![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quillpunk posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tinyfandomflashTitle: but these dreams like starlight
Author:quillpunk
Fandom: The Attic - A.M. Burrage
Rating: Teen
Category: M/M
Relationship(s): Stanley Forbes/Derek Wilson
Character(s): Stanley Forbes, Derek Wilson
Word Count: 2079
Spoiler: Not really, somehow.
Summary: Late in the eve, Derek knocks on the door.
Notes/Warnings: I'm so glad I managed to write one more fic for this challenge before the year's end XD
Some ten years later, Derek knocked on Forbes’ door.
Dosing in the sitting room with a book in hand and a candle beside him—for aesthetic, not practicality, as Forbes’ did have an electric reading lamp on the table as well—Forbes started at the sound of the knock. The sitting room wasn’t so far off from the entrance that knocks, thanks to the robust manual knocking figure of a ferocious lion upon the door, weren’t audible in his position, and so he rubbed an eye, yawning as he stood.
Forbes’ only servant, a butler of fairly great renown at the local markets, had already retired to bed, and Forbes found no use in waking the old chap for something as simple as opening a door and so, leaving the book on the table and grabbing the flaming candle, he approached the door on somewhat limping legs, the days’ exhaustion still weighing him down. He meandered through the dark hallway, light and shadow flickering, and suppressed a yawn when he reached the door, undoing the locks and opening it with nary a pause.
“Derek,” Forbes’ stated, blinking at the young man. They had not seen each for a few months; not since Christmas, when Forbes’ and Derek both stayed the holidays at the Telfords, now much more humble, abode. Forbes was for a moment not entirely certain he wasn’t dreaming—he’d had many dreams, over the years, both good and bad, that begun with a visit much like this one from this particular strapping young lad, and the fact that they stood in darkness, very little of Derek’s face visible in the candle-light, only worked to highlight the unreality of the situation.
“You didn’t tell me you’d be coming,” Forbes stated, but stepped aside without question, letting Derek through and closing the door behind him. He eyed the bag Derek put on the floor, and the scarf that Derek unwound from his neck. It was late March, but snow still fell from the heavens, and Derek’s clothes were very nearly covered by the flakes. “Did you have a good trip?” Forbes asked.
Derek laughed, shaking out of his heavy winter coat. “It was lovely,” he said, smiling in that particular way that never failed to make Forbes’ breath catch just a little in his throat, and the young man, twenty-five years of age now Forbes noted, continued, “The train was right on time for once, and we went through the most pretty valley, the untouched snow glittering in the sunlight.”
“I’m glad, then,” Forbes said, and picked up Derek’s bag. Derek rolled his eyes a little, just as tall as Forbes’ and a little broader besides, but Derek was a guest and more than that he was a perpetually desired guest, and Forbes was not about to let Derek’s stay with him, however surprising it might be, be one of labor.
On the way up to Derek’s guest room—used by other visitor’s, too, of course, but frankly mostly by Derek and certainly most often by Derek, to such an extent that Forbes and his butler both had indeed begun to refer to it as such—Derek regaled him with tales from work; he didn’t much like his current boss, but rumor was that the man would soon be fired; his best friend at work recently got engaged to a lovely young woman; the stray cat Derek fed often had had babies, and he fretted over whether he should move so he could take them all in, concerned about the kittens welfare in such cold weather despite the blankets he’d already piled on them.
Forbes found himself listening with a great deal of joy, the quiet kind that sparked to life when around people you loved, and he was perfectly content to listen and hum as Derek spoke, taking care to not interrupt the flow lest Derek think his words were unwelcome.
At his room, Derek sat on the bed and leaned back on his hands, gazing up at Forbes rather like a fox, amusement in his warm gaze and smiling mischievously. Forbes put the bag away, taking rather longer than he needed for some extra breaths, and then sat down on the desk’s chair, turning it to face Derek.
The room was small enough, and the bed big enough due to it’s intent to be able to fit a couple, that there wasn’t any great distance between them, and so Forbes was able to note Derek’s beautiful features up close, watch the light dusting of his eyelashes moving, the shadows from the overhead lamp failing to light up Derek’s every line. He was perhaps not a strikingly handsome man, Forbes could acknowledge if pressed, but the enjoyment with life that he emanated was captivating and it lent his countenance a draw that Forbes had long grown weak to, a warmth akin to gravitational forces.
