(no subject)
Oct. 13th, 2006 01:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quigonejinnJunior year, Bush and his girlfriend and some of their friends go on a vacation: at the resort, there's a rock-climbing wall, and Bush and Tem are standing on the foot of it.
"I bet I could run up that," Bush says, grinning a little.
It's almost completely vertical; there's a bit of a slope to make things easier, but Tem looks at him with her eyebrows raised, and Bush takes that as a dare. So he goes and pays his ten dollars, gets strapped into the harness, and proceeds to horrify the operator, who gets paid $5.50 an hour to make sure that this doesn't happen, by tucking his hands behind his back and kind of running, full-tilt, up the face of the thing.
...
During the summer, Hornblower comes back to school. He gets a small apartment -- an efficiency, the smallest apartment in town, and despite the size of the place, Maria comes to live with him. She picks him up at the airport, helps him get settled into the place with furniture, and it's so awkward between them: Hornblower is determined to be kind, but they haven't seen each other for so long. It barely feels like they know each other, and they certainly haven't ever lived together before.
It's an efficiency apartment. Terribly small. She puts curtains in the windows, and at night, they share a bed that tucked against the wall. She makes a lot of stew with beans -- it's cheap and filling, and after six days, Horatio sits down at the compter lab in the library, rolls up his sleeves, signs in so that he can access the terminal, goes to the school directory website, does a bit of pointing and scrolling, then logs into his e-mail and sends Bush a note.
This is appended, automatically, at the end of the note:
H. HornblowerHe looks at it for a moment, studies the words, and then hits send.
Assistant Professor in Mathematics and Political Science
Packard Hall, Room 155
(251) 628-1821
...
And that is the start of this story. Hornblower has been in England for two years, getting a degree in mathematics and reading a good bit of political science. Bush has been at school, playing football and working in the summers at home. He is still dating Tem -- after that New Year's with Hornblower, he drove four hours back to school, got his fraternity pin out of his desk drawer, put it in his pocket, made the four hour drive back, kept it in his pocket, wrote a two page letter that he agonized over, agonized over some more, carried in his pocket next to the fraternity pin, even went to the library to look, rather shamefacedly, at books of letters like what he was trying to write. He finally asked Lisa to read over for him before sending it to Tem. When they all went back to school for the spring term, he asked Tem, formally, if she'd wear his fraternity pin.
And now, Horatio is back in America.
He has a teaching position, tenure-track, contingent on him eventually getting his doctorate and joining the faculty on a full-time basis. It's an unusual arrangement, but Horatio, as the hiring committee puts it, is an unusual talent.
The apartment is small. Even for an efficency, it is small, though it has a good deal of light. Maria has put down a bathmat in the bathroom, and the shower curtain is a pretty, cheerful yellow. The pots are clean, and the refrigerator is neat; she is still working on finding a way to cheer the mantle in the living room, as the fireplace has been bricked up for years, and she is looking in the thrift shops for a camera that she can use for photographs. Maria has already purchased a dozen frames, of varying sizes, and she keeps them in the closet, under the winter coats.
Horatio and Maria. Bush and Tem. Football and ambition. Bush has, at most, one more school year in this town; Hornblower wants to sepnd the rest of his professional life there.
...
The town has not changed, Hornblower thinks. He didn't expect it to have changed much during his two years away, but he did think that he might come back to it as a different person. It would look different to him, then, shouldn't it?
Hornblower arranges to meet Bush on a coffee place near campus, and when he gets there, Bush is already waiting at one of the corner tables. There's a bottle of water in front of him; he makes the furniture look small, and during the time when he doesn't yet know that Hornblower is there, when Hornblower is standing in the parking lot and looking into the place, he watches Bush take his cap off, smooth down his hair a little, then settle it back on himself. Backwards, with the flattened Chicago C over the adjustable strap.
Bush fiddles with the label on the bottled water. Bush looks out the window on the other side.
