maskormenacelogs | FANPORT OVERFLOW LOG

[ Miles is always so easy to read, so obvious, it prevents Gregor from feeling any reluctance at all about being demonstrative. It's affecting, in fact, to hear and feel him groan under his mouth.

But it's getting later and someone else could walk in any minute, so Gregor reluctantly withdraws. But it's only to say softly, ] There's nothing for you to worry about. I don't love you out of ignorance. [ He's not going to learn something about Miles and change his mind. He already knows. ]

[ Any minute, surely. And with their luck it would be Duv. The poor bastard. Very reluctantly, Miles lowers himself back down to the floor from the table. ]

... You might be the first. To really know.

... I finished that poem, you know. It's-- sort of about that.

[ Miles brightens, remembering how much he'd liked the previous segment. ]

You did? Could I see it?

[ He clears his throat, preemptively embarrassed. It's an extremely revealing poem. ]

You may. It's upstairs.

... Settle ourselves in bed first, then? So that I can really bask in it.

[ He may be going very slightly flushed if Miles is watching for that. ]

All right. Though I don't know if it's worth basking...

[ This is the pure humility of someone who has never shared his poems with anyone else and has never thought to change that. But he does dutifully head for the stairs. ]

[ Miles, meanwhile, slips an arm through Gregor's and grins up at him. ]

The first part was. So surely this will be as well.

[ He avoids eye contact, embarrassment pricking him further, but doesn't evade linking arms.

As they head upstairs, he's still protesting. ] You shouldn't make too much of it. I just have too many thoughts and try to get them to go away. [ Hence why many of his poems are far from as pleasant as this one. It wasn't until Miles, actually, that any of them had been pleasant at all. Gregor just never felt the urge to write while he was in a good mood; he didn't realize you could stew in them the same way you could dark ones.

Something new he's learned. ]

[ That's just adorable. Miles tries not to grin too much, he really does. Instead he tries to be soothingly fond. ]

You realize I'm going to love just about anything you write. Bias and all.

[ Gregor puts up with this long-sufferingly, starting to grow used to it from Kitty. He wonders if his lovers will always find him entertainingly adorable, but then realizes he has no intention of taking any more, so he's set himself up for that, hasn't he.

He tries to push the embarrassment down as they crest the stairs and Gregor has to release his arm to slip through the bedroom door. ] Yes. Well. [ Awkward has apparently overtaken the embarrassment. Gregor retrieves his poetry notebook, nothing more than a plain wirebound one, but this one full-sized, and flips it open to the correct page. The first few lines are taped to the left page in Miles's writing, and then copied over and completed on the right. This had taken quite a bit of revision, and he hadn't wanted to muddle up his copy in Miles's hand with that. ]

Here it is. --Right, you said the bed.

[ He's really not trying to make this suspenseful, it's just happening that way. ]

[ Oh. A bright streak of fondness, again, to see that Gregor saved the poetry fragment that Miles had re-written. It's terribly sweet to see Gregor's words in his hand ...

He settles himself onto Gregor's bed. Propped up comfortably in just the right spot to lean over and cuddle with Gregor once he's settled. ]

It's a romantic gesture, after all.

[ Mumbling, ] It was more because I was driving myself up a wall thinking about you. You've no idea the self-control it took me that whole week before the hotel, after I knew.

[ Which is when the final revision of this had been finished. Gregor settles in as well, propped on pillows, and after a final hesitation relinquishes the journal to him. Unlike before, it's now titled in the header. It reads:

sun-blinded

Distance is an inadequate measure for closeness,
for the space between breaths.
Sometimes we are farther apart than stars,
as far from each other as we are
from ourselves, here where all that defines us
can only be seen as reflections in each other.
You see me so clearly, yet you have missed
that there is longing in all of my fingers,
in my lips, in my soul, to be closer than breath.

You have missed so much of yourself, too,
eclipsed it with your intensity, sun-bright.
I want to trace every scar
the webbing across your skin
and outline a new color, limned in silver,
until you see what you've discarded.
All those worthless excised bits,
I want them all,
I want you.
I want to peel the dagger from your hands and
kiss every luminescent knuckle.
You own my adoration as the sun owns life:
it emanates from you. ]

You could have simply told me ...

[ But then he wouldn't have gotten all those romantic gestures, so lovely in retrospect. No, he wouldn't trade that week for all the world, despite how badly he'd been worried about it.

