"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
He has made himself scarce.
It has been weeks.
But he is tired.
Tired of fighting, mostly.
Tired of pretending like he’s something he’s not and has never been.
He has stuck to the shadows. Not because he didn’t want to be found but because the darkness settles around him like something warm and familiar. In the shadows he is free to be the nothing that he is and has always been.
He has had time to think about it, of course. He has had time to think about leaving. He could return to the meadow or the forest or the edge of the river – the only thing that ever worked to drown out all of the noise in his head. It would be easy enough. He was certain that he could do it without so much as a backwards glance.
But he doesn’t. Because he is nothing and he is worthless but he is not cruel. Because he does love her, even if it’s in the wrong way. Even if he does not understand her darkness. Even if all they ever do is cut each other on the sharp edges they have created. Even if all they ever do is rail against one another.
He seeks her out now. It has taken him weeks because he is proud. He does not try to swallow his pride now. He does not apologize. He does not grovel because he wasn’t built for it.
He stands there in front of her and he shakes his head and he says, “we can’t keep living this way.”
It is plain, almost mournful. “We have to make a decision,” he continues. “Together or apart and I’m not going to fight with you about it.”
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
I will commit my soul to your door tonight, and I'll last 'til the gas fumes float on higher
She grows thin in the weeks that past.
Like her mother, her edges become sharper when she finds herself distressed. It does not complete dull the edges of her beauty, but it does make her face more fierce. It pulls the skin tighter so that the planes of her cheek are sharp and her sage green serpentine eyes glitter all the more as she moves in the dark.
She thinks of him constantly. More than she should.
She dreams of the quiet moments in their story together. The moments when one or both did not explode, when they did not hunt out the weakest spots and push the blade into them. The moments when he was more vulnerable, and she was more honest, and they were able to find something like stability.
She dreams so much that she almost does not believe it is him when he finally approaches.
She grows still, her eyes hesitant as they finally sweep up and then hungrily study his face. Trying to memorize every detail of him and commit it to memory, trying to force herself to remember it all and trying to ignore the ache that spreads in her with the want to reach out and touch him—just for a moment.
What he says though catches her off guard and she inhales sharply.
“I made my decision a long time ago,” she manages and is surprised to find that her throaty voice has more rasp than usual—the disuse clear in the rust that builds around her tongue. How could she possibly explain to him the many ways that she never made a decision? How she never even had a choice?
How could she explain to him that she was lost before she began?
She can’t and she doesn’t try.
She just rolls her shoulders, suddenly hating where this conversation may lead.
in a dying love I'm nothing but a stone cold liar but, oh, I got an iron in that fire
I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
Perhaps he notices the changes in her.
Perhaps he doesn’t.
Perhaps he’s too distracted by the way his heart beats different just by being around her.
And maybe he would never admit it but she has reoriented his pulse and even if he had tried to cast himself into the river, it would not feel the same. He will likely never admit it but she has changed him on some visceral level but he does not know to resent her for it.
Because he never asked for this.
Because he was perfectly happy to live his life alone.
Because he had come to accept his station in life as nothing and no one.
And then she’d looked at him like he should be something more. And he’d tried. God, he’d tried. And it was so exhausting to try and have it absolutely never be enough.
He doesn’t know how they got here.
But he drags in a shuddering breath and he studies her in this perpetual half-darkness and swallows thickly. He suspects he already knows what her decision is but he knows better than to assume. He is a fool but he is not stupid.
“And what is that?” he asks. There is no edge to his tone. He is not looking to incite a riot. It is plain, just like the rest of him. Bled through with a patience that does not necessarily come naturally to him.
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
I will commit my soul to your door tonight, and I'll last 'til the gas fumes float on higher
She wishes it was easier to tell him about all of the different ways her life has built around itself around him. How she has become completely and totally reoriented by his presence in her life. But, she reminds herself, she has. She has told him so many times how she feels and it’s never been returned.
Each and every time, it has been diverted.
Or simply accepted.
And she is not sure that she can survive it one more time.
But he is standing there, so close, and he is being so careful with the words that he hands to her—like he is worried about how quickly she may ignite. And could she blame him? All she has ever shown him was that she would set them both on fire at the very first moment, at the very first provocation.
