Title:
Understanding is Chrome-plated
Author:
Zenia
Pairings:
Rick/AJ
Summary: Rick visits his father’s
grave.
Rating:
PG-13
Series/Sequel:
Yes, Part twelve of the “Tarnished Metal” series
Email:
ztovarich@yahoo.com
Disclaimer:
They’re not mine, never will be.
Please don't sue.
Feedback:
Pretty please with sugar on top.
Warnings:
Incest and sex between two men.
Notes: This story takes place some time after the 7th season (?) S&S episode “May the Road Rise Up.”
Understanding is Chrome-plated
By Zenia
It was a simple headstone, black marble with his initials, J A S written in elegant script. Rick brushed the dirt from it, letting his fingers linger over the cool stone. Here it was, hidden from the world like so many other things that were hidden. He didn’t know why he came; it had been months since he last visited.
“I don’t know how you did it. I don’t know how you could leave us. Even when I was gone at war, Dad, it hurt so much. Maybe the pain was less when you weren’t with us. Maybe…”
He wasn’t sure what he trying to say. How do you verbalize pain to make it understandable?
“Sometimes I wonder if you’d understand. I don’t think so. Mom couldn’t, why would you be any different. I love him Dad, I love him and I can’t stop. What would you think? What do you think now? Would I have had to make the same promises to you?”
Would they have become lovers if their father hadn’t died, leaving them to grow closer, to depend on each other so completely?
“I couldn’t be his father. Sometimes I couldn’t even be his brother. I promised Mom and I broke that promise. I still break it. And it hurts Dad, it hurts, ‘cause I don’t know what’s worse, making love to him or not making love to him.” He looked out over the ocean, the cool salty breeze against his face.
What did you do when either choice hurt you equally? He loved AJ. He loved his mother. He had made so many promises and he was breaking them all. And all he could think about was the warmth of AJ’s skin and the way he tasted in his mouth.
Love is never wrong. Unless you’re in love with your brother. Love is never wrong unless… It took him years to realize there was an “unless.” But he had learned it. It had been a difficult lesson.
“Janet’s back in town. She never did marry that lawyer guy, whatshisname. She and AJ, they’re spending a lot of time together. He’s happy Dad. He looks at her like she’s the world. He never stopped loving her. I could end it; all I have to do is make a comment. I could destroy it.” He laughed. “Ah Dad, do you know how seriously I’m thinking about it?”
But he wouldn’t. No, because he never did. He had told his mother once, hadn’t he, that AJ was destined for marriage, for children, for an office in a law firm. And it was coming and who was he to stop it. AJ deserved to be happy. AJ deserved to love without regret and without guilt.
“I love him Dad and I’ll always have him. You made sure of that. When you died he held on to me so tightly. He never let me out of his sight the first few months. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and he’d be staring at me. Making sure I was breathing. ‘Course I did it to. Listening to him breathe, to his heart beating in his chest.”
He was so tiny at five. Fragile. Just a baby really. Dad’s death toughened him up though. Death always did.
“I’ll always have him Dad.” He closed his eyes against the burning of tears, opening them when the threat of crying was gone. “Tell me how to manage the pain. Tell me how to let him go and still be happy for him. How do I stop wanting him? How?”
But his father couldn’t because he was dead. Dead and gone.
“I wanna blame you. I wanna blame your death for making me feel this way about him. But it’s not as simple as that. I know it’s not. Mom thinks that there’s something wrong with me. Maybe you’d think the same thing. But it’s not that either. You wrote that your love for him was clear. It was like that for me too. But the world went and muddied it. It got tainted somewhere along the way.”
And AJ was in love with the only woman who could take him away. Not even their mother could do that, would do that. But Janet, well on her better days she liked Rick well enough. Of course only when she wasn’t dating his brother. But when she was, well Rick was a threat. He was the one thing that could destroy her happiness with AJ.
When she and AJ were together she hated Rick with the heat and intensity of a fire gone out of control. She knew that she would never have AJ as completely as he did.
“He makes me angry and jealous and sometimes I hate him. But that’s all part of the love. That’s why he’s mine. ‘Cause I can feel all these things for him and still love him. She’ll never know everything about him.”
But would that be enough for Rick when the time finally came, when AJ left? It would have to be he supposed. The years they had, the nights in bed, that would have to be enough too.
Memories would have to be enough.
