Cloud no. 9
1) All fills for prompts of the earlier prompt posts go in the post the prompt was posted in. No re-posting or splitting up prompts and fills.
2) Self-prompt when you post unprompted fic. (This means posting what the fill is about in a first comment, like a real prompt, and commenting on that with your fill.)
3) Try not to get too srs business. ( Read more... )
Ed starts crying again then, wretched broken sobs that make David feel useless and uncomfortable.
“It’s not so bad,” David says, putting his hand to Ed’s shoulder, gaze taking in the crumpled newsprint on the floor, yet another headline proclaiming Ed to be a national joke, nothing but a waste of oxygen. Ed simply cries harder and David freezes, tense and awkward, when Ed clings to him, tears soaking through his shirt material.
David realises, startled, that he can’t remember the last time he was alone in a room with Ed, just the two of them. He strokes at Ed’s back, experimentally, and Ed blinks up at him, bewildered.
“I wanted to hurt you,” David says, without meaning to. “But I didn’t want you to hurt like this.” He runs his hands over his face, agitated. “I’m not making any sense, am I?”
Ed is staring at him, oddly, and David can’t stop thinking about the way Ed had used to look at him in the gloom of their bedroom when he was back for holidays, like he was the only important thing in Ed’s world, at least in that moment.
“I’d have let you,” Ed whispers, because he understands him better than David understands himself. “I’d have done anything.”
Ed’s always had the same effect on him, to rob him of his good sense and reason. He wants to comfort Ed even as he wants to argue with him, to blame him for this entire situation. Ed always has to be the martyr, refuses to stand up and defend himself. Ed breaks through his thoughts then, shocks him into giving him his full attention,
“You could hurt me now, if you wanted to.”
The worst is that he considers it, for long tense moments he sits there and thinks about what it would be like, to pin Ed down and make him cry still harder. And then it’s like something is snapping inside him, forcing him back to reality, and Ed is his little brother and he can hear his father’s voice as he placed Ed in his arms for the first time, telling him how lucky he was to have been brought a best friend for Christmas.
He cries with Ed then, for his parents, and himself, and all the wasted years where he and Ed have walked on a knife edge, too afraid to tell the truth lest it destroy both of them. They’re still awake, wrapped around each other, when the sun comes up and Ed’s voice is hoarse when he asks,
“Do you think things will be different now, David?”
He doesn’t know, truthfully, so he looks past Ed, out of the window, and says,
“I hope so.”
Reply
Reply
I loved it.
Reply
Reply
This line near broke my heart. It was beautiful. Thankyou, authoranon.
Reply
Reply
Reply
No lie, I whimpered.
Excellent fill anon!
Reply
Leave a comment