(no subject)

[ayaerhis]

Never Bloom Again
Original fiction
Rating: PG
Word Count: About 3100 give or take
Summary: Dmitri doesn't know quite what to do with himself and muses back on the years that brought him to where he is, along with all the torment that paved the way.



Dmitri sat on the stoop of Traian’s apartment, alone, waiting. He was shielded from the cold winter wind by the walls surrounding the walk-up, but that still didn’t change the fact that he was freezing. He had given his copy of the key back to its current occupant about a year ago when he had finally worked up the gumption-and the shame-to move into a place of his own, thus his reason for sitting outside the ideally much warmer interior of the building. The cigarette between his fingers trembled feebly as he shivered.

He took a drag off of the thin roll of burning clove and let it coil in the bottom of his lungs before he exhaled the thick cloud of white smoke, enjoying the smoky sting in his chest as a distraction from the sting of frigid air. As he watched the tendrils diffuse into the air, he knew what Traian would say to him if he saw his little pity-party on the steps. Something along the sarcastic lines of ‘stupid wind player; you need your lungs,’ and then steal the cigarette from him and take a drag off of it himself before deliberately not giving it back.

The whole idea made Dmitri warm inside. He’d known the younger man for nearly fifteen years. At some point in the last ten, he’d miraculously inherited the ability to predict most of his actions with stunning accuracy. Of course, this would have happened after their quasi-romantic relationship had come to a firm and complete halt. That comfortable feeling of warmth from before disappeared in an instant and the winter wind reclaimed its chilling hold on him.

It wasn’t that Dmitri was a closet case. He considered himself straight and had bedded enough women to know that he very much enjoyed it.

Traian was just… special.

The Gypsy was like fire, almost too hot to hold on to but too bright to leave unexamined. Dmitri knew that this attracted him. Like a child playing with matches and nearly burning their fingers every time, trying to see how long they could go before releasing it. Never had he found anyone else so challenging, so fierce or passionate in all aspects of life. It was like being buffeted by a storm from all sides.

Dmitri took one final drag off of his cigarette and crushed it out on the step before lighting another one. It seemed to help with the cold that was slowly seeping into him by giving him a mild nicotine fix and numbing the soreness of his throat.

The two of them had never been much more than close friends, with a few benefits here and there, scratching an itch as it were. Traian seemed content to keep it that way.

It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, and it didn’t matter again…

He’d keep repeating it to himself. It had been his personal mantra for the last several years.

He buried a hand in his hair under his cap, pulling at it agitatedly but not hard enough to rip it out. It was just that there were times that he cursed that he was human. The part of him that acted so much on his most personal emotions, the ones that he never wanted anyone, even himself, to know he had.

As loath as he was to admit it, the sex did mean something, and it hurt to know that. Truth be told, there had always been a part of him that felt the cold stab of jealousy whenever he saw Traian with another lover, and fiercely protective whenever the younger man had his heart broken by the lover in question.

And on those nights that they sought each other, after Traian had fallen asleep, Dmitri would curl up behind him and hold him close. He always convinced himself that it was just because there was another warm body there, and not that it was because the Gypsy smelled like a forest after a storm as wild as his breed, or how smooth his skin felt under his fingertips, or the way his long, unbound hair splayed on the pillow in such a way as to make him look like some dark angel…

He loved him too much to ever see him unhappy, and that really was the most tragic part. Over the years, he’d met and parted with people who were in love with someone else from afar, or in some sort of unrequited relationship, but he’d never in all his time thought he’d become one of them. Loving someone so much that it doesn’t quite make sense, in a way that leaves confusion and chaos in its wake, making madness seem like a suitable alternative to the pained musings that kept him every occasional night.

He chuckled quietly to himself and readjusted the hat he was wearing to release the fringe of his white-blonde hair.

Dmitri was physically a mirror opposite to Traian in every way. Much taller, by almost thirty centimeters; pale skinned in contrast to the tea-with-milk complexion that Traian always sported, tanned or not; straight, flaxen hair, blue eyes; simply put, more European. Dmitri thought it ironic that he had been born in Germany, raised in England and then moved to Russia, then continue to live in the country of his name’s origin. It had actually been Traian who’d remarked that to him. He hadn’t even thought about it.

That was the way it’d always been between them, ever since they’d met.

It had been the first day of the term at Juilliard, and there stood a very confused, but unfrightened seventeen-year-old Traian in the foyer of the instrumental music building. He didn’t speak a lick of English at the time, and so kept repeating the same phrase, ‘could you tell me where…’ in as many languages as he could. Five, give or take.

Dmitri had almost been one of the many that simply walked by him in the frenzy of not wanting to be late that when Traian grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket and said in surprisingly clear German the exact same set of words that he’d been spouting for the last ten minutes, Dmitri had been taken aback. Not only at his forwardness, but also by how beautiful he was for a boy. Only after Traian had repeated his request in two more languages did he regain the presence of mind to respond.

