A Tumbler Full of Tales - ICT and beyond

The Rickety Little Garden Gate (Rohirat) Part 1

The Rickety Little Garden Gate - AU (Rohirat)

A/N - Set sometime in the future. New situations added in.... Not sure what I was thinking or even if I was
Just barebones of something

This trope would not leave me alone until I has penned it

Do not ask me from where this came forth. Really do not.

Fair Warning - Some angst... Only some. I guess.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow.

And the storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

The gate creaked as Rohit pushed at it. It did not hold open and the barest hint of wind banged it back on its hinges against the side of the fence.

Not a white picket fence. Just a raggedy wooden fence where the beauty was more in the wild roses' encroachment than any layer of paint. In fact, the fencing and the gate desperately needed a fresh coat of paint.

"Ah!"

Rohit had caught his finger on an exposed splinter on the wooden gate and held it up to inspect it. A tiny drop of blood welled from the cut and he wiped it away against the end of his T-shirt. Not the best way but the more impulsive one.

His feet found the paved stone path leading up to the cottage, straight out of some fairy tale. Or maybe it was better, as, even though there were telltale signs of wear and tear littering the walls, and the ivy was growing with abandon, there was a smell of home in the surroundings.

In the knocker on the door.

In the balls and a couple of bats lying in the longish grass, along with ratty gloves and stained kneepads.

In the sweet smell of fruits heavily scenting the air.

So immersed he was in the sweet sublimity of the place that he did not notice the edge of one of the tiles sticking up and stumbled. He would have fallen had a pair of hands not held onto his upper arms and steadied him.

"Careful, Rohit. Why don't you ever watch where you are going?"

"Isn't that your job?"

Far from deafening, the  silence screamed of old thoughts and ancient remembrances. Of laughter and a few tears. Of the final hug. The desperate pleadings. The quiet understanding.

"My job? Yeah.. Yeah, it is."

Virat's face was more lined and the grey was liberally scattered throughout his hairline and yet, he looked healthy. He looked happy.

"How are you, Rohit?"

"Good, I guess." Rohit shrugged and tapped down the erring tile with his foot. "You are looking better."

"I am feeling better. Gave me quite a surprise; you sure did. Why didn't you inform me that you were flying in?"

"Then you would have had time to vanish!"

"What?" Virat's eyebrows climbed the extent of his forehead quite like Mahi Bhai's did and Rohit was almost impressed. "This is my home, Rohit. For now at least. I am not running."

"It did not feel like that, did it?"

A birdcall broke the silence that had settled in again and Rohit despised himself a little bit.

"Sorry."

The apology was not easy to come by but he managed; Virat was not the one... the only one, at fault.