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Peake Bay There was a beam of sunshine that somehow managed to hit him right in the eyes and Pidge groaned, rolled, tried to ignore it so he wouldn't have to get up. But the light was insistent, following him until he rolled of the bed and landed on the hard wood floor with a muffled yelp. The impact hurt--quite a bit, actually--but it meant that the light was out of his eyes and so Pidge was about to pull his bedding down to join him when his sluggish brain put two and two together and came up with ten. 'Wood? When did we put a wood floor into the Castle?' Pidge cracked an eye open, took in the faded rose-print wallpaper, the really ugly rag rug on the floor, the soft yellow curtains that did absolutely nothing to block out the sunshine. For a long, breathless moment, he entertained the fantasy that he'd been kidnapped by a cult of bored suburban house-spouses. Though why in the world they would want to kidnap him and put him in a room with a bunch of suitcases--which looked remarkably like his--and a comfortable bed he didn't know. Then memory caught up with him and he sighed because he'd just broken the first rule of vacationing: rising before noon. Well, there was no helping it. He was going to have to accept the fact that he'd woken up and just get on with life. Pidge stood and stretched, scratched his belly. He wanted coffee, which would mean finding a pair of pants since he doubted the world would really appreciate the full glory of his nakedness. But that wasn't a problem since he was sure he'd packed a pair of pants and that was way too much alliteration for this early in the morning. It was the work of several moments to find a pair of pants that didn't have an oil stain or a bloodstain or a huge hole in a place where no hole had the right to be. But he did, and he pulled them up, threw on a shirt and stepped out into the muggy summer air. It felt like a bucket of water had been dumped on him and the heat felt nice on his scars. "Fucking sunshine." Pidge pushed his sunglasses up higher on his nose and glared a couple of kids who were heading off for the playground. He felt surly and tetchy and the idyllic town seemed like the perfect place to vent his spleen and fill his life with a thousand minor annoyances, which would, in time, drown out the dull roar of his life. ~ Pidge enjoyed himself for exactly two weeks, poking around the little suburban haven, finding where the best coffee was and which deli made the best roast beef sandwiches, and sitting on his stoop at night, watching the lights of the R&D plant that was just down the road, wondering if any of his prototypes were being worked on in there. And then he was bored, because this town had nothing. Well, no that wasn't entirely true. There was a movie theater--had only four screens and anyway Pidge had stopped caring about movies a long while ago--and a little bookshop that had about six books in total, and a burger joint that had the best fries Pidge had ever tasted and served wonderfully cold beer. The town seemed a lot smaller now that he was an adult. He had remembered it as being huge and a little scary and full of a million things to do and touch and play with. Of course he'd been six then, and he was older and larger now. He was sitting on his stoop, reading some fluffy piece of trash and nursing a Gin and Tonic, when he first heard the motorcycle. The low rumble echoed off the walls of the surrounding brick homes and bounced down the street. Pidge looked up, glad to be distracted, wondering where the biker was going. The bike came closer and when it stopped in front Pidge's house, he almost dropped his glass. He knew this bike but it belonged back West, along with the rider, not here, not in front of his house making his neighbors stare. The biker turned off the ignition and the motor died with a grumbling purr. Pidge stood, stared down the few steps at the biker, clad in tight black jeans that showed off his ass and a well-worn leather jacket, which he'd peeled off as a concession to the heat. He pulled the helmet off, ran a large, calloused hand through his hair and grinned his old, roguish grin. "Hunk," Pidge said. "Hey Short Stuff. Got room for a roving gambler?" Hunk put his helmet down on the seat of the bike, pulled his duffel off the back. He took it for granted that he was going to stay, which annoyed Pidge a little but he wasn't going to turn Hunk away. "How did you--" And then Pidge stopped because he knew, should have known as soon as the first rumble of the bike had come growling down the street. "Keith." "Yup." Hunk climbed the three steps up to Pidge's door and sat down on the porch rail. "So. Have you gone crazy yet?" Pidge shrugged, waved his hand up in a 'maybe, maybe-not' gesture. Hunk grinned and snagged the G&T, took a long cold drink and when Pidge looked longingly down the road he shook his head. "Sorry. It's just me. He--" "No. Don't tell me." Because he really didn't want to know, didn't want to admit that he'd been hoping Keith would come knocking on his door. "So. Why're you here, Hunk." "To bring a little joy into your life." Hunk watched as Pidge tapped his hand unconsciously against his right knee; it was a new habit and Hunk wasn't able to ignore it yet. "They did a good job on you. Can't even tell it's a prosthetic." "Huh?" Pidge looked down at his leg, the skin smooth and white, and stilled his hand. "Yeah. Good job." ~ Lance showed up two days later and Pidge was surprised, though he shouldn't have been. He'd been on his way home with coffee and bagels when the taxi pulled up in front of his home and Lance stepped out, all long legs and beautiful scowl and sweat-dampened hair. "Hey Pidge," Lance said in passing, and he loped up the steps, shouting, "Hunk! Give me back my credit card you ass!" Pidge stopped short, blinking rapidly. Hunk was one thing, but Lance was something entirely different. He couldn't sulk and mope with Lance around because Lance was like caffeine personified. Pidge didn't want energy and verve and stupid, fucking boundless optimism. He wanted to be mean and bitter and withdrawn and, well, that was why he'd come to this backwater town where nobody knew his name or why he rubbed his knee or the reason he almost always wore long pants and avoided computers and cars and walked everywhere. It was terribly difficult to sulk and wallow in self-pity when