Kiyakotari (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kiyakotari) wrote2008-02-08 01:17 am
kiyakotari) wrote2008-02-08 01:17 am
Entry tags:
Compact Secrets
Written in response to the Week #17 challenge/prompt on Resinality's ABJD Writing usergroup. Prompt was "Tell me a secret."
Darryl shifts slightly as Talon's lips brush along the length of a scar that crosses his abdomen, a slice of lightly pinkened, shiny tissue. It is fully the length of the span of Talon's fingers on one hand, and dips down across Darryl's hip. The touch tickles, which is why Darryl moves restlessly. Talon's breath on his skin is warm.
"What is this one from?" Talon's voice is soft. Not a whisper, but low and muted.
Darryl doesn't look down at him. "I don't know." The scar has always been there, has been a part of this body for as long as Darryl has - longer, even. Thinking of it brings no darting image or scent or sequence of half-remembered movements.
Talon doesn't speak, but Darryl can feel a fleeting tension in him, a clenching of his jaw. He kisses the scar again.
It is not sexual, what Talon is doing - that was earlier, in the shower, and now they're resting together, both dry but for lingering dampness in their hair, languid and sated. But it is certainly intimate. Darryl is drowsy, and wishes briefly that Talon would stop exploring his scars with this strange, ritualistic focus, and simply rest his head on Darryl's chest and sleep.
"Tell me a secret, Darryl." Talon moves, suddenly, rolling over and sliding up and leaning across Darryl, looming, his hands on the cotton sheets on either side of Darryl's head, his hair falling across his shoulders. The movement was unexpected, made Darryl look up at him, and now he's staring down without any hesitation, his gaze direct, searching. "Tell me something you've never told anyone else."
Darryl isn't sure what to say. "A secret?" For all that he keeps from others, he's not certain he can think of anything that will satisfy the sudden hunger he sees in Talon's eyes. He hasn't the faintest idea where to start.
Talon must see that in his eyes, because he relents a little, face softening. "Tell me about your subcompact." He offers it as a balm for what must be Darryl's obvious confusion. A beneficience Darryl is suddenly and absolutely sure he does not deserve.
"What about it?"
Talon smiles, soft and gentle and a bit teasing. "You never let anyone touch it, and I've noticed that you've had the same one for a while now - for as long as I've known you. Your other guns seem to come and go, almost as often as your cellphones. But somehow you've kept that one around."
Darryl pauses, words clotting in his larynx, before he finally answers. The whole time, Talon is watching him, patient, expectant. Darryl cannot not reply to that calm attentiveness. "I took it from a man. Giuseppe. We..." Were not lovers. That suggests too many things, implies too much, and yet - "We slept together." Twice. In the dark both times, once in a hotel room with paint peeling on the windowsill and a permanent ring in the bathtub, and once in the back seat of a black Rolls Royce, hands slipping and sticking on leather seats, the air thick with the heat of their bodies, with distant, gripping desperation.
Talon's face doesn't betray even the slightest hint of surprise. "Oh?" The word hangs there, in the air between them. Breathy utterance. It asks for more without ever having to resort to the explicit. Draws the words out of Darryl as smoothly as blood moving in a phlebotomist's needle, red and viscous.
"I killed him." Shot him in the head, from behind. Ended his life in a spray of blood and grey matter and bone fragments. Blew his brains out. Darryl's throat feels knotted, tight.
Talon says nothing, then. He lowers himself down onto his elbows, then twists a bit so he's resting on his shoulder, head in the hollow under Darryl's chin. His lips find, very briefly, a scar on Darryl's collarbone. It's old, barely visible, perhaps from a knife edge or cement chip shrapnel from a ricocheting bullet. Talon's lips on it are gentle, and just as warm as before.
Compact Scars
Darryl shifts slightly as Talon's lips brush along the length of a scar that crosses his abdomen, a slice of lightly pinkened, shiny tissue. It is fully the length of the span of Talon's fingers on one hand, and dips down across Darryl's hip. The touch tickles, which is why Darryl moves restlessly. Talon's breath on his skin is warm.
"What is this one from?" Talon's voice is soft. Not a whisper, but low and muted.
Darryl doesn't look down at him. "I don't know." The scar has always been there, has been a part of this body for as long as Darryl has - longer, even. Thinking of it brings no darting image or scent or sequence of half-remembered movements.
Talon doesn't speak, but Darryl can feel a fleeting tension in him, a clenching of his jaw. He kisses the scar again.
It is not sexual, what Talon is doing - that was earlier, in the shower, and now they're resting together, both dry but for lingering dampness in their hair, languid and sated. But it is certainly intimate. Darryl is drowsy, and wishes briefly that Talon would stop exploring his scars with this strange, ritualistic focus, and simply rest his head on Darryl's chest and sleep.
"Tell me a secret, Darryl." Talon moves, suddenly, rolling over and sliding up and leaning across Darryl, looming, his hands on the cotton sheets on either side of Darryl's head, his hair falling across his shoulders. The movement was unexpected, made Darryl look up at him, and now he's staring down without any hesitation, his gaze direct, searching. "Tell me something you've never told anyone else."
Darryl isn't sure what to say. "A secret?" For all that he keeps from others, he's not certain he can think of anything that will satisfy the sudden hunger he sees in Talon's eyes. He hasn't the faintest idea where to start.
Talon must see that in his eyes, because he relents a little, face softening. "Tell me about your subcompact." He offers it as a balm for what must be Darryl's obvious confusion. A beneficience Darryl is suddenly and absolutely sure he does not deserve.
"What about it?"
Talon smiles, soft and gentle and a bit teasing. "You never let anyone touch it, and I've noticed that you've had the same one for a while now - for as long as I've known you. Your other guns seem to come and go, almost as often as your cellphones. But somehow you've kept that one around."
Darryl pauses, words clotting in his larynx, before he finally answers. The whole time, Talon is watching him, patient, expectant. Darryl cannot not reply to that calm attentiveness. "I took it from a man. Giuseppe. We..." Were not lovers. That suggests too many things, implies too much, and yet - "We slept together." Twice. In the dark both times, once in a hotel room with paint peeling on the windowsill and a permanent ring in the bathtub, and once in the back seat of a black Rolls Royce, hands slipping and sticking on leather seats, the air thick with the heat of their bodies, with distant, gripping desperation.
Talon's face doesn't betray even the slightest hint of surprise. "Oh?" The word hangs there, in the air between them. Breathy utterance. It asks for more without ever having to resort to the explicit. Draws the words out of Darryl as smoothly as blood moving in a phlebotomist's needle, red and viscous.
"I killed him." Shot him in the head, from behind. Ended his life in a spray of blood and grey matter and bone fragments. Blew his brains out. Darryl's throat feels knotted, tight.
Talon says nothing, then. He lowers himself down onto his elbows, then twists a bit so he's resting on his shoulder, head in the hollow under Darryl's chin. His lips find, very briefly, a scar on Darryl's collarbone. It's old, barely visible, perhaps from a knife edge or cement chip shrapnel from a ricocheting bullet. Talon's lips on it are gentle, and just as warm as before.