RPM One shot
Mar. 31st, 2011 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlightTired Eyes Waiting to Close
Scott felt his eyes open to the darkness of his bedroom. According his ticking clock the time stood just before three in the morning. He tried squeezing his eyes shut, but the image of fire and smoke and a falling plane assaulted him, so that he could not leave them closed for fear of reliving that day one more time. He rolled, sitting on the edge of his bed, running his hand over his face, trying to maybe rub away some of the sleep. Maybe he could use the gym equipment they had for a couple of hours, and then he could go back to sleep for a short while before they all had to be up at oh six hundred.
He stood, and hunted around his floor for the pair of boxer shorts he had been wearing before he had gone to bed. Scott normally would have bothered, but Summer had followed him down one night when he could not sleep, maybe to talk to him, and she had not expected to see him completely naked. He always wore shorts when working out at night now, and she had not come down to speak to him since. A pair of silky basketball shorts found their way into his hands, and he slid them over his legs up over his hips.
When he managed to get down the stairs, and it took him some time when he was tired, he heard low voices coming from the training room. When he arrived in the door way, he saw Ziggy and Dillon sitting on two separate benches, their bodies at ease, but drenched in sweat, but not covered in much else. Ziggy looked up at him first, wearing his easy smile as always, and Dillon’s eyes followed, not angry, but a little disappointed at their disturbed piece.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Ziggy asked softly. Scott could see the outline of muscles in Ziggy’s skin very clearly without his clothing. Because he had been wirey before, and because all of the wire that made up his body had been muscle, Ziggy’s shape had begun to full out with all of his training. Scott’s sleep adled brain thought to remind him that it was not nice to admire the masculine form of one’s teammates, especially those of whom were not gay. He looked back at Ziggy’s eyes and answered,
“Yeah,” Scott muttered. “Thought maybe the exercise would help. “ Ziggy walked forward, slower, more graceful at night than Scott had ever seen him in the daylight. The smaller man took his hand, tracing over the lines in Scott’s palm studying them a little. “Didn’t know you tell fortunes, Zig.” Ziggy smiled, and took both hands and cupped them around Scott’s face, searching for something in his eyes. Ziggy kept looking so long that Scott began to feel uncomfortable, not because it felt like Ziggy was judging him, but for just the opposite reason. He felt like Ziggy was trying to reach out and understand his soul.
“You’re tired aren’t you Scott?” Ziggy asked gently. “You aren’t awake because you’ve just gotten too much sleep today, and you woke up early. And you aren’t tired because you woke up at the wrong time. You genuinely can’t sleep.” Scott remained silent and looked away from Ziggy, but his long fingers still curled gently around Scott’s face. “Are you dreaming? Is that what’s keeping you up, something you’d rather not think about?”
“If I’d rather not think about it, maybe I don’t want to talk about it,” Scott hissed, finally jerking away.
“He’s just trying to help, Scott, calm down,” Dillon rumbled from where he sat on one of the weight benches. Ziggy hummed under his breathe, and walked across the mat covered floor to a table they had in the corner of the room, and began to pull it away from the wall. Dillon jumped up to help him, and Scott watched as they pulled it out, and then Ziggy came back to him, leading him to the table by his hand.
“You’re tense; let me give you a back rub?” he asked in a quiet rush.
“I’d take him up on that,” Dillon rumbled again in a deep, sotto voice. “Ziggy has very nice hands.” Scott felt like he should ask what he was getting himself into, but the look on Ziggy’s face was so pure, innocent even, that he felt complied to let the younger man help.
“Yeah okay,” he murmured, climbing onto the padded massage table. He laid his head against the pads, only to lift it up when a pillow was pushed against his face. He lifted it up, wondering where exactly they got the pillow, but was grateful for the comfort. He turned his eyes to the wall, still not willing to close them.
