Mickey Doyle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
byanyname) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
kingdomsofrain2016-12-01 03:31 am
byanyname) wrote in kingdomsofrain2016-12-01 03:31 am
tfln open post
***
either leave a message (or set of muses) for one of my assholes, or request a message from one of them. choose messages from the classic source, from your own skull, or whatever you may please.
no subject
She must be bored. Or toying with him. Done churning her butter for the day, ha ha.
He's tired of her. Her and her meaningless apologies. Her and this fuckforsaken countryside existence. There are... too many years left for enduring this. Better not to count, or think, or hold sober for any length of time. ]
TEMPERAMENT. Of courS. How foolish of me.
You don't need to tell ME the story. You thought it best. 'Best.' Everyone thinks it best. One look is all it takes.
Well I can't say I wouldn't do the same in your shoes. I'VE seen my facE.
Go back to your butter.
no subject
What can she say to him? That she doesn't find his face objectionable? That, in another life, another time, perhaps she might have appreciated his form?
That would only give him false hope. She doesn't think he ought to hope.
It's for the best.
And anyhow, he's drunk. See the errors in spelling? See his disjointed remarks? This is bitter intoxication. Best not to discuss this, when tomorrow he might recall and feel ashamed.
She hurt his pride. She doesn't want to shame him, too.
What to do, then? Well, what would it hurt for her to keep him company? Until Wallace appears, perhaps. How lonely he must be, if he's messaging her. (Asking for kisses. Lamenting her frigidity. Steeping in this melancholy. And - yes - pitying himself. With cause.) It would be a kindness, to give him her presence for a while. What would it hurt to offer friendly warmth?
(What does he mean, everyone thinks it best?
No, she -
No, she can imagine.
Manhattan was unkind to her. Perhaps it was an unwelcoming place for him, as well. He isn't handsome. He isn't pleasant. He's cold, too.) ]
The butter is long done, I'm afraid.
You seem lonely. May I -Would you like me to keep you comp-[...]
I find I am lonely this evening.
Would you object to my company?
1/3
She doesn't—?
Damn the woman.
This is a joke. All her moping about, and still she's perfectly capable ofcutting deception, he knew it. ]
WhT.
Never been lonely before. Youu. Ha.
2/3
Interested after all, are you/?
3/3
Ha ha no, I i know better.
no subject
Better not to acknowledge the rest, or how it drew a faint smile from her. Exasperated, yes, but a smile nonetheless. But - what must he be thinking, to have said that? What hope stirred in his intoxicated brain, what need reared?
A swiping grasp for affection?
Oh, she knows that feeling. That longing for anything, anyone, just to quiet the ache.
And the sudden recoil, yes, she knows that, too. The grasp become a slap, a refusal of any hand reaching back.
She can't help him.
Companionship, though. She can give that.
So, without further response, she takes her book and wanders to Brom's study, a place fallen to disuse - where she has noticed Treavor seems to take some preference in loitering. Finds him there, of course, of course, and she lingers for a moment in the doorway only watching him. Only thinking that his presence in this room is less objectionable than its former master's.
Her approach is cautious, learned not from this husband's responses, but from those of the last: an effort not to startle. To let him gradually become aware - and to avoid any violence. A flung glass, a thrown book. A snarl. A fist.
Right to his side, her head canted and brow knit to lines, and a light hand brushing his shoulder.
(And, still, that resonance: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. In every action, in the twist in her breast, in the prick at the corners of her eyes.
Maybe he couldn't have had better. But surely, he deserves more than this funereal house, and its cold mistress.
This half-corpse of a wife.) ]
no subject
Her temperatures.
Senseless woman. He scoffs, takes another drink, and drifts onto another.
He’s fallen abstract this way, glass in hand, when he thinks there’s a presence. A sound. A— No, that’s a… hand upon him? Some touch against his shoulder?
That’s not… Wallace?
Fuck’s name, who would even be approaching him in this place, no one knows him here no one lives around here and the servants avoid him like the plague. (Like his wife avoids him, ha ha, but she’s no true wife and fuck knows he’s no true husband.)
