Catching the sunlight, original M/M fic
Title: Catching the sunlight
Summary: Being a cop is a macho gig, and sometimes you forget that you're more similar to your colleagues than you might think.
Rating: No sex, don't think there's too much swearing. We'll go PG, there is a little swearing.
Genre: Kind of train of thought, introspection, if that doesn't sound too pretentious. It's pretty much fluff with a bit of an edge in places.
Disclaimer: These guys are all mine, would appreciate it if nobody used them without permission, as it were ;)
It was something that, on other people, never immediately jumped out at you. Something that could take you weeks to notice. You could have met the person a month ago and still not notice in all that time until the sun shone at the right angle.
And yet it was something that, when you wore it, you were always aware of.
The first time you put it on, and for the first few weeks after that, it is something strange but celebrated, glinting on your finger, catching the light every time you move, and your attention is focused on it.
After that, it’s just there. A comforting, familiar grip, and you wonder why it would be a surprise to anyone.
Most of the men in the force wear one, the inconspicuous metal band winking in the light is nothing new, and it’s just as much a part of Charlie or Joe or Chris as their uniform. So when people’s eyes are drawn to the ring on your finger, evidently for the first time, you are bemused by the surprise.
But then you remember the first time that you saw the ring on Chris’ hand, or Joe’s, or Charlie’s, and you were surprised too. Most of the men around the station are young, masculine, and for some reason, there is an immediate assumption that goes hand in hand with these traits, the assumption that these men are single.
You suppose it’s the current trend for marrying later, the now more morally acceptable position of being young, free and promiscuous, but whatever the reason, you remember being very distinctly surprised, and upon noticing that one colleague was encumbered with such a ring, upon looking around, found that the great majority were also sporting a similar adornment.
Maybe, you think sometimes, it’s something to do with the job; it would be a great lie to pretend that there was not the threat of danger. And perhaps it was a desire to hang onto the person that you think could make this work. To cement things while you still can, and you suspect that there is a little part of it that has something more to do with staking a claim than anything else.
A way of saying ‘I have something to protect, someone to go home to, a reason to leave the job behind, no matter how committed I am.’ You know that, speaking for yourself, it was a strange feeling to find something that you wanted to commit to even more than the duty and the job you love. A strange and wonderful feeling that you wanted to preserve and confirm.
You know that your ring, though, is very different to the ones worn by the other guys around the station. Not in appearance, it’s nothing flashy, just a plain gold band, almost identical to those worn by your colleagues. It’s what it represents that is different. It is the symbol of a home life that is, no matter how political correctness might dress it up, vastly different from that of your brothers in blue.
Because you’ve been to their houses. You’ve met their wives. All of them lovely couples, lovely women. But so threatening in their ordinary loveliness.
Because they were just what you would expect. You saw the rings glinting on the fingers of any of the guys and you immediately formed a picture in your mind of a wife waiting at home, and the women that you were introduced to fit into the lines of the pictures perfectly.
But not you. Not you and yours. You would be a disappointment, something different, the only one so different. A weak link in the chain.
You laugh at the thoughts. They’re not yours. Sure enough, they’re the ones you used to have, when you were about sixteen and didn’t know any better. You grew out of them a long time ago. You know that they’re bullshit. You realise that you’re different. You realise that thoughts like that are complete and utter bullshit.
You know that others have these thoughts. But you ditched them as soon as possible. You know yourself and when you look in the mirror you don’t find yourself wanting.
If people ever ask, you tell them that you’re just big enough and ugly enough to not give a damn about what anybody else thinks.
Nevertheless, when you first invite ‘the boys’ round for a barbeque, you can’t help but feel a little twinge of nerves that may have had the faintest shadow that recalled those thoughts from your early adolescence. You snort and quickly and easily discard them.
The nerves, though, cannot not be completely quelled, and you accept this as normal. These are, after all, the people that you work with. You like them. And no matter how much bullshit machismo you like to exude, you still suffer from that terrible human malady of wanting to be liked by the people around you.
But with each spike of nerves, there comes a queasy wash of guilt. Because you see his face as he gets ready to greet your colleagues, and you think that it is his beautiful face that caused you shame.
