Prompt 49--Aladdin
Jul. 1st, 2007 12:21 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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tamingthemuseTitle: Solitude Allayed
Fandom: None--OC
Rating: G
Summary: Somewhere there is a prayer that can be answered, but only if you wait...
Looked over by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
authoressnebula, and then made to blush by same...I ♥ you, Nebs!
A/N: Yes, I'm late posting, but I just got home from work...at the last minute we transferred a man to Intensive Care, so I was delayed...forgive me, oh Great Mods Of The Comm...*bows low*
He was a silent and solitary boy who grew into a silent and solitary man. His escape into books began early on, before the beatings that would demoralize him and the teasing that sent his esteem plummeting to the point of non-existence. He preferred to be alone with the books because the books didn’t denigrate or abuse you; books allowed your mind to flow freely into the world of imagination and fantasy, encouraging what could be and ignoring what was.
It didn’t, however, keep him from being lonely. Nor did it prevent him from longing for companionship, someone that would look past his shortcomings and faults to see the diamond in the rough locked inside. Someone who would rub the proverbial Aladdin’s lamp disguised as a heart and let forth the romantic poet that dwelled within his soul and listen intently to the words that begged to be spoken but were bridled by insecurity and biting wit.
He waited patiently for the woman to appear before him as he finished high school and started college with his goal before him. His overwhelming intelligence protected him from censure as he deflected verbal attacks time and again; it didn’t prevent him from weeping at night as he clutched his pillow and prayed to the Almighty for an answer, a sign, a solitary smile that could warm his soul.
It seemed that his prayers were naught as the clocked ticked and time passed, as it often does. College complete and med school looming in the near future, he sat down in a bar one night and contemplated his solitude.
Really, he thought, it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. If he wanted sex, all he had to do was find a willing female who was selling that commodity. If he wanted conversation centered on his field, he had his study group to fill that need in spades. The only thing that he really needed a woman for was companionship—someone to discuss the science fiction and fantasy that had captured his imagination and held it tightly in its hoary grasp. A person to share those dark hours with who would touch him gently and tell him that things were all right; someone to hold.
That night he resigned himself to a life alone, finding fulfillment in his work and the healing touch that he provided. It was liberating, in its own way; he no longer searched for the absent partner or the mate that never showed. It gratified that need, medicine did; it made him forget that he was neither desired nor loved.
With a lighter heart and a satisfied mind, he tossed back the dregs of his beer and left the bar, missing the longing looks from the single woman at the table in the back.
Years passed, as years do. Life for him became a complex dance of work, sleep, and reading. He made friends in his new home, but they only seemed to highlight his isolation, attempting repeatedly to set him up with this woman or that one. He spurned their attempts, then their friendships as it became a game, a quest of sorts to find him the perfect woman.
He believed himself above it now.
He befriended some of the nurses since they were his eyes and ears, earning their respect. It had been pointed out to him long ago that it was the right thing to do so he did it without questioning.
But it was another night in another dark bar when he found the answer to his questions.
He was out on one of the rare occasions when he left the house, being wooed by a drug rep that wanted his business. It was later than he usually stayed out; normally, he would be home and in bed by nine, ten at the latest because of his early bird habits. He knew it was late when the second shift nurses came bounding through the door and into the bar, a rowdy, raucous bunch that laughed and teased with a vengeance, not only each other but the other bar patrons as well.
He slipped easily into their clutches, drawn by their vibrancy like a moth to a flame. Soft, feminine fragrance drifted into his nostrils and softer feminine bodies into his arms as they began to dance, a continuing cycle of nurse after nurse, changing with the tune the deejay played.
There were two, however, that kept coming back to him. Talking to him, touching him, making him wish again for that which he had freely denied earlier in his years. One older, one younger, both pretty in their own right, they spoke to him wordlessly of passion and vigor and things best left unsaid.
In vino veritas. That was how the elder summed it up. “If I were younger and prettier I wouldn’t hesitate in taking you home with me tonight. You know that, don’t you?”
He ignored their ramblings as alcoholic musings instead of truth. He believed them to be drunk on the idea of bedding a doctor instead of a man.
It remained his truth, his lifeline, until a week later.
He was in the hospital doing rounds after office hours. He had nothing waiting at home, so he did this frequently, finding that it filled the oft-empty hours between sunset and sunrise. He was shocked to see the older of the two nurses on the floor, believing it to be her day off.
She sat down next to him and spoke to him of books they both loved and adaptations they both disliked. They laughed, they chatted, they agreed to disagree when it was necessary. She teased him about their dancing in the bar and he flinched, believing it to be like the rest.
