Tea and Sympathy
by: thelittletree
Not intend
To leave this castle full of empty rooms
Our love the captive in the tower never rescued
And all the victory songs
Seemed to be playing out of tune
'Cause it's not the way
That it has to be
Don't trade our love for tea and sympathy, no
No, it's not the way
That it has to be
Tea and Sympathy - Jars of Clay
He's gone! ... He's gone! ... He's gone!
There's a bird outside my window, in a tree. I haven't been able to spot it yet, but I know what it is because of it's call: a Lescante. It gets it's name from the cry it makes:
Lescante! ... Lescante! ... Lescante!
The word comes from the Ancient language, and it means freedom. They're rare birds and I've never seen one before. My father had a book of birds when I was a child and I used to be fascinated with it. Birds are so beautiful. But I don't think I ever saw anything more than Tawniks in my childhood, ugly black birds with beady eyes and long beaks, native to the area around Kalm. Lescantes are native to this area, the land around Costa Del Sol, and was I a child again I know I would be outside at this moment standing at the base of that tree, trying to see it through the leaves and branches. But as it is right now, I can't move from the bed. So all I can do is listen to it, though its cry no longer sounds like Lescante! Freedom!
He's gone! ... He's gone! ... He's gone!
The Lescante has been outside the window since he left, four days, eighteen hours ago. I wonder that it doesn't have anywhere else to fly to. It certainly could find a more appreciative audience in any other place.
God, it's so hard. Especially since I'm still not sure I know what happened. I've been going over every conversation, every gesture, every look in my mind, but I can't come up with the thing that drove him away. I was so careful not to scare him, even keeping myself from touching him when all I wanted to do was hold him, kiss him, whisper him out of his clothing and run my hands, my lips, over his lean, pale body...
What happened, dammit? I thought it was going so well. The barge took us back across the ocean and we stood together at the rail, talking for nearly the entire time like we'd talked in Bone Village. Talking and talking, never touching. He even smiled a couple of times, which for him is like laughing uproariously, and I really felt like things were going to be okay.
And then we arrived here, at the hotel in Costa Del Sol, and things went to hell.
There were no single rooms available; it was the busy season, the desk clerk told us. So we took a double room for the night. We could share, couldn't we? They were separate beds. We could handle it.
At least, I thought we could. Stupidest assumption of my life.
Things had been changing between us since he'd become completely human; he knew I loved him and we both knew we wanted each other, but by some unspoken consensus we put a hold on things until he became comfortable with living again among people. Bone Village was the perfect place, I realize now. So few people, so many eccentrics among the busy scientists and archeologists...no one spared us a second glance. I could tell he was enjoying it. We ate out at some of the tiny cafes there, we went on walks, we talked with some of the excavators. It was interesting, and I loved watching him relearn everything. He was like a child...a little. I felt needed because, in some ways, I was his teacher as the only person he knew and trusted. Our relationship was growing, changing, maturing...he'd never said that he loved me, but I was starting to believe that he did.
But he left me. Is that a sign of love?
I'm starting to think that maybe sharing a room, even if there were separate beds, might've frightened him because it was a physical step forward, pressing the boundaries of the comfort zone we'd erected in Bone Village. He knew, as I know now, that if we'd slept together that night, it would have been a significant furthering in our relationship, making us lovers from friends. Not that it would have been a bad development, but maybe he didn't feel ready and didn't trust himself enough with his self control around me.
But had running away been the only answer? We could've talked; we could've worked it out. I would've understood his hesitancy. Wouldn't I have? My frustrated desire wasn't so obvious, was it, that he was afraid of telling me, of possibly making me angry? I could kill my traitor flesh...
I was in the shower when he left. When I came out, he and all of his things were gone. It wasn't until night fell that I admitted to myself that he'd left me; he wasn't on a walk, he wasn't just going to get something to eat. He was gone, like he'd been before. But this time, there was nothing saying that he would be back in three weeks.