Sometimes, in your weakest moments, you imagine that it might have been easier if his face was not beautiful; not quite so smooth and round, not quite so youthful, not quite so...pretty. And perhaps if his body, his body that you worshipped, that you would do anything to protect, but perhaps if it were a little less delicate - maybe...
And these are the thoughts of which you are most ashamed. And these are the thoughts that flashed, razor sharp through your mind in the split second before the doorbell rang.
Because these guys are your colleagues, your brothers, and you love them like family, but you know what they are. You know they’re all jocks. Just because they grew up, got jobs, wives, a place of their own - it didn’t change the deeply ingrained macho bullshit that came with the territory. It didn’t change the fact that these guys had probably had the same inherent contempt for anything different that jock types always have. It didn’t change the fact that they were probably the guys that had spent most of their high school days harassing the nerds, the geeks, the fags. It didn’t change the fact that these are the guys that would say that they just don’t get it.
You know them. You know the type. And as you look across the room, you see his face. He knows the type too. He was the nerd, the geek, the fag.
And so in your lowest moments you imagine that it might have been easier - more understandable to these hyper-masculine guys - if you had chosen to be with someone who was a little more...manly. There is nothing effeminate about him. Nothing loud, nothing showy, nothing camp. But he’s...quiet. Kind of bookish. Sensitive.
He doesn’t like, or understand sports; hell, he barely even knows what an off-side rule is. He doesn’t have any desire to understand. He doesn’t care about flashy cars or lifting weights, or any of the typical entertainments that would have given him any small shred of common interest with your friends. He is, in some ways, your total opposite.
And you suddenly notice how very much you have in common with your work-mates. How very noticeably different he is from you, and from the people you spend your days with. It’s even there in a physical manifestation, which hit you suddenly with startling alacrity as you saw him walking to the door; you and all your colleagues are tall, muscular. Big. He is small - his head reaches to the top of your chest, his body is slim, with only the lithest of musculature.
And for one moment you think that maybe, just maybe, these guys would be more understanding of your deviance if you had at least chosen a man like you. Like them.
Not your finest hour. Stress always did make you into a bit of a dick.
Before you can think any other thoughts that would later make you choke with shame, the door has been opened, and you hear the cacophony of deep, cheerful voices of a large number of your co-workers crowding into your home and around your partner. Your very private, very male partner.
You take leave from your prodding of the burgers sizzling on the grill, and you walk through the patio doors to observe. You feel a faint guilt about not swooping in to rescue your lover right away, but it’s important to you to see how your friends and your partner get on without you as a buffer.
Your friends orbit around him like satellites - they regard him as one would a foreign plaything; he is new and exotic, strange and somehow enticing. They can’t seem to keep their eyes away from him. They shake hands and ask all the normal questions with a probing edge, as if hoping to catch him out.
Or perhaps figure him out, would be more accurate, as this seems to be what they are trying to do; figure out who he is, exactly what his place is here, in your house, in your kitchen, your garden, where he seems to be very comfortable and familiar.
Because you never actually warned them. You never told them outright. All you said was, “Come over to my place on Sunday, meet my partner.”
You’re not stupid enough to not notice the whispers doing the rounds about you. You’re quiet about your private life to the extent of wariness. You are always alone when you all go out for drinks after work. You never mention a girlfriend. There is a picture in your wallet, but nobody has ever seen it close enough to really make it out.
And so those simple words, thrown over your shoulder at the end of a long workday, made ears prick up all over the station. You walked out after dropping that silent bombshell, but you weren’t oblivious to the ripples it caused.
And so now, you watch as your partner fields their inquisitive gazes and studiously casual questions with a warm, knowing grace. But he is unable to completely hide the intimidated flicker of his eyes, the slightly defensive hunch of the shoulders whenever the big, lumbering idiots get a little too close, a little too loud.
You grin a little, unable to help it, because this boisterousness, this roughness, is the roughness of oversized men-children, and it’s who they are, and it’s how they are. It’s how they are when they are at ease, when they are happy, when they like the company. They like him. They like you. They still like you.