He missed the dancing of her eyes as they strayed to his broad chest, his strong chin, his taut thighs, enjoying their attributes to the fullest. He wasn’t accustomed to such so therefore he ignored it to her chagrin.
She worked as they spoke, answering phones and questions with ease and alacrity without losing the drift of their own conversation. He admired that flexibility, her multitasking, and her attention to detail. At one point, he followed her into the kitchen and asked her directly to stop teasing him about the night out a week ago.
She turned to him, a dangerous look flashing in her eyes, one that he didn’t miss. “I know that at some point in your life you’ve heard the saying ‘a drunken thought is a sober secret’. You should know by now, Patrick, I don’t tease. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. I don’t hedge around anything.”
He found himself at a loss and began to speak. “If I had thought you were serious, but I know myself and…”
She chopped off his words with a finger to his chest. “Oh no you don’t, Coping Mechanism Boy. You’re talking to the queen of coping mechanisms here, bucko. I know coping mechanisms that you’ve never even heard of, so don’t try to weasel your way out of this.”
He turned to face a bulletin board full of useless information and flyers, his finger to his lips. She waited with her arms crossed and foot tapping, a smile playing unnoticed across her mouth. After a short pause, she finally said, “What? Are you having a hard time coming up with an answer to that one?”
He looked at her, shocked by her forthrightness. “No, just trying to figure out how to word this properly.”
She threw her hands in the air and started past him. He reached out and touched her hand as it dropped. “Mary,” he said, and she turned to look at him once again. “I just figured that you liked screwing with me that night.”
Her voice seemed to drop an octave as she whispered, “I’d like to screw you too, but that doesn’t seem likely with your current lack of self-awareness.”
Stunned immobile by her statement, he watched her leave, the door closing behind her.
He followed her in a moment’s time and found her waiting for him expectantly. “You’re not just saying that, are you?” he finally said after long hesitation.
“No, I’m not. Don’t make me prove it.”
“I think that I’ll do just that. Have dinner with me?”
With a smile, she accepted. With a smile, he gave her a time. Both smiling, they exchanged numbers.
A date was made. A wish fulfilled. A prayer answered. A lonely life less made less insular. An alliance forged within the space of a heartbeat, the sweep of a second-hand, the grain of sand dropping slowly through the pinch of the hourglass. Time goes on, as time is wont to do. This time, however, was a beginning.
Fandom: None--OC
Rating: G
Summary: Somewhere there is a prayer that can be answered, but only if you wait...
Looked over by
authoressnebula, and then made to blush by same...I ♥ you, Nebs!A/N: Yes, I'm late posting, but I just got home from work...at the last minute we transferred a man to Intensive Care, so I was delayed...forgive me, oh Great Mods Of The Comm...*bows low*
He was a silent and solitary boy who grew into a silent and solitary man. His escape into books began early on, before the beatings that would demoralize him and the teasing that sent his esteem plummeting to the point of non-existence. He preferred to be alone with the books because the books didn’t denigrate or abuse you; books allowed your mind to flow freely into the world of imagination and fantasy, encouraging what could be and ignoring what was.
It didn’t, however, keep him from being lonely. Nor did it prevent him from longing for companionship, someone that would look past his shortcomings and faults to see the diamond in the rough locked inside. Someone who would rub the proverbial Aladdin’s lamp disguised as a heart and let forth the romantic poet that dwelled within his soul and listen intently to the words that begged to be spoken but were bridled by insecurity and biting wit.
He waited patiently for the woman to appear before him as he finished high school and started college with his goal before him. His overwhelming intelligence protected him from censure as he deflected verbal attacks time and again; it didn’t prevent him from weeping at night as he clutched his pillow and prayed to the Almighty for an answer, a sign, a solitary smile that could warm his soul.
It seemed that his prayers were naught as the clocked ticked and time passed, as it often does. College complete and med school looming in the near future, he sat down in a bar one night and contemplated his solitude.
Really, he thought, it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. If he wanted sex, all he had to do was find a willing female who was selling that commodity. If he wanted conversation centered on his field, he had his study group to fill that need in spades. The only thing that he really needed a woman for was companionship—someone to discuss the science fiction and fantasy that had captured his imagination and held it tightly in its hoary grasp. A person to share those dark hours with who would touch him gently and tell him that things were all right; someone to hold.
That night he resigned himself to a life alone, finding fulfillment in his work and the healing touch that he provided. It was liberating, in its own way; he no longer searched for the absent partner or the mate that never showed. It gratified that need, medicine did; it made him forget that he was neither desired nor loved.
With a lighter heart and a satisfied mind, he tossed back the dregs of his beer and left the bar, missing the longing looks from the single woman at the table in the back.