Miles takes the journal then and lets his gaze scan down the page. The first half is familiar; he passes over it with a bit of warmth and not much else. But the second ... He goes utterly still as the words soak in, resonating with almost painful depth. Gregor had written it about him, when he'd been going crazy trying not to tell Miles ... A swell of emotion surges up in him, as unbidden and unavoidable as the tide. Painful but good; an old wound being tended to. He's felt Gregor's acceptance, been given all the proof he needs. So why is he blinking back tears to see his worthless excised bits gathered up and treasured on the page like this? ]

Gregor ...

[ Gregor suddenly sees the point behind Miles's idea in laying on the bed for this, and tucks himself against him as he reads. The ensuing swell of emotion seeps over to him and meets a strongly answering echo, the well of feelings that had provoked writing this in the first place rippling back. Complicated and nuanced, barbed in places, messy and whole-- but utterly beautiful for all that, like in the quote from Doctor Zhivago that he'd read to Miles that night. (I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret...) More precious for how much it's endured, how much suffering lay preceding it.

Love rests a quiet resonance beneath it all. Gregor curves to hide his face against Miles's shoulder, slumping down to manage it, one arm loosely twining around Miles's waist and beneath his own arms holding the book. He can't really find what to say, casts about distantly for something. ]

I told you it wasn't in ignorance.

[ Miles shifts a bit to hold the book in one hand, so that he can reach up with the other and lay it gently on Gregor's downturned head. The echo helps. It draws off the strongest portions of that initial swell and settles it into something calmer. A precious little spark of joy to be put with his other treasured memories. Gregor is messy too. And Gregor loves MIles' own mess right back, the same as Miles loves his ... He can't help but contrast it with Kitty, who is a wonderful, amazing friend but doesn't quite get that part of it. No talk of therapy or Miles' brokenness hurting other people here. (Maybe it's for the best that he has both, in contrast - there's a thought.)

He reads through it again as he leans back against Gregor, committing the words to memory. ]

Not at all. You really did know what you were getting into. [ That faint, blurry awe rises up again. ]

[ He exhales a breath against his neck, right where he'd been kissing earlier, and nestles in further to encourage the hand in his hair. ]

I feel the same way. It keeps occurring to me that... you know exactly what you're taking on.

[ Miles leans into Gregor more, then, and lightly massages at Gregor's scalp. ]

You and Barrayar both, eh?

[ He makes a soft murmur of approval. Casual physical affection is still rare enough for Gregor that he values it. ]

Not just that. I have my own reasons that I should be in therapy.

[ Miles goes rather quiet at that. It's no surprise, really, and yet... ]

Would a native therapist even help? I can't imagine trying to unpack our world enough to get any results.

I brought that point up myself to your mother. And then there's bringing myself to trust them, rather than habitually talking rings around them.

[ He sighs against him. ]

It doesn't seem worth it.

... Yes. Yes, I agree entirely.

[ He leans, comfortable and comforted. ]

Besides. We have each other.

[ Gregor hasn't forgotten how accepting Miles had been of his last bout of depression, and how he hadn't pushed him to feel better, or even really explain any of it. That lack of pressure meant so much to him, had contributed to how quickly his feelings for Miles had deepened. Gregor himself has never been someone who pushes others-- but in light of that, he feels more motivated than ever to return that to him, to take him as he is and not ask for improvement. ]

Edited 2016-04-27 20:42 (UTC)

We can give all those worthless excised bits to each other instead?

[ Half teasing, half recalling the warm glow he'd felt - still feels - reading those words. They fit together so neatly, the two of them. And someone who can take Miles on his own terms in return is ... desperately liberating. Miles hadn't known how necessary it was for himself in turn until he'd turned around and had Gregor to give it to him. He strokes idly at Gregor's head, threading his fingers through the taller man's hair. ]

Mm. Since we don't treat them appropriately. Much safer in your hands.

[ This is a nice reversal of positions; in the past it's been Gregor doing the hair stroking. He decides immediately that he likes it, enough to blindly grope for the notebook and drop it behind him on the night table without looking. Fortunately, Gregor doesn't keep anything there but a lamp set far back toward the wall, so the journal teeters on the edge but lands safely.

This leaves him with more of Miles accessible, and him free to snuggle into him more closely. There's years of unexpressed desire to cuddle behind it, with just enough experience with Cordelia encouraging it for Gregor to know how to express it. Nonetheless, it's a drastic difference from his public persona, which has a personal space bubble a full meter in radius even with people he knows. ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject