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 Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 5:52 pm
Julien's grin faded, his bowl hopelessly lopsided again as he stared at Toulouse for long seconds. When he finally answered, his voice was just as hushed. "From what I've read, God will forgive anything, as long as the person who did it is truly sorry. Before you condemn yourself... maybe you should take a chance and talk to someone else about it." He looked back at his bowl, not really seeing it as he tried to figure out how to say what his heart screamed to. Eventually, he gave up trying to figure out flowery words and elegant speeches. Plain truth would work best anyway. "Tell me what you did?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:16 pm
Toulouse smoothed out the sides of his bowl with damp hands, evening out the edges, trying to make them even. His mouth twisted in a wry grimace at Julien’s question. Didn’t he know it was rude to ask something so straight forward, so obvious? He didn’t want to tell him. Toulouse knew it would go badly and he didn’t want to see that look of horror on Julien’s face. He didn’t want to be accused or pitied. It was his business, no one else’s. Still…
“I’ve been condemned since the day I was born.” Toulouse said finally, remembering the way his late father used to look at him and how the courtiers used to sneer. Well, the old court wasn't sneering now. “I didn’t do anything. Absolutely nothing. That’s my sin.” Toulouse just could seem to elaborate any further. He didn't looked at anything but the clay, feeling his eyes go glassy with a hundred years of unshed tears. He didn’t want to tell Julien completely.
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:23 pm
Julien watched Toulouse, his own clay forgotten as he considered the boy for long minutes before nodding, his eyes gentle. "Then it's time to do something now," he said simply, as though it were the easiest thing in the world. "If your sin was doing nothing... then the way to cleanse yourself is to do something... something to fix whatever doing nothing broke." Julien started to reach out, then caught sight of his clay-covered hand and pulled it back just a little, reluctantly. "I'll help."
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:30 pm
Toulouse played with the clay. He needed any excuse to not look at Julien. His hands were fidgety and they needed to touch something, anything.
“No, you can’t.” Toulouse replied to Julien’s offer. His voice of mournful as he remembered his sisters and what had happened to them. What he did to them. If he had just told him, then maybe things would have been different. Maybe they’d still be alive. “There’s nothing that you can do about it.” He said at last. “You can’t fix something that’s already dead.”
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:39 pm
Screw the clay... Julien reached out, touching Toulouse's arm with one dirty hand as he stared at the boy, praying Mrs. Tulip wouldn't come bug them just yet. "You can fix anything you want to, if you put your mind to it, Toulouse," he countered softly, his voice as firm as his conviction. "But you have to believe that it can be fixed... and it may never be fixed the way you want it to. But... I'll be right there beside you the whole way."
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:50 pm
Toulouse looked at Julien’s dirty hand on his arm. Toulouse’s hands still encircled the clay, but the design was forgotten. “Your talk tastes of revenge Julien. To make what was made wrong, right, I’d have to kill the man who started it. I should’ve done so at the beginning but I was too weak, too soft.”
Mrs. Tulip laughed gaily where she was helping the family, startling Toulouse out of his reverie. He gulped back a sigh, looking at Julien. “How would you fix something like that? I ask again, how do you fix something that is dead due to someone having done nothing. I can’t do something for anyone because they’re all dead. All of them. I seem to be stuck.”
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:58 pm
"I'm not talking about fixing the world, Toulouse," Julien countered, shaking his head a little as he searched Toulouse's eyes. He didn't pull his hand back, wanting Toulouse to have the comfort, and to know... to really understand... that Julien wouldn't back down easily. "I'm talking about fixing your heart. You can't fix that by killing anyone. Revenge isn't the answer. It's just another taint that you'll have to cleanse."
Sighing gently, Julien looked down at where his hand rested on Toulouse's arm. "The only way to fix death... is to learn to accept it, and let them go," he said, very softly.
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:12 pm
“No I won’t accept it.” Toulouse all but yelled, ripping his arm from Julien’s grasp. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand at all.” He hissed trying not to cry. “They were all I had, my entire world. I just made one careless wrong decision and that world was destroyed. They did nothing. They were innocents capable of nothing but love and kindness. They were what the glittering throng should be. Those fools just couldn’t see it and their ignorance destroyed them. I destroyed them because I was took weak to protect what was mine.”
Toulouse clasped his hands in his lap staring at them hard. His clay lay forgotten twirling around in a smudge. He hadn’t meant to get so far into it. It wasn’t Julien’s fault. It was his own. “Sorry Julien.” He whispered. “I didn’t mean to yell. Just forget it. Please, I don't want to be here anymore.” The last words came out as barely a whispered and didn't have entirely to do with the pottery shop.