I haven't been able to leave this room. I haven't been able to eat more than a few bites of what I order from room service, and I only get a couple of hours of sleep a night because of my dreams. Dreams so vivid that I wake up questioning for a few minutes which world is real. They always end the same. Whatever happens in the dream, I always end up waking up in the end in my apartment above the shop back in Neo-Midgar. And he's there beside me, asleep, pale and beautiful and bathed in moonlight. Perfect. I'm just moving to touch him, to wake him, when the dream ends. Conversely, night both makes me want to sleep and stay awake; the dreams are so wonderful, so beautiful, so perfect, but I always wake up...and the waking up is so wrenchingly painful every time. If only I didn't wake up...
But life goes on and I have to leave the hotel eventually. I'm running out of gil to keep paying for this room. But...and God, I know this sounds stupid...I can't stop thinking: what if he comes back? What if he comes back and I'm not here? That's what I'm afraid of. Terrified of. What if he returns and I'm not here and he gives up looking for me? But I can't stay here indefinitely. I'll have to go in a few days at the most, and probably back to Neo-Midgar. I can't think of anywhere else I'd go. It's as close to a hometown as I have right now. Though I really don't want to have to face anyone. I know they'll ask questions, especially Benita, but right now I don't think I could handle it. I don't know what I'd say. "Yeah, he left me." But I'm not really very angry. If I was, I know Benita would be more than happy to justify me and make me feel better, but any abuse meant for him will hurt me, too. He's still too deeply inside of me for me to be able to tell where he ends and I begin.
I wonder what he's doing right now. I hope he has some kind of a plan for the rest of his life, or else I can see him going back into his earlier rut, living without living in an apartment by himself and working in some meaningless job. Please, Vincent, don't throw us away for that! Please, come back to me...
The sunlight is fading as the afternoon continues dripping into evening and the room is slowly plunged into darkness like it's a cage being lowered into a cold, dingy river. I haven't made the bed in five days and the sheets are chilly, but I pull them over myself, up to my chin, and roll onto my side, away from the other deserted bed across the room. Maybe I'll be able to sleep. I don't care that it's early. I can't stand being awake any longer. I've been thinking too much again. Maybe tomorrow I'll leave. He's not coming back here, and I should know it. There's no use in trying to delude myself any longer.
And if he wants me back bad enough someday, he'll find me. I hope.
It's a restless night, of course. I haven't been doing anything with myself to wear my body out; my energy has stagnated into a lethargy in my limbs that prevents me from moving, prevents me from sleeping, prevents me from eating. It prevents all life-likeness until I feel like a part of the unmade bed, the dark room; unable to leave, unable to do anything except wait for the next person to come and use me for comfort, for shelter for a little while before they leave me, discarding me to continue on with their lives. Bleak, bleak future.
I must fall asleep at some point because the next thing I know, I'm waking up from another dream. Before I can stop myself, before I can get a hold of myself, I'm crying, sobbing again, curling up against the empty mattress and wishing it wasn't quite so empty...
My tears last for about ten minutes before I finally yank myself out of the mire of my grief and self-pity and slip out of bed. It's still dark, but not like the deepest hours of the night. There's no clock in this room, but I guess it's about four or five. I know I won't sleep again. If I'm going to leave today, I might as well start readying myself now before I can backslide.
My shower is quick and brisk. The water is probably soothing, but I can't enjoy it. Sleep isn't restful, food isn't tasty. Nothing is good. It's like I'm a shadow trying to pretend that I can feel things and taste things and experience things, going through the motions as if everything is the same as being a complete human. I wonder if he felt this way before, in his old apartment, just going through the motions because, for some cruel reason, life goes on. Because, even if nothing else is true, if nothing else ever stays the same, you can always say that life goes on. That never changes, even though I think we sometimes wish it would.
God, I miss waking up and showering and then wandering over to his room and knocking on the door. Only to find, of course, that he's been up for a half hour waiting for me to wake up. Waiting for me. Waiting to eat breakfast with me, to talk with me, as if these are things he wouldn't miss for the world even if it means having to linger around the room for an extra half hour. The time in Bone Village was so much. It was so much. What happened? What happened to make it worth giving up? Was he still so afraid that the introduction of something new and unexpected made him want to bolt? Does his fear still outweigh me, despite all of the chipping we've been doing at his doubts? It makes me angry. Be stronger than that, Vincent. Be stronger and trust in me to be able to help you beat it. Please, stop being an individual and let me in. Let me be a part of you...
