the constant in a world of change
The wonderful @flintwoodandco inspired me once more to write flintwood.
Warnings: nsfw-ish for non-discriptive sex, mentions of violence and possible historical inaccuracies
I'd like to say that I love you.
The truth is, I don't know. We do have a history, though. Or maybe I should say, the history. I can already hear you tell me how ridiculous I sound. Kind words are lost between us, we're more about sharp barbs and flying fists. Even while shagging, the words breathed into the space between our naked bodies are insults and sarcastic remarks. I'll tell you that you need me, and you say you need me as much as the wolf needs the hare; it'll do for a snack, but there's always better, bigger game around.
Around us, the world keeps on changing and we stay the same. For all the time we are supposed to have at our disposal, there is no time at all. It just stopped inside our little bubble. It took us centuries to realize that, just like time, we're going nowhere. Not for a lack of trying, mind. We will go decades, one time even over a century, without each other.
But just like the compass' needle is drawn to the north, we always come back here.
Don't we.
You are still asleep as I slip out of bed and step out onto the balcony. I don't bother to put on some clothes. It's a warm summer's night and your flat is a cage of glass at the very top of one of Berlin's highrises. The city is wide awake despite the late, or rather early, hour. But barely any sound makes it up here. The cars passing by beneath and the laughter of the partygoers is no more than a murmur riding the wind and drifting by my ears. The skyline twinkles with lights and at the horizon, the sun sends her first rays, painting the sky with a thin line of pink.
It's been eighty-six years. You haven't changed a bit. And neither have I.
Although, I have to admit as I run my hand along the polished metal railing of your balcony, this is new. Just like your three-piece suit and the thread count of your linens.
Money, you once told me, is worthless. What do you need it for, if you can't starve? You're stupider than I thought if you keep working for it, Wood. Just take what you want and fuck the rest.
I told you you wouldn't understand. See, the money wasn't for me. It was for my family. My wife, my children.
You can't keep them. That's what you said. You didn't even bother to insult me. There were just these four words and the pity in your eyes. I told you you were wrong.
But of course you weren't.
I started my journey as soon as I glimpsed a first grey hair woven into Susanna's blond plaits, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes. I searched the world for immortality until my ship sank off the coast of the Americas. I don't know how long I drifted on the waves until I reached land, don't know how long it took me to get back to England. But it was enough time to turn Susanna's hair into a crown of grey and her mind into a misty maze of memories she couldn't find her way through. She thought I was a wraith come to haunt her when I stepped up to the side of her bed.
I found you afterward in a dirty alehouse filled with British soldiers departing the next day for Canada, paying for a last goodbye from the whores. You wore your own red coat and a smirk that slipped right off your face as soon as you saw me. I didn't need to say anything to have you follow me out into the alley behind the alehouse. We slipped into a dark corner and you fucked me against the wall while the rain drenched our clothes and beat down on the cobblestones around us.
You left the next day and I didn't see you for half a century. I didn't look for you either.
I rub a hand over my forehead as if it helps brushing the memories away. The pain has dulled over the years, but I still don't want to dwell on them.
The sun is edging further up into the sky, another day begins. A group of young people spill out of the club across the street. They stumble along the pavement towards the underground and the high-pitched laugh of a girl is loud enough to tear through my bubble of silence up here.
I might say it was fate when we first met, you'd say it was coincidence that it happened then.
Eventually, we would have run into each other, you said. We have all the time in the world after all, and the Earth is only so big.
You came with the Romans. They called you Marcus, after their God of war, because that was what you were best at. You set fire to our woods to draw us out and your soldiers rolled over our lands like a flood.
I pierced your eye with an arrow, you carved out my heart with a knife. A fortnight later, we met again on the battle field. You wore a bandage over your eye, even though it was fully healed and I had told the others your blade had only grazed me. I sent an arrow into your stomach, you took my hand. I couldn't explain it away this time when my hand had grown back a week later, and I left to join another group of Celts fighting against the intruders. That first century, we met on battle fields. Boudica always needed more fodder for your swords, and your senators were never satisfied, no matter how much land you took from us.
Again and again we fought; cut and pierced and carved each other's flesh. Maybe we wanted to leave a mark on one another. I would pick at the wounds you left on me as if I wanted them to scar, but they faded away like everything else in our lives.
