Title: The Tracks of My Tears
Author: Tinnean
Fandom: The Big Chill
Pairing: Harold/Alex
Rating: PG-13
Date: 1/2001
Series/Sequel: Part 3 in The Connection series.
This follows Chain of Fools.
Disclaimer: They still belong to Lawrence Kasdan, and I’m
still not making money on it.
Summary: Harold learns of Nick’s injuries, and Sarah is
not the one who comforts him.
Warning: m/m, m/f implied, spoilers for the movie
The Tracks of My Tears
Part 1/1
Harold was gazing broodingly out into the bright, late
August sun, drawing deeply on his cigarette. The sweet odor of pot filled the
room that was blue with marijuana smoke.
“Hey, Ha.” The voice greeted him softly.
His eyes dazzled by the sunlight, all Harold could see was
the fair hair surrounded by a nimbus of gold. “Nick!” he whispered hoarsely
and dropped the weed, almost stumbling in his haste to get to his lover.
And then his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light in the room,
and he saw that he had been fooled by the drug and his own desires.
It was Alex standing in the doorway of the apartment they
were sharing for the summer.
“Problem, Harold?” Alex asked achingly.
Hell yes, there was a problem! His heart was a bloody mess
on the floor! Harold turned back to look out the window.
“He’s not coming back anytime soon, Harold, you have to
know that.”
“Do I?”
“C’mon, man! Get real! He’s stuck in Viet Nam for the
next eighteen months!”
“Are you trying to make a point, Alex?” Harold stooped
over to pick up his smoking toke. He froze as he felt his friend stroke the firm
contours of his ass.
“Goddamn it, Ha, I’ve been trying to get you to see the
point since January! I’m here! I want you!”
Harold stared at him, his eyes agog and his mouth hanging
open. The words that he tried to utter verged on gibberish. Alex touched his
mouth to the other man’s, sliding his tongue in to taste the bite of the
grass.
“But what about Sarah?”
Alex had the grace to look ashamed. “You never noticed
me, Ha, not like I wanted you to. All you saw was Sarah. And that hurt, that
hurt so bad! All I wanted to do was hurt you back!”
“So you set about seducing Sarah away from me?”
Alex nodded, uncomfortable with the pettiness he was
revealing. “And it was so easy.”
Harold just watched his friend, and Alex began to chew on
his cuticles, as he always did when he got nervous.
“You hate me, right?”
“Alex, for the only one of us who was up for a
fellowship, you can be so fucking stupid!”
“Oh, please! Don’t remind me! I never should have
tossed that off so lightly, at least not in front of Michael! But what does that
have to do with you and Sarah?”
“Sarah and I had been drifting apart for months before
you made a move on her!”
Alex was dumbfounded. “How come we never knew?”
referring to their circle of friends.
“Why would we tell you guys? You had elected us the
perfect couple. We couldn’t have
an argument; we couldn’t get tired of each other. We couldn’t… fall for
someone else.”
“But…”
“What you did with Sarah didn’t bother me because it
gave me the opportunity to explore some other areas of my sexuality.”
Alex looked sick. “With Nick?”
Before Harold could answer, there was a knock on the door.
He left Alex standing in the middle of the room, cursing the fates.
Things had always come so easily to him. He never had to
crack the books the way his friends had; people gravitated toward him; he was a
natural born leader. The six others in their group were there because of him.
And although they would go their separate ways, now that
college was finished, they would remain close friends. Because of him.
Now, he had lost the fellowship that meant the world to
him, and only because he was showing off for Harold. But Michael had been there
as well, and heard him. The journalism student wrote a scathing article
denouncing the bureaucracy that sponsored the fellowship, using Alex’s own
words to damn him, and the offer had been withdrawn.
He had taken Sarah from Harold in another vain attempt to
get his attention, only to lose him to the disenchanted Nick.
Alex looked at the faint traceries on his wrists, and was
tempted to slice them again, only this time succeeding in ending his pathetic
excuse of a life.
And then he was yanked out of his orgy of self-pity by the
moan from the other room. He ran in to see Harold on his knees, doubled over,
and keening with raw emotion.
Alex dropped beside him and encircled his friend with arms
that held him snugly. “Ha, what’s wrong?”
Harold gasped for breath, but the sobs ripping through him
prevented him from getting a word out. He thrust the telegram toward the other
man.
Alex smoothed out the crumpled page and read the message
with growing horror.
“Regret to inform you…seriously injured…not expected
to survive…”
“*Nick*? Oh, Harold, I’m so sorry!”
Alex held him tightly and rocked him. Unconsciously, he
began pressing comforting kisses to Harold’s tearstained cheek, murmuring
nonsense words so that he would know he wasn’t alone.
Harold turned his face toward his friend, and suddenly
their lips met. They shared the salty taste of tears, and the sweet taste of
life, and then they were fumbling with buttons and zippers. Hands stroked, and
fondled and worshiped.
“Ha, please, I have to have you! Right now!”
Harold’s velvet brown eyes stared into Alex’s light
blue ones. “Yes.”
Alex ran into his room and Harold could hear the curses as
his friend searched frantically for the lubricant that would ease his way to
paradise. He was back before Harold could question the need that had arisen so
unexpectedly in him, his arousal already dripping with precome.
He rolled his friend over onto his stomach and caressed the
crevice between Harold’s taut buttocks.
That first time, it had taken Nick a while to prepare him,
but this time, Harold was ready, so hot he was backing toward Alex before he
could do more than stroke a couple of lubricated
fingers into his snug passage.
“Fuck me, Alex. Make me remember that I’m alive!”
Alex had been waiting too long for this moment, certain it
might never come to him. He took his time, wanting to make it so special,
wanting Harold to remember him, only him, when he thought of this.
Harold’s ass was high against him, and Alex relished the
submissive posture. He reached around and took his friend’s cock in his hands
and began jerking him in time to his own thrusts. For long minutes they hung on
the brink, and then they were flying, soaring, and the colors of the rainbow
surrounded them.
Sweaty and sticky and thoroughly sated, they lay replete,
on the floor. Alex kissed the side of Harold’s neck.
“Can we do this again?”
Harold pulled Alex’s arms around his waist. “And again,
and again!”
The phone rang. “Don’t answer it,” Alex begged.
“I’m expecting a call from my Pop.”
Reluctantly, Alex let his lover go, and Harold rose to walk
lithely to the little table that held the phone. “Hello. What? Oh shit! Okay,
don’t cry, I’ll be right over to see you!”
Alex was on his feet, his stomach knotting. “What’s
wrong? Is it your Pop? Is everything okay?” He had never seen Harold look like
this before. “Goddammit, tell me what’s wrong!”
“What? Oh, no. Sorry, babe, no. That was Sarah.”
“What did she want?” Alex was getting a bad feeling
about this.
His friend swallowed heavily. “She’s pregnant!”
Alex did something his friends had never seen him do. He
lost his temper. “*Fuck* Sarah!”
Harold was pale. “That’s the problem. I did.”
His friend scowled at him. “Yeah. And so did I!”
Harold dressed and left to see the woman they had both
shared.
Alex stood in the center of the room, clenching his fists
impotently.
Alone.
~The End~