I make the bed and change into some of the clean clothes I washed in Bone Village before we stepped onto the barge. I washed some of his clothes too, something so mundane it made me want to do it more often. Surprised to realize that he wore boxers. Amused, maybe. Embarrassed, a little. A piece of his life I didn't know, that I discovered by accident, even if it was just underwear. It felt sort of important at the time, as if I knew that if we became mundane, if we married and things became routine, it was something I would take for granted. At that moment, I promised myself that I would never take him for granted.
But I think I took his constant presence for granted, as if I expected him to be there forever.
God, please, I'll never take him for granted again. I know you didn't give him a second chance for nothing. Please...and even if he's not going to come back, give him a good life...
I'm ready to go. Everything is ready and packed. My sneakers are by the door. I'm just walking over to get them when there's one knock. One knock. It can't be any later than six. The hotel chambermaid usually doesn't make her rounds until about ten when I tell her not to bother with clean linens until I'm gone. I tell her every day, and every day she knocks again as if she expects that I'm going to change my mind. It startles me. And who knocks once, as if they're not sure they should be knocking at all...?
I put my sneakers down and open the door. I feel a little irritated. I just want to leave. I don't want any complications, or even anyone talking to me. I just want to go before my heart catches up with my mind and I realize what I'm doing.
Expecting the maid or a stranger, I can't recognize the face, the body, the stance before me that I swore I wouldn't forget were an eternity to pass. The amnesia lasts for only a moment, and then I'm just staring, speechless. I'm waiting to blink and find out that it's someone else. But after five blinks, he's still the same, and I know I'm not dreaming or hallucinating. The Lescante who may have flown away for the night has returned to the tree outside my window and is trilling out his cry agitatedly.
He's come! ... He's come! ... He's come!
Things about him have changed in five days, more than I ever thought possible. He looks tired and there are lines in his face that make me wonder where he went, what he's been through. Even his eyes, his beautiful gray eyes, once so sharp and bright, now so dull and tormented, are smudged underneath with dark half-circles. His black clothing is stained with dust and dirt and his hair is wild and tangled like I've never seen it. He looks like a haunted man on the brink, coming to Hades for salvation. I can't turn him away. I don't feel anything, like I'm numb. I know I should be angry, or even curious, but all there is inside me is this hollow sort of completeness, as if I've just dropped the last piece of a puzzle belatedly into place after days of frustration.
I move out of the doorway and he steps into the room. We stand there sort of awkwardly until I mumble out something that has to do with him being allowed to use the shower if he wants. He accepts readily, if just to leave the room, and I breath a sigh of something akin to relief. I need a moment to think, to gather myself. He's back, but why? Is he back for me? And if he is, how does he want me? Did he return just because he had nowhere else to go? Or is he back for what he left behind? He looks like he hasn't slept for days. Does that mean he couldn't sleep without me, or that he was thinking through the night? Does he need me? Does he want me? Is it both?
How did he know I would still be here?
I don't realize how long I've been thinking until I hear the water shut off in the bathroom. A few minutes later, a washed Vincent emerges, though he is still dressed in his worn clothing. I notice now that his pack is missing. He looks into my eyes for a moment, and his expression is unguarded. His eyes, his face, even his posture seem to fairly radiate with uncertainty. Did he expect a different reception? Is he looking for some sort of signal from me? I can't give him one. I can't accept him back just because he returned. Not until I know what he wants from me...
He turns away when I don't say or do anything and then moves to the bed, walking slowly to give me time to object. For once, he's the one on eggshells around me. But I'm not going to demand that he leave. I could never do that. It would be like sentencing myself to death. His body seems so frail suddenly and I can almost feel in my own body the sigh he gives as he sits. I want to go to him, to put my arms around him and feel him lean tiredly into me like I'm the source of his strength. But I hold back, clenching down on the strange urge to cry. Where are these tears coming from? Are they out of sadness, joy, anger, fear? It's impossible to tell. The contact between my mind and emotions seems to have been severed, likely out of the shock I don't feel but am probably experiencing.