He starts to turn, thinking to catch sight of the intruder. Manages to jar his head awkwardly and fine that…
Oh. That’s the woman. The dour, unknowable woman who by the way he does not want to know and has no interest in seeing, what is she doing here, doesn’t she know to leave this study (whose study is it even meant to be, well, who cares) alone? This is where he’s supposed to be capable of drinking alone, only wasn’t it just inevitable that they’d find him here, interrupt him in his sole remaining pleasure? He should have known his quiet couldn’t last.
He’s scowling when he looks at her, vision unfixed, seeing her image and yes her image doubling over itself and was she touching him, well what does she want? ]
What is this?
no subject
Well.
Treavor isn't that way, and doesn't deserve such memories crowding her, though they resound in this dreadful room. Though they press in on her until she thinks perhaps she'll turn, and Brom will be there. An unsteady stagger, a heavy hand. A flash of teeth. But.
Treavor has only been...well. Yes, inexact word to suggest, but gentle. An unkind comment here and there, to be sure, but thus far, hasn't he been harmless? (And doesn't he have the right to level those comments? Isn't this marriage a work of misery?)
There's no need to think he'll do worse than glower.
So, her answer comes with a gentle press of her hand. ]
A hope for companionship on a lonely evening.
[ Here, she tilts the book she holds, giving a sure-to-be blurred glimpse of its cover. ]
I could read to you, if you like. Or keep my silence - it doesn't matter.
[ Let those words sink in, let him process through the drunken crawl of his thoughts. Sure to be sluggish, sure to be fractured and drifting.
How hard it was to make Brom focus on anything at all, on those late nights. ]
May I stay?
no subject
A.
Moment.
He knows a woman’s touch against his shoulder. (Not often, and never without pay, but that isn’t the point here.) (Never mind also that this woman doesn’t fuck him, she has made that clear and he has made his knowledge of that fact clear.) Knows the meaning of that firm press - well, why else would she dare to enter this room?- as if she doesn’t find him so thoroughly repulsive after all, or as if his unsightliness doesn’t matter.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe she doesn’t care what she sees. Maybe that comes of living on a farm, maybe surviving day after day of cows and pigs and horse shit means taking what you can if you need a quick poke.
He’s looking at her still. Sort of looking at her still, through a haze of swimming impressions. ]
Mm, ‘reading.’
Clever girl, aren’t you?
[ He should… put his glass down. Can’t fuck her with a glass in his hand. Probably. Too bad for her her husband-not-husband’s so uncoordinated right now, no fucking with a glass for her.
He’s moving to set the glass down when he realizes oh, oh, there’s still wine in the glass, he should take care of that wine, make certain it doesn’t slip away. So. He drinks it; there it goes. Well done, Treavor. Well done. ]
'Reading.'
no subject
Well, perhaps he decided to gather himself and go to bed: see him seem to be collecting himself? It wouldn't be the worst idea just now, for her to help him to bed. It's late, and he's mangled.
Poor creature.
Katrina entertains another blistering stab of guilt - but that ebbs. But it vanishes like smoke when he speaks, words scattered in between finishing off his wine.
Does he...
Certainly, he can't think she's illiterate? Is that what he's insinuating?
Oh, he's made no secret of his disdain for the country, for its simple folk and, yes, livestock - and truly, there are a number of farmers in the county who can't read. But she comes from wealth, and was raised for just this - ha - sort of upward marriage. Of course she can read.
She has a library. He...hasn't he seen it?
Her consternation clear, her hand resting still against him for lack of better purpose, she glances at her book - and then back at him. ]
Yes. If you like.
[ I know how, she almost adds. But surely, it goes without saying. But surely, such insistence would be desperate, would be petulant? ]
I thought you might let me entertain you so.
no subject
Only maybe he misses her face by a bit.
Only maybe his missed attempt swipes below her jaw and falls against her chest.
Well, whatever. That’s what she came for, isn’t it?
He doesn’t even like her.
Doesn’t like the look of her or what she’s meant to be.
