Work Text:
He has visited time and time again, finding himself beside hospital beds and in other beds and on the beach and in libraries, always beside the other man and always allowing him to take as much as he might need while giving nothing in return. But that isn’t right, because he is given more than the richest man in the world - his currency is watching the flinches die away with time and eyes wearied by the world gaining soft sparks when he enters the room, softly steaming tea with just the right amount of milk and dry, ink-stained hands shyly sliding over his own, or relaxing under his.
Every time he must leave he is just as terrified as the first, anticipating a telegram or a shakily written letter that informs him he must go back to Australia to visit either a hospital bed or a graveside – but home he goes, (even though it’s not home, not really, because he isn’t there) and his letters are filled only with thoughts and longings and little pencilled pieces of poetry, and he finds that the light returning to Piers’ mind like a room finally being aired out beats back a little bit of darkness that has been entreating on his own.
The nights are mixed - there are nights when neither one will sleep, Piers out of sheer incapability and Sidney because he can't bear the thought of drifting off contentedly while his partner lies awake, knowing that Sidney has gone where he cannot follow - for if he tries, he will be met with a barbed wire fence of memories and gunfire and he will wake up screaming.
Other nights, they have spent the evening talking and laughing and exchanging gentle touches like doves wings folding over one another, the perfume of earl grey intoxicating them and one or both lulled by their own reading voices as they take it in turns to pore over a book. Sometimes it is Neruda, sometimes Whitman or Auden, sometimes a ridiculous comedy which Piers cannot actually stand but for the shy, high-pitched chuckle Sidney emits when they read them. Once they read over Sidney's well-loved copy of 'Izzy Bickerstaff Goes To War', and their chests hurt for the remainder of the night from laughing. On those nights, Piers is a warm, soft weight in the bed as Sidney virtually nestles around him, wiry limbs taking root and wrapping around him so like a sapling, the new growth not unlike that of Piers heart, once fresh and vibrant, then encased in brittle bark only to have that broken open again, once more due to this witty and watchful and unbelievably soft man who has always seen the good in Piers.
Still Sidney comes back and forth between homes, and Piers knows that it is his fault, even if he is always reassured that there is no blame placed on his shoulders. But to fully leave one in favour of choosing the other means to make a decision, and that holds a strength and permanence he is not sure he possesses even now.
So Sidney visits and caresses and reassures and waits, and one night before he has finished his work, with the Thames streaming smugly outside, there is a bell at the door. All at once there are arms around him, a face and lips pressed into his neck as he takes in Piers' scent - ballpoint ink, sandalwood, something not quite lavender and not quite clementines.
They have made their choices,and made them together.