Work Text:
It had always been this way; the tingling coming-back-to-life once the tunnel had been traversed once more and the numbness in had thawed out. The fog of the day before, coincidentally, had cleared that night to reveal a bright sky of clear stars, which was a rare sight for London. Blackheath always felt bigger than expected to walk in the dark, and February had not yet begun to chase away the last of the cold, but he always liked Winter and was well built for it, so began his walk with an occasional look up to the starry, moonless sky. There was nobody about to embarrass his childish fixation on them, and so he indulged the gazing until his neck pleaded a pause.
By then he was off the heath and walking past the Ranger’s House. It was grand and stately in the dark; James and he had likely passed it dozens of times, but only now did it occur to him that James would know the names for the kinds of columns snugly fitted on either side of the door. They had little unfurling leaves; he would ask James when home. It would likely be a little after midnight by the time he unlocked the door, and he hoped James had waited up. James, who liked to hear — as exact to the moment as was possible — once Francis was feeling more himself again. James, who liked to hear the way the textures of the world changed for him too; the hardened mud in the frost and cold a trusted firmness rather than simple ground. The dark under the pathside bushes had not been scary to him since he was a child — particularly, however, that day there was a richness to the shadow which struck him as very enticing.
He passed the houses on the edge of the park with their stuccoed Georgian terraces and perfectly square windows. They seemed impossible as homes. The trees, at this time of year, seemed as woodcut silhouettes — perfectly, precisely bare. Canary bloody Wharf sparkled red through the twigs and branches eerily and regretfully a little prettily from all this way away on the hill. There, past a church he and James always meant to visit for the stained window. He hoped again James was awake still, folded elegantly as he was wont in the corner of that favourite armchair of his. How like a cat he was, always — how larger-than-life, so perhaps more akin to a tiger. They had not spoken since the morning before, this week being very busy, and Francis having been lacking in communicative faculties, and so he was eager to hear it once more; the beloved little details which made them so saccharine to the outsider ear — he could not help it, this wanting James’ granular detail of thought and experience as James wanted it of him. The sight of dear James cutting garlic while he spoke — this too.The sight of dear James cutting garlic while he spoke.
The white houses flattened, bloated and stretched into attached lines of neat doorways and windows. One had a small black balcony — it had something about the round garden table that reminded Francis of the flat in Milan they had stayed in for James’ 45th birthday. Looking out at the terracotta roofs and steel chimneys in the mornings had been a favourite activity of theirs — and below, too, where people swarmed about in the hot, narrow street. They had made coffee dark, hot and sweet every day of that holiday; that sticky richness and scalding heat had reminded Francis of the fact of his body at the beginning of every day.
Tall windows, below the Milanese balconies, stood with drawn curtains and so reflected the black bars of the park’s railings — the padlocks and chains were old and heavy. Francis wondered at their usage, having never seen a groundskeeper about his duties in all his years spent across Greenwich and the heath. All the way down to the centre, each gate was locked. Onward, Francis burst forth onto the pavement outside the theatre. Having seen a dull and disappointing play there in the last year’s Spring, James hadn’t paid much attention to the What’s On page for Winter, but Francis knew they would return, eventually: to those nights arm-in-arm, past (as he was now) and beneath the looming church clocktower. James, complaining and swinging his cane around wildly, looking very beautiful as he stalked the street nitpicking the worst of the script they’d just heard. Oliver’s seemed busy as ever, people in colourful collared shirts and fur coats huddled and smoking above ground, spilling onto the road from the paving stones. He passed them, then the art supply shop which James — often with Francis in tow — made a habit of rushing down to every now and then for new drawing things once he remembered after a short while entertaining other senses that it was something he enjoyed. Blanky teased him about being indulgent with James, especially when there was one year — in the worst of it — when Franics had forgotten Thom’s birthday. He always laughed and pushed him in knowing he would indulge James’ every whim in knitting, lino-cutting and sketching until the day he could no longer. There were people in Franics’ life, like Thom, with whom he had spent so much time, so very well, with in the past; nobody, however, had reset some sister of his circadian rhythm like James — who was an anchor and driving force.
The busy Greenwich centre, although it was late, was still busy – lingerers stood at the bus stops and a few drunken teens shouted, half-carrying each other down the narrow old off-market streets. More brightly lit, and so close to home, he made briskly past the record shop which he never quite paid attention to after dark — the people who worked there, as in any music shop with good stock, were always unfriendly and slightly resentful when a customer arrived at the till. It was only a few yards now — past the tube station, across the rushing bridge, then, dipping down to the river, he made a familiar turn.
The door in the dark seemed larger than Francis knew it to be. In a hurry to get in from the cold in spite of himself, Francis fished the skin-warmed keys from his pocket.
"James?" The living room stood dark and pristine — only a faint, furred light warmly bled in through the drawn curtains — perhaps James had gone to bed after all in spite of Francis' wishing. But no — up the stairs there was still a warm electricity pressing its fingertips on the door frame. The carpet of the landing was very soft under his socked feet when he pushed into the room.
“Francis! I was starting to wonder what was keeping you.” Dear James was sitting up under the red printed bed sheets they'd bought the weekend of Francis’ 55th birthday. He had nicked Francis' reading glasses, as he was wont to do, and they slipped down his nose.
“I walked home from James and Anne's.” Francis sat, realizing his breathing was coming a little hard — realizing the radio was on too, and James had a book in his hands. How he could pay attention to both always escaped Francis’ singular-tasked mind.
“Did you?” James was using that gentle voice he always used when Francis was in these moody periods — when it was towards the end of one, something hopeful tinged its edges. Francis watched his long fingers place the book face down from the quilt.
“I wanted to see if spring has started to come in earnest yet and I think it will soon — and I wanted to walk —” he looked up at James’ smiling, familiar face, “because I'm better today. I'm thawing out.” The warmth of the room seemed to get into and under his skin and suffuse: the familiar lamp on his side of the bed, James' smile levelling before his eyes.
“I can't say how glad I am to hear it," James said. He leaned forward, and his kiss was warm and practiced. “Your lips make mine tingle when they're cold," he said, still smiling.