That never matters. It’s a fuck, nothing more. He doesn’t even have to remember it come morning, if he wants.
…He probably won’t remember much about it, no matter what he wants. ]
You know it’s very lonely here.
[ He takes an unsteady glance over her, largely failing to take in any of her features. ]
I’ve done worse. You, though? Poor girl. Pitiless life.
[ And there’s a slack smirk, half-daft, half-knowing. ]
Yes, I believe I’ll read with you after all.
no subject
On.
Her.
And she goes still and tense, head drawn back and lips parted in shock. And she stares at his hand. And she stares at him.
Did she do something, say something, to invite this? (Touching him? Expressing her own loneliness? Being too kind?)
For a moment, she thinks, somehow, she mistranslated the word 'read' from Dutch to English. That can be the only explanation for. This. (And true, thinking of what led him from 'no fucking' to 'I'll read with you' and his hand on her bodice is so much less upsetting than thinking of the things he's saying.
Poor girl. Pitiless life. Lonely, very lonely here.) ]
Oh -
[ Her hand removes now from his shoulder, hovers above his ill-placed pawing, and then gingerly, she pries herself out of his grasp. Holds his hand in her own, unsure what to do with it now.
Presses the book into it. ]
Here. Here, this one.
[ Perhaps if...she simply doesn't acknowledge it, it will go away. Whatever this 'it' might be. ]
no subject
There’s a book in his hand. Why is there a book in his hand, certainly he didn’t ask for this? Where would it even have come from, or oh, the woman, the wench had been holding something like this, and she….
She isn’t touching him any more.
Touched his shoulder touched his hand and now he has a fuckforsaken book instead.
And she— She put him off. Of course. He should have known. Ought to have expected. The reading was a front the entire time! Telling him she would ‘read’ with him - which everybody must know means fucking! Treavor’s certain of this fact right now - in order to pull away and… and…
And make him look like an ass most likely. Well, joke’s on her, because he can do that just fine on his own.
He flings the book aside. Or. More like manages to chuck it half a foot in front of the chair. Maybe not even as far as that because maybe that dull thud was the book landing on his boot.
Reading.
Treavor jerks back, favoring the woman’s general direction with a snarl. ]
I see your game.
You might as well poison me.
[ Is she trying to…? It’s unusual that she’s in here, certainly. Should he call for Wallace? Should he demand the woman leave? Should he get up and… No, standing sounds nauseating, and there are too damned many decisions to be made, it’s too much to think about, and he slumps back in the chair, sullen. ]
I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself.
no subject
These defeated gestures. The toss of the book, the half-hearted snarl, his thrown condemnations and.
He misunderstood her. He thought - Well, he must have. And perhaps she can see how he might have come to that conclusion, from his wine-addled perspective.
But this, this is why she avoids him. This bitterness, this sullenness, this self-pity: all of it well-deserved. All of these condemnations apt. How his life has become a work of misery, useless and worthless save that he is male. (And he thought her kindness was a change of heart, an attempt to warm him - well. In that way.) Her presence is only ever a reminder, only ever a taunt.
Poor creature, and this another blow to the pride she was trying to spare.
Cautious once more, she reaches out. Hesitates, because look what touching him earned a moment ago.
Tests his name. ]
Treavor.
[ She tries not to say it. He didn't like it the first time. But perhaps it will summon him back from this sulk, and towards friendly grace. ]
Please. There isn't any game. I only wanted to sit with you a while.
[ She summons up her courage, eases the back of her hand against his cheek: a gentle touch, an effort to soothe. She can give that, can't she, to someone so mired in despair and confusion?
(It's what would soothe her, isn't it?) ]
I'm sorry.
no subject
His name jars him. Sets a weight dropping down his throat, settling central in his chest. His jaw tenses, and he feels… Oh, it doesn’t matter. Lost. Sad. Something. (The name didn’t cut. His name didn’t cut to hear. (That shouldn’t. That doesn’t. She’s playing him. Of course.)) It doesn’t matter, and the feeling’s gone when she touches him, because that means something entirely different, doesn’t it!