So she bites back her fear that would turn her ugly and mean.
She bites back the fear that rises in her throat and tells her to flee.
Adna forces herself to meet his steady gaze and lose herself in it for a second, to see the depths of it and then draw herself back out. “I’ve wanted together since the first moment I met you,” she confesses for what feels like the millionth time and she prepares herself for the crash that inevitably will come.
She wants to tell him that she knows he wants something different.
That she knows and it’s okay.
But all she hears is how often he has accused her of assuming and she swallows it down again.
in a dying love I'm nothing but a stone cold liar but, oh, I got an iron in that fire
I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
There is a beat of silence that follows.
Perhaps he had expected a different answer.
Maybe he’d thought she’d tell him that she’d decided she wanted nothing to do with him anymore. And perhaps part of him hoped for it. For her sake. Because he was quite obviously no good for her. Or anyone, really, but she had failed to recognize that from the very first moment they’d met.
He nods and he exhales the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Okay,” he says. He does not look away from her, not even as another tendril of silence stretches between them. He does not go to her. He does not collapse around relief. He does not kiss her or pull her into a stiff embrace. He just nods and he looks at her and he collects what he can of his scattershot thoughts.
“Together, then,” he says, decisive.
He knows nothing about relationships. He has never been in love or been loved in return. He does not know what it means to belong to someone or have someone belong to him. He glances down at the ground and then back up at her.
“I don’t want to fight with you anymore,” he says, the expression plaintive. “If we’re going to be together, we have to stop assuming the worst about each other.”
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
I will commit my soul to your door tonight, and I'll last 'til the gas fumes float on higher
She swallows hard when he affirms her answer but does not reach for her.
She tries to not feel the cold of the distance between them and she fights against the marrow-deep need to finally close it, but she does not trust the way that her head swims. She does not trust the way that she nearly shakes with relief and the fear that comes with it because she would break this.
She would break this like she breaks everything in her life.
“I don’t want to fight either,” her voice is steady despite it all, despite the shivers that send earthquakes down her spine. And she laughs at what he says next, shaking her thin head and finding that the laughter sounds something like a sob on her tongue—because all they have ever done is assume.
She wants to tell him that she will stop assuming.
That she will be better—that she will finally find peace between them.
But the words don’t come. The silence just stretches as she frowns, as she shifts her weight a little and looks at the ground before glancing back up to study his face. “Is this what you want?” she finally asks, swallowing the panic that spreads throughout her. Because he didn’t look relieved. He didn’t look happy. He looked trapped. She makes a motion downward to all of her. As if trying to show him all of her flaws.
“Because I know I’m a mess. I know—“
She stops, rolling her shoulders.
“I just want you to be sure.”
in a dying love I'm nothing but a stone cold liar but, oh, I got an iron in that fire
I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
Perhaps it goes without saying.
That they don’t want to fight.
But all each of them has wanted was to be seen by the other. She has wanted him to see her in all of her darkness and love her anyway. And he has wanted nothing more than for her to see that he is plain and simple and not at all the kind of man she should want to love or have love her. But he doesn’t want to be with anyone else. Because no one else has ever set him ablaze the same way she has. Nobody has ever sunk a fish hook into his belly that called him back to them. Nobody but her.
There is no mirth in her laughter, absolutely no warmth. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought it was a sob. And maybe it is but he doesn’t know how to provide her any comfort without making this something that it’s not. He doesn’t want to have to comfort her because he doesn’t want this to be dark.
She speaks then and a slanted smirk flits across his features before it’s gone. He shakes his head, good-natured. There is nothing angry in the way he eyes her. There is nothing dark in the breath that leaves him in the shape of a muted laugh. “Are you trying to talk me out of it?” he asks. Were their circumstances any different the tone might have been teasing. But here and now, there is simply a lilt to it. Accompanied by that smirk, he thinks it’s probably enough.
But, after a moment, he nods and says, “I’m sure.”
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
I will commit my soul to your door tonight, and I'll last 'til the gas fumes float on higher
There is something about the way that he laughs that calls her back to the surface.