When Hornblower comes in, he jumps up, and he hugs Hornblower Hornblower. One large arm over Hornblower's shoulder, another around his back, and Bush is smiling and smiling at Hornblower.
"I hear you got roughed last year up by Robertson and those big boys they have down south," Hornblower says, once he's got his breath back. He'd long-ago decided that something like that was going to be the first thing that he said to Bush when he got back. He had evaluated a number of phrases, a number of openings, and before leaving his office, he had done taken a final look at the numbers from that game with Auburn to make sure that he'd remembered everything correctly, that it was the most appropriate element of that game to discuss.
Bush still has a hand on Hornblower's shoulder. It is disconcerting to be smiled at with such intensity. Bush has his head tilted a little to the side, and he squeezes Hornblower's shoulder.
"So you're a professor now," Bush says, grinning from ear to ear, as if he still really can't believe that it's his friend standing in front of him, and now his hand is lying on the back of Hornblower's neck, thumb just behind Hornblower's ear.
"And," Bush says, still grinning. "You've got an accent."
...
"Do you think you're going to be drafted?"
"Maybe. Maybe not."
Silence from Hornblower.
"All right." Bush has that smile on his face again, much like when he was seeing Hornblower again. "Probably."
...
So yes, football is important to Bush.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-16 06:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-16 11:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 12:06 am (UTC)You know when I was in the airport I saw this couple. The guy was a stocky football type and the girl had all this pink luggage and she was blonde and skinny and tan and wore pink and all I thought was...
It's Bush and Tem in person.
*IS A TOTAL GEEK*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 12:43 am (UTC)Bush and his girl, at the airport! XD Was she drinking a double no-fat Starbucks latte with Splenda? I've been watching football all week to try and learn enough of the lingo so that I can pull off more football and stuff and yeah.
The Wifi network in this hotel sucks balls. XD I wish I were online spamming you.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 12:46 am (UTC)*thinking* I think she was drinking a Jamba Juice. *G*
Seriously, it was Bush and Tem and they were flying from Chicago to Cedar Rapids. OMG.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 12:52 am (UTC)Jama Juice is also an acceptable Tem choice.
I was in a candle/home furnishing store today, and I was laughing to myself about this RETARD story in my head about Bush trying to figure out how to get back on Horatio's good side again. And him looking at candles for a second, sticking his hands in his pockets, almost considering it because that's what he does with Tem when she's pissed at him, get a hotel room and put them all around and then those nice-smelling things in the water.
And then be like "Naaaaaaaaaah. XD."
But considering it. For a moment. Because Horatio is sometimes, you know. A girl.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 12:59 am (UTC)OMG CANDLES. It ranks up there with painted curtains, pillows, straw mattresses, and painted canvas carpeting.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 01:01 am (UTC)Damn. I'm hoping to get this wretched visa in the next few weeks because, you know. The pain and :| of prepping for December finals in November. I can't believe that it's just a MONTH AND A HALF AHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH *STABS EYES OUT, WONDERS HOW SHE HAS SO LITTLE IN TE:LKJF:LDKGH:LDKjf.
Man, doesn't this make you wish you were back in law school? XD
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 01:07 am (UTC)and no I don't wish I were back in law school. *G*
If Arizona screws up the Bears' record I will be extremely upset.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 01:14 am (UTC)STOP ME WOMAN I FEEL LIKE I AM ON THE VERGE OF WRITING SELF-INSERT FIC
This, by the way, is what I need to go look at whenever I feel the urge to open my fat mouth about fandom activities ot non-fandom people. My roommate is really, really cool and laid-back and totally onboard with fannish obsessiveness because she's trying to put together a Battlestar Galactica Halloween costume and because she used to read X-Files fanfiction, but adlkjg;alidh;flie;lifha;ldkjgdf.