“How have you been, Stanley?” Derek asked, settled on the bed and gazing right at him, heat simmering behind his eyes.
Forbes waited a beat too long, he knew, took too much time to gather his thoughts, and he feared, as always, that the worries that so plagued him was visible to Derek in the absences between his words. “Well, of course. It’s been a quiet year, all told.”
“It’s only barely getting started,” Derek pointed out, and he waved one hand, leaning the rest of his weight on the other, his shirt getting pulled down a little to display more of the long lines of his throat, Forbes as ever drawn to every inch of him. It was beginning to be rather a problem, he thought to himself; that it had grown this fierce, this heart-sick ache of his, and he could scarcely remember to chastise himself any longer. It seemed, with the years passing and Derek growing ever more into himself, that the reasons for Forbes’ abstinence and carefully calculated distance, also grew ever fewer, ever weaker, and to be frank he was rather starting to forget the ones that were left.
Age, job, position in society; Forbes felt, with every turn of the year, his priorities realigning and the ache of that which he didn’t have, would likely never have, cutting deeper still.
At last, he thought sometimes deep into the night, when he woke from dreams untold and stared into the darkness of his lonely bedroom, only the shadows from the tree branches outside the window keeping him company, it must cut through him entirely.
“I’ve missed you,” Derek said, and Forbes smiled, looking away a little as that soft ache spread wider in his chest, burrowing deep into his lungs and cording around his bones.
Forbes said, “I’ve missed you, too,” and of course his words could never convey the magnitude of that missing limb, that sensation of loss that sometimes does plague him, and so unnecessarily, too, for was Derek not right here with him, not a frequent visitor who paid him great respect and kindness, indulging his whims and needs for companionship?
Derek laughed, leaning forth, and placed a hand on Forbes’ knee. “You’ve a talent for understatement, my friend,” Derek murmured, and looked right up at Forbes from below his pretty, pretty eyelashes, prettier eyes glittering in the light, and Forbes was not such a liar as to deny where his mind went in that moment, what images did visit him when he blinked and kept his eyes shut for just a moment too long. Just so he could breathe, recklessly, gather his thought before he said something unwise.
“Why have you come here?” Forbes asked, looking upon Derek and seeing naught but simple, youthful joy in him. Derek, he thought, was perhaps up to something, had perhaps made some kind of decision.
Was it selfish, then, that rather then being happy for Derek’s obvious pleasure at whatever this great decision had been, Forbes’ only did wish not to be left behind?
For he was old, was he not? A great deal older than Derek, who was young and just starting to make his way through the world. And he’d found, lately, that the desires of his youth—the scheming and the socializing and the work and the effort—held no such great attraction anymore; the price, possibly, of nightmares and hauntings that he would rather wish to avoid acknowledging, of evils he found difficult even now to evict from his mind.
What could a young man like Derek, who had all the world on his plate, want with him?
But Derek smiled, leaning closer still, and lowered his voice. “To see you, of course,” he said, softly, raising an eyebrow, amusement shining in his eyes. “We have not seen each other in months. Not since Christmas! And I have missed you so…” And Derek licked his lips, Forbes’ unable to do anything but follow the movement with his eyes, tracking the pink tongue flicking over the plush lips.
Oh, but he cursed himself so, for his willpower was not endless, and temptation so close at hand, so willing and sweet and warm, was more than he could bear.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Forbes repeated, for what else was he do to? If he moved, there was no doubt what he would do. If he said something else, there was no doubt what he’d say.
Laughing, softly, Derek shook his head. “That’s been established,” he said, and he gripped the chair’s armrest, pulled the thing closer, Forbes’ helplessly going with it. He made no attempt at resisting it; he found in the night’s darkness, just the two of them awake in the whole house, that this surprise visit had rather rattled his defenses more than he’d assumed. For normally, usually, Forbes went into every interaction with Derek with the benefit of preparation, the knowledge of what was to come, and so he could make his way through it without terribly upsetting the status quo.
He did not, now, think that this would be one of those interactions.