Immediately, Traian released him and grabbed what then looked like a very shabby cello case and raced up the stairs to his destination without so much as a word.

Dmitri had been scared out of his wits at the inexplicable, and rather sudden, attraction he felt for the newly apparent youth with his verdant eyes and fierce gaze.

Traian hunted him down later to thank him and apologize for his brusqueness. He’d introduced himself with a smile that still made Dmitri’s heart trip over itself. He invited the younger man out to lunch, since neither of them had class for the rest of the afternoon, and ended up giving Traian his first English lesson. What he didn’t admit to himself at the time was how terrified of how this could turn out. Pride did indeed cover a multitude of sins.

It was on that day that Dmitri learned most of the essential parts of his soon-to-be inseparable companion, such as his country of origin - Spain - why he knew so many languages - caravan life-style - and how he’d gotten started with music. Really, once Dmitri’d gotten him started, there was no shutting the boy up.

For some reason, he really didn’t mind.

Those striking eyes that pierced all layers of a person along with that quasi-Roma-Castilian accent gave him an unparalleled air of exoticism in their class, and his raw charisma, too. It was little surprise that many of their classmates held him in high demand.

Despite all the attention, though, the young Gypsy never chose anyone to stand beside him. He even began to isolate himself when he was particularly irritated. Traian told him that these people weren’t like what he was used to, and was fond of very few of them. Dmitri found his behavior to be very paradoxical since the boy had been so open with him.

Some people connected his self-isolationistic tendencies to his unrefined and unexpected talent, which if they actually spent time with the boy would find to be completely untrue. Traian simply didn’t know how to talk to people. Most of the time he ended up either making their peers think he was a complete idiot or right out insane. Both of which could be true after a fashion. But this didn’t stop Dmitri admiring how there was not one phrase Traian would speak without the utmost conviction and meaning, even if he did slaughter English grammar in the process.

And then the tables shifted again.

Term recitals: the point of the year that most students dreaded. The first time he’d heard Traian play, and he was well beyond what Dmitri could ever have imagined for a first year student, even for Juilliard. Dmitri was twenty-three, six years older than Traian, and the only way he’d made it into the school was by a great deal of very hard work before he’d even tried applying, which took him two years to finally get through. And here was this seventeen-year-old child, just sitting there and pouring gold out of his soul and into the ears of his audience. He wouldn’t even come of age until the summer, and he already outshone the rest of his peers by unrefined talent alone.

In some small way, Dmitri hated him for this, but admired him just the same. He threw his own little temper-tantrum far, far away from the school and the young cellist.

During their third year Traian opened up significantly, being in much greater command of the English language, and became a wealth of wit and intelligence. He made friends readily, or as readily as he possibly could. By the standards of most, he was still very reclusive. Time passed and he began to show some of his old habits of isolation, this time taking on a shade of moodiness that hadn’t been there before. It seemed to Dmitri as though Traian was searching for something, but wasn’t quite sure where to start, or even what it was he was looking for exactly. That December was the month when the guests stopped coming to their shared door and the winter Traian grew quiet.

The balmy summer night Traian turned twenty-one, he disappeared. Dmitri spent very little time searching for him, knowing that he would turn up when he chose to, and assured himself that Traian was more than capable of handling any trouble if it chose to find him. Besides, he was a Gypsy after all; he wandered. He kept telling himself that for the rest of the night. It didn’t help.

When he showed up in the small hours of the following morning, all in one piece and as somber as he’d been the evening before, Dmitri found himself angry. He didn’t know why he was so upset, but he knew that he was displeased. Probably because Traian had failed to tell him where he was going, and possibly because he’d conned himself into thinking he wasn’t really as afraid as he had been. The younger man just didn’t do things like this.

Traian allowed him to lie out all his displeasure at the younger man’s actions, all the while solemnly looking Dmitri in the eye. When he was done, Dmitri turned on his heel and flopped down on the sofa, exhausted from the night’s tension and the lecture he’d just given. After all that, he’d expected Traian to go and sulk in the privacy of his own room, leaving him to nurse a growing headache in peace. What he didn’t expect was the young man to sit down next to him.

It was a tentative connection, as though looking for approval. Dmitri thought this was very un-Traian-like, and so looked over at the dark head just below his. The still-short curls framed the Gypsy’s face, and his green eyes stood out like little wet emeralds in his tanned face. It wasn’t the calculatedly blank expression on his face so much as the defensive body language that caught Dmitri’s attention, hunched over with an arm across his middle, head bent and turned ever so slightly to the side.

“My parents are dead.”

It was so simple, the way he said those four words. So simple that it hit Dmitri in the chest so hard that he forgot to breathe for the few seconds that that charged silence lasted.

When he finally remembered to inhale, he was speechless.

There was no apology he could give, no words to soothe the grieving heart. He sat there gaping for a moment, a tentative hand on the Traian’s shoulder turning into a supportive embrace. It wasn’t long before he felt his shoulder grow wet and the body in his arms begin to tremble silently. He held him for a very long time.

