Title: Full Circle
Author: Fallon Ash
Rating: PG-13, for angst
Pairing: Horatio/Speed
Warning: Impending Character Death
Disclaimer: Bruckheimer, CBS, others, not me.
Summary: He sucks harder at the mouthpiece of his oxygen tube and misses the smell of the ocean.

***

Wednesday:

Horatio squints toward the sun, its white-hot glare burning his eyes; hidden though they are, behind dark sunglasses. The heat is simmering, moving and alive, above the hard-packed dry red earth of the courtyard. Beyond it, desert, red dry desert. The sky is very blue against the mountains in the far background. He sucks harder at the mouthpiece of his oxygen tube and misses the smell of the ocean.

He sees the stirring of the dust long before he sees the car itself. The cloud edges closer, finally taking on the shape of their dark blue Jeep, minutes later pulling to a stop at the side of the house. Speed steps out, and as always, there is a jolting moment of non-recognition. Especially in the last couple of years, with his mind deteriorating, slipping further back into the past. His memory will supply the image of Speed at twenty-five, when they'd first met, hair dark and wild, the layer of sarcasm and cynicism still thin, barely hiding the air of youthful energy. There had been a spring in his step; his eyes had been alert and curious. There is always that stab of disappointment now, when he is faced with reality; the greying tufts of hair, the wrinkled face, eyes wizened and growing murky at its grey depths. He moves slower, still strong, but different. Last year these moments had made him feel deeply ashamed. Now, he has grown accustomed to them, blaming them on the disease. It is the man he has loved for more than half of his adult life.

A hand comes down on his shoulder, and dry lips brush against his temple.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm ok." He senses Speed checking the monitors behind him. He tells himself that Speed cares about him, worries, just wants to make sure. Still, he can't shake the feeling of not being trusted.

"I'll go prepare some lunch."

Speed is gone before he has time to formulate even a simple affirmative.

*

"I want to go back to Miami." He utters the words at the dinner table that same evening. He's been staring out the window while Speed does the dishes.

By the sink, he can see Speed's back stiffen, but his face is turned away from him. Speed's voice, a few moments later, is careful and controlled, devoid of emotion. "Why?" Horatio winces at the sound.

"It's my home." He thought about elaborating, but doesn't. Speed will understand.

This time, Speed's voice breaks. "Miami was killing you!" But still he doesn't turn around.

"I'm already dying." He has come to terms with this, can say it without emotion.

Speed whirls around. "Yes! But if we stay here you could have months, maybe a year!"

"I don't want it." He feebly grasps in vain for the words when he sees Speed's face fall, the stark despair in his eyes. "I belong in Miami." It's not helping, but he presses on. "Out here, I'm suffocating, this is not who I am. I need to go back."

"Do you at all care that I need you to stay? That I might need those extra months?" Speed's voice is thick and high.

"It's my death. You have to let me go." Horatio's voice is calm. He knows his decision is the right one. "I was hoping we could leave on Saturday." With that he turns his chair around, and wheels from the room.

Speed is left staring after him, a forgotten towel in his hand, dripping on the floor.

*

Thursday:

"Are you certain?"

"Yes."

They are the only words spoken the next day. Speed is gathering their belongings, they don't have much, making arrangements. He watches their life unravel, much too easily; the house isn't theirs, they've been borrowing it from Horatio's nephew, and Speed has kept an apartment in Miami, allegedly for business trips, although there haven't been many. Maybe he knew this day would come, and they would need it.

Horatio sits on the porch, doesn't speak, watches the horizon in the east. He doesn't have long. Whatever years the doctors have promised him, they're wrong. He knows it. And now he's ready to go home. He's surprised at Speed's reaction, he was certain he knew. But it can't be helped. They have to leave.

*

Friday:

They move around each other uneasily inside. Outside the heavens have opened up, rivulets of water streaming down the windows, across the courtyard, down the dirt road. Speed secretly hopes that the road will wash away, that they will be stuck here, that the storm will stay for days, weeks, keep them there by force. Horatio is making phone calls from their office with the door closed. Speed hides his bitterness and cleans the house. A rift has formed between them, and he resents both it and Horatio. He resents the disease for taking Horatio away, for breaking him down. He resents that he can't be supportive, his selfishness. And he has liked it here, has thrived under the wide sky, in the open land. He has always made his home where the people he cares about are; this has been the first time he has actually felt like he belonged in a place, and not just with the people.

