Work Text:
I
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.Ecclesiastes 1:15
They kiss for days: lazy touches exchanged in the dim bedroom, alone, alone, only dust floating in the few stray rays of sun around them. They touch each other, find each other.
And maybe, Kieren thinks, maybe he can’t fix Simon, can’t make his nightmares go away and can’t kiss his spine back into his flesh. But maybe that’s okay, too. He can’t undo everything, but he can kiss his skin, learn the pattern of his throat with his fingers, touch his smile. He can fill up the cracks, if only a bit.
The Japanese, Kieren had read once, have an art of fixing broken things with lacquer resin mixed with gold or silver, the cracks and missing pieces becoming history, becoming illuminated.
So maybe it’s like that, he thinks, maybe he can’t fix Simon but maybe he doesn’t have to, in the first place. Maybe this will be good too: bold touches, palms hurriedly pressed against skin and hair, shared breaths that they don’t really need but still want, when one starts and other finishes, lips and teeth catching – hungry, wanting.
He traces along Simon’s spine – fingers just shy of the naked flesh and bone, the no man’s land. Maybe this is the plan instead, he thinks, maybe this is how it goes.
II
For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.Ecclesiastes 1:18
Sometimes Simon thinks he would rather not know. It’s selfish, he tells himself, you’re selfish. But he still sometimes will look at Kieren and think no, no, not him.
“Tell me about your death?” Simon asks against Kieren’s collarbone, lips moving slowly against the cold ashen skin. And then thinks a moment later No, no, please don’t. He does tell him, of course, his brilliant boy.
Sometimes he will wake up in the middle of the night with the clock showing some ridiculous hour, he will wake up and look at Kieren sleeping next to him and Simon’s forever-still heart will bleed.
“Tell me?” Kieren asks, touching his back for the first time. It’s gentle. He doesn’t feel it, of course he doesn’t, but he knows it is, like a phantom memory – not real, but it could be. It could be. Simon twists his mouth, if he could still taste he’s sure he could feel the stale tang of shame and anger on the tip of his tongue. He tells Kieren everything. Of course he does.
Sometimes they will be walking somewhere, fingers not quite touching, and Simon will suddenly catch a glimpse of the stitches on Kieren’s wrists and think thank you, thank you, I have him now and why him, why, not him all at the same time. Selfish, he tells himself and then thinks: but love is selfish, isn’t it?
They will be walking somewhere and Simon will take Kieren’s hand and lace their fingers together, map patterns on his palm with his thumb.
And Kieren will smile brightly and say, “I know.”