He looks at me again, and I can see that he is struggling to keep his emotions on the surface where I can see them. He wants me to see the regret in his expression. He doesn't know any other way of showing me. Words for feelings always seem to escape him. His lips part and I hear his quiet, ragged breathing for a moment. He inhales to speak.
"Elira." His voice is rough and hoarse as if he hasn't used it in years. "I'm sor..."
He doesn't get the chance to say any more. Before I can understand what I'm doing, an anger I am unprepared for spurts through my veins and I'm stepping up to him and slapping his face. Hard. My hand stings and tingles from the impact, convincing me that I've done just what I thought I'd done. I am shocked at myself, and horrified. I slapped him. I stumble back a step, a strangled apology trying to come out of my throat. He looks surprised and shaken for a moment, but then he drops his eyes, accepting the abuse. This is not what I want, even as I feel the rage dancing at the corners of my mind like hoards of tiny devils, trying to push me to give in and let it take over my actions. But I need control. I need my control to think.
I know I don't want to hear him apologize. Not yet, when I'm not sure what he's apologizing for. Right now, I need some answers from him. Please, Vincent, understand and let me know...
I don't know how to start. I don't know where to start. I lick my lips and shift my weight from one stiff hip to the other. Should I finish my apology? Should I just start asking questions? The right words don't seem to exist for either of these things. I feel like I've forgotten the language I was speaking...
Vincent stirs. My eyes are drawn to him out of habit. I always seem to notice what he's doing, as if my senses are all faithfully attuned to him at every moment even if my thoughts are elsewhere. He glances up, and then I can tell he is forcing himself not to look away from me. He's waiting for me to speak. It must take a lot of courage on his part to keep meeting my gaze when he knows I am angry and that my words could hurt him; after all, he always walked away before.
Not this time. I can read it in his eyes. This time, he is staying and waiting to hear what I have to say, ready to endure whatever pain I am going to inflict. And it touches me like a warming hand to my heart. I have become more important than his fear...
I'm trembling. Am I afraid? Am I anxious? Am I excited? Yes. I feel like I'm standing at the jumping off point of a cliff, and the water, despite the threat of rocks at the bottom, looks so inviting...
"Vincent." The sound of his name on my own lips almost undoes me. Repressing my tears is starting to create an ache along the line of my jaw. "Why...?" My voice fails suddenly as I choke on the words, swallowing a stinging sob. "Why did you leave?"
He opens his mouth, but doesn't say anything. His eyebrows twitch in regretful, dejected apology. He can't explain. Had I expected that to have changed? It's all right. It doesn't matter now, I suppose. Not now that he's returned...
"You were gone for five days," I tell him, my voice wispy and tremulous. "I thought you'd left for good this time." I'm surprised he can hear me at all, I'm speaking so quietly.
But he hears me. I know that he hears me because he looks ashamedly at the floor. "I'm sorry," he says softly.
I turn away from him, suddenly angry again. That's not what I want him to tell me. Some part of me is glad, somewhere in an emotion-shadowed part of my heart, that he feels regret for leaving so unexpectedly, but it is still too soon. Please, answer me. I need to know how you feel, what you feel...for me...
I'm looking across the room. The tears are so close to the surface; I know if I face him again, they'll leak out. My composure stands no chance against his steady, infuriating obscurity. Why is a straight response so difficult for him? Aren't I worth the moment it would take to analyze his feelings? God, Vincent, don't do this to me. Can't you see where we are? It's so close, one word from you could bring our two universes together. Please, I'm hanging by a thread of sanity. Please, if you care for me at all, make the move to rescue me...
"Why did you come back?" My last card laid out on the table before him. I have nothing else. I need his answer to have anything at all.
I can see him stand out of the corner of my eye and I bow my head as he approaches me. The tears are throbbing so painfully against my cheekbones and temples. I can't hold them back anymore. A pressure builds in my lungs as the first trickle of warm wetness makes its scorching way down the side of my nose and I exhale suddenly in a sharp sob. I turn my face away from him. Please...answer me...just answer me...
His fingers are hovering above my shoulder; I can feel them there as if his skin is emitting waves of heat through his glove. But I can't move from him, frozen by his proximity. He's so close, I could turn and be in his embrace. I'm holding my breath. Please, Vincent, have pity on me. Don't touch me. Don't make me any weaker. Just answer. Please. I need to hear why you returned. Give me my strength back. Bring gravity back to my world.