Oh, she wants to fuck him after all—?!
No she most certainly does not, and he huffs at himself for even beginning to entertain that thought. Please, she’s shown where her interests lie. Don’t lie? Doesn’t matter. He was an ass to let himself believe believe anything. Maybe that was her trap.
Christ. The fodder he’s given her tonight. The cause for ridicule. No doubt he’ll hear about this for weeks to come. Years, maybe; it isn’t as if there’s anything else to talk of in this nowhere existence.
(Her hand set mockingly against him. Who does she think she is? (And why should it hurt, almost, this softness of gesture? Vague notion that slips back below his haze, into forgetting.))
He starts to slap her hand away, manages no more than a heavy lift and fall of his own. Jerks his head backward instead, away from her deprecating touch, and watches in uneven blinking.
What. Is. She. Playing. At?
And what for fuck’s sake had she even said. ]
I don’t want to sit with me for a while.
[ That. Probably makes sense enough.
Whatever. As if this woman deserves his sense. ]
Where’s Wallace?
no subject
Try as she might to soften the many injuries done him, awaiting him, ah, these insults and wreckages of his pride, perhaps she was right to avoid him. This is doing nothing to help, and only worsening...everything.
Perhaps she is a curse, after all. Ever the dismal misfortune of the male sex.
(I don't want to sit with me, he said. She doesn't want to entertain the meaning of that beyond its apparent self-deprecation.)
Quickly, she dashes at her eyes, sniffs, covers the movement by looking over her shoulder as though Wallace might be standing there behind her. (He isn't. If he were, perhaps he might have intervened. Stopped her from further wounding his master.) ]
I don't know. I -
[ Well. Well -
The desperation to repair, to somehow ameliorate, to make amends for this trespass (another in countless trespasses) rises inescapably in her. ]
Do you need something? I could fetch him. Or - He might be asleep.
[ Perhaps Treavor ought to be asleep. He's drunk, isn't he? He's drunk, and rankling, and likely tired. ]
Are you tired? I could help you to your room. [ Hastily: ] To sleep.
[ Another cautious reach of her hand, open, palm-up. An offer of aid. ]
Here?
no subject
He starts to open his mouth, meaning to say that Wallace doesn’t sleep, but Treavor doesn’t need to tell her any such thing. She hasn’t earned the information. She doesn’t need to know. Wallace is outside her jurisdiction.
So never mind about that and he starts to forget about that, but the impulse to speak remains, and he’s certain he has something important to get across. After all, if she can shower her words over everything, he might be permitted a few of his own.
He doesn’t care much for this chair. Shifts against it irritably. Who decided this was a suitable chair?
And why is… is that her hand which he sees before him? Again he huffs a ragged sound. ]
No. I don’t have anything for you.
[ A filtering in as he tries to watch her, something she said, something she asked. A… hand extended. An offer, yes, that was it, she wants to go to his room, she said!
…Not for that, she said.
What the fuck else for. All this shoving her way into his rooms, and to what end?
It’s too much to think about.
Instead, he points at her hand, his own finger unsteady. ]
Why.
I know what you do want. Don't want.
Ha.
no subject
And why not? Isn't his right as her husband to seek her out for that - for fucking? For her duty as a wife, that she refused?
How can she be anything other than grateful to him, that he didn't insist? That the worst of this is a late-night, wine-deep bemoaning of what right she denied him? He has every right to be angry, living here so far from the life he knows, with a withholding wife. What comfort does he have but his wine and his anger?
Still, it feels too much. All of these sentiments, crowding too close, and this room full of memories of another man much less respectful (and how good Treavor is, how good he is not to demand, not to force. To keep his silence save when he's deep in his drink.) And sorry, yes, she's so sorry that this was done to him.
And to her.
How it happened, she doesn't know, but she finds both of her hands grasping his, supplicating. Imploring. ]
Please.
[ There is so much in that word, unspoken still. Her gratefulness. Her remorse. Pleading, that he can understand. Striving, to reach him in his haze, oh please, let him see she means only kindness. Nothing like harm. ]
I know this is wretched. I see it. And you have been good, I've seen that, too. You've been patient.
