Silence
Author: Lark
Copyright: 2000
Rated: PG for implied slash
Disclaimer: The characters aren’t mine
Archive: Yes
Warning: Implied m/m slash – If you are under the legal age of consent in your area or you find the idea of a m/m relationship offensive, please don’t read this.
Comments: Please
Summary: This is a response to the Holiday Missing Scene Challenge: It’s Christmas morning.
Thanks to emma and Elizabeth for their comments.
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This was the best time to listen. He had discovered the secret when he was a child. Sneaking out, escaping the ever-present hum of life that surrounded him constantly, he would make his way to the nearby woods to his spot. There he would just sit and listen. Listen to nothing and everything. Predawn. That was the only time you could do it.
If you listened closely, you could hear the quiet. It was one of the few sounds that was pure.
Now, chair pulled up close to the large windows, he sat, listening. Outside, darkness still enveloped the earth, the first rays of morning light not yet visible. They would come soon, but for now, it was his time.
He could see the lights of the Christmas tree behind him. Tiny colors steadily reflecting back off the glass surface of the windows, adding another layer to the stillness. Their soft glow cast a light that held no warmth.
He closed his eyes, listening.
The silence heightened other sensations.
He could feel the slight chill of air that seeped through the windows in front of him; the wool of the sweater he wore; the smell of balsam.
He searched for the feeling of calm that the silence usually brought. But this morning, the silence held little peace.
It was Christmas. A time to rejoice in birth, in the promise of things yet to come. But, as he listened, he could only think of loss.
New beginnings had been offered to him this year. But the promise that each offered was never realized. The firing squad. He had survived his own death only to find that he was in a different kind of hell, the gatekeeper only offering vague promises of release. Then he had tried to leave. Not to escape the men he cared for, but for a chance at something he had never had. A chance to be somebody distinct, an individual. Throughout his life he had always felt like nothing more than label. An orphan, a soldier, a fugitive, now a pawn. He wanted, needed to be just Templeton Peck. But he was still here, a shadow cast by the light of others.
If he looked closely, he could make out the thin veil of snow that had fallen the day before. But its beauty only masked the dead earth beneath it. A sad smile played across his lips and he shivered a little.
His father. That loss hurt most of all, because two dreams died that day. To have something that he had wished for as long as he could remember snatched from him without his knowing until it was too late, cut deeply. And that brought him to the second, and even deeper, loss he had suffered that day.
Murdock.
Murdock had been the one to hold that dream at bay. With time he had understood why, had forgiven the man who he considered to be his closest friend. But there was a rift between them, something unspoken. A silence.
He thought back to the hours before his ‘execution’. He had made a promise to himself then that, if he survived, he would not waste the opportunity of a new life. For years he had kept a secret, thinking that the time was never quite right, that maybe tomorrow the opportunity to would come. After awhile, it had become easier not to take the risk, more comfortable to live with certainty of friendship rather than the uncertainty of possible loss. But kissing death had changed his perspective. All the clichés; life is too short, nothing ventured nothing gained, were suddenly not just empty words. But timing got in the way. Adjustments, Stockwell, missions. Merely excuses. No, no more. He had finally settled on this day, a day that had always held special meaning for him. Christmas was to be the day that the secret would no longer be kept, but offered to another, with hope, with fear.
But the year had turned out badly.
Silence. He listened to nothing and everything.
He felt it before he heard it. A movement. He opened his eyes. He could see the figure behind him, reflected in the glass. He stood apart from the lights, shadowed, still.
A very bad year.
The silence rippled. The reflection was replaced by its mate. He looked up into brown eyes that looked down. Then into eyes that were level with his. Eyes that pierced the silence, both within and without.
The figure moved again, leaning in. Cheeks touched lightly as lips brushed his ear.
“It’s Christmas, Face.” Quiet words, melding with the silence, softening it.
A gentle touch, an invitation.
The first rays of light hinted on the horizon, greeted only by twinkling lights.
THE END
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