bloodyrockgod | (no subject)

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(no subject)

[ooc: millitimed to last week]

There's an armchair by the window of the small room that Charlie particularly likes. It's overstuffed and comfortable and just big enough for two, if one is on the smallish side.

He's curled up there now, a photograph of a blonde forty-something man on his knee.

Someone is not a happy boy.

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"Baby?"

A hand on his shoulder.

He starts, then smiles. "Hey." He takes Darien's hand and gives it a tug, moving the picture of his knee. "Come sit."

He nods and sits down on Charlie's lap, looking at him curiously.

"Something the matter, Charlie?"

He gives Darien the photograph. "Sawyer came in today. Forty-years-in-the-future Sawyer."

He nods and looks at the picture.

"Well, I gotta say he aged well."

"That," Charlie says with a sigh, "would be my son."

He holds Darien around the waist.

"Oh."

And he looks at the picture for a moment before smiling at Charlie as gently as he can manage.

"He's got your love."

Does he mean it as a trait? Maybe. A comment on Charlie's commitment to his son? Maybe as well. Something indescribable in his appearance that reminds him of Charlie? Also possible.

Charlie smiles painfully and nuzzles him. "Sawyer said he's in South America most of the time. Doing . . . whatever it is he was meant to do, I assume."

"Probably more than that."

And his voice is gentle. So gentle.

"Make you a bet he makes president by 50."

Charlie snorts quietly. "I hope he's intended for better things than that."

"What's better than president?"

"Saint?"

"And why can't you be both?"

"How many politicians have the capacity to be saints," he says in a logical tone.

"But is the flaw in the position or the people who usually fill it?" he argues.

"A flaw in the system, I think. Draws people who are weak enough to want to feel powerful."

"And what if a saint became president?"

"I think the world will end." He smiles at Darien. "Why are you so fixated on this?"

He shrugs.

"I'm not. But it was a good distraction."

Charlie snuggles him and says quietly, "Yeah. I'm entirely distracted that I missed my son's growing up.

"I'm going to wallow a bit no matter what you say, puppy. I'll be better tomorrow."

He nods.

"I know. But something's better than nothing."

And he taps the picture.

"And you know you were an important part of this kid's life. That's the most important part."

"Was I?" Charlie says quietly.

"Hell yeah, you were," he says with a soft kiss to Charlie's cheek.

Charlie swallows. "I wanted to ask Sawyer if Seth even knows who I am but I didn't want to hear him say he hates me."

"Don't know how anyone could hate you, babe." He says quietly. "The way I figure it, if he knows you, he loves you. If he doesn't know you... it's because someone was fricking unfair."

Charlie closes his eyes and leans his head against Darien's shoulder. "God, I love you," he says in a thick voice.

And he wraps Charlie up in his arms as best he can before pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

"Love you too."

"I know he's fine," Charlie says once he's regained control of himself again. "I know he's doing what he was meant to do--making people's lives better.

"But I still can't stop feeling like I've lost my child.

"Tell me this will go away, Dar. Tell me it'll stop hurting."

"Do you want me to tell you the truth," he asks gently, "or do you want me to make you feel better right now?"

Charlie chuckles dryly. "It'll be cowardly to want you just to make me feel better now, wouldn't it.

"Tell me the truth."

"It'll never stop hurting, baby," and he holds Charlie tight. "It's always going to suck. That being said? Life goes on. 'Life is a series of meetings and partings. That is the way of it.'"

Charlie nods and holds onto him tight. Too many partings.

"I'll be fine," he mutters into Darien's shirt. "I will."

[ooc: homeward bound. back in half an hour or so.]

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