I swear to you, I am trying to - make this bearable for us both. I want only that. Not to shame you. Not to worsen this, or add to your misery.
no subject
Her withdrawals and return, his limp hand - staggered, shocked out of its tension - clenched warm against her skin, the air around feels close and warm and why, fuck’s sake why does she sound so damned earnest?
Wide eyes (blue eyes) seeking for his own.
Every syllable ardent but undaggered. And how she hasn’t drawn away.
No one he knows speaks this way.
(No one he knows lingers close without clawing.
He must be missing something. A punchline that’s yet to land.)
Trickery, it has to be. Another endeavor to reach him, to expose him, never mind that he’s exposed himself by… doing… something recent, something tonight he can’t remember what, but surely she’ll remember and anyway there’s always more to be torn open. Maybe she knows that. She doesn’t look like she should know that, but then she doesn’t look like a lot of things, and Treavor still doesn’t know what goes on on farms.
People don’t clasp hands on a farm. Why would they? Perhaps she’s drunk, as well.
He would like another drink. But she’s got hold of his hand, and he can’t quite quit staring back at her, and doesn’t know how to extricate himself from any of this.
He’s uncomfortable.
Her hands are very close.
She doesn’t want to fuck him; why is she holding him?
Maybe her words will tell him, but they’re slow to filter in, and he’s in no mood to wait for them to achieve comprehension.
(She said he was…?
Something about him. Mocking him again, her voice so sincere. Thinks he’ll buy it because she thinks that he thinks she’s simple. She should be simple. Might be. But he won’t risk making assumptions like that. Won’t let her get the better of him.)
(……Did she call him patient?
He’s conjuring this shit from a drunken imagination. That must be the case. Or she’s daft. Or toying with him.)
He stumbles into speech half-unwittingly, not bothering (not able) to hide the perplexity in his voice, not able to drive his speech toward cutting. ]
I don’t understand you, Katrina Van Brunt.
no subject
Did she reach him? For just a moment, did he comprehend something other than misrepresentations of desire? Was there, please, let there have been, some spark of connection. Some fragment of understanding.
Let it sink in profoundly that she doesn't mean him misery. She doesn't want this for anyone, much less for someone so utterly severed from his life, his friends (had he any?), his family. If he could just see how she takes no pleasure in his suffering - and oh, he must be, for nothing ever came of this house or her existence but suffering.
(Once, she didn't believe that.
Once, before men died because of her.
Once, when she was far from kind.)
Van Brunt, he calls her, and it stings deep, a familiar pain. If it had been 'Crane', neither of them would be here now. Neither of them would be so unhappily wed.
But it wasn't 'Crane', and isn't 'Van Brunt' now, and she can let the pain ease away.
He gave her that: his name. Never forget that all of this was his sacrifice. Never forget how much she owes him. The weight of that debt heavy in the air, and her rejection of this perfectly acceptable man, and still, still, how decent he's been.
She presses his hand, gentle acknowledgement of his words. ]
I hardly understand myself.
[ Maybe, they could be friends. Maybe she could do better than avoid him day by day; was it wrong to let him have his solitude? How lonely this place is, though she has family, has a lifetime of neighbors and friends. Who does he have but Wallace?
She must try harder.
Tomorrow. When the day isn't nearly gone, and he is somewhat sober.
For now - perhaps he'll accept her touch. Perhaps he'll let her try to soothe him, and help him to his rest. Incomprehension is better than anger. Safer than anger.
So she tries again, testing him like a wounded animal: the light brush of the backs of her fingers against his cheek. The cup of her palm, if he allows it, and slow sweep of her thumb. ]
Please. It will all be well.
[ Somehow. ]
no subject
He doesn’t draw away.
He should, he’s certain he should. But those words…
’I hardly understand myself.’ He hadn’t, precisely, expected a response. Had almost forgotten his own statement, and it’s odd, isn’t it, that he should hold her words now? Most often, his drinking turns meaning into nothing (into absence) (into fear). Phrases fail to cohere, words lose their attachment to sense.
