Prompt #136 - Rejected - Looking at the Future - Fizzerbass - Shelter

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Title:  Looking at the Future
Fandom:  Shelter
Prompt:  Rejection
Warnings:  Adult situations, m/m implied sex
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 525
Summary:  Shaun can wait.
Disclaimer:  Shelter, along with the characters of Shaun and Zach, belong to Jonah Markowitz. 
Author's Notes:  First time poster and I'm going to slap this up here before I lose the nerve.  I'd love some constructive criticism, because the whole point of this is to get better, right?

It wasn’t a pushing away.  Rather, it was a pulling in.  An act of self-preservation versus an act of cruelty.  A turtle tucking in as opposed to tiger lashing out.

 

And Shaun understood it, he really did.  He knew Zach wasn’t intentionally trying to rebuff him; their many, and varied, couplings last night had proven that to him beyond the shadow of a doubt.  Zach was definitely interested.  Scared, maybe.  Timid, for sure.  But definitely interested.  Intensely, amazingly, achingly interested.

 

The reason Shaun understood it so well was because he’d been where Zach was right now.  The day after.  The shock of the first time just starting to wear off and the stunning reality of is this really me? starting to work its way in.  Feeling a myriad of emotions and sensations, both exhilarating and yet terrifying at the same time.  Wanting to touch and desperate to be touched in return, feeling totally accepted for the first time and yet, feeling completely excluded and bereft of everything that ever came before.  Finally knowing with a solid certainty who he was and what he was meant to be, but not recognizing the man in the mirror in the slightest anymore.  Wanting to laugh one second at the giddy headiness of intoxicating freedom, and then wanting to collapse in a heap…hung over by guilt…fighting off both fear and tears the next.  Yeah, he’d been there.

 

So he didn’t take it too personally when Zach was quick to slither out of his welcoming embrace, using Cody as a convenient excuse to put off anything more personal than a brief hug.  Shaun had wanted a kiss, a gentle reconnecting and reminder of the closeness they’d shared less than twelve hours ago - a “Hey, I missed you today and I’m glad you’re here now token of what last night had been - but Zach had tensed slightly and slipped away, following his nephew out into the evening darkness settling on the patio.  Hiding behind the cover of denial and the shield of family obligation, Shaun imagined; wanting to flee one and shed the other, but not being ready to do either.

 

And that was okay, it really was.  There was no way on earth Shaun was going to push Zach, he was more than willing to settle temporarily for his timid looks and shy smiles.  All Shaun wanted was nothing more than to remind the fragile, yet tough as nails, beautiful creature standing in front of him he was not alone.  Not in the least and not ever again.

 

So Shaun waited.  And chilled.  And looked forward to a time when Zach would willingly and eagerly walk into his embrace, perhaps even initiate it in the not too distant future.  What he didn’t do was worry, for he knew this was not a rejection. 

 

Rejection hurt.  Rejection refused and refuted.  This?  This minor act of skittish withdrawal on Zach’s part?  This challenged.  This excited.  This brought out feelings of fierce protection…of gentle compassion…of a soothing tenderness he hadn’t felt in a long time and wondered if even existed any more. 

 

This…was what looking at the future felt like. 

Comments

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