contact part deux

[bouchonne]

if this were modern times byerly would probably make you listen to total eclipse of the heart before you were able to leave a message

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[coquettish_trees]

I do not know. I only know that while I have had and mourned losses I feel are only my own that—

[ She turns her head on his shoulder so she can lean her forehead against the side of his neck. ]

Some of the things that we lost then were ours. What small joy we had, what love we had, what trust we had, what of those we might have had— those losses belong to us both. And there is something in shared sorrow that cannot be had alone.

[bouchonne]

[ He's quiet a moment. He's still twisted around that secret sorrow of hers. ]

I didn't realize. That I had - so much of a part in it.

[coquettish_trees]

I... have not allowed myself to think of it.

[ Even with her efforts to steady herself, there is still an anxious tightness in her chest that he knows. Selfish. Unkind. You wrought that pain and it was only yours to hold. ]

It feels so terrible of me to...

[ Silence, as she struggles with how to name it. Starts again. ]

I pushed you away so harshly. How dare I be hurt that I succeeded.

[bouchonne]

I failed you.

[ He has no trouble with its name. His voice is blunt and flat. ]

And I have been furious with you, when the failure was mine.

[coquettish_trees]

[ She raises her head for that, draws herself upright and raises a hand to turn his face to hers in an attempt to make him look at her. ]

Ne dis pas cela.

[ Fierce and quick and intent as her eyes, and there is nothing of a plea in it. ]

This cannot be yours, I will not let you have it. The most I will do is share. Say that my fear made me leave you, yours made you leave me, and we have both suffered for it. You more than I, for even while I twisted myself into a creature that could no longer feel its agony I slept in silk.

You cannot have it.

[bouchonne]

Who gives a damn about silk?

[ He runs a hand over his miserable face. ]

It - I have not felt the guilt of it till now.

[coquettish_trees]

[ She needed him to know, and now he does, and her solitary carrying of it is done. Now there is nothing but a wish to keep it from spreading like a poison in him. In them.

The fierceness dissipates to something softer, and she will try to catch his hand, if he will let her. To hold it lightly just so she is there. ]

I did not tell you with a wish to make you feel so.

[bouchonne]

I know you didn't.

[ He holds her hand back, turning his unhappy gaze on her. ]

You are - far too kind to wish something like that.

[coquettish_trees]

[ The breath she lets out when he takes her offered hand is the one she drew after she told him. She had taken other breaths, of course, but that one had been in her chest until now, frozen. Waiting for him to pull away inside himself to where she could not reach him anymore.

But he doesn't.

And then she realizes he hasn't. Not once since they began speaking, not any of the times she knew he would. There had been once during a swell of despair that he had reached toward her. Small, the insistent press of his hand on hers to ask her to come back, but it had been there. Her eyes widen with it, full of a kind of tentative fragile commingled joy and relief as she lets herself hold that hand more warmly.

Soft and unbidden, she cannot help herself but say— ]

You stopped.

[bouchonne]

Stopped -

[ He doesn't understand. He shakes his head. ]

[coquettish_trees]

Leaving. You—

All this while we have been speaking about such difficult things, perhaps some of the most difficult, and I have not once felt you were pulling away.

[bouchonne]

[ He does pull back now, painfully self-conscious. His brow and mouth are tense. ]

I didn't - realize that I do, normally.

[coquettish_trees]

It... feels so, but—

[ I should not have said anything, why did I— ]

I do not want to be something you have need to protect yourself from. I am—

[ She smooths the cloth that covers his shoulder with her thumb, and smiles: small, tentative, a little sad. ]

I am sorry. That I am.

[bouchonne]

No. You're not. I -

[ He runs a hand over his face, frustrated and unhappy. ]

I'm simply no good for this. I am sorry. It is my fault.

[coquettish_trees]

If it is mine to forgive then I forgive it.

[ She runs her fingertips down the side of his face, gentler than he had been with it. ]

I am not good at this either, for all that I wish to be.