A stream of slick oil poured down his back, and then well-worn hands wove it into his back, making sure each and every crackling crevice of skin became covered in the dense liquid. Ziggy’s fingers pressed down into his back and then dug into his muscles, pushing against the knots until Scott let go of his pressure. As the knots on his back slowly began to disappear, Scott became vaguely aware that Ziggy hovered just above him, straddling him just about where his hips would be. He could not remember when that had happened, which meant that he had fallen asleep under the talented fingers.
The crash flashed into his mind.
He sucked in a breath of air and sat up.
“Woah!” Ziggy cried. “What’s wrong?” Dillon, who had gone back to the bench and the weights, now stared at him too, with that look of understanding
“Nightmares,” Dillon said, standing. He walked toward them, pressing his hands in Scott’s shoulders, gently forcing the red ranger back to lying down. “Tell us.”
“Don’t want to talk about it,” Scott said. “Don’t want to think about what happened. And I already talked about it….” Another oil slick was poured onto his back, and this time, much larger hand surged into his muscles. He could smell Dillon’s sweat he was so close. And then Ziggy began rubbing against the places where Dillon’s hands had just left and Scott’s breathe hitched.
“You okay, there, Fearless?” Dillon asked.
“Don…don call me that, m’kay?” Scott slurred. “I ain’t fearless.”
“That’s okay, Scott,” Ziggy whispered. “Courage is not the absence of fear after all.”
“Ain courageous either. Ain much of anything, really.” Scott desperately wanted to lift his head again, but the two had him well suppressed against the table. He was growing much too groggy like this, but they would not relent against him.
“Hmm…well maybe we should try to think about those things, all right?” Ziggy whispered against his ear. “Think about sleep, how does that feel, when it’s a nice nothing in your mind and you can just sleep? How does that feel, Scott?”
“Feels good,” Scott replied, his eye lids unable to stay open against their ministrations, fingering digging into him, weaving out the stress, and even some pain he had been feeling in back. As Dillon continued against his back, Ziggy moved lower, his oily hands covering Scott’s thighs and calves, which had tensed with the massage treatment. “Y’all need to stop…” he muttered. “I don wanna fall asleep.”
“But you’re tired, aren’t you Scott?” Dillon asked, leaning down to talk to him. “If you’re tired why don’t you want to sleep?”
“Marcus dies when I sleep,” Scott slurred together. His eyes longed to snap open at such a confession, but did not have the strength. He tried to shrug off Dillon’s large hands, but did not succeed.
“Hey, calm down… I’ll stop for now if you want. Ziggy too. But tell me about Marcus.” True to his words, the two sets of hands left his body, he turned over, and Ziggy settled on top of him, a surprising light weight.
“Marcus’s my brother. He taught me how to bat and throw a spiral, and he was good when Mom and Dad started fighting and when Dad wanted too much from me, and didn’t love me enough. Marcus love me, no con…conditions.” Scott let a yawn interrupt his word before he fully formed it. “Marchus loved me, more than anything, an’ he always looked after me. No matter what…Then when we came to Corinth, we were protecting the skies. An’ I think I screwed something up, because Marcus died, and I didn’t. And now I don’t have a brother anymore. He’s a was, not an is anymore.” Ziggy’s thumbs streaked oil across his face as he whipped away the tears that fell from his eyes. “An’ I’ll never be good enough now, because he never taught me how.”
“You’re good enough,” Ziggy assured him softly, stroking the side of his face. “You’re more than good enough for all of us. More than Scott, better than many men I’ve known.”
“I think Marcus would be proud of you,” Dillon whispered, crouching down, next to him.
“No he wouldn’t!” Scott protested. “I…maybe you can tell me it wasn’t my fault that he’s gone, and maybe it’s not, but I still can’t move on, and do what’s best for me and just begin to move on from the past that hurts me, and sometimes whenever I close my eyes, I watch what happened. I watch his fighter crash, and I don’t even know what happens after that. I can’t let go.” Ziggy leaned down, and pressed their lips together, just barely to where they were touching. Scott pushes himself on his elbows, still feeling the tears coursing down his face.