Dmitri stuck Traian on a plane to Córdoba the next morning with taxis arranged to take him all the way to the south of Carmona. He made damn sure that he made it there, too. He would never forget that night when Traian cried himself to sleep, nor would he forget the following week during which time he hardly spoke more than two words at a time.

When he returned, Traian stepped quietly through the door holding the small suitcase that he’d taken with him, and a single addition to his luggage: a battered old guitar case, which at the time Dmitri could have guessed held just about anything.

When he finally got Traian to speak again, he told him that they had burned the bodies and scattered the ashes. The story went that they had been inquiring a place to camp for the night when the old owner of the farmland had come out with a gun and a handful of fascism to throw in their faces. They hadn’t left his sight fast enough for his pleasure, apparently.

It reminded Dmitri just where his best friend had come from, and how much safer he was in this little cradle of artistic status that his talent had awarded him.

Inside the case was a guitar that belied its protective shell, beautiful and well loved by his father. It held secrets and lore, or at least that was the feeling that Dmitri got while staring at the ornate instrument, its old steel strings flying off in all directions at the headpiece. Traian strummed it once and let the chord linger in the air, then put it away and leaned it against the wall in his room. He sat on the bed and stared at it for a very long time. Dmitri left him very quietly.

For a while, he, too, sat with his head in his hands and just thought. He started going through the mail that’d accumulated while Traian’d been gone, and came across one envelope from an address in Russia. One of the royal ballets there had sent the cellist an invitation, as many had this summer since their graduation, to audition for a seat in the orchestra in St. Petersburg. It was so far away…

But maybe distance was what he needed after this. Dmitri recalled that Traian had been planning on returning home a little later in the summer, and now that this… tragedy had happened, there was nothing for it. He flicked the envelope back down on the coffee table from whence it’d come and leaned back on the sofa.

It pained him just as much to see the man who’d become his best friend in such agony. To not be able to really do anything about it, to meekly watch as Traian tore himself apart with grief and the thought of what might’ve happened had he just gone home at the beginning of the summer and not at the end.

Before long, Dmitri’s musings had been interrupted by the gentle touch of a hand upon his head and another that had snaked its way around his shoulder to sit just below his clavicle. The hand that had stroked his hair moved to join its mate and the embrace tightened, Traian’s head resting parallel to his. At that point, Dmitri could still feel the shadow of his fingers on his scalp when Traian’s teeth just barely grazed his throat.

“Traian,” he’d said in warning, not really wanting to get into this. Mainly because he didn’t know how far it would go, or how far he’d let it. The initial attraction he’d felt for the young man hadn’t really diminished all that much in the time they’d spent together.

When he released him, Dmitri thought that he’d taken his deflection seriously, but all he did was walk around the sofa and sit down with him, drawing his face into his hands. Traian looked at Dmitri anywhere but in the eyes for a moment and leaned in to kiss him.

Despite the fact that he was indeed enjoying himself, strangely enough, Dmitri broke the connection. This was the last thing Traian needed. It was impulsive, and it was a decision that would in all likeliness breed regret in the morning.

And then the plea came. That single word “Please,” did him in, the voice that formed it heavy with grief, conveying the desire to forget anything, everything, if only for a brief moment. Dmitri ceased trying to deny him, and soon he, too, forgot everything in the tangled limbs and loose clothing that fell to the floor in muted whispers.

He knew that there would be regrets, anger, resentment… Wanting and having are, after all, two completely different animals.

They didn’t talk to each other much for a few days after that, and Dmitri handed Traian the invitation to St. Petersburg. It was a wordless command that spoke volumes all on its own. It would be best for the both of them, and Traian agreed.

Almost a year to the day after Traian left, Dmitri received an invitation of his own from the same company that had recruited the cellist. For a while, it sat on the bottom of the small stack of other invites he’d had in the last month, waiting to be opened. He almost managed to avoid it altogether until a call from the devil in question convinced him that he should take the position.

There had been nothing left for him in England. His cluttered apartment made testament to that.

Dmitri had no one to impress, and so made no effort to keep up appearances. He saw people pass him by on the street, hand in hand, happy to exist and to be together…

Dmitri sent out a recording of his playing to St. Petersburg the next day and was approved within the month.

And here he’d stayed.

And then Traian walked up the steps, saw him, smiled, stole his cigarette and opened the door to his apartment. Somehow, just this was enough. It wouldn’t last forever, but it was enough.

-0-

This is a story I wrote for a writing class I'm taking online. It's part of a much longer arc that I'm working on, but since I'm a slow writer, this is all you get. Don't worry, it can be read just fine as a stand-alone. Feedback is most welcome, though.

I made a stew today!

It's beautiful and delicious and wonderful and I made it all by me onesy! I'm so proud of myself I could shit rainbows. I've only ever made them with my mummy before, so I'm very pleased about the way it turned out.

Cheers! And happy Valentines. If you have one, at least.