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... )
Tony holds it together better than Gordon does but leadership still sandpapers away at his humanity until he can no longer see beyond himself. And Gordon makes the cruelty so easy to return.
When the break up happens, it's not devastating in the least - it's been ten years in the making.
**
The feeling lingers, though, and it's uncomfortable, just a guilty weight on his heart, until neither of them holds the position that ended up tearing them apart. Tony sees Gordon improved by loss of power, and they talk in private and Gordon's smile is genuine, and for the first time in years the feeling resurfaces, overwhelming and overpowering.
"I'm sorry," Tony says as he pulls away from the kiss, avoiding looking at Gordon. "I'm not sure why I did that. But I.."
It's so obvious, he still can't see beyond himself, his own needs. But Gordon pulls him back, wordlessly, and Tony thinks maybe this is finally the time that they're mature enough to face up to the feeling, free enough and brave enough to take it into account for all its dangers.
And for that, the second kiss is better than the first.
**
In the dark of the hotel room, Tony is pretty sure Gordon is asleep, but is too tired to turn around and look. Their wives know about these nights, and accept them, accept the need and the gratification that goes along with them. What some would classify as cheating, Cherie calls therapy.
Tony wonders who's fooling who, because the encounters don't feel anything close to therapeutic. They touch and kiss less frantically than they used to, because of age and because the trauma of the past makes them want to savour the moments. But it isn't strictly therapy, because the wounds to heal aren't his. He touches Gordon gently, like each kiss and stroke and movement is an apology.
It scares him still, how much he loves Gordon; how there isn't another word to describe the feeling.
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He's told Gordon he's sorry, in whispers and out loud, so many times it begins to lose meaning. Nothing can wipe away the past, even if Gordon seems eager to try.
"You've never asked me for an apology," Gordon tells him.
"Because I was the one who ended up happy even when I stopped caring," Tony says as a way of explanation, "and I shouldn't have. That was wrong of me."
"Don't fucking be like this," Gordon replies wearily.
"Like what?" Tony argues. "It's all true."
"I'm glad to not be living inside your head," Gordon says and the conversation ends.
**
They fall asleep and when Tony wakes up, Gordon is putting on clothes.
"Could you not stay a while longer?" Tony asks, and Gordon agrees to, climbing back into bed and settling behind Tony, pulling them close together.
He reaches back and sinks his fingers into Gordon's hair, Gordon's mouth brushing against the inside of his wrist as he does. Gordon's arm tightens around his mid-riff, sending shivers down his spine.
"Thank you," Tony says.
"I love you," Gordon replies, pressing a kiss against the back of Tony's neck, and then they say nothing more, instead focusing on the brush of skin against skin, finger tips trailing up and down Tony's arm.
When Tony eventually turns around to look at Gordon, he understands this is what was missing throughout the years. The human touch, closeness, lack of miscommunication. Gordon's evasive eyes finally settle to look straight into his own, like a reminder that he can see what he's done to Gordon, what his actions have made Gordon into, but that this too can be made okay. That any wound can be healed, eventually, with time.
Tony presses his mouth against Gordon's, just to taste him, breathe in his scent, to get as close as possible. He still isn't sure whether this is therapy, and whether that matters at all in the end.
Perhaps it's just enough that they got this far.
Wow let's talk about fail. I don't know why I settled on "post-NewLabour" as a timeframe for this but that meant writing the background and then this just got all psychological and fucked up and more bittersweet than any kind of sweet. I swear they're really not as broken as Tony thinks they are. I don't even know. Well, there's some cuddling in there somewhere, hope you like, OP. (Hopefully the angst in this isn't too much?)
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(And two fills! How lucky am I?)
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