Ziggy pulls away, and a soft smile graces his face.
“Think about that time, when he taught you how to throw the football,” Ziggy advised wiping at Scott’s face. “Don’t think about the end, think about the beginning, and remember who he was, not how he left you.”
“But I…” Scott’s protest grew silent as Dillon splayed the fingers of his hands on both side of his neck and shoulder, and back, holding him in place as he kissed him from above. Once on the lips, then on the cheek then on the other cheek, his forehead, and each of his eyelids.
“Close your eyes, Scott,” Dillon said. “Don’t be afraid to remember. We’re right here waiting for you, and we aren’t going to let anything bad happen.” Ziggy lay down against his chest, and Dillon crouched, his arms folding around them, and his head somehow landing on the pillow. Scott felt surrounded by warmth, and love, like he had not felt since forever. He blinked many times, before he finally let his eyes close, fire and smoke farther away from him, than he had known since they invaded him.
Oh six hundred rang out in the form of his alarm. Scott sprung up from his bed, causing his comforter and sheet to go flying with his limbs. He turned the alarm off and observed his room, his breath pouring out heavy through his nose. He looked for any sign that he had ever been down stairs last night, but he could not find any, the oil cleaned from his body. He wore a pair of red shorts, but he could have put those on in his sleep, he had done it before.
Deciding to forgo his morning shower, he found the cleanest clothes he could and dressed before rushing out of his room and descending the stairs.
Dillon sat at the bar, holding a cup of orange juice and drinking deeply from it, while Ziggy put the finishing touched on breakfast. All was silent around them.
“Morning!” Ziggy chirped. “How did you sleep?”
Scott took in his own body, and realized just how rested he felt.
“Great,” he replied, not sure what else to say.
“Good, I’m glad,” Ziggy declared. “Are you hungry?” Scott sank unto one of the stools, and nodded.
Ziggy bustled around the kitchen, preparing a plate for the red ranger, while Dillon, behind his orange glass, smiled.
Piece WC: 2009
3/31/11 WC: 2152
Project WC: 68170
Scott felt his eyes open to the darkness of his bedroom. According his ticking clock the time stood just before three in the morning. He tried squeezing his eyes shut, but the image of fire and smoke and a falling plane assaulted him, so that he could not leave them closed for fear of reliving that day one more time. He rolled, sitting on the edge of his bed, running his hand over his face, trying to maybe rub away some of the sleep. Maybe he could use the gym equipment they had for a couple of hours, and then he could go back to sleep for a short while before they all had to be up at oh six hundred.
He stood, and hunted around his floor for the pair of boxer shorts he had been wearing before he had gone to bed. Scott normally would have bothered, but Summer had followed him down one night when he could not sleep, maybe to talk to him, and she had not expected to see him completely naked. He always wore shorts when working out at night now, and she had not come down to speak to him since. A pair of silky basketball shorts found their way into his hands, and he slid them over his legs up over his hips.
When he managed to get down the stairs, and it took him some time when he was tired, he heard low voices coming from the training room. When he arrived in the door way, he saw Ziggy and Dillon sitting on two separate benches, their bodies at ease, but drenched in sweat, but not covered in much else. Ziggy looked up at him first, wearing his easy smile as always, and Dillon’s eyes followed, not angry, but a little disappointed at their disturbed piece.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Ziggy asked softly. Scott could see the outline of muscles in Ziggy’s skin very clearly without his clothing. Because he had been wirey before, and because all of the wire that made up his body had been muscle, Ziggy’s shape had begun to full out with all of his training. Scott’s sleep adled brain thought to remind him that it was not nice to admire the masculine form of one’s teammates, especially those of whom were not gay. He looked back at Ziggy’s eyes and answered,
“Yeah,” Scott muttered. “Thought maybe the exercise would help. “ Ziggy walked forward, slower, more graceful at night than Scott had ever seen him in the daylight. The smaller man took his hand, tracing over the lines in Scott’s palm studying them a little. “Didn’t know you tell fortunes, Zig.” Ziggy smiled, and took both hands and cupped them around Scott’s face, searching for something in his eyes. Ziggy kept looking so long that Scott began to feel uncomfortable, not because it felt like Ziggy was judging him, but for just the opposite reason. He felt like Ziggy was trying to reach out and understand his soul.