His fingers on my shoulder are like a burning brand. I feel like he's scalded me. Why, Vincent? Why do you have to make this so hard? I can't help but twitch away from him. He makes another move. I'm not sure if he's trying to touch me again, but I can't take the chance that he is. One more and I'll die. I'll crumble into him like a broken building. I have to take control somehow. I feel like I'm spiraling out, a sand-castle being blown, grain by grain, out to sea. My panicked frustration makes me turn to him and I begin to pound violently against his chest with my fists. My tears and sobs are so loud, so painful, but they are little more than percussion to the symphonic cacophony going on in my head. Sense blurs into emotion until the world dwindles down to the colours I see flashing behind the lids of my eyes with every knock of my fist against his heart.
I'm probably only there for a few seconds, but it feels like hours, weeks of drumming against him angrily, uselessly. And then he's gripping my upper arms firmly, holding me away, and his metal fingers are digging into my flesh. I stop, stunned, and my eyes fly open to look him in the face. He looks confused, angry, afraid, concerned. I sag into his grasp with a final, defeated sob, nearly numb against the fire starting in my arm where his prosthetic is probably bruising me.
Just answer me, dammit!
I don't realize I screamed these words aloud until I look into his face again. He looks shocked, and then he's letting me go and stepping back. I almost drop to the floor without the support of his hands, but I catch myself in an awkward crouching position and force myself back up. I'm shaking with my anger, with fear, with fatigue; my tears are drying up and fading against my cheeks. Everything in me is tensed, taut, trembling. This is the moment of truth where he either speaks to me, or he runs. Right now, the expression on his face says he could do either. I'm teetering on the edge, waiting for him to stretch out his arm and catch me before I fall. Hoping that he'll catch me. Please, Vincent...please...
"God, Elira," he croaks. His body is rigid, a coiled spring ready to let go and disappear into the distance. But he doesn't move; something is holding him there like a fastened latch. I realize after a moment that it's my eyes. My gaze is holding him there. He can't flee with me watching. He's never fled with me watching. I swear never to blink again.
His mouth is working, but no words come out. And then he shudders stiffly. "Five days," he breaths shallowly. "I spent them trying to find a place I could start again. You needed a chance to start on your own. I've been around; you haven't had a chance." He shakes his head abruptly as if to keep me from interrupting. But I can't interrupt. I can't even breath. "Things have changed so much," he continues, his eyes darting away from me to the floor, and I know he's talking about the changes in himself. "There was nowhere for me to go. I'm human again, but..." He hesitates for a moment, and then looks back into my wide eyes. "...I don't know how to rejoin humanity." He swallows. "You...you are my only tie to this world."
I open my mouth, and I can feel my lips quivering. My voice is sticking in my throat and I cough out a dry sob. "You...need me?" I ask in no more than a quaking whisper.
He sighs quietly and nods, and I know it is difficult for him to admit that he needs anyone. Perhaps this is what he needed to find out by leaving. That he needed...that this is something he can't do on his own...
But does he need me for anything else? Does he need me as much as I need him?
Mine is more than a mere need for him, I know. I need him, yes, I want him, I love him. I need him more than I need air. There is no life without him. Without him, the keeper of my heart and soul, I am a heartless, soulless shell.
Does he need me that much? I need to know. How can I ask...?
I am shaking like I'm about to fly apart. I am so afraid, so aware of the horrible stretch of unknown future extending out before me like a featureless prairie. He needs me, he wants me, I know. But does he love me? How can I ask...? If his answer is no...what...what will I do...? Will I send him away into the lonely world? How could I? But how could I keep him with me if he doesn't love me?
He is watching me, his forehead creasing in perplexity as I tremble, my face contorting as I try to urge my voice to the surface. Finally, I feel able to speak and I hold onto the moment, becoming completely still for a second before saying, whispering, "Anything else?"
His expression empties until he is staring at me blankly, not understanding.
Did I expect him to? I try again. "Is there anything else? Besides...you need me?"
