sunburned | (no subject)

Laurence had been out, to the compound and back in search of something to read. In the end, having to chose between it and more Chinese poetry, he wound up returning with a volume of Shakespeare. Granby was apparently asleep by the time he returned and Laurence sat on the porch instead, not wanting to wake him. It was quite pleasant, rain falling outside, a book to read, a piece of fruit to eat, and for a while Laurence was fairly content. Until he happened to notice Granby's sketchbook lying open.

At first, he had only meant to close it quickly to stop any stray drops of rain from damaging it, but as soon as it was in his hands he could not stop himself from turning first one page and then another. Before he knew it Laurence could not have stopped looking even if he wanted to.

When he emerges, he's tousled and barefoot, shirt tugged on over his head and still yawning. When he gets to the door and sees Laurence flipping through his sketchbook, a vague sense of dread hits him.

"Will..."

Laurence looked up with a start, his cheeks already beginning to redden, feeling rather like a young boy caught in the act of doing something extremely naughty. He had been so engrossed in the book, that the other man's movements behind him went completely unnoticed. He had known that on occasion Granby drew him, but he had not thought much of it, thinking himself no more important than any other bit of Granby's surroundings that he might choose to draw. Never had he thought he might feature so... prominently.

"Granby, I--" But he had no real excuse.

The feeling of dread persists. He pads closer but doesn't take the other chair, leaning againt the wall instead. He passes his hand back through his tousled hair.

"Most of those are new," he says. "I am not some sort of obsessive. Just...preoccupied."

"Of course. The contents of this are your private affair," Laurence said, shutting the book quickly. The whole while he looked very decidedly at Granby and not at the book he still held in his hands. "I should not have looked."

"I don't mind you looking," says Granby, shaking his head. "I wouldn't leave it lying around if I did. I can only apologise for the lack of skill." He smiles, crooked. "I'm embarrassed, Laurnde, that she should see me like this. I'd..Ben striving to keep it from your notice."

"You should not be apologizing for your skill. It is far more than I could ever attempt." He put the book down at last, laying it on a chair between him and Granby. "You should not be embarrassed either, no matter the cause."

"I was trying to keep it from you nevertheless," says Granby, with a crooked, somewhat apologetic smile. He was the man, after all, who'd slipped out of a shared bed early that morning to avoid embarrassment for both of them. He shrugs.

"I promised you time, Will, and you'll have it. No matter how frustrating."

"Thank you," Laurence said and he meant it. The time since that evening had been an agony of confusion for him. He could only imagine what it had been like for Granby, but, judging from the subject of his sketches, his mind had been rather preoccupied as well. "No doubt, you are being far more patient than I deserve."

"I am doing my best," he says, light enough, pleasant, and he actually manages a smile when he says it. "It's not the easiest thing I've ever done."

"Thank you," he repeated, not knowing what else he could say. He knew what Granby would doubtless have wanted to hear, that he had made up his mind and that the waiting could end, but Laurence was honestly beginning to fear that such a moment might never arrive. Each time his mind seemingly arrived at a verdict, something new would happen to swing it in the opposite direction and Laurence was stuck right back where he was in the beginning. "I wish this could be easier."

"Nothing we do is ever easy, Laurence. It wouldn't be us if it was." His mouth quirks and he ducks his head. "Have you considered that, perhaps, You might be over thinking something that's actually very simple? That the answer won't just...present itself in abstract?"

Laurence looked down with a small sigh, feeling very tired. He had been over thinking things and it showed. "It being a simple thing at heart is perhaps what worries me most."

Granby frowns, puzzling that over in his head for a moment. He drops into the chair at Laurence's side.

"I'm not sure that I follow," he says. "Why would that be true?"

"I have spent my whole life believing that some things are-- Well, that they are wrong." Laurence ran an uncertain hand through his hair. As terrible as it was, he nearly had to force himself to look Granby in the eye as he spoke. But things needed to be said. "And to suddenly find myself drawn towards that when I never before thought I might be... so inclined." He sighed, words trailing off for a moment.

"To have something you were once so certain off be proven false is a worrying thing, Granby."

Edited 2012-08-19 18:16 (UTC)

He listens quietly and, when Laurence is done, he nods. He leans forward in the chair, fingertips grazing Laurence's knee - the touch is designed to be reassuring, rather than any sort of advance.

"I understand that, Will, I do. I spent a lot of time worrying over the right and wrong of all this. But. We want what we want. And there's only so far that thought can bring us."

"I know." Laurence looked down at the hand on his knee, such a benign gesture, but still capable of making something within him flip alarmingly. "But I am not you. I have never simply... let myself act so freely."

"Let yourself," says Granby, gently. "Do you not think that that might be the problem, Laurence? That he yet to give yourself permission for any of this?"

"I do not know if I can. I never truly have." He shook his head, trying to portray a firmness he did not entirely feel. It may have been a byproduct of his background, it may have been some quirk of his own manner, but, no matter the cause, he did not like discussing such intimacies. "It is not simply because of you." And all that being with Granby entailed.

He thought about something Julie had said to him, about her date and about how he hadn't done anything unless she'd done it first. He thought about the constant, shimmering desire. His thumb pressed against the fabric of Laurence's trousers.

"Would it be so bad to let it happen and...put a stop to it if it's not truly what you want?" he says. "Because, Jesus, Will, there's a bloody storm in me."

"I am sorry, Granby. I do not know that I can," he repeated, a blush already creeping over his face at the mere thought of what was being suggested. And in the middle of the afternoon too.

"You think too much, Will," he murmurs and then he leans across, between the two chairs, and kisses him, solidly on the mouth. For a moment, he complete forgets that anyone might see.

Laurence, however, does not and cannot forget that fact and, despite a moment of giving in to it, he pulls back nearly immediately, looking around with a burning face. Almost anyone could have seen and he would not have stood for that no matter who his partner was.

"Goddamnit, Will," growls Granby, uncharacteristically irritable and pushes to his feet again. There's dark colour in his cheeks. "if you insist on maintaining a perfect ignorance of any part of me then I don't see what this will ever come to."

Nothing. Forever.

"Well, you might try showing a bit of restraint in public," Laurence answered sternly. He was on his feet as well, looking (regrettably) up at Granby, the color in his face now due to annoyance more than embarrassment.

Edited 2012-08-19 21:07 (UTC)