“You’re tired aren’t you Scott?” Ziggy asked gently. “You aren’t awake because you’ve just gotten too much sleep today, and you woke up early. And you aren’t tired because you woke up at the wrong time. You genuinely can’t sleep.” Scott remained silent and looked away from Ziggy, but his long fingers still curled gently around Scott’s face. “Are you dreaming? Is that what’s keeping you up, something you’d rather not think about?”
“If I’d rather not think about it, maybe I don’t want to talk about it,” Scott hissed, finally jerking away.
“He’s just trying to help, Scott, calm down,” Dillon rumbled from where he sat on one of the weight benches. Ziggy hummed under his breathe, and walked across the mat covered floor to a table they had in the corner of the room, and began to pull it away from the wall. Dillon jumped up to help him, and Scott watched as they pulled it out, and then Ziggy came back to him, leading him to the table by his hand.
“You’re tense; let me give you a back rub?” he asked in a quiet rush.
“I’d take him up on that,” Dillon rumbled again in a deep, sotto voice. “Ziggy has very nice hands.” Scott felt like he should ask what he was getting himself into, but the look on Ziggy’s face was so pure, innocent even, that he felt complied to let the younger man help.
“Yeah okay,” he murmured, climbing onto the padded massage table. He laid his head against the pads, only to lift it up when a pillow was pushed against his face. He lifted it up, wondering where exactly they got the pillow, but was grateful for the comfort. He turned his eyes to the wall, still not willing to close them.
A stream of slick oil poured down his back, and then well-worn hands wove it into his back, making sure each and every crackling crevice of skin became covered in the dense liquid. Ziggy’s fingers pressed down into his back and then dug into his muscles, pushing against the knots until Scott let go of his pressure. As the knots on his back slowly began to disappear, Scott became vaguely aware that Ziggy hovered just above him, straddling him just about where his hips would be. He could not remember when that had happened, which meant that he had fallen asleep under the talented fingers.
The crash flashed into his mind.
He sucked in a breath of air and sat up.
“Woah!” Ziggy cried. “What’s wrong?” Dillon, who had gone back to the bench and the weights, now stared at him too, with that look of understanding
“Nightmares,” Dillon said, standing. He walked toward them, pressing his hands in Scott’s shoulders, gently forcing the red ranger back to lying down. “Tell us.”
“Don’t want to talk about it,” Scott said. “Don’t want to think about what happened. And I already talked about it….” Another oil slick was poured onto his back, and this time, much larger hand surged into his muscles. He could smell Dillon’s sweat he was so close. And then Ziggy began rubbing against the places where Dillon’s hands had just left and Scott’s breathe hitched.
“You okay, there, Fearless?” Dillon asked.
“Don…don call me that, m’kay?” Scott slurred. “I ain’t fearless.”
“That’s okay, Scott,” Ziggy whispered. “Courage is not the absence of fear after all.”
“Ain courageous either. Ain much of anything, really.” Scott desperately wanted to lift his head again, but the two had him well suppressed against the table. He was growing much too groggy like this, but they would not relent against him.
“Hmm…well maybe we should try to think about those things, all right?” Ziggy whispered against his ear. “Think about sleep, how does that feel, when it’s a nice nothing in your mind and you can just sleep? How does that feel, Scott?”
“Feels good,” Scott replied, his eye lids unable to stay open against their ministrations, fingering digging into him, weaving out the stress, and even some pain he had been feeling in back. As Dillon continued against his back, Ziggy moved lower, his oily hands covering Scott’s thighs and calves, which had tensed with the massage treatment. “Y’all need to stop…” he muttered. “I don wanna fall asleep.”