You look over into your partner’s face, and the slightly uncertain, but ever-game smile makes something inside you weaken a little.
Because he’s trying really hard. He’s almost certain that your colleagues mean well with their roughhousing, when they loosen up enough to realise the great potential your garden has for holding impromptu football matches and wrestling tournaments. He’s almost certain that they are being friendly when they invite him to join, but...there’s still that glimmer in the eye, that lightning quick and almost-not-there glance towards you, because he’s not like them. He was never like them. His only experience of people like them - barring you - were the jerks at high school, who only ever would have invited him to join their game as a cruel joke, as an opportunity to point out how skinny he was, how inadequate he was, how different he was.
You know he’s never quite shaken off the saturating insecurities of his school days. But he’s trying so hard to like these people, to make sure that they like him, he’s trying for you.
You want to go over there and slip an unobtrusive arm around his waist, murmur in his ear that he doesn’t have to try so hard, because they already like him, you already more than like him, and if he would loosen up enough, he would really like them.
But before you can make your mind up, there is a blur of movement and muscle from your right, and you gather breath to call out a warning, a rebuke, something...
But instead of the sound of a 260 pound mountain of ex-footballer, current-cop crushing a light-weight deer-in-the-headlights, there is only the sound of a small squawk of alarm, followed by a deep rumble of laughter as, at the last minute, with masterful control, your buddy glides past your partner, gently swooping him up into a full-body lift as he goes, then setting him down on the ground after a round of applause from the men currently rooting around in the beer cooler.
After setting your partner down - apparently satisfied with his human touch-down - your co-worker ruffles his hair before wandering off to bawl at your other colleagues to move their fat asses out of the way and let him grab a beer.
Your partner stands, staring into nothing, chest heaving in and out from the sheer shock. Eventually, he seems to notice your eyes on him, and he looks round at you, and quirks that little half smile again, all uncertain happiness and questioning gaze.
You laugh quietly but definitely audibly this time, and you can’t help yourself, but you don’t think you really need to, as you cross over to him, hook your arm around his slender waist and press your lips quickly, gently to his.
Summary: Being a cop is a macho gig, and sometimes you forget that you're more similar to your colleagues than you might think.
Rating: No sex, don't think there's too much swearing. We'll go PG, there is a little swearing.
Genre: Kind of train of thought, introspection, if that doesn't sound too pretentious. It's pretty much fluff with a bit of an edge in places.
Disclaimer: These guys are all mine, would appreciate it if nobody used them without permission, as it were ;)
It was something that, on other people, never immediately jumped out at you. Something that could take you weeks to notice. You could have met the person a month ago and still not notice in all that time until the sun shone at the right angle.
And yet it was something that, when you wore it, you were always aware of.
The first time you put it on, and for the first few weeks after that, it is something strange but celebrated, glinting on your finger, catching the light every time you move, and your attention is focused on it.
After that, it’s just there. A comforting, familiar grip, and you wonder why it would be a surprise to anyone.
Most of the men in the force wear one, the inconspicuous metal band winking in the light is nothing new, and it’s just as much a part of Charlie or Joe or Chris as their uniform. So when people’s eyes are drawn to the ring on your finger, evidently for the first time, you are bemused by the surprise.
But then you remember the first time that you saw the ring on Chris’ hand, or Joe’s, or Charlie’s, and you were surprised too. Most of the men around the station are young, masculine, and for some reason, there is an immediate assumption that goes hand in hand with these traits, the assumption that these men are single.
You suppose it’s the current trend for marrying later, the now more morally acceptable position of being young, free and promiscuous, but whatever the reason, you remember being very distinctly surprised, and upon noticing that one colleague was encumbered with such a ring, upon looking around, found that the great majority were also sporting a similar adornment.
Maybe, you think sometimes, it’s something to do with the job; it would be a great lie to pretend that there was not the threat of danger. And perhaps it was a desire to hang onto the person that you think could make this work. To cement things while you still can, and you suspect that there is a little part of it that has something more to do with staking a claim than anything else.