Years passed, as years do. Life for him became a complex dance of work, sleep, and reading. He made friends in his new home, but they only seemed to highlight his isolation, attempting repeatedly to set him up with this woman or that one. He spurned their attempts, then their friendships as it became a game, a quest of sorts to find him the perfect woman.
He believed himself above it now.
He befriended some of the nurses since they were his eyes and ears, earning their respect. It had been pointed out to him long ago that it was the right thing to do so he did it without questioning.
But it was another night in another dark bar when he found the answer to his questions.
He was out on one of the rare occasions when he left the house, being wooed by a drug rep that wanted his business. It was later than he usually stayed out; normally, he would be home and in bed by nine, ten at the latest because of his early bird habits. He knew it was late when the second shift nurses came bounding through the door and into the bar, a rowdy, raucous bunch that laughed and teased with a vengeance, not only each other but the other bar patrons as well.
He slipped easily into their clutches, drawn by their vibrancy like a moth to a flame. Soft, feminine fragrance drifted into his nostrils and softer feminine bodies into his arms as they began to dance, a continuing cycle of nurse after nurse, changing with the tune the deejay played.
There were two, however, that kept coming back to him. Talking to him, touching him, making him wish again for that which he had freely denied earlier in his years. One older, one younger, both pretty in their own right, they spoke to him wordlessly of passion and vigor and things best left unsaid.
In vino veritas. That was how the elder summed it up. “If I were younger and prettier I wouldn’t hesitate in taking you home with me tonight. You know that, don’t you?”
He ignored their ramblings as alcoholic musings instead of truth. He believed them to be drunk on the idea of bedding a doctor instead of a man.
It remained his truth, his lifeline, until a week later.
He was in the hospital doing rounds after office hours. He had nothing waiting at home, so he did this frequently, finding that it filled the oft-empty hours between sunset and sunrise. He was shocked to see the older of the two nurses on the floor, believing it to be her day off.
She sat down next to him and spoke to him of books they both loved and adaptations they both disliked. They laughed, they chatted, they agreed to disagree when it was necessary. She teased him about their dancing in the bar and he flinched, believing it to be like the rest.
He missed the dancing of her eyes as they strayed to his broad chest, his strong chin, his taut thighs, enjoying their attributes to the fullest. He wasn’t accustomed to such so therefore he ignored it to her chagrin.
She worked as they spoke, answering phones and questions with ease and alacrity without losing the drift of their own conversation. He admired that flexibility, her multitasking, and her attention to detail. At one point, he followed her into the kitchen and asked her directly to stop teasing him about the night out a week ago.
She turned to him, a dangerous look flashing in her eyes, one that he didn’t miss. “I know that at some point in your life you’ve heard the saying ‘a drunken thought is a sober secret’. You should know by now, Patrick, I don’t tease. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. I don’t hedge around anything.”
He found himself at a loss and began to speak. “If I had thought you were serious, but I know myself and…”
She chopped off his words with a finger to his chest. “Oh no you don’t, Coping Mechanism Boy. You’re talking to the queen of coping mechanisms here, bucko. I know coping mechanisms that you’ve never even heard of, so don’t try to weasel your way out of this.”
He turned to face a bulletin board full of useless information and flyers, his finger to his lips. She waited with her arms crossed and foot tapping, a smile playing unnoticed across her mouth. After a short pause, she finally said, “What? Are you having a hard time coming up with an answer to that one?”
He looked at her, shocked by her forthrightness. “No, just trying to figure out how to word this properly.”
She threw her hands in the air and started past him. He reached out and touched her hand as it dropped. “Mary,” he said, and she turned to look at him once again. “I just figured that you liked screwing with me that night.”
Her voice seemed to drop an octave as she whispered, “I’d like to screw you too, but that doesn’t seem likely with your current lack of self-awareness.”
Stunned immobile by her statement, he watched her leave, the door closing behind her.
He followed her in a moment’s time and found her waiting for him expectantly. “You’re not just saying that, are you?” he finally said after long hesitation.
“No, I’m not. Don’t make me prove it.”
“I think that I’ll do just that. Have dinner with me?”
With a smile, she accepted. With a smile, he gave her a time. Both smiling, they exchanged numbers.
A date was made. A wish fulfilled. A prayer answered. A lonely life less made less insular. An alliance forged within the space of a heartbeat, the sweep of a second-hand, the grain of sand dropping slowly through the pinch of the hourglass. Time goes on, as time is wont to do. This time, however, was a beginning.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 06:47 pm (UTC)Thank you, Nebs...You're a dream and I ♥ you madly!