This, though… This clings to him. Sinks down inward, spinning a recognition he can’t quite grasp. Something familiar in this cadence. Something in this admission he knows. Something that halts his sinking for one moment, then another.
The pressure at his hand.
The softness in her voice.
(She hasn’t struck him. Shouldn’t she have struck at him by now?)
(When will the blow fall? (Why, for this moment, this moment and the next, could he nearly believe there won’t be any blow, no fatality tonight?))
And her hand at his cheek.
And her thumb soft against him.
She doesn’t want to fuck.
She might not mean him only ruin.
(She hasn’t chided him. Hasn’t run him from this room or had him murdered in the moonlight. That might mean something.
Hasn’t even tried to take his wine.
…She came to him. He doesn’t understand. (And neither does she.))
He keeps his eyes on her, questioning still and trying to discern… something, anything coherent. Trying to remind himself keep safe and hold himself protected, but it’s hard not to sit right where he is, let hr stay right where she is.
He doesn’t hate the things she’s said. Wouldn’t it be good for something to turn out well? Even one thing only. It’s impossible, a foolish idea from a… Well, she is young, as well as farm-grown. Hasn’t learned enough yet, that’s so.
(He wants to… tilt his head against her hand.
He doesn’t do that. Jolts his head slightly aside, though not wholly away from her touch.
(He doesn’t hate her touch. This touch. Any touch, well, of course, it’s cold here, that’s the cause of his own, ha, temperature.)
Well. If she’s going to make a fool of him in the morning, he might as well… Not enjoy this, no, but let this happen. Allow a little of her warmth to glance upon him.)
Again there’s confusion when he speaks, an edge of derision, and a trace of something other, something like a ghost-end of his own plea. ]
You can’t believe that.
no subject
She knows that. She knows that fear of relenting. She knows how armor wears thin. She knows what it is to hope so badly, so painfully, it destroys defense.
Just for everything to turn out well. Just for some ease, some peace.
She knows because there in him, she sees her own self, fragmented and wretched.
(She knows, too, that it takes time to reach this state. More than a handful of miserable weeks.
Has he been hurt, too? Has he been hurting, too?)
The smile she offers is a sorrowful thing, an attempt, but not half so warm as her hand still in a caress against him.
There, the familiar salt-sting of tears, but oh, she is trying; she can be comforting, and kind, and for once maybe someone needs it more than she does. ]
I don't.
[ She didn't mean to say that, so brokenly, sounding so regretful, so pleading. But the words are out, and he's listening, so she presses ahead, anyhow. ]
Not for myself. But I would like it to be true for you.
[ That, yes: there's truth in that. She would like him to survive her, and this miserable state of affairs. She would like him to find happiness. He deserves that, after all he's given, and all that she thinks he may have endured before she came into his life. ]
no subject
Wouldn’t we all like everything.
[ Foolish. He feels foolish, the words ill-matched to whatever he’d intended to mean, himself unable to rise to the occasion of… of… something.
He slumps. Would sink back against the chair if it weren’t for her hand. An odd anchor. A must-become-damage cloaked as gift. Why would she touch him? Why on earth would anybody touch him?
(How it rends his heart, sets his hollows to constriction.)
How he feels warm and distant and certain and sad all at once, and how he wants— Something.
Better not to want.
Better not to hope.
For fuck’s sake, it’s only the press of her hand. It’s only that she’s come so close to him. He’s a fool. He’s drunk, and he’s a damned fool.
A careful sniff, and he’s watching her still. Never did learn to look away, never learned to keep himself from staring. Only he feels as if he can’t quite see her. Can’t see right, certainly, because she wavers, she melts, and doesn’t she look blurred around the eyes?
(Blue eyes. He sees that about her.) ]
Not ’s if you know me.
[ He might almost envy her, ha ha. ]
Lucky, lucky girl.
[ Except she’s still bound to live beside him. Bound to exist near a husband-not-husband-yes-husband she doesn’t care to fuck and nobody should care to fuck. Bound to live her days out mournful, alone and unknown, fuck’s sake who knows a farm girl.
