![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
~~~
-Ry/Col, Colin's POV, blah blah blah
It's hard to explain.
It's not like—for instance—that one time when he was halfway through this joke about a clown and a walrus...or maybe it was a sea cow. Because he kept trailing off, backing up, starting over, and then Pat came up to him, took him by the arm and told him their taxi was waiting. He never got to the punchline. Then it was time for goodbyes, for lingering hugs and meaningless words because who really knew when we were going to see each other again, when that next time would be?
And by that next time, we'd forgotten all about the joke. I can't remember a word of past conversations with him...except for one single sentence.
He says it to me now, hands shoved in his pockets, eyebrows raised either in greeting or a challenge; with him I'm not sure there's a difference. His hair is a little longer, curling at the base of his neck in a way that makes me need to touch it. There are more lines etched down his cheeks and webbing the corners of his eyes, deeper lines, and they're all beautiful. And his eyes, they're still so green.
I fall in love with him all over again.
And that's all right because I smile, and he smiles back; he leans forward, just slightly, just enough to invade the fringes of my personal space. He takes a breath—a little too deeply—like he's trying to breath me in, remember my scent, and he doesn't care if I know that's exactly what he's doing. He's not ashamed.
And he says, the corners of his mouth tilting up in unspoken amusement, "Now, where were we?"
It doesn't matter that we don't remember, that the words are different, because it all feels like one long, drawn out conversation spanning decades and thousands of miles, the end no where in sight. And when he takes my arm and steers me toward his suite, we're only continuing something we started the very first night we met.
But I never do hear the punchline to that joke.
~~~
-Ry/Col, Colin's POV, blah blah blah
It's hard to explain.
It's not like—for instance—that one time when he was halfway through this joke about a clown and a walrus...or maybe it was a sea cow. Because he kept trailing off, backing up, starting over, and then Pat came up to him, took him by the arm and told him their taxi was waiting. He never got to the punchline. Then it was time for goodbyes, for lingering hugs and meaningless words because who really knew when we were going to see each other again, when that next time would be?
And by that next time, we'd forgotten all about the joke. I can't remember a word of past conversations with him...except for one single sentence.
He says it to me now, hands shoved in his pockets, eyebrows raised either in greeting or a challenge; with him I'm not sure there's a difference. His hair is a little longer, curling at the base of his neck in a way that makes me need to touch it. There are more lines etched down his cheeks and webbing the corners of his eyes, deeper lines, and they're all beautiful. And his eyes, they're still so green.
I fall in love with him all over again.
And that's all right because I smile, and he smiles back; he leans forward, just slightly, just enough to invade the fringes of my personal space. He takes a breath—a little too deeply—like he's trying to breath me in, remember my scent, and he doesn't care if I know that's exactly what he's doing. He's not ashamed.
And he says, the corners of his mouth tilting up in unspoken amusement, "Now, where were we?"
It doesn't matter that we don't remember, that the words are different, because it all feels like one long, drawn out conversation spanning decades and thousands of miles, the end no where in sight. And when he takes my arm and steers me toward his suite, we're only continuing something we started the very first night we met.
But I never do hear the punchline to that joke.
~~~