You've kept the name and added another. You are Flint, and I am Wood. And if I don't watch out, you'll set me on fire and burn me to ashes. Or maybe it's already too late.
The breeze caresses my heated, sweaty skin. My arse is sore and the bite marks along my collar bone sting. In a few hours, both the soreness and every trace of your teeth on my skin will be gone. Just like me. Maybe I'll return to my tiny flat and my badly-paid job as a barkeep at the club. Or maybe I'll take the rest of my meagre savings and book a one-way ticket to another part of the world. Somewhere where you won't find me right away, maybe Asia.
Oh, I don't have any doubts that you will find me. You always do, and we always end up right here. Maybe not in this bed with its silken sheets, and minimalistic and tasteful frame—maybe it won't be in a bed at all, next time, but another nook in a dark alley, another dirty toilet stall. But we will end up wrapped together, sweat on our skin and groans in our throats and spilling past our lips.
Berlin is a city full of young people with big dreams, and lost souls trying to drown their pain and fears in liquor and drugs. Large and dark and dirty, and most important, anonymous. My neighbours don't know my name and wouldn't care if I don't come back today. Neither would my boss or my colleagues, they'd only worry about who would need to cover my shifts. Next week, someone else would tend the bar and it would be like Oliver Wood had never stood behind it at all.
Only you would remember finding me there.
You stuck out like a sore thumb as soon as you entered the club. Dressed to the nines in your three-piece suit in a room full of half-naked bodies writhing to the beat of hard, dirty techno. A girl wearing only a pair of knickers, her eyes glassy with whatever she'd swallowed that night, rubbed up against you as you made your way across the dance floor. You didn't even spare her a glance, only kept your gaze on me and nailed me to the spot. My heart was throbbing harder and faster than the music.
You downed the shot of vodka I put down on the sticky bar as soon as you'd reached it. There were no words, no questions and no greetings, and still I slipped past my colleague with a hasty apology and followed you out into the street. The taxi was standing right in front of the club, waiting for us. We didn't say anything for the whole way back to your flat. You greeted the night guard with his name as you guided me towards the elevator with a hand at the small of my back, your palm burning my skin through the thin, holey fabric of my T-shirt.
You barely waited for the elevator to climb all the way up to your flat before you started tearing at my clothes and biting at my neck. My fingers fumbled with the buttons on your waistcoat, shaking so hard slipping each through its hole was a trial. We almost didn't make it to the bed because you pushed me up against the door as soon as it fell into its lock behind us. You were still wearing most of your clothes and I was naked as you sucked bruises into my skin and pressed a leg between mine, hands on my hips as you encouraged me to ride your thigh. I was close to coming when your hands tightened, fingers digging into my skin until it hurt.
I looked at you through my lashes, head tilted back against the door, as you drew back and regarded me. I cursed my weakness internally while I already began missing your warmth and the feel of your lips on my skin.
For long moments, you said nothing and there was only our hard breathing breaking the silence.
Then you leant in and brushed your lips against mine, dipped your tongue into my mouth before you pulled back once more. A fleeting kiss that left me panting for more and sent shudders down my spine with its intensity and softness.
“Stop running,” you said.
And I was lost. I clung to you as you hoisted my legs up over your hips and carried me to the bedroom. You took me apart, made me scream and beg for more until the only word I knew was your name.
When I woke up, you were sleeping with your back towards me, and the scratches I had left there were already gone.
I could run. I could take the rest of my money and buy a ticket to Bangkok.
The sun has climbed high enough to peek over the skyline when I finally come back inside. You don't stir until I slip back into the bed beside you and then you turn around. Your eyes are open and carry no traces of sleep, telling me you've been awake this whole time, waiting. For me to make a decision, to come back to bed or leave for another year, another decade, another lifetime.
To run or to finally stay.
Because eventually, I would. You knew and you waited, because we have all the time in the world, after all.
You reach out and trace my collar bone. The bite marks are gone. I know because your touch doesn't sting. It doesn't matter, there will be more, you will make sure that there will always be another when the last one has faded.
You are flint and I am wood and I have been burning for centuries.