Work Text:
John can hear Rodney clattering in the kitchen, no doubt trying in his own way to be quiet. The bed's still comfortable with his body heat, and there's the faint scent of deodorant on the tumbled bedclothes. John turns over and sprawls into the place Rodney vacated, closing his eyes for one moment more, absorbing comfort and pleasure and warmth.
He wishes sometimes he were given to verbal grace, equipped to speak the thoughts that tumble through his head. Words get snagged in his throat and melt away on his tongue before he can say them out loud – he's often envied Rodney's ability to speak quickly and decisively, to pepper the air with scattershot ideas. If he weren't the kind of clumsy that makes him watchful, if he trusted his thoughts to brush his lips whole, he say a lot more – he'd tell him . . . tell him:
I'm nothing extraordinary because I can fly, or 'cause I like you. You just don't see – the way you pet each boardwalk stray, or close your eyes when we stand on the beach, and tip back your face as if you're conversing with the clouds and every atom in them. You don't see, Rodney.
I do.
I can see all the hollow places – the absence of a hand beneath your elbow to catch you from falling asleep at your computer; the emptiness where someone should have been pushing eggs across the kitchen counter and saying eat while you slash through articles with a thick red pen. You still expect an empty bed, and I see your face each time I climb in beside you.
You could buy new boxers if you wanted.
I came home one day and found you sitting on my porch and I thought a storm had rolled in off the water, split the world in two down the middle of my body, because the only words I remembered were "stay" and "beer?" You told me a story about Stephen Hawking and I think I laughed, but mostly I remember thinking I could learn to live without oranges.
Black, no sugar. Apple. Hanes.
I've filled my hands with pens and gear-sticks and the throttles of planes and I've tugged speed from slow places and stretched my fingers toward the sky. But I've touched you and made you shiver and I've learned when to hit 'off' on the TV remote, and you pass me books and make my hands learn new purposes, push pebbles into my palm until I skim rocks over a waiting ocean, laughing at September, and you found my empty places too.
We should plant something, to say we were here.
I have wishes that lock in my throat and ideas that won't settle into words so I reach for you, curl my hand around the back of your neck, skim my lips across the crown of your head and I wish I could say that you're football enough that I had a key made, but I hope you know that's what I mean when I order pizza and ask for extra cheese or sit beside you on the sofa and let you take my weight.
I once wrote you a postcard, just in my head.
– he'd say; slow down, heartburn, two halves, don't you get it? But when he shuffles downstairs and sees Rodney with the coffeepot all he can manage is a smile and to run a hand through his hair while he blurts "you wanna move in?"
Rodney's smile breaks the morning wide open.
John rescues the coffeepot and thinks they do okay.