“But you’re tired, aren’t you Scott?” Dillon asked, leaning down to talk to him. “If you’re tired why don’t you want to sleep?”
“Marcus dies when I sleep,” Scott slurred together. His eyes longed to snap open at such a confession, but did not have the strength. He tried to shrug off Dillon’s large hands, but did not succeed.
“Hey, calm down… I’ll stop for now if you want. Ziggy too. But tell me about Marcus.” True to his words, the two sets of hands left his body, he turned over, and Ziggy settled on top of him, a surprising light weight.
“Marcus’s my brother. He taught me how to bat and throw a spiral, and he was good when Mom and Dad started fighting and when Dad wanted too much from me, and didn’t love me enough. Marcus love me, no con…conditions.” Scott let a yawn interrupt his word before he fully formed it. “Marchus loved me, more than anything, an’ he always looked after me. No matter what…Then when we came to Corinth, we were protecting the skies. An’ I think I screwed something up, because Marcus died, and I didn’t. And now I don’t have a brother anymore. He’s a was, not an is anymore.” Ziggy’s thumbs streaked oil across his face as he whipped away the tears that fell from his eyes. “An’ I’ll never be good enough now, because he never taught me how.”
“You’re good enough,” Ziggy assured him softly, stroking the side of his face. “You’re more than good enough for all of us. More than Scott, better than many men I’ve known.”
“I think Marcus would be proud of you,” Dillon whispered, crouching down, next to him.
“No he wouldn’t!” Scott protested. “I…maybe you can tell me it wasn’t my fault that he’s gone, and maybe it’s not, but I still can’t move on, and do what’s best for me and just begin to move on from the past that hurts me, and sometimes whenever I close my eyes, I watch what happened. I watch his fighter crash, and I don’t even know what happens after that. I can’t let go.” Ziggy leaned down, and pressed their lips together, just barely to where they were touching. Scott pushes himself on his elbows, still feeling the tears coursing down his face.
Ziggy pulls away, and a soft smile graces his face.
“Think about that time, when he taught you how to throw the football,” Ziggy advised wiping at Scott’s face. “Don’t think about the end, think about the beginning, and remember who he was, not how he left you.”
“But I…” Scott’s protest grew silent as Dillon splayed the fingers of his hands on both side of his neck and shoulder, and back, holding him in place as he kissed him from above. Once on the lips, then on the cheek then on the other cheek, his forehead, and each of his eyelids.
“Close your eyes, Scott,” Dillon said. “Don’t be afraid to remember. We’re right here waiting for you, and we aren’t going to let anything bad happen.” Ziggy lay down against his chest, and Dillon crouched, his arms folding around them, and his head somehow landing on the pillow. Scott felt surrounded by warmth, and love, like he had not felt since forever. He blinked many times, before he finally let his eyes close, fire and smoke farther away from him, than he had known since they invaded him.
Oh six hundred rang out in the form of his alarm. Scott sprung up from his bed, causing his comforter and sheet to go flying with his limbs. He turned the alarm off and observed his room, his breath pouring out heavy through his nose. He looked for any sign that he had ever been down stairs last night, but he could not find any, the oil cleaned from his body. He wore a pair of red shorts, but he could have put those on in his sleep, he had done it before.
Deciding to forgo his morning shower, he found the cleanest clothes he could and dressed before rushing out of his room and descending the stairs.
Dillon sat at the bar, holding a cup of orange juice and drinking deeply from it, while Ziggy put the finishing touched on breakfast. All was silent around them.
“Morning!” Ziggy chirped. “How did you sleep?”
Scott took in his own body, and realized just how rested he felt.
“Great,” he replied, not sure what else to say.
“Good, I’m glad,” Ziggy declared. “Are you hungry?” Scott sank unto one of the stools, and nodded.
Ziggy bustled around the kitchen, preparing a plate for the red ranger, while Dillon, behind his orange glass, smiled.
Piece WC: 2009
3/31/11 WC: 2152
Project WC: 68170