Facing Derek fully, Derek’s arms on either side of him keeping him trapped on the chair, Forbes’ breath hitched in his throat, eyes arrested by the vision before him, utterly ruining him for any other. Derek’s eyes were dark, far darker than normal, but this did not diminish the warmth within, that spark that drew upon Forbes’ heart so effortlessly. “Will you say no?” Derek asked, smile soft, gentle, moving to hold onto Forbes’ neck, resting their foreheads together.
They were so close, Forbes thought, staring into Derek’s eyes, mind unable to conjure up any thoughts, his heart a shuddering mess in his chest that, nonetheless, he wished not to vanquish.
“No,” Forbes breathed. Derek’s hands on his skin were warm, fingers spreading out and caressing his cheek, his scalp, and he gulped. “I would not tell you no,” Forbes murmured.
Derek’s smile was a thing of beauty, something to keep close to chest and relish in for years to come. The young man looked at him, saw right through Forbes—as, perhaps, he’d always been able to do, perceptive of all things as he was—and pressed them ever closer still, as if such a thing were ever possible. Forbes strove, then, to pull the connection to it’s completion, to not let the chips fall where they may because that, at least, he’d never been wont to do.
Grabbing one of Derek’s hands, Derek turned his own to hold it, and Forbes smiled, his own softness leaking through every bones in his body. “Then I am asking,” Derek murmured, squeezing Forbes’ hand, and all at once the entirely of breath within Forbes left him, an exhale shuddering through him, the tension within nigh-on unbearable.
Oh, he thought, how fortuitous he was. f
Forbes did not wait. This he did not wish to leave up to chance, to a test of his nerves and courage, and so too did he not wish for it to be relegated to yet another unattainable dream, not when Derek was right here, looking at him like Forbes held all the questions and answers combined, and he wasted not but a moment, could conceive of no other action.
He did not find himself surprised to learn that Derek was a good kisser, and he did not find himself surprised, either, when Derek smiled at him, after, so warm and gentle that Forbes did not bother even going through the motions of pretending to breathe.
THE END
Author:
quillpunkFandom: The Attic - A.M. Burrage
Rating: Teen
Category: M/M
Relationship(s): Stanley Forbes/Derek Wilson
Character(s): Stanley Forbes, Derek Wilson
Word Count: 2079
Spoiler: Not really, somehow.
Summary: Late in the eve, Derek knocks on the door.
Notes/Warnings: I'm so glad I managed to write one more fic for this challenge before the year's end XD
Some ten years later, Derek knocked on Forbes’ door.
Dosing in the sitting room with a book in hand and a candle beside him—for aesthetic, not practicality, as Forbes’ did have an electric reading lamp on the table as well—Forbes started at the sound of the knock. The sitting room wasn’t so far off from the entrance that knocks, thanks to the robust manual knocking figure of a ferocious lion upon the door, weren’t audible in his position, and so he rubbed an eye, yawning as he stood.
Forbes’ only servant, a butler of fairly great renown at the local markets, had already retired to bed, and Forbes found no use in waking the old chap for something as simple as opening a door and so, leaving the book on the table and grabbing the flaming candle, he approached the door on somewhat limping legs, the days’ exhaustion still weighing him down. He meandered through the dark hallway, light and shadow flickering, and suppressed a yawn when he reached the door, undoing the locks and opening it with nary a pause.
“Derek,” Forbes’ stated, blinking at the young man. They had not seen each for a few months; not since Christmas, when Forbes’ and Derek both stayed the holidays at the Telfords, now much more humble, abode. Forbes was for a moment not entirely certain he wasn’t dreaming—he’d had many dreams, over the years, both good and bad, that begun with a visit much like this one from this particular strapping young lad, and the fact that they stood in darkness, very little of Derek’s face visible in the candle-light, only worked to highlight the unreality of the situation.
“You didn’t tell me you’d be coming,” Forbes stated, but stepped aside without question, letting Derek through and closing the door behind him. He eyed the bag Derek put on the floor, and the scarf that Derek unwound from his neck. It was late March, but snow still fell from the heavens, and Derek’s clothes were very nearly covered by the flakes. “Did you have a good trip?” Forbes asked.
