Winter work / day 8
The little AU: Winter Work: eight
slashfairy
~~
He'd come home for his birthday, gotten well and truly fucked by his men, as well as loved roundly and warmly and deeply. He'd responded, too: not like his old self, but he'd responded with a good will, and that was enough. They'd been reassured- hell, he'd been reassured- that the ice that had lodged in his heart sometime in the Fall had indeed begun its long slow melt, so when he leaves to go on down to LA for more "stuff" they don't worry.
He'd been sweet, calm- not unfidgety, no, not Orlando, always moving, always tapping/patting/wringing/smoothing/folding/pursing/rolling something, shifting to relieve his back, twitching to shed some of the sparkle and fizz that is just naturally part of him, like sweetness is of apples, or scent of roses- he'd been like a deep pool, like a Zen garden, a man whose trust in himself had returned after an absence he'd neither wished for nor wished to keep. He'd been smiling when he pulled out of the drive after a last round of birthday loving, heading for parties and gaiety LA-style. "I'll stay over down there, in our house, ok? I'll be fine, I really will." He'd kissed them each once more, promised phone calls, promised to keep safe, and promised to come home.
It'll never make the news that he'd come this close to calling it all quits. Some might guess from the glassy eyes, the jet-setting, the unchanged clothes and odd public behavior that he'd been feeling off-kilter but no one will ever really know how close it got to not mattering at all except him, and them.
What they know is, there's all of Winter before Spring, and all of this year, and maybe next, and maybe the year after that before they'll know what kind of fruit will be borne of seeds planted now, of dreams and wishes carefully guarded against frost so that now his heart is thawing they can afford to start living again. What they know is that he knows what he needs to: it's not his looks, or what he does for people, or what they read into him on the screen; it's who he is internally that matters, and that's all that matters, that has substance. The rest is nothing- snowflakes that melt on the warmth of the love surrounding him, the love he takes with him as he drives down the Coast Highway away from his first 30th birthday party and the house at the end of the Bluff Road.
interlude: travel
slashfairy
~~
He'd come home for his birthday, gotten well and truly fucked by his men, as well as loved roundly and warmly and deeply. He'd responded, too: not like his old self, but he'd responded with a good will, and that was enough. They'd been reassured- hell, he'd been reassured- that the ice that had lodged in his heart sometime in the Fall had indeed begun its long slow melt, so when he leaves to go on down to LA for more "stuff" they don't worry.
He'd been sweet, calm- not unfidgety, no, not Orlando, always moving, always tapping/patting/wringing/smoothing/folding/pursing/rolling something, shifting to relieve his back, twitching to shed some of the sparkle and fizz that is just naturally part of him, like sweetness is of apples, or scent of roses- he'd been like a deep pool, like a Zen garden, a man whose trust in himself had returned after an absence he'd neither wished for nor wished to keep. He'd been smiling when he pulled out of the drive after a last round of birthday loving, heading for parties and gaiety LA-style. "I'll stay over down there, in our house, ok? I'll be fine, I really will." He'd kissed them each once more, promised phone calls, promised to keep safe, and promised to come home.
It'll never make the news that he'd come this close to calling it all quits. Some might guess from the glassy eyes, the jet-setting, the unchanged clothes and odd public behavior that he'd been feeling off-kilter but no one will ever really know how close it got to not mattering at all except him, and them.
What they know is, there's all of Winter before Spring, and all of this year, and maybe next, and maybe the year after that before they'll know what kind of fruit will be borne of seeds planted now, of dreams and wishes carefully guarded against frost so that now his heart is thawing they can afford to start living again. What they know is that he knows what he needs to: it's not his looks, or what he does for people, or what they read into him on the screen; it's who he is internally that matters, and that's all that matters, that has substance. The rest is nothing- snowflakes that melt on the warmth of the love surrounding him, the love he takes with him as he drives down the Coast Highway away from his first 30th birthday party and the house at the end of the Bluff Road.
interlude: travel