I -“
“I said, fine,” he snapped, tossing the book aside and returning his attention to the box on his lap. Quickly I snatched it up and shoved it into one of the trash bags then started shuffling through my box again as well. Every few minutes I would steal a glance at Boyd but not once did he look up, although he obviously knew I was looking at him. Silently we finished going through the rest of the stuff, the task going much faster now that he wasn’t talking to me.
When the last scrap of paper had been tossed and the last photograph set aside Boyd stood up and stared blankly at the floor. I got to my feet and moved over to him, wrapping my arms around him and kissing his neck.
“So…about that reward,” I said hopefully, waiting for him to pull me into him like he always did. He couldn’t still be mad. Not when I kissed his neck in just the right spot, just where he liked it. Any minute now he’ll kiss me back…
But he didn’t.
“I’m going to go shower,” he said shortly, slipping out of my arms without meeting my eyes and walking off to the bedroom. I watched him go, contemplating following him but deciding against it. I knew him well enough to know when he needed space - going after him now would just piss him off. Instead I threw myself down on the sofa, flipping angrily through the channels on the TV without really seeing anything. Why had I kept that stupid fucking book? I thought. I hadn’t even looked at it since the first time I saw Boyd as anything other than a friend. The first time he kissed me I mentally erased thoughts of all other guys, so powerful was his kiss and the feelings that accompanied it. I hadn’t gone into this thing half-assed like I had with so many other people.
It killed me to have him mad at me - we had fights, sure, but seeing that deeply pained look in his eyes was much worse, especially since he tried to be so stoic and hide it. I had only seen him look at me like that a few times and each time I swore I would never again make him hurt like that…and then I went and did it again. Idiot, I thought. Fucking idiot.
I heard the water shut off in the bathroom, then a minute later the sound of the door opening and Boyd padding across the bedroom. Under the bedroom door I could see the lights go out and I stood up, walking over and pushing open the door quietly. If he heard me he didn’t acknowledge it so I crept across the room and silently climbed into bed with him, wrapping my arms around him once more and planting small kisses over his back, his shoulders, his neck, his head.
“Boyd,” I whispered. “Please, talk to me.”
“Is that why you haven’t cleaned out the closet?” he asked softly. “You didn’t really want me to move in, did you?”
“What? No! Of course not. Boyd, I want you here with me all the time, you know that.”
“Then why haven’t you made room for me in your life?” he said angrily, flipping over and flinging my arms off of him. “You moved just enough of your shit from this closet into that closet so I wouldn’t have to walk around naked. It’s been months and all my stuff is still in boxes… and not once have you mentioned it, not once have you tried to let me in.”
“I - “ I started but he cut me off.
“All those names, Brooks! You got to be with so many people, I saw their names… no wonder you don’t want to commit to this all the way. Your life was so exciting before you met me!”
“My life was horrible before I met you!” I shouted, sitting up straight and glaring down at him. “All those names, all those names…is that really your argument? Those were all stupid, meaningless flings. And you know what? You won’t find your name in there anywhere. Know why?”
“Why?” he said glumly. “Not enough space?”
“No, asshole - not only did I have your number memorized from the second you gave it to me, but I never wanted to put you at the same level as those one-night stands, those guys whose last names I never even bothered to remember.” He opened his mouth to interrupt but I kept going, propelling myself up onto my knees.
“I never threw that book out because I’m a lousy housekeeper. I didn’t clean out that closet for you because I’m a lazy, selfish bastard who hates to clean. But I’m not clinging to my past - I’m trying to move forward, with you! I’m sorry that I don’t think. I’m sorry that I don’t clean. I’m sorry that I didn’t throw that stupid book away the second I first saw you, because that’s the last time I even thought about it.”
I was out of breath by the time I finished, my voice still echoing in my head as I realized I’d been shouting. I didn’t care. He had to know, he had to understand.
“Brooksie…” he murmured, reaching up to grab my arm. “Come here.”
Reluctantly I let myself be pulled back down to the bed, Boyd’s hand guiding my body down until I was lying on top of him where he kissed me again and again. “Selfish bastard,” he murmured with a smile.
“Stubborn ass,” I replied, smiling back at him as I kissed him again, my hands reaching down to take off his shirt.