The confusion on his face escalates. I can tell that he knows what I'm asking is important, but he doesn't know what I'm asking. My heart is pulsing sharply in my chest, in my neck, in my head. It's almost all I can feel, all I can hear.
I need to clarify. Can I do it? Do I have the strength? I have no choice. There's no turning back now. I've gone too far...
I take a breath as if it might be my last. "Do you love me, Vincent?" I ask, and I can feel heat suffusing my face with every word. It's the question I've wanted to ask him so many times. Always choking it down at the last second. Now I've said it. I've jumped off the edge.
He will decide whether I fall on the rocks or into the sun-warmed ocean water.
His expression freezes, and so does everything in me. It feels as if the world has stopped. Time has halted. My heart no longer beats. Will it start again? My being groans to him silently. He is both my executioner and savior. He has all control, all power over me. One word will determine the fate of my universe...
His body relaxes as he realizes what this is about, but I don't know if his tension is leaving in despair or relief. He opens him mouth and I can't help but believe that every pore in my body is listening for his answer.
"You doubt it?" he asks, convincingly surprised.
I don't understand his words for a moment, expecting a yes or no. And then they begin to sink in. The tears begin, more than I thought I could possibly have left in my body, and I'm sobbing, laughing, crying. "Doubt it? Yes, because I...you...you never... I... You never said... I was never sure... I..."
He's suddenly in front of me and I reel into him, clutching his shirt in my hands and pushing my head against his shoulder as he envelops me in the heavenly security of his arms. I sigh, my heart filling with something so good it almost hurts. I feel like I want to scream, laugh, run...do something with the joyous pressure building up inside me. This is right where I want to be forever. I don't care where we are, as long as we're just like this; the world could go to hell, I wouldn't notice. There is no universe more important than the one I'm in right now.
"Please," I eventually hear him whispering above my head, "stop crying, Elira. Shh. Please, calm down. Shh."
I am still crying, I realize. Pulling my head from his shoulder, I sniffle and try to bring myself back under control. I look into his face and he smiles a little at me, still concerned. Doesn't he know how happy I am? Tears aren't always bad. I break into a tremulous grin for him and he seems a little taken aback. And then he seems to settle into a perusal of my face. A gloved thumb runs over one of my cheekbones to wipe away a tear and I can't help the small gasp I give. He watches me for a moment more before taking a finger of the glove in his mouth and pulling it from his hand. He tosses it to the floor and strokes my face again with his thumb, his palm cradling my cheek, skin against skin. I close my eyes, enraptured, my entire body aware of his touch. My heart is pounding again, so loudly, and I wonder if he can hear it. It's crying out:
Vincent! ... Vincent! ... Vincent!
Lescante! ... Freedom! ... Lescante!
Kiss me, Vincent.
The bed is too small for us. The room is too small for us. We end up on the carpet together, pulling at clothing, touching skin, gasping into each other's mouths, sharing oxygen. I feel so full to bursting. How can I stand it?
God, Vincent, take me.
Two universes approaching, pulsating, trembling...
Exploding into sparking atoms. Coalescing into one universe.
Hours later it feels like, we are lying together on the floor under a blanket we purloined from one of the beds. My dream is ringing in my head, and to dispel the fear of waking up I am touching him, exploring his right hand, his elbow, counting his ribs. He is watching my face, I know, as I touch him, and I can't help my small smile. This feels so right. This is how it was meant to be from the beginning.
He's still so thin. I look into his face finally, and he's smiling, his lips twitching. The smile twitches larger as I run a finger over his bottom rib. Ticklish. I smile.
"Say it," I tell him.
His eyes tell me he knows what I'm talking about. We are both thinking the same thing. He hesitates and his smile begins to fade a little. I touch his rib again and the smile returns. I wish it would never leave his face. I love his smile. I love him, all of him.
He blinks slowly and then rolls onto his side, facing me. And then he reaches for me. I want him to say it first, but I'm powerless to push him away. I sigh as he kisses my jaw, my neck, and goosebumps form on my body as he inhales my scent.
"I love you," he whispers into my skin, and I shiver. The universe quakes with joy.
Daylight is pouring in through the window. I haven't heard the Lescante since the early morning. It must have flown away.
It is time for us to leave, too, I know.
Our future, our freedom, is waiting for us.