Good as good Goes
Title: It was good, good Love
Characters: Kris Letang/Tyler Kennedy.
Rating: G.
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
A/N: Was supposed to be a Whitney/Orpik fic, but it morphed into this instead. Future fic, set about three years from now.
“So, it’s over, huh?”
It was now, wasn’t it? An end of an era some would say, wouldn’t they? You don’t go through the things that you guys went through just to have it end with that one word. There should have been some sort of bloodshed; you thought for sure people would have died. In your version the world would have come to a crashing end. Your epic doesn’t just end after three years of torture, pain and devastation with just one conversation. It can’t, yet here you are walking away still standing. You’re walking away to another life that’s not even familiar, in fact it’s so far beyond anything you’ve thought about that you’re not even sure if you’re awake right now.
You somehow think of the irony of this situation, because you just don’t let someone go. You don’t just let your whole world go without a pause, a pause to think, to reflect how it had been, how it might have been if the two of you could have just given each other an inch. But inches turned into miles and somehow the river turned into an ocean and maybe in the end you weren’t strong enough to swim across.
You’re sorry, you’re sorry that you didn’t fight harder, but you did fight and sometimes, when you’re by yourself you think it’s all his fault, but it hurts to think that too because in the end, all you wanted to do was love him. And anger just seems futile, because regret is what you’re carrying now and life’s too short, you think, and you finally understand, that life’s too short to not be happy. And if you couldn’t do anything else in this life, you’re damn well determined to be happy.
He looks calm, almost resigned, like he saw it coming almost as much as you did. That now, this time it really was over. The two of you fought and loved and tortured each other until there wasn’t much left of a relationship and now you wonder if maybe love really does end. No, no you don’t believe that. Love doesn’t end, real love, stories that were built on that kind of love does not end and you stilllove this man with everything in your body.
You remember how it was to love a person like Tyler and you hope that someone out there will get to love him the way that you loved him. You hope that one day, you hope soon, that he’ll let someone love him back the way he deserves, the way you couldn’t. You still love him, you just don’t need him the way you did. The way it was before. The way you thought you wouldn’t be able to breathe if you weren’t around him.
You look at him now, really look at him and still think he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. He was like coming up for fresh air and somehow loving him is better than anything you could describe.
It’s Christmas with all the presents under the trees your own, it’s realizing the moment when you’re completely without strings happy and you don’t have a reason to doubt.
You wonder how this was so much easier than you thought it’d be, but then you know it’s not going to be easy during the night when you try to reach for him, or when you call his number because you need to hear his voice. Somehow, in some really nice, normal way, you’re pretty lucky. You’re lucky that you loved him, you’re lucky that he loved you back. You’re probably the luckiest guy in the world. You just haven’t figured out why yet.
You know that people think you are screwed up for leaving this team. But you need to do this, you’ve touched the other side of the world and you saw a way out from the past. Now you’re taking it, you’re walking quickly to that way out. Suddenly though, you have to let what you know go. But letting go was much harder than it looked. Letting go was putting away the pain and walking forward. You would run, but then you’d be sorry for not saying goodbye.
“I’m sorry,” you began, holding out your hand and taking a step closer. He puts out a hand to stop you, and feeling stupid you put your outreached hand on your bag. That’s when you realize that you’re out in the open. People can see you ending your relationship. People, all these people that have no idea what the two of you mean to each other. People whose lives do not revolve around ice and cold, and regrets and the way his skin tastes. Normal never sounded so horrible you think.
He looks like he wants to cry, and you think you might too if he starts. You look around, people are laughing, and they’re smiling. They are happy and you’re here tearing yourself away from your best friend. He doesn’t know that, he’s never really ever known how important he was to you. But you guess that now, even people you think are always going to have some part in your life get shifted around.
“I’m sorry too,” he smiles slightly, like he knows that this hurts more than breaking your arm or leg or any other physical injury you’ve ever had. His eyes are sad and you’re pretty sure your eyes are sad too, but this is the time that you need to be strong for him, like he always was for you. “You know, for being a bad boyfriend.” he laughs softly, casting his eyes to the ground.
You laugh a little because it hurts now. You laugh because he wasn’t a bad boyfriend. He was actually pretty great at being your boyfriend, but he just hadn’t figured out a place for you. This time you reach for his hand, and this time he lets you take it as he says. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
And he smiles some then, because he knows that your story isn’t really ending. You'll find your way back to each other, he would marry someone. You’d probably marry the first girl that seemed decent enough. Or maybe, on some really crazy day the two of you would fall in love again and that time, you wouldn’t screw it up. Or maybe you would just end up being the friends that you could have been if Luc hadn’t died.
But you don’t want to think about that right now, you need to find a way without him. You need to know that someone somewhere was out there and worth fighting for. You feel better than you have in three years. Finally, the pain of losing Luc was really gone, and you really were ok. And you’re sure on some really crazy level Luc was smiling. Tyler was the love of your life and he deserved a good spot in your heart. You’re gonna die someday, you think, maybe today wouldn’t be such a bad day and then you laugh, because you know, your story wasn’t ending either.
Not really.