Derek laughed, shaking out of his heavy winter coat. “It was lovely,” he said, smiling in that particular way that never failed to make Forbes’ breath catch just a little in his throat, and the young man, twenty-five years of age now Forbes noted, continued, “The train was right on time for once, and we went through the most pretty valley, the untouched snow glittering in the sunlight.”
“I’m glad, then,” Forbes said, and picked up Derek’s bag. Derek rolled his eyes a little, just as tall as Forbes’ and a little broader besides, but Derek was a guest and more than that he was a perpetually desired guest, and Forbes was not about to let Derek’s stay with him, however surprising it might be, be one of labor.
On the way up to Derek’s guest room—used by other visitor’s, too, of course, but frankly mostly by Derek and certainly most often by Derek, to such an extent that Forbes and his butler both had indeed begun to refer to it as such—Derek regaled him with tales from work; he didn’t much like his current boss, but rumor was that the man would soon be fired; his best friend at work recently got engaged to a lovely young woman; the stray cat Derek fed often had had babies, and he fretted over whether he should move so he could take them all in, concerned about the kittens welfare in such cold weather despite the blankets he’d already piled on them.
Forbes found himself listening with a great deal of joy, the quiet kind that sparked to life when around people you loved, and he was perfectly content to listen and hum as Derek spoke, taking care to not interrupt the flow lest Derek think his words were unwelcome.
At his room, Derek sat on the bed and leaned back on his hands, gazing up at Forbes rather like a fox, amusement in his warm gaze and smiling mischievously. Forbes put the bag away, taking rather longer than he needed for some extra breaths, and then sat down on the desk’s chair, turning it to face Derek.
The room was small enough, and the bed big enough due to it’s intent to be able to fit a couple, that there wasn’t any great distance between them, and so Forbes was able to note Derek’s beautiful features up close, watch the light dusting of his eyelashes moving, the shadows from the overhead lamp failing to light up Derek’s every line. He was perhaps not a strikingly handsome man, Forbes could acknowledge if pressed, but the enjoyment with life that he emanated was captivating and it lent his countenance a draw that Forbes had long grown weak to, a warmth akin to gravitational forces.
“How have you been, Stanley?” Derek asked, settled on the bed and gazing right at him, heat simmering behind his eyes.
Forbes waited a beat too long, he knew, took too much time to gather his thoughts, and he feared, as always, that the worries that so plagued him was visible to Derek in the absences between his words. “Well, of course. It’s been a quiet year, all told.”
“It’s only barely getting started,” Derek pointed out, and he waved one hand, leaning the rest of his weight on the other, his shirt getting pulled down a little to display more of the long lines of his throat, Forbes as ever drawn to every inch of him. It was beginning to be rather a problem, he thought to himself; that it had grown this fierce, this heart-sick ache of his, and he could scarcely remember to chastise himself any longer. It seemed, with the years passing and Derek growing ever more into himself, that the reasons for Forbes’ abstinence and carefully calculated distance, also grew ever fewer, ever weaker, and to be frank he was rather starting to forget the ones that were left.
Age, job, position in society; Forbes felt, with every turn of the year, his priorities realigning and the ache of that which he didn’t have, would likely never have, cutting deeper still.
At last, he thought sometimes deep into the night, when he woke from dreams untold and stared into the darkness of his lonely bedroom, only the shadows from the tree branches outside the window keeping him company, it must cut through him entirely.
“I’ve missed you,” Derek said, and Forbes smiled, looking away a little as that soft ache spread wider in his chest, burrowing deep into his lungs and cording around his bones.
Forbes said, “I’ve missed you, too,” and of course his words could never convey the magnitude of that missing limb, that sensation of loss that sometimes does plague him, and so unnecessarily, too, for was Derek not right here with him, not a frequent visitor who paid him great respect and kindness, indulging his whims and needs for companionship?
Derek laughed, leaning forth, and placed a hand on Forbes’ knee. “You’ve a talent for understatement, my friend,” Derek murmured, and looked right up at Forbes from below his pretty, pretty eyelashes, prettier eyes glittering in the light, and Forbes was not such a liar as to deny where his mind went in that moment, what images did visit him when he blinked and kept his eyes shut for just a moment too long. Just so he could breathe, recklessly, gather his thought before he said something unwise.