A way of saying ‘I have something to protect, someone to go home to, a reason to leave the job behind, no matter how committed I am.’ You know that, speaking for yourself, it was a strange feeling to find something that you wanted to commit to even more than the duty and the job you love. A strange and wonderful feeling that you wanted to preserve and confirm.
You know that your ring, though, is very different to the ones worn by the other guys around the station. Not in appearance, it’s nothing flashy, just a plain gold band, almost identical to those worn by your colleagues. It’s what it represents that is different. It is the symbol of a home life that is, no matter how political correctness might dress it up, vastly different from that of your brothers in blue.
Because you’ve been to their houses. You’ve met their wives. All of them lovely couples, lovely women. But so threatening in their ordinary loveliness.
Because they were just what you would expect. You saw the rings glinting on the fingers of any of the guys and you immediately formed a picture in your mind of a wife waiting at home, and the women that you were introduced to fit into the lines of the pictures perfectly.
But not you. Not you and yours. You would be a disappointment, something different, the only one so different. A weak link in the chain.
You laugh at the thoughts. They’re not yours. Sure enough, they’re the ones you used to have, when you were about sixteen and didn’t know any better. You grew out of them a long time ago. You know that they’re bullshit. You realise that you’re different. You realise that thoughts like that are complete and utter bullshit.
You know that others have these thoughts. But you ditched them as soon as possible. You know yourself and when you look in the mirror you don’t find yourself wanting.
If people ever ask, you tell them that you’re just big enough and ugly enough to not give a damn about what anybody else thinks.
Nevertheless, when you first invite ‘the boys’ round for a barbeque, you can’t help but feel a little twinge of nerves that may have had the faintest shadow that recalled those thoughts from your early adolescence. You snort and quickly and easily discard them.
The nerves, though, cannot not be completely quelled, and you accept this as normal. These are, after all, the people that you work with. You like them. And no matter how much bullshit machismo you like to exude, you still suffer from that terrible human malady of wanting to be liked by the people around you.
But with each spike of nerves, there comes a queasy wash of guilt. Because you see his face as he gets ready to greet your colleagues, and you think that it is his beautiful face that caused you shame.
Sometimes, in your weakest moments, you imagine that it might have been easier if his face was not beautiful; not quite so smooth and round, not quite so youthful, not quite so...pretty. And perhaps if his body, his body that you worshipped, that you would do anything to protect, but perhaps if it were a little less delicate - maybe...
And these are the thoughts of which you are most ashamed. And these are the thoughts that flashed, razor sharp through your mind in the split second before the doorbell rang.
Because these guys are your colleagues, your brothers, and you love them like family, but you know what they are. You know they’re all jocks. Just because they grew up, got jobs, wives, a place of their own - it didn’t change the deeply ingrained macho bullshit that came with the territory. It didn’t change the fact that these guys had probably had the same inherent contempt for anything different that jock types always have. It didn’t change the fact that they were probably the guys that had spent most of their high school days harassing the nerds, the geeks, the fags. It didn’t change the fact that these are the guys that would say that they just don’t get it.
You know them. You know the type. And as you look across the room, you see his face. He knows the type too. He was the nerd, the geek, the fag.
And so in your lowest moments you imagine that it might have been easier - more understandable to these hyper-masculine guys - if you had chosen to be with someone who was a little more...manly. There is nothing effeminate about him. Nothing loud, nothing showy, nothing camp. But he’s...quiet. Kind of bookish. Sensitive.
He doesn’t like, or understand sports; hell, he barely even knows what an off-side rule is. He doesn’t have any desire to understand. He doesn’t care about flashy cars or lifting weights, or any of the typical entertainments that would have given him any small shred of common interest with your friends. He is, in some ways, your total opposite.
And you suddenly notice how very much you have in common with your work-mates. How very noticeably different he is from you, and from the people you spend your days with. It’s even there in a physical manifestation, which hit you suddenly with startling alacrity as you saw him walking to the door; you and all your colleagues are tall, muscular. Big. He is small - his head reaches to the top of your chest, his body is slim, with only the lithest of musculature.
And for one moment you think that maybe, just maybe, these guys would be more understanding of your deviance if you had at least chosen a man like you. Like them.