“Hey,” he said, stopping me with a smirk. “Do you think you deserve a reward after that?”
“The closet got cleaned, didn’t it? Besides,” I said with a smile, leaning in to kiss his neck., “the reward isn’t for me. It’s for you.”
“Oh. Well, then. Carry on.”
“Fucker.”
“You know you love me.”
“In too many ways to count."
Pairing: Boyd Gordon / Brooks Laich (Brooks' POV)
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Nothing but the voices in my head...in other words, completely fake.
A/N: For challenge #5, "Too Many", over at
hockeychallenge. Also x-posted to my journal.
“We really need to clean out this closet, Brooksie.”
I looked up from the TV to see Boyd standing in front of the hall closet, aka the dump where useless belongings went to die.
“Yeah, someday.”
“No. Today,” he said, looking at me pointedly.
I pouted back at him. “Do we have to?” I asked. I was whining but I didn’t care. It was Saturday, we had a day off on the weekend for the first time in weeks, and I wanted to do what I was doing - which was nothing. Cleaning had not even made the top ten list.
“Look at this! There’s shit packed in here so tightly we’re going to need a crowbar to get it out,” he said, frowning and shaking his head as he poked at the boxes with his finger. “Come on, come help me.”
He’s lucky I love him, I thought in annoyance as I heaved myself off the couch and shuffled over toward the closet where Boyd was still peering into it thoughtfully, his brow furrowed as he surveyed the damage. I moved behind him and slipped my arms around his waist, kissing his shoulder.
“Actually, I can think of some other things I could help you with,” I murmured as I pressed my body up against him. I felt him lean back against me slightly as my lips met his neck and I smiled to myself. Victory. My hands slowly moved down his front until they reached his crotch, my fingers brushing over him as I continued to suck on his neck.
“Brooksie…” he said softly.
“Mmm?”
“Nice try.” He squirmed out of my grip and turned to face me, an amused look on his face. “Did you really think that would work?”
I frowned. “Well…maybe.” He laughed. “Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Where do we begin?”
“Grab a trash bag.”
Scowling I slowly walked into the kitchen, pulled a handful of plastic trash bags from under the sink, and walked back to Boyd even more slowly.
“Here,” I said, thrusting the bags at him and plopping down onto the ground. Reaching into the closet I half-heartedly pulled out a sock with a hole in the toe, wrinkled my nose at it and shoved it into one of the bags.
Boyd joined me on the floor and patted my leg with a laugh. “That’s the spirit.”
“Since when are you a cleaner?” I asked as I pulled a tiny piece of crumpled paper off the floor and absently began shredding it into tinier pieces.
“I’m not,” he replied with a shrug. “I just thought we could do something productive today. Stop ripping up that paper, you’re making a bigger mess.”
Guiltily I dropped the paper into the bag.
“Besides,” he continued, “it would be nice to use this space for something.”
“Like what?”
“Like…all the stuff I still haven’t unpacked yet,” he said quietly, not looking at me.
Oh. Right.
We had just moved in together…of course when I say just, I mean three months ago, and when I say we, I mean Boyd moved in with me. I had almost forgotten that a lot of Boyd’s things were still packed away in boxes, sitting idly on the floor of our storage space in the basement. I bit my lip and glanced at him. I’m such an ass.
“That would be good.” I leaned in to kiss him guiltily, feeling a bit better when he kissed me back. “Okay,” I said, trying to make myself sound much more enthusiastic. “Should we have some kind of a system or just start throwing shit into bags?”
He grinned at me. “I think throwing shit into bags is probably our best bet,” he replied with a laugh. “I want to clear the space out, but let’s face it - neither of us is a ‘system’ kind of guy.”
“Right,” I replied with a businesslike nod. “Let’s do this!”
--------------
Two hours later we were still sitting on the floor sorting through things. It wasn’t that there was that much stuff in the closet…although dear god we had a lot of shit in there. It was taking so long because we kept getting distracted.
“Look, look at this one,” I said, laughing hysterically as I handed Boyd a picture. “Remember that?”
“Oh, man,” he gasped. “Look at your hair!!”
I frowned. “What’s wrong with my hair in that picture?”
