tourdefierce | Fic: Script (Karl/Chris, PG-13)

Title: script
Author:

tourdefierce
Pairing: Karl/Chris
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: RPS, angst, LGBTQ issues
Word Count: 1250
Disclaimer: This is lies, obviously.
A/N: Um. This is different? Beware. I'm curious to see what you all think.

Chris grapples for words all the time.

It aches in a belly deep sort of way. It lingers there. It grows. He can feel the surge of possession--the want of possession. There are words that need claiming. There are words that deserved to be recognized as claimed but what they are claimed for, what they represent makes make them forbidden.

Makes them ache. Makes them scar.

~

"You don't find it offensive?"

Zach looks up from his cup of coffee, eyebrows bunched together over his glasses. Chris knows he doesn't need to explain but he feels the hot blush crawl up his cheeks. Zach looks at him, sees him in a way that makes Chris want to hide--head tilted, chewing on his bottom lip in consideration. It's unhinging.

"I'm okay with other people finding it offensive," Zach says carefully.

"But you're not personally affronted by it?"

Zach shrugs, leaning over the table and folding his long arms against it. Chris feels young, here. He feels as if Zach is imparting some sort of queer wisdom that Chris just doesn't understand yet. It feels a bit ridiculous, to be honest.

"I've reclaimed faggot," Zach says with eyes that shine with more depth that Chris can understand. There's pain there but acceptance and pride too. "For me, it represents the ugly pieces inside of myself that are directly connected to being queer. But even though I don't use that word, because of what it means to me and for me, doesn't mean that other people haven't reclaimed it in a sense that connotes positively."

Chris nods, his mind pouring over Zach's words. There is something clawing at his chest, it feels frail but fierce in its' unraveling. It feels truthful, like his mother on a Sunday morning, working with hands in cool soil and the sun shining through her graying hair.

"Words are important because they have meaning and they give meaning," Zach says carefully and Chris knows they are talking about something completely different now, in a way that would be totally infuriating it if wasn't so poignant. "You should know, more than anyone, that the weight of words--whatever their connotations may be--are more important to the possessor than to the rest of the world."

Zach keeps staring, as if trying to impart knowledge through their gaze. Eventually, Chris breaks away and fumbles with his coffee. His skin itches. His hands feel unsteady, as if they don't belong to him, instead belong to someone who looks like him, but feels like a ghost--a kid he once knew.

"Chris-"

But he shakes his head and the conversations ends, with Zach's fond smile twisting at the ends. The silence stretches between them, Zach reading his advanced copy of Siken's new volume and Chris, hands shaking as he stares out the window and lets himself contemplate the possession in his life.

The words left unclaimed and the pleasure sought in silence.

~

Karl is already in bed when Chris gets home, the light from the bedside lamp shines on the space that Chris usually occupies. From experience, Chris knows the the sheets smell like cedar and sex and Karl’s aftershave. From experience, Chris knows that his side of the bed will be abandoned as soon as he falls asleep and he’ll wake up entangled around Karl because his body does understand vulnerability.

Karl smiles softly, reading glasses poised on his nose and a book laying abandoned on his chest. Something tugs again, too hard, in Chris’ chest and it breaks. There is fury there. There is indignation. There is betrayal. Chris tears off his shirt to cover his face, an open book to whatever emotion his heart is riping through. His shoes were abandoned in the hallway and when he pads, barefoot, to his side of the bed, he feels the shattering of silence. It stifles his lungs and he wants to claw at his throat. He wants to breathe.

He sits heavily on the edge of the bed but makes no move to get his pants off. He stares at the sliding glass door that is devoid of curtains. A house without a home, just a place to pile stuff as they swept through life. He feels ill and out of place and hungry for more.

"I've never said this out loud before," Chris says as he curls in on himself. His voice seems unseemly loud. "But today... I think it might be important."

Chris can feel Karl still behind him and the mood in the room suddenly adjusts to Chris's mood. He can feel the way Karl pauses long enough to get his barring before he shifts, a tentative hand coming to rest on Chris' back. Chris doesn't move, he's aware of the testing of the waters but surprises himself as he leans into the touch.

"I'm gay."

Chris breathes. "I'm gay and I always have been. I haven't always been with men but the most meaningful and deep relationships I've ever had were with men," he continues with forced calm.

"Alright," Karl says behind him. His hand is soft and warm against Chris' t-shirt. But Chris shakes his head, clearing all the thoughts that seem jumbled and out of place from an entire afternoon of reading and thinking. There is an end. There is a fucking point.

"No," Chris says. "What I mean to say is, I'm not going anywhere."

He twists his hands together and breathes in. "I'm not going anywhere. And you should know that. You should know that one of these days, I'm going to expect you not to go anywhere either."

The sharp intake of breath behind him grinds into his ribs, like a cigarettes being snuffed out.

"One day," Chris whispers. "One day, I'm going to want to reclaim the word 'husband' and I'm going to expect the same from you."

Silence stretches ugly and cold across the pads of Karl's fingertips and Chris squeezes his eyes shut. He reminds himself of two years, of stilted phone calls and wanting, wanting in ways he hadn't experienced before. He reminds himself of intimacy. He reminds himself of words that have meaning to him, that carry his heart and will always. He steels himself in the rescuing of words he had let escape from him before he turns off the light and settles back into bed.

Karl doesn't move. But he doesn't speak either and Chris clings to sound of his breathing, even and consistent, even if it's on the other side of the world.

The sleep is dreamless but not quiet and for that, Chris is grateful.

~

There are words meant to be written in novels, to fuel and flow protagonists along rivers of plot lines and the mountains of characterization. There are words meant for poetry, so concentrated and signified that they breathe on their own.

There are words to live by and there are words to wear, tattooed in the secret places to be kept safe from invasion.

Chris wants to know those places aren’t secret enough. He wants to know when the silence will ebb away. He wants to understand where the pillaged victims go.

Chris grapple with words but they always grapple back.