[Milliways]: First Gestures

[smallgayjew]

Posner can't believe that it's actually here. He can't believe he's finally leaving home (with Dakin) and moving out (with Dakin) and starting at Oxford (with Dakin). He's got all his essentials packed into a trunk and a suitcase, and it feels like too little to encompass his life so far, but it also feels appropriate to be starting a new life without any of the encumbrances of the old.

On the platform, he kisses his mum and hugs his dad and shakes his uncle's hand, and he tries not to look at the tears his mum is holding back, and he tries not to let his own fall. It isn't sad, not really. It's only...a bit frightening.

So he kisses his mum once more, and he lets her fix his hair, and he hugs his dad again, and then he takes a deep breath and lugs his trunk and his suitcase and his whole life onto the train and moves to find a seat by the window so he can wave them off they can wave him off.

And he doesn't sing Gracie Fields this time, but he wants to.

Comments

[pushtheboatout]

Stuart exhales with a shudder.

[smallgayjew]

David gives him his most innocent smile.

The effect of which is probably slightly ruined by the way his eyes have darkened slightly.

[pushtheboatout]

Two can play this game, Mr. Posner.

"I love you, because in my thousand and one nights of dreams,
I never once dreamed of you.
I looked down paths that traveled from afar,
but it was never you I expected.
Suddenly I've felt you flying through my soul
in quick , lofty flight,
and how beautiful you seem way up there, far
from my always idiot heart!
Love me that way, flying over everything.
And, like the bird on its branch, land in my arms
only to rest,
then fly off again.
Be not like the romantic one who,
In love, set me on fire.
When you climb up my mansion,
enter so lightly, that as you enter
the dog on my heart will not bark."

[smallgayjew]

Well, if he will keep breaking the rules, the punishment must continue.

With a blush in his cheeks, and his fingertips still subtly stroking over Stuart's skin, David tries again.

"Last night unto my bed bethought there came
Our lady of strange dreams, and from an urn
She poured live fire, so that mine eyes did burn
At the sight of it. Anon the floating fame
Took many shapes, and one cried: 'I am shame
That walks with Love, I am most wise to turn
Cold lips and limbs to fire; therefore discern
And see my loveliness, and praise my name.'

And afterwords, in radiant garments dressed
With sound of flutes and laughing of glad lips,
A pomp of all the passions passed along
All the night through; till the white phantom ships
Of dawn sailed in. Whereat I said this song,
'Of all sweet passions Shame is the loveliest.'"

[pushtheboatout]

"Am I supposed to feel shame?"

[smallgayjew]

David shakes his head. "It's by Lord Alfred Douglas. About how loving another man may be a shameful thing, but it is so very, very sweet. Sweet enough to turn shame to a virtue. To a goddess."

[pushtheboatout]

"I'm just wondering what your message is to me."

[smallgayjew]

David frowns in thought a moment.

When he answers, he's a bit hesitant, still working it out. "That even when I stop you from touching me, even when I don't want others to see, even that part of all this," he gestures between them, "whatever this is, even that is sweet. Sacred."

ooc: Pause for the night? would like to write

[pushtheboatout]

"Oh," Stuart says quietly. "That's all right, then."

He's quiet a moment. "'Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.'"

*nodnod* Good luck!

[smallgayjew]

David smiles, daring to let his fingers casually tangle with Stuart's.

"How should I know? The enormous wheels of will
Drove me cold-eyed on tired and sleepless feet.
Night was void arms and you a phantom still,
And day your far light swaying down the street.
As never fool for love, I starved for you;
My throat was dry and my eyes hot to see.
Your mouth so lying was most heaven in view,
And your remembered smell most agony.

Love wakens love! I felt your hot wrist shiver
And suddenly the mad victory I planned
Flashed real, in your burning bending head...
My conqueror’s blood was cool as a deep river
In shadow; and my heart beneath your hand
Quieter than a dead man on a bed. "

[pushtheboatout]

Dakin swallows hard.

"My mind's a map. A mad sea-captain drew it
Under a flowing moon until he knew it;
Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked as jugs,
And states bright-patterned like Arabian rugs.
"Here there be tygers."Here we buried Jim."
Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim
About their buried idol, drowned so cold
He weeps away his eyes in salt and gold.
A country like the dark side of the moon,
A cider-apple country, harsh and boon,
A country savage as a chestnut-rind,
A land of hungry sorcerers.
Your mind?

Your mind is water through an April night,
A cherry-branch, plume-feathery with its white,
A lavender as fragrant as your words,
A room where Peace and Honor talk like birds,
Sewing bright coins upon the tragic cloth
Of heavy Fate, and Mockery, like a moth,
Flutters and beats about those lovely things.
You are the soul, enchanted with its wings,
The single voice that raises up the dead
To shake the pride of angels.
I have said."

[smallgayjew]

"Now who's putting people on pedestals?" David asks softly.

[pushtheboatout]

"It's not a pedestal if it's true," Dakin says, softly too.

[smallgayjew]

David shakes his head. "It isn't, though. I'm not like that."

[pushtheboatout]

"I love your mind," says Dakin. Perhaps a bit stubbornly.

[smallgayjew]

"And I yours, love, but I don't think you can raise the dead."

[pushtheboatout]

"It's just a poem."

[smallgayjew]

"Yes, but it's a poem I can never live up to."

[pushtheboatout]

"The person Benet wrote about probably didn't either. You want honest poetry, look at sonnet 130."

[smallgayjew]

"I like sonnet 130," David says thoughtfully.

[pushtheboatout]

"So do I, because she's not idealized."

[smallgayjew]

"No, she isn't. But she's loved."

[pushtheboatout]

"Exactly," says Stuart and touches David's hand. "My point, exactly."

[smallgayjew]

David smiles and leans his shoulder against Stuart's briefly.

"It's such a long way to Oxford..."

[pushtheboatout]

"Good there there's plenty of poetry."