“It’s so spiky!”
“I thought you liked it like that,” I said, running my hand through my hair to make it stick up even more and grinning at him. “I meant, check out where it was.”
“Where…oh shit!” He fell backwards, clutching his side as he gasped with laughter. “That horrible bar Stevie dragged us to with the drag queens!”
“Right!”
“Holy crap. And Mo getting a lap dance from that guy-girl-whatever - his face…oh, god!” Boyd erupted into a fresh bout of laughter and I joined in, the sight of him rolling around on the floor cracking me up until I was laying next to him. As our laughter subsided I rolled over on top of him and kissed him.
“That was a good night,” I said with a smile.
“Yeah…” he replied, grinning back up at me. I leaned in to kiss him again, deeper this time, and I felt him shift underneath me as he gripped my back tightly, a soft moan escaping from his lips only to have me swallow the sound.
“Want to move into the bedroom?” I whispered.
“After,” he said. “It can be our reward.”
“For what?”
“For cleaning…out…the closet.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled.
“Fuck you,” I said, rolling off of him with a smile and shaking my head in exasperation. “I was trying to be in the moment.”
“And I’m trying to get something done without quitting halfway to do…that,” he said with a laugh.
“You make it sound like we never get anything done,” I protested. “What about those bookshelves we built?”
“You mean the ones that took us two weeks?” he pointed out.
“Okay…bad example. How about…um…painting the bedroom?”
“You almost made me fall off the ladder by giving me a blowjob.”
I grinned at the memory. “Oh, yeah. That was…fun. Ow!” I said as he punched me in the shoulder. “Okay, so we have a little procrastination problem.”
“We? WE?”
“Fine. I have a problem. Hello, my name is Brooks, and I’m a serial procrastinator.”
“Hi, Brooks,” Boyd said dutifully and I laughed. Reaching into the closet I grabbed a box and pulled it into my lap as Boyd did the same, and I was sorting through it carefully when -
“What’s this?”
I glanced over and my eyes grew wide as I saw Boyd holding an address book in one hand and looking at me curiously.
“Um…uh…it’s, it’s nothing. Here, I’ll just throw that away,” I stammered, trying to grab it from him. He was too quick for me, though, pulling it out of reach with a frown and flipping it open. “No, Boyd, just - “
“What is this?” he repeated quietly, thumbing through the pages. “These are all guys names. These are…this is…Brooksie?”
I took a deep breath, my eyes glued on the book so I didn’t have to meet his eyes - which I knew were watching me carefully. “It’s just my old address book, Boyd,” I murmured.
“Your old address book.”
“Yeah.”
“Like…pen pals? Relatives?”
“Something like that.”
“So I guess ‘Rob from the bar’ is what, your cousin?”
Fuck. “Uh…look, Boyd, it’s…that’s from before. Before you and me. Really.”
“There are a lot of names in here,” he said softly. I glanced up at him and saw him flipping through the pages again, shaking his head. “A lot of names.”
“Well, I…”
“Too many names, Brooks.”
Brooks. He never called me Brooks unless I was in trouble. “There was a time in my life when I went out a lot,” I said with a nervous shrug. “But there aren’t that many…are there?”
“There are a lot,” he said again. His voice was barely above a whisper now.
“Well…maybe,” I said softly. “None of them mean anything, though, Boyd. You’re all I care about now.”
“You kept it.”
“What?”
He frowned. “You kept it even after we got together. Why didn’t you throw it out?”
“No, but…it…it was buried in there, I didn’t even know it was in there.”
“You shoved all this shit in here to make room when I moved in, right?” he asked, his voice eerily calm.
“Maybe…”
“So you had it out and available right up until I moved in.”
“I guess.”
He stared at me for a moment longer then sighed. “Fine.”
“Boyd, I’m sorry, I -“
“I said, fine,” he snapped, tossing the book aside and returning his attention to the box on his lap. Quickly I snatched it up and shoved it into one of the trash bags then started shuffling through my box again as well. Every few minutes I would steal a glance at Boyd but not once did he look up, although he obviously knew I was looking at him. Silently we finished going through the rest of the stuff, the task going much faster now that he wasn’t talking to me.