(But she’s kept her touch against him.
It could mean anything at all.)
Now he glances away, frowning and drifting an open hand to his neck, scratching absently. ]
Or not, mm.
no subject
Or is she only imposing on him what she wishes to see? Has she become so miserable a woman that she finds comfort only in the misery of someone else? This poor man, isolated and snarling. Maybe his life wasn't lamentable, before she came -
No, no, look how he responds to her touch. Look how he watches her through the drunken haze, as though seeing her (or anyone) for the first time. Remember the hope leeching into his voice.
Oh, what cold comfort it would have been, had she relented and let him bed her. Even reaching out for someone hated and unwanted has its merits for driving back unhappiness. For forgetting, just for a little while. (Nevermind the sick shame when morning comes. Nevermind the bitter aftertaste.) But this is better: innocent compassion. A touch without expectation.
He doesn't bristle at this.
And she?
It feels merciful, to touch someone this way. It feels like long-forgotten compassion, this recognition of a soul just as lost and wounded as her own. To approach someone seeking friendship, after months - years, even - of being maneuvered. Guided from one hour to the next by someone else's intentions. Unfeeling.
She feels for him. Pity, for the most - but what more is there to offer him when, as he says, she doesn't know him? ]
No, I don't know you.
[ Gentle, gentle agreement. Let the rest slip by unacknowledged: she isn't lucky. She thought once that she might be, that she had been born fortunate and would end her days blissful.
She knows better now.
Ha; he knows better. His correction earns a sad huff, almost a laugh. Not quite a laugh.
And her hand draws back, fingers through his hair, testing how much of this familiarity he'll allow. How much she cares to give. ]
It need not be that way. Must we be strangers?
[ An echo, vague, of a voice that might have been her own. Five years past, how flirtatiously she might have offered that query: wouldn't you like to be more familiar with me? Such a chasm between then and tonight, when the words come full of despondency. A plea for warmth instead of - oh, whatever she wanted of men, when she was still so free.
It occurs to Katrina then that this is not merely an effort to extend consolation to her odd, isolated husband: how direly she would like a friend. Someone who hasn't known her so intimately, who might think they comprehend every facet of her existence, and still somehow achieves utter misunderstanding. Here is someone who might like to know her cleanly, and allow her to be only her present and future - what little there is of either - instead of her history.
And even if only this, it would be welcome: how comforting it would be to find him in a room and not skirt him, but rather to feel at ease in his company. ]
no subject
How could she?
A question he can’t entertain, because the whole of him is sinking, feelings like sinking in against this grace of presence. He ought to be wary. He ought to keep watching her, in case she’s planning something.
In case she means him harm.
(He doesn’t think she means him harm.
But don’t they always? Don’t they all?
But. But.)
He’s watching her until he isn’t watching anything at all, his eyes slipped into closing, to a moment’s peace, quiet and a subtle warmth of solace.
He could be at ease here. In this.
(Once. Years ago, decades ago, Waverly ran lithe fingers light against his head this way, a seeming fondness that crowded his knowing for months.
He thinks of it still, sometimes. Remembers her touch and tries to rend it from the betrayal that followed, the farce that it was from the start.
It doesn’t matter, really.
Touch doesn’t mean so much, anymore. (He tells him. He feigns to and tries to believe.))
The moment passes, and he remembers he doesn’t know her and doesn’t know what she wants and maybe he’s defenseless, and his eyes open again, flash panic as he draws back tentative, cautious (reluctant?). Not far from her. Only briefly looking away from her.
It isn’t her fault. He let his guard down.
It could be her fault. What is she aiming for.
He doesn’t understand this. Her.
She said something. He doesn’t entirely remember. (At all remember.) (Knows only that… that… brushing of her fingers. Why would she bother?) ]
Please.
[ A little lost, a little annoyed. A little guarded, and his head’s beginning to hurt, isn’t it? And he feels confounded and a little, just a little less at sea now. And he shifts back against the chair, an ungainly slump. ]
I’m not—
Take care.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)