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:18 pm
Julien watched him, pale eyes intense as he stared in worry at the boy. He didn't dare lift his gaze even to send a warning look to Mrs. Tulip, but he prayed the woman would stay back, would mind her own business... "No," he said, reaching for Toulouse's hands without fear of another rebuff. If Toulouse pushed him away again, Julien would simply have to reach out again. "Don't apologize to me." He hesitated a long moment, then pulled one hand free long enough to tug the apron off. "We'll come back and do our pottery another day," he said, reaching back for Toulouse's hands. "I think we need some time just us, okay?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:32 pm
Toulouse stood with Julien and let him take his hands and didn’t say anything. He was suddenly hot and did not feel well. He wanted to go away and hide from the things that Julien was making him think about. They were things he tried not to think about at all. To have them suddenly thrown up in his face again made him nauseous, sick at heart. If he started hearing their screams again…then…
Toulouse suddenly pressed himself up against Julien, a fine trembling running through his small body. He mussed his golden hair by burying his face in Julien’s shirt, not caring that his clinging hands were getting wet clay everywhere.
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:38 pm
Julien didn't care either. He wrapped his arms around Toulouse, worried eyes staring down at the ruffled blond hair for a moment before lifting to seek out Tulip. "We'll be back another day," he called out to her, then turned back to Toulouse, leaning forward to rest his cheek against the soft blond hair before pulling back just a little.
"Come on," he said, his voice utterly gentle. "Let's rinse this off and take off your apron, and we can go sit outside for a while, in the shade." He paused, then added softly, "I wouldn't mind another hug when we get out there," hoping to encourage Toulouse to lean on him again.
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:58 pm
Toulouse’s heart pounded in his chest, his face drawn and pale. He tried to remember that last thing that his sister had said to him. What was it? Try as he might, he couldn’t remember. Julien had said to move on but who would remember them is he did? That thought sent another fine tremble through his body. What if their memories disappeared forever with no one to mourn them? What would happen when he disappeared? Would they lay forgotten? He hated remembering but couldn’t stop the memories.
Vaguely aware that Julien was speaking to him, Toulouse nodded. “Yes.” He said in a thin voice. He struggled out of his apron ties, letting go of Julien as he did so. He wiped his arms and hands on the cloth, not sure if he could walk all the way to the sink in the back. He let Julien lead him towards the door.
Mrs Tulip blinked and wondering if the child was having a tantrum. He certainly looked as if he was. She had seen the furious little face many times in her own children. “No worries dear.” She replied to Julien not wanting to stick her nose where it didn’t belong. She knew that much at least. “I look forward to seeing you again!” She turned back to her current students, trying to but the face of the little blond boy out of her mind.
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:03 pm
Julien led Toulouse outside, barely even hearing Tulip's answer to him as he went. Where the woman thought that Toulouse was having a tantrum, Julien was far more worried that Toulouse might break apart at any moment. Spying a tree, Julien led Toulouse to it, sitting down ever so slowly with his back against the rough bark. "Come here," he said gently, tugging on his friend very softly, in the hopes of getting Toulouse to curl up against him, protected from the bark by Julien himself.
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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 10:48 pm
Toulouse tripped the last few steps to Julien’s embrace, his legs somehow had stopped working in the moments he had been standing still. Toulouse’s knees seemed to give out and he all but fell into Julien’s arms. He lay between Julien’s legs, pressed up against the other boy as close as he could get with his face buried in his light shirt. Toulouse was dizzy with his heart racing in his chest. He could taste his own pulse in his mouth like some strange candy to suck on. Everything was so hot and sticky. He couldn’t seem to breathe right.
Toulouse grasped at Julien’s shirt as tightly as he could, trembling in his foreign child's body. His chest was tight and his eyes hurt so much that he tried to bury his face all the more deeper into the soft fabric of Julien’s shirt. Even with the sun shinning brightly above, Toulouse couldn’t seem to get control of himself. Images of everyone he had ever cared about flashed through his mind over and over again. He tried to keep the small noises in his throat trapped in the cage of his mouth. Still, Toulouse choked out a dry sob trying not to cry for those who had been dead for over a century. Why wasn’t he dead too?
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Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:13 am
Julien cuddled Toulouse close, worry clouding his face as one hand gently rubbed up and down Toulouse's back. "Let go," he murmured softly, reaching up to pet the soft hair. "It's okay to cry. I won't tell anyone," he coaxed, voice as gentle as he could possibly make it. His own heart ached in sympathy, watching the obvious pain Toulouse was in, and the way it ripped him to pieces.
Julien's own eyes shimmered, just a bit too wet as he watched his friend, but he was oblivious to the tears gathering in them. "You're not dirty, Toulouse," he said, voice barely audible. "You're good."
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