Lance was around and he thought you needed to be cheered up, the goddamn hypocrite. Which was a problem for Pidge because right now he liked sulking and wallowing in self-pity because it meant he could heal and adjust to the changes without really thinking about the pain. But he couldn't really throw Lance out, because, well, it was Lance. When Sven showed up the following morning, as calm as always and shaking his head ever so minutely to Hunk's unspoken question, Pidge began to think that maybe he'd blacked out and sent the guys engraved invitations. This was just beginning to get ridiculous. Not that he didn't have enough space--the house had been built long ago when it hadn't been unseemly to have a live-in servant and a large family, and Hunk and Sven always shared a room--but, really. This was supposed to be his vacation and these jackasses were just dropping in and making him have fun. He didn't want to have fun. He didn't want to drive to the next town and do a pub-crawl, ending up in front of the courthouse raving drunk and ultimately puking in a birdbath. He didn't want to go out to the riverboat and gamble, or go crash a formal party, or race go-carts down the main drag at three in the morning. He just wanted to be left alone, to prove once and for all that he didn't need anybody around to have a good time. Besides, this didn't feel right, just the four of them. The dynamic was off and Pidge didn't want to admit what was missing. Pidge turned off the central air in punishment. Which had actually been a really stupid idea, now that he thought about it, lying naked on his sheets and dying from the heat. He'd meant to drive the others away in with his passive-aggressive action, but it wasn't working and if this went on much longer he was going to have to just give in and turn the air on again. He rolled onto his stomach, eyed the clock, which read just past two. The dull drone of the cicadas outside was loud but not as loud as the stuttering, grumbling snores of Hunk. Pidge made a mental note to find out how Sven manage to fall asleep next to that every single night. At least Keith hadn't-- Pidge cut that line of thinking off and got out of bed. He needed to clear his mind of everything, so he moved to the window, pushed the screen open and leaned out into the still night air. He could see, though just barely, the river, which glistened in the moonlight like blackened steel. There was no human sound beyond Hunk's snores and Pidge began to feel like he was drifting away on that gleaming darkness, carried from this world and into the next. His eyes were beginning to droop, his breathing was beginning to slow when he saw, suddenly, a shape stepping away from the shadow of the house. Black hair shone blue in the moonlight and Pidge tried to convince himself that it was just Sven, but the shape was all wrong, and anyway Sven was inside. Keith, his mind screamed, but his throat didn't seem to want to produce noise and anyway, Keith probably wouldn't be able to hear him over the dull thudding noise that Pidge thought was his heart until he realized it was the sound of his feet on the stairs. He slipped, once, on a rug in the hallway and clipped his chin on the floor, but could feel no pain, just need, need so strong that when he threw open the door, sobbing Keith's name, and dove into Keith's arms, he hit Keith so hard that they almost ended up on the ground, bruised and scraped. As it was Keith had to stagger back a few paces, struggling to maintain a grip on Pidge's naked body. "Keith," Pidge said, sobbed, howled, whispered, limbs wrapped around Keith's body like a lamprey clinging to a pier. "You're here." "You're naked," Keith said, still a little shocked. And he tried to put his hands someplace safe. "It's hot," Pidge mumbled. He disengaged, slid down Keith's body and stood there on the lawn, daring Keith to say something about his pale nakedness. But Keith's eyes were drawn to the scar on his thigh, the place where his body joined with the machine, and it was still raw and purple and shiny and painful. He reached out as if to touch it, and Pidge shrank back a little, hands coming down to cover it. "I'm sorry." Keith changed his movement, reaching out to Pidge instead. He touched Pidge's hair, tucking an errant strand away. "I shouldn't have--" "I wanted to go." Pidge leaned in to the touch, just so happy to feel Keith again. "It was my decision." "But--" "Shut up. Jeez, Keith. Way to ruin the moment." Pidge was beginning to remember that he was still pissed off at Keith. "And what's the big idea, sicing the three stooges on me?" "I was worried." "You couldn't have just called yourself?" "You told me you never wanted to see me again." Keith's eyes were wide and confused and it just annoyed Pidge further. "And you believed me?" Pidge snorted. "Christ, Keith. It's no wonder you never had a real relationship before. Of course I said I didn't want to see you. I was in pain and I was ashamed and I wasn't a whole man anymore. And anyway, you were giving me guilty eyes. I couldn't stand it. I had to get away, I needed space." "And I gave it to you." Keith shook his head, shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked down at the ground. "Sorry I came by. I should go." "No you don't. You're not leaving me again." Pidge reached out, grabbed Keith by the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. He was pleased that Keith didn't even try to resist, just melted into the kiss, wrapping his fingers in Pidge's hair. He pulled back, dragged Keith up the stairs. "Now come on. I've had just about all the space that I can stand." ~ Lance opened the door to Pidge's room, took a quick peek and closed it again with a smile. He wandered downstairs to where Sven and Hunk were eating breakfast, eyed Sven thoughtfully and then leaned down to kiss him. "The hell?" Sven said when they broke apart. Lance shrugged. "Well, since everybody else likes men, I figured I might as well see what I'm missing." "And?" Hunk asked. He would have loomed intimidatingly over Lance where it not so early and had he not been sure that this was just one of Lance's little jokes. "I've had better." Sven threw an apple at Lance, and in no time at all breakfast had degenerated once more into a food fight. Upstairs, a ray of sunshine once more stabbed Pidge in the eyes. He sighed and rolled into Keith, who tightened his grip and wouldn't let go. |