Not your finest hour. Stress always did make you into a bit of a dick.
Before you can think any other thoughts that would later make you choke with shame, the door has been opened, and you hear the cacophony of deep, cheerful voices of a large number of your co-workers crowding into your home and around your partner. Your very private, very male partner.
You take leave from your prodding of the burgers sizzling on the grill, and you walk through the patio doors to observe. You feel a faint guilt about not swooping in to rescue your lover right away, but it’s important to you to see how your friends and your partner get on without you as a buffer.
Your friends orbit around him like satellites - they regard him as one would a foreign plaything; he is new and exotic, strange and somehow enticing. They can’t seem to keep their eyes away from him. They shake hands and ask all the normal questions with a probing edge, as if hoping to catch him out.
Or perhaps figure him out, would be more accurate, as this seems to be what they are trying to do; figure out who he is, exactly what his place is here, in your house, in your kitchen, your garden, where he seems to be very comfortable and familiar.
Because you never actually warned them. You never told them outright. All you said was, “Come over to my place on Sunday, meet my partner.”
You’re not stupid enough to not notice the whispers doing the rounds about you. You’re quiet about your private life to the extent of wariness. You are always alone when you all go out for drinks after work. You never mention a girlfriend. There is a picture in your wallet, but nobody has ever seen it close enough to really make it out.
And so those simple words, thrown over your shoulder at the end of a long workday, made ears prick up all over the station. You walked out after dropping that silent bombshell, but you weren’t oblivious to the ripples it caused.
And so now, you watch as your partner fields their inquisitive gazes and studiously casual questions with a warm, knowing grace. But he is unable to completely hide the intimidated flicker of his eyes, the slightly defensive hunch of the shoulders whenever the big, lumbering idiots get a little too close, a little too loud.
You grin a little, unable to help it, because this boisterousness, this roughness, is the roughness of oversized men-children, and it’s who they are, and it’s how they are. It’s how they are when they are at ease, when they are happy, when they like the company. They like him. They like you. They still like you.
You look over into your partner’s face, and the slightly uncertain, but ever-game smile makes something inside you weaken a little.
Because he’s trying really hard. He’s almost certain that your colleagues mean well with their roughhousing, when they loosen up enough to realise the great potential your garden has for holding impromptu football matches and wrestling tournaments. He’s almost certain that they are being friendly when they invite him to join, but...there’s still that glimmer in the eye, that lightning quick and almost-not-there glance towards you, because he’s not like them. He was never like them. His only experience of people like them - barring you - were the jerks at high school, who only ever would have invited him to join their game as a cruel joke, as an opportunity to point out how skinny he was, how inadequate he was, how different he was.
You know he’s never quite shaken off the saturating insecurities of his school days. But he’s trying so hard to like these people, to make sure that they like him, he’s trying for you.
You want to go over there and slip an unobtrusive arm around his waist, murmur in his ear that he doesn’t have to try so hard, because they already like him, you already more than like him, and if he would loosen up enough, he would really like them.
But before you can make your mind up, there is a blur of movement and muscle from your right, and you gather breath to call out a warning, a rebuke, something...
But instead of the sound of a 260 pound mountain of ex-footballer, current-cop crushing a light-weight deer-in-the-headlights, there is only the sound of a small squawk of alarm, followed by a deep rumble of laughter as, at the last minute, with masterful control, your buddy glides past your partner, gently swooping him up into a full-body lift as he goes, then setting him down on the ground after a round of applause from the men currently rooting around in the beer cooler.
After setting your partner down - apparently satisfied with his human touch-down - your co-worker ruffles his hair before wandering off to bawl at your other colleagues to move their fat asses out of the way and let him grab a beer.
Your partner stands, staring into nothing, chest heaving in and out from the sheer shock. Eventually, he seems to notice your eyes on him, and he looks round at you, and quirks that little half smile again, all uncertain happiness and questioning gaze.
You laugh quietly but definitely audibly this time, and you can’t help yourself, but you don’t think you really need to, as you cross over to him, hook your arm around his slender waist and press your lips quickly, gently to his.