Thank God I haven't told her about all the dirty, dirty things I write. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 01:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-17 01:35 am (UTC)I am fascinated by football. The Bears quarterback looks like he's going to cry. :(
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-20 07:48 pm (UTC)They're in the kitchen -- maybe Bush got up to get a drink of water -- and Hornblower gets down on his knees. And Bush is like "Oh boy. :D Blowjob time!"
But Hornblower turns him around, gets those boxers down, grabs that bottle of hand lotion that Maria keeps to use on her hands after she does the dishes since there isn't a dishwasher in that shitty little apartment. And he slicks his fingers up and puts them in Bush.
The mental image, man. Bush turned around against the counter, his face against the cabinets and his hands curled around the counter edge, and being more than a little disappointed but going along with it because, fine, whatever, this is what Hornblower wants, and that fucking second finger hurts, man, Jesus, what the fuck are you doing -- and Hornblower saying, against the small of his back, through the t-shirt that Bush is wearing. "Trust me."
And Bush bites his lip. He's holding onto the counter, eyes squeezed shut and just hoping that Hornblower is getting off on this because he totally isn't -- and then Hornblower goes in a little deeper, angles his hand just a little, and suddenly, Jesus, Bush doesn't care how sore he's going to be or how much trouble he's going to have walking to class or running or anything. Everytime Hornblower's fingers go into him now, there's this spot that's mind-blowingly good, and the fact that it hurts only makes it better. It's like the burn in your lungs when you're pulling up on a set of lifts, like running windsprints and feeling that adrenaliine, and Bush is moaning and moaning and lifting his hips up and putting himself back down on Hornblower's hand and Hornblower is licking the small of his back, kissing his hips, and ;lgkja;lih;glkfj.
Seriously. It's a good thing people aren't telepathic.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-21 01:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-10 11:49 pm (UTC)Publication, tenure, credit. Research, writing, publication, tenure, lecturing.
...
Hornblower also came back as a man who took pleasure from anger and loneliness. It had been a long, lonely two years in Oxford; he saw Maria three times in the course of it. Two of those times were brief, two or three days strung together, and just enough for him to stop being jet-lagged and get on the next plane. The last of those times, which had been the longest, did not bear thinking about, and in all of those times, Hornblower had never communicated with Bush. There was no time. There was no chance.
Bush remained substantially the same as he had ever been, and after the time in the kitchen, Hornblower did it to him again the next week -- Maria was away. Her mother had taken another turn for the worse, and Hornblower pulled out the bed in the couch for Bush. There were books and papers on the floor and on the counters; the curtans were drawn, and Bush was too large for Hornblower to fingerfuck and kiss at the same time, so he gave it over for a while.
"Here," he said, and put some of the stuff on Bush's hand.
Bush looked at his hand, then at Hornblower. Hornblower looked at him, and he watched Bush let his breath out, slowly, then lick his lips.
Eventually, Bush rolled over onto his side. It was easier that way, and he could get his fingers in deeper. Hornblower put his hand around and back, so that he could keep his fingers on Bush's wrist while he fucked himself, and even in that position, Bush could not get his fingers in very deeply because of the angle and because of the length of his torso, but he kept at it, and Hornblower moved his mouth down from kissing Bush.
Chest. Stomach. Hipbone. Back to the stomach until Bush moaned, and then back down then the tip of Bush's cock, then the shaft and Hornblower's head, moving up and down, slowly, in time to Bush's fingers in himself.
They spent most of the afternoon like that.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-11 01:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-21 08:06 pm (UTC)I love that Bush is nervous to see Hornblower. Is he ever going to realize that yes, this does mean they're gay? :o) CAN THEY EVER BE HAPPY? I want them to be happy. And together. It doesn't have to be in Alberta, or even involve flannel shirts. All it has to involve is a bed that they share forever. I'm getting maudlin. I'll stop.
Man, I love it when tough guys love each other ... "stoic dude love" I think someone's called it ... ;o)