“Why have you come here?” Forbes asked, looking upon Derek and seeing naught but simple, youthful joy in him. Derek, he thought, was perhaps up to something, had perhaps made some kind of decision.
Was it selfish, then, that rather then being happy for Derek’s obvious pleasure at whatever this great decision had been, Forbes’ only did wish not to be left behind?
For he was old, was he not? A great deal older than Derek, who was young and just starting to make his way through the world. And he’d found, lately, that the desires of his youth—the scheming and the socializing and the work and the effort—held no such great attraction anymore; the price, possibly, of nightmares and hauntings that he would rather wish to avoid acknowledging, of evils he found difficult even now to evict from his mind.
What could a young man like Derek, who had all the world on his plate, want with him?
But Derek smiled, leaning closer still, and lowered his voice. “To see you, of course,” he said, softly, raising an eyebrow, amusement shining in his eyes. “We have not seen each other in months. Not since Christmas! And I have missed you so…” And Derek licked his lips, Forbes’ unable to do anything but follow the movement with his eyes, tracking the pink tongue flicking over the plush lips.
Oh, but he cursed himself so, for his willpower was not endless, and temptation so close at hand, so willing and sweet and warm, was more than he could bear.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Forbes repeated, for what else was he do to? If he moved, there was no doubt what he would do. If he said something else, there was no doubt what he’d say.
Laughing, softly, Derek shook his head. “That’s been established,” he said, and he gripped the chair’s armrest, pulled the thing closer, Forbes’ helplessly going with it. He made no attempt at resisting it; he found in the night’s darkness, just the two of them awake in the whole house, that this surprise visit had rather rattled his defenses more than he’d assumed. For normally, usually, Forbes went into every interaction with Derek with the benefit of preparation, the knowledge of what was to come, and so he could make his way through it without terribly upsetting the status quo.
He did not, now, think that this would be one of those interactions.
Facing Derek fully, Derek’s arms on either side of him keeping him trapped on the chair, Forbes’ breath hitched in his throat, eyes arrested by the vision before him, utterly ruining him for any other. Derek’s eyes were dark, far darker than normal, but this did not diminish the warmth within, that spark that drew upon Forbes’ heart so effortlessly. “Will you say no?” Derek asked, smile soft, gentle, moving to hold onto Forbes’ neck, resting their foreheads together.
They were so close, Forbes thought, staring into Derek’s eyes, mind unable to conjure up any thoughts, his heart a shuddering mess in his chest that, nonetheless, he wished not to vanquish.
“No,” Forbes breathed. Derek’s hands on his skin were warm, fingers spreading out and caressing his cheek, his scalp, and he gulped. “I would not tell you no,” Forbes murmured.
Derek’s smile was a thing of beauty, something to keep close to chest and relish in for years to come. The young man looked at him, saw right through Forbes—as, perhaps, he’d always been able to do, perceptive of all things as he was—and pressed them ever closer still, as if such a thing were ever possible. Forbes strove, then, to pull the connection to it’s completion, to not let the chips fall where they may because that, at least, he’d never been wont to do.
Grabbing one of Derek’s hands, Derek turned his own to hold it, and Forbes smiled, his own softness leaking through every bones in his body. “Then I am asking,” Derek murmured, squeezing Forbes’ hand, and all at once the entirely of breath within Forbes left him, an exhale shuddering through him, the tension within nigh-on unbearable.
Oh, he thought, how fortuitous he was. f
Forbes did not wait. This he did not wish to leave up to chance, to a test of his nerves and courage, and so too did he not wish for it to be relegated to yet another unattainable dream, not when Derek was right here, looking at him like Forbes held all the questions and answers combined, and he wasted not but a moment, could conceive of no other action.
He did not find himself surprised to learn that Derek was a good kisser, and he did not find himself surprised, either, when Derek smiled at him, after, so warm and gentle that Forbes did not bother even going through the motions of pretending to breathe.
THE END
no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 11:13 am (UTC)And good luck with your deadline!
no subject
Date: 2024-01-05 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-06 04:46 pm (UTC)It was really fun to write XD and yeah that moment when they finally stopped dancing around each other was ❤️❤️❤️ No regrets, LMAO.
Glad you enjoyed it! :D