When the last scrap of paper had been tossed and the last photograph set aside Boyd stood up and stared blankly at the floor. I got to my feet and moved over to him, wrapping my arms around him and kissing his neck.
“So…about that reward,” I said hopefully, waiting for him to pull me into him like he always did. He couldn’t still be mad. Not when I kissed his neck in just the right spot, just where he liked it. Any minute now he’ll kiss me back…
But he didn’t.
“I’m going to go shower,” he said shortly, slipping out of my arms without meeting my eyes and walking off to the bedroom. I watched him go, contemplating following him but deciding against it. I knew him well enough to know when he needed space - going after him now would just piss him off. Instead I threw myself down on the sofa, flipping angrily through the channels on the TV without really seeing anything. Why had I kept that stupid fucking book? I thought. I hadn’t even looked at it since the first time I saw Boyd as anything other than a friend. The first time he kissed me I mentally erased thoughts of all other guys, so powerful was his kiss and the feelings that accompanied it. I hadn’t gone into this thing half-assed like I had with so many other people.
It killed me to have him mad at me - we had fights, sure, but seeing that deeply pained look in his eyes was much worse, especially since he tried to be so stoic and hide it. I had only seen him look at me like that a few times and each time I swore I would never again make him hurt like that…and then I went and did it again. Idiot, I thought. Fucking idiot.
I heard the water shut off in the bathroom, then a minute later the sound of the door opening and Boyd padding across the bedroom. Under the bedroom door I could see the lights go out and I stood up, walking over and pushing open the door quietly. If he heard me he didn’t acknowledge it so I crept across the room and silently climbed into bed with him, wrapping my arms around him once more and planting small kisses over his back, his shoulders, his neck, his head.
“Boyd,” I whispered. “Please, talk to me.”
“Is that why you haven’t cleaned out the closet?” he asked softly. “You didn’t really want me to move in, did you?”
“What? No! Of course not. Boyd, I want you here with me all the time, you know that.”
“Then why haven’t you made room for me in your life?” he said angrily, flipping over and flinging my arms off of him. “You moved just enough of your shit from this closet into that closet so I wouldn’t have to walk around naked. It’s been months and all my stuff is still in boxes… and not once have you mentioned it, not once have you tried to let me in.”
“I - “ I started but he cut me off.
“All those names, Brooks! You got to be with so many people, I saw their names… no wonder you don’t want to commit to this all the way. Your life was so exciting before you met me!”
“My life was horrible before I met you!” I shouted, sitting up straight and glaring down at him. “All those names, all those names…is that really your argument? Those were all stupid, meaningless flings. And you know what? You won’t find your name in there anywhere. Know why?”
“Why?” he said glumly. “Not enough space?”
“No, asshole - not only did I have your number memorized from the second you gave it to me, but I never wanted to put you at the same level as those one-night stands, those guys whose last names I never even bothered to remember.” He opened his mouth to interrupt but I kept going, propelling myself up onto my knees.
“I never threw that book out because I’m a lousy housekeeper. I didn’t clean out that closet for you because I’m a lazy, selfish bastard who hates to clean. But I’m not clinging to my past - I’m trying to move forward, with you! I’m sorry that I don’t think. I’m sorry that I don’t clean. I’m sorry that I didn’t throw that stupid book away the second I first saw you, because that’s the last time I even thought about it.”
I was out of breath by the time I finished, my voice still echoing in my head as I realized I’d been shouting. I didn’t care. He had to know, he had to understand.
“Brooksie…” he murmured, reaching up to grab my arm. “Come here.”
Reluctantly I let myself be pulled back down to the bed, Boyd’s hand guiding my body down until I was lying on top of him where he kissed me again and again. “Selfish bastard,” he murmured with a smile.
“Stubborn ass,” I replied, smiling back at him as I kissed him again, my hands reaching down to take off his shirt.
“Hey,” he said, stopping me with a smirk. “Do you think you deserve a reward after that?”
“The closet got cleaned, didn’t it? Besides,” I said with a smile, leaning in to kiss his neck., “the reward isn’t for me. It’s for you.”
“Oh. Well, then. Carry on.”
“Fucker.”
“You know you love me.”
“In too many ways to count."