When night comes closer he moves out onto the porch. Gusts of wind bring with them water, in under the plastic roof, eventually soaking through the fabric of his clothes and his hair. He shivers, but can't make himself leave. The mountain range is barely visible through the curtain of rain, the sky growing darker by the minute. The setting is sun noticeable by nothing more than a hint of light in the west. He knows he won't return. If Horatio goes back to Miami, that's where he will stay. There are still people there who know him, even if too many of his friends are dead.

*

"I got seats for us on the 2:30 flight." Horatio informs him over the dinner table. "So we have to leave by 7 tomorrow morning."

Speed looks at the storm outside the window. If it's like this tomorrow, Horatio knows he can't drive in it. He nods, picks at his food, refuses to meet Horatio's eyes.

*

Horatio's breath is slow and even. He fell asleep almost immediately after going to bed. It's the middle of the night, and Speed is still awake, listening to Horatio sleeping, watching his chest rise and fall, still alive, but so frail. Speeds hand hovers above Horatio's ribs, but he pulls back, afraid, somehow, to touch him. Afraid he will pulverize beneath his fingers. The rain is drumming harshly against the window, Speed has never felt so close to hopelessness before in his life.

*

Saturday:

As they wake up by 5:30am the day is dawning, bright and clear. Speed feels like crying while he loads the car, helps Horatio, makes breakfast, but he doesn't. He cried enough for a lifetime many years ago. Horatio is waiting impatiently on the porch as he loads the car, but as he helps him in on the passenger side, Horatio suddenly grasps his hand, tightly.

"Thank you." And Horatio's eyes are wide and earnest. Speed suddenly feels guilty; why, he isn't sure. He blinks a few times, looks away for a second, before leaning forward and brushing his lips over Horatio's forehead, and once more over Horatio's lips. Horatio lifts a hand, holds him there for a moment longer, and he relishes the feeling. When he eventually pulls back, Horatio whispers again, "thank you", and he nods and smiles. He knows it doesn't quite reach his eyes, but it's an improvement.

As they drive off, he doesn't look back.

*

Horatio sleeps in the car, head lolling towards the window, his hand limp in Speed's. Speed watches the mountains give way to plains, and farmland. There's a bittersweet feeling at the pit of his stomach that he valiantly attempts to ignore, to little success. At a rest stop he finally turns around to gaze at the bluish mountains far, far behind them, and he suddenly feels the longing well up inside him. But he bites down, gets back in the car. They pass through towns and suburbs, before eventually reaching the city. Horatio is clearing his throat, blinking against the smog.

*

The flight is uneventful. Horatio sleeps. Speed watches over him, noticing how his breath comes in shorter, uneven gasps. Speed feels like he's watching his life rush before him, as he grasps his lover's hand between his own. He isn't ready to give this up yet. It's unfair of Horatio. This can't be happening. And still it is. Since Horatio got the diagnosis two years ago, they've lived knowing this would happen, even expected it to happen sooner. But that doesn't mean he has accepted it. Far from. He must have become a master of denial in his old age, because Speed is realizing he is in no way as prepared for this as he thought.

There is a moment of turbulence, and he nearly panics. He had forgotten how much he hates flying.

*

Miami is heat and humidity and pollution. Even Speed feels it press down on his chest as they leave the air-conditioned flight terminal. The sun is blinding, reflecting off the air itself, thick and heavy as it is. He feels suffocated, forces himself to draw calm breaths, it's like being caught in a dream. Slowly moving through the sticky air, his arms and legs feel weighted, his movements forced. It's completely still, the palm trees as motionless as the buildings.

He glances at Horatio, who is pale, but there is life in his eyes that Speed hasn't seen in years. It unnerves him and makes him happy at the same time, and he squeezes the shoulder closest to him.

Horatio turns bright eyes at him, smiles widely. "Home..." he breathes, before a coughing fit wracks his thin body. There's blood on his hand when he removes it from his mouth.

* * *

end

* * *

Prompt:

"Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,
Bitten by flies, fought."

-- T. S. Eliot, from "Gerontion"

***