silenttrainbaby | When Grief is like an Ocean

Somewhere between getting a birthday, birthday parties full of easy, shared emotion, between meeting the man who could understand his thoughts, to Yuuko's statement that he could talk again if he was willing to pay the price for a fulfilled wish, to all the people disappearing and coming back, it is belatedly, yet suddenly, too much.

It isn't even that day, or the day after, or even two. Nearly a week after all of this occurs; that is when the wave crashes over Grey in the dead of night. It is as if he can't breathe, as if his chest is too tight, as if the very sky is caving in on him.

He doesn't wake Curtis, doesn't take the cat, doesn't go to Rat - the silent boy doesn't wish to bother anyone in this moment of most intense, sharp grief. In the rank coat he hasn't worn since the train, he runs like the wind on quiet streets to the beach.

When he feels the sand around his shoes, he slows, walking toward the water he can hear but only barely see. When he gets close enough, he crouches down, rocking on his heels, arms around his knees, making him as small as he used to on the train when he was little, when it all got to be too much.

He wants Gilliam. It's a kind of petulant, vicious, immature tantrum-like reaction that is entirely unlike anything he's felt before, any emotion he's experienced. He remembers Edgar acting like this sometimes in what seems like a lifetime ago.

Grey doesn't want to give up all he has here, not at all. He doesn't want the train back. These things he knows with a certainty in his very bones. But how Gilliam explained things, how he understood what Grey meant or wanted: that is what he wants. Even if only for a moment. It wears him down knowing so little, feeling so much.

Gilliam. Even just so he can say goodbye. So that the last image of his mentor and lover isn't him being shot, falling to the floor of the train car.

He cries out to the sky, though he makes no sound. When the sobs finally die away, he stays still, feeling the salt of the tear tracks drying on his face even long after the sun has risen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

plaguedrat

Rat smiles for him, using the dampness of his hands to smudge away more of the tears and dirt. He can't clear away Grey's pain and sorrow, but he can help.

From:

silenttrainbaby

He might be surprised at what he can do. He has great power. What Grey feels for him, too, is very powerful.

Catching Rat's hand, he kisses the palm.

From:

plaguedrat

Maybe if he was braver, he'd say he loves Grey, but they've both just been too fragile for this to be the right time. Instead, he lets the touch, Grey's kiss, communicate.

From:

silenttrainbaby

What Grey feels for him can be called love. He needs to learn that too.

But in the moment, the warm water and the touches soothes him, bringing fatigue to the fore; his eyelids start to droop.

From:

plaguedrat

"No falling asleep in the water," Rat teases gently. He reaches out to pull Grey to his feet and into a towel.

"I didn't sleep well last night anyway."

From:

silenttrainbaby

He didn't? Grey towels himself off efficiently, watching Rat's face. Bad dreams?

From:

plaguedrat

"You weren't there," he says, toweling them both off.

From:

silenttrainbaby

Oh.

When they were dry, Grey steps close, hands framing Rat's face, and he kisses him.

From:

plaguedrat

Rat sighs out and kisses Grey gently, side stepping them to the bed so that Grey can curl up and they can rest.

From:

silenttrainbaby

With a sigh of his own, Grey crawls under the covers: Rat's bed is soft and warm. He holds up the covers so that Rat can slip in, the smaller spoon.

From:

plaguedrat

Nodding, Rat tucks himself against Grey, drawing his arm around him. This, increasingly, is what safety has come to mean for him.

From:

silenttrainbaby

To make it entirely complete, the cat should be there. Next time.

They will be all right; he believes Rat.

With his nose in his boyfriend's hair, Grey closes his eyes. His body jerks once and then he's asleep.

From:

plaguedrat

He sleeps better then, feeling Grey at his back. In the half-light he thinks he could accept this place as home after all, so long as Grey is here too.

From:

silenttrainbaby

When Grey wakes, it's nearly doark outside; the world seems confused for a moment. Then he remembers and lies there a while longer, feeling that continued warmth and safety.

And hunger.

He kisses Rat's shoulder, slipping from the bed as quietly as he can. He pulls on his sweatpants and pads to the kitchen and the refrigerator.

From:

plaguedrat

He wakes all the same, creeping out in boxers and a t-shirt to cover his scars.

"Hungry?"

From:

silenttrainbaby

A nod and with a triumphant raising of his hand, Grey holds a loaf of bread aloft. Sandwiches.

From:

plaguedrat

Rat smiles at how pleased Grey seems to be, nodding. "You made ...dinner? Is it dinner time?" Sleeping comfortably has made him groggy.

From:

silenttrainbaby

It was dinner. Or breakfast for dinner. Grey isn't sure, but it doesn't much matter. He sets the bread down and goes for one of the many cans of tuna Rat had stored. He knows by now how to open it, drain it, mix it with mayonaise.

He gestures to the toaster. Warm bread?

From:

plaguedrat

He refuses to admit that he went overboard stealing from the grocery store. Or that he salt cured several large pieces of meat. Just in case.

"I sleep better with you."

From:

silenttrainbaby

Grey decides for them. Warm bread. He stuffs the pieces in the toaster and presses down on the lever, then he comes around to hug Rat again, kissing his forehead. He would stay this night. They would sleep together.

From:

plaguedrat

Rat smiles and kisses Grey's neck and leans against him, arms around his middle.

At some point, he fell in love with a quiet, dangerous boy. And it all made sense.

From:

silenttrainbaby

The quiet, dangerous boy fell in love with Rat, too. And while it might not always make sense, in this moment, it definitely does.

From:

plaguedrat

"The couch?" he suggests, nodding toward it. They can eat off the coffee table, in front of the television he's never turned on.

From:

silenttrainbaby

The couch.

Grey waits until the bread pops up and he can spread the tuna on the slices and bring the sandwiches over. He sits, legs crossed, as close as he can get to Rat.