It is like taking a breath of air and she finds that her head clears when she looks at him now. Sees something like mirth in the smile that just glances across the edges of his mouth. Her heart swells in her chest, painfully beating against her ribs, and there is something like a smile that finds her lips too. It is brief and brilliant and her thin face glows a little more brilliantly in the afterglow of it.
“Maybe,” and her voice has more levity in it this time as she considers him, as she continues to feel the distance between them like a rubber band stretched too taut. She might snap if she doesn’t find relief from it, she thinks, but she is not the first to cross to him, to reach for him, to pull him into her orbit.
She bites her lip but stops when she feels the sharpness of her fangs nearly tear into it.
Instead she swallows again, forcing herself to study the beautiful angles of his face—the plainness that he seems to despise and yet looks so brilliantly perfect to her. She could study the gravity of it for years and never grow tired, she thinks. She could lose herself in the amber of his eyes, in the solemnity of his smile, in the way her heart drops when he says her name or just looks at her. At the way she fractures near him.
“Good,” she manages, and her mouth grows dry.
Another smile flickers across her face as she studies him and then dies out in a flame of hunger.
in a dying love I'm nothing but a stone cold liar but, oh, I got an iron in that fire
I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
They have been here before.
They have seen this glimpse of peace.
He is not certain he’s at all qualified to maintain it. Because he does not know how to handle her in a way that will stop her from breaking apart. He does not know how to say the right things or behave the right way. His being happy to hear about a daughter he’d been unaware of had been enough to send them spiraling into some oblivion he isn’t certain they’ve fully clawed their way out of. Because there is still a significant amount of space between them and he’s not certain if that’s his fault or hers. Or if there’s even any real sense in placing blame at all.
For the moment, he simply stands there and he revels in the glimpse of the smile that she’d offered in response to his teasing. Maybe this time he will allow himself to truly believe that they can find some sense of equilibrium. That she can somehow look at him and not feel compelled to rage against his indifference.
He loves her, certainly. But he’d told her from the beginning that he’d never be able to love her the way she deserved to be loved. The way she needed to be loved. He would never know how to shower her with affection or hold her close or kiss her head and whisper soothing nothings in her ear when the darkness started to become too much.
He has failed her and he will continue to fail her. He suspects that they both know it. But, for the moment, it is enough simply to close up the negative space between them and touch his mouth to her temple. She is thin, this is not lost on him, and he has no choice but to take the blame on his own shoulders. He has done this to her. He will undoubtedly continue to do this to her.
He knows in his heart of hearts that they will continue to destroy each other but he kisses her head and he sighs into her skin. “I love you,” he murmurs into her cheek and then pulls away just enough to say, clearly, “you have to believe that.”
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
I will commit my soul to your door tonight, and I'll last 'til the gas fumes float on higher
Their peace is a fragile, beautiful thing and if she was not so scared of it, she might be in awe of it. Because the calm between the storms of them has always been so beautiful, so ravaged. They have found themselves to be so good at being their own tempest. They have found themselves to be so good at destroying their own lives before outside forces can do the work for them, and she is not sure that she can trust their natures to fight against what comes so naturally to them—to keep it wholly at bay.
Still, when she loses herself in the deep waters of his eyes, she knows that she will try.
When he steps forward and draws her close, she folds into him. She presses into the caverns of his body and finds that they are familiar, they are home, and she exhales as if she has been holding her breath for months—and maybe she has. “Beth,” she exhales slowly, purposefully, feeling the way that the earth feels so right when she is next to him like this, when his mouth is against her and she can feel his breath.
And when he admits his love, it is the first time he says it without an explanation or a disclaimer, and her own heart neat collapses like a dying star. It is like a wave that rushes over her, through her—rearranging the columns of her being and molding it into the likeness of him. She holds her breath now as if she could capture this moment and keep it pressed against her chest forever. As if she could preserve it.
But the words do not hold themselves back.
Before she can stop them, she is leaning up to press a kiss to his neck, his jaw, his poll. “I love you too,” she manages and then laughs, a delighted sound that ripples through her. “So very much.”
in a dying love I'm nothing but a stone cold liar but, oh, I got an iron in that fire
