These days, it’s what he’d expect to hear in the moments leading up to a nervous breakdown. But Alfred is regarding him with calm, gentle eyes. Patient eyes. Oswald’s pulse beats in his throat, and there’s a feeling, in that silence, that he’s missing something, something just on the trembling edge of his awareness. Something he realizes that he’s no closer to understanding when a hand reaches out to touch him. A warm, calloused thumb brushes his cheek, where his tears have dried tacky on his skin, and he starts a little. Blinks back at Alfred, lashes flickering uneasily. No slap. Suddenly, the cup is easing from his fingers – he has already forgotten about it – and then Alfred is folding him into his arms again, the collar of Oswald’s shirt crumpling as he’s tucked into the heat of Alfred’s skin.
His mind turns, puzzling. He still isn’t sure what’s happening, what he’s supposed to do. But his body, looser and heavier with drink, has already made its choice, is already relaxing into his. And as the sting of whisky begins to settle into a softer, deeper burn, the kind he could fall asleep to, the unexpectedness of this, whatever this is, grows uncomplicated, less threatening. It’s not what he asked for but it’s what he needs – and, for now, that’s all that matters.
He hears himself heave a slow, shaky sigh, and he closes his eye a moment.]
Some days... I find myself wishing I could forget him, for just a moment.
[The words have been rolling over and over in his head. But saying it makes it real. Saying it seems like a kind of betrayal. He sniffs, adding thickly:]
no subject
These days, it’s what he’d expect to hear in the moments leading up to a nervous breakdown. But Alfred is regarding him with calm, gentle eyes. Patient eyes. Oswald’s pulse beats in his throat, and there’s a feeling, in that silence, that he’s missing something, something just on the trembling edge of his awareness. Something he realizes that he’s no closer to understanding when a hand reaches out to touch him. A warm, calloused thumb brushes his cheek, where his tears have dried tacky on his skin, and he starts a little. Blinks back at Alfred, lashes flickering uneasily. No slap. Suddenly, the cup is easing from his fingers – he has already forgotten about it – and then Alfred is folding him into his arms again, the collar of Oswald’s shirt crumpling as he’s tucked into the heat of Alfred’s skin.
His mind turns, puzzling. He still isn’t sure what’s happening, what he’s supposed to do. But his body, looser and heavier with drink, has already made its choice, is already relaxing into his. And as the sting of whisky begins to settle into a softer, deeper burn, the kind he could fall asleep to, the unexpectedness of this, whatever this is, grows uncomplicated, less threatening. It’s not what he asked for but it’s what he needs – and, for now, that’s all that matters.
He hears himself heave a slow, shaky sigh, and he closes his eye a moment.]
Some days... I find myself wishing I could forget him, for just a moment.
[The words have been rolling over and over in his head. But saying it makes it real. Saying it seems like a kind of betrayal. He sniffs, adding thickly:]
Does that make me a bad person?