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 Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:39 pm
It had been meant as a casual thing, a throwaway comment, but it felt all wrong, as did everything else about his current situation. Gale twisted Jinhai's ring around his finger, and he could feel Stormy slipping away from him again, her face an emotionless mask, and the terrible panic rose in his throat again; a desperate desire for her to not shut him out, for her to understand not just that he was still there, but why he was still there.
And yet...at the same time, what more could he do that hadn't already been done?
What more could he say that hadn't already been said?
He wasn't the one drowning this time; Stormy was sinking deeper and deeper and with each breath she took she was becoming further away from him, disappearing into the black abyss, her hand slipping free of his until she was completely gone.
He couldn't let that happen.
"Stormy," said Gale, and twisted on the bed to look at her. He reached out to touch her shoulder, but stopped before his fingers actually reached her, drawing them back again.
"Please," he said softly.
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:01 pm
The please made it hurt more, and she squeezed herself a little harder, tucked her chin just that much closer to her chest. She could feel her eyes start to sting, and though it was pointless to fight the urge to cry, she did anyway. It was her imperative in life, apparently.
Please what? Please don't leave? She wasn't leaving, she was just partially missing; her body was there, it still remembered how to act even if it was limited. Please let me help? He was there, wasn't he, not on the other side of the door. Existing was enough of an anchor to keep her going.
Please don't shut me out? She was trying, she was trying . . . But the walls were made of things stronger than she was, as was the current. Stormy felt herself slowly drowning, and it was suddenly a Herculean feat just to squeeze out three words in her efforts to stop it, to find something to hold on to.
"Talk to me." Her stinging eyes squeezed closed as she tried to take a deep breath, three more escaping in the exhale. "Just keep talking."
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:16 pm
Talk to me.
The bed was a full sized bed, wide enough to fit two people relatively comfortably on it, though narrow enough that not much space was left after those two people were on it. Gale shifted his weight so that he was entirely on the bed, his legs stretched out in front of him, his back against the wall. He was sitting up, leaving several inches of space between he and Stormy, although it was killing him to do so, because all he wanted was to take her hand, stroke her head and reassure her of his presence.
And he couldn't even do that. How was he even supposed to know what to say? What if he said something wrong? What if he said something that went too far, that broke her too easily, that was a reminder of everything that she was trying so hard to forget?
Talk to me.
Just keep talking.
He swallowed hard and folded his hands together in his lap, tilting his head back to look up at the ceiling. He'd told stories to Stormy before, of course, when she was having trouble sleeping, or when he was having trouble sleeping, or when neither one of them actually wanted to sleep, but this was different somehow.
He felt terribly, terribly unprepared somehow.
Gale took a deep breath.
"Sometime in the future," he said quietly. "I'll take you back to England. We'll walk along the Thames and look at the bridge and we'll have tea at this little cafe that's right next to it, in London. They say it's good luck if you catch the bridge opening, so we'll have to have a stake out, y'know? See if we can watch it happen."
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:34 pm
Fear struck her at first when he didn't answer. Maybe this was the final straw. She continued to breathe and only breathe for a while, sometimes evenly, sometimes a little more raggedly as she fought to contain her sobs. The tears came anyway, but maybe that was all she needed to get out of her: not the ugly mess that came along. Maybe for all his talk, being around that was getting to him. She wouldn't blame him at all if he chose to leave, even if it was just to recharge.
But he did speak. So Stormy let them fall and instead focused on Gale's voice, on the vague hints of warmth his body gave off just beyond her back, on the fact that he was still willing to be there even though there was still enough space to feel it acutely. It was a step forward, however small.
"Wouldn't mind going to London again, but . . . I-I thought we were supposed to avoid places we'd risk getting recognized," she pointed out, her voice still somewhat muted. "Maybe somewhere else just to be sure?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:55 pm
He smiled, in spite of himself, and in spite of all the reasons not to. "Perhaps," said Gale lightly and absently tapped a finger against the side of Jinhai's ring. "Maybe I'll take you to Paris, then. I've always wanted to go back to Paris. My mum took me and Leslie there when we were kids, and I remember looking up at the Eiffel Tower and thinking it was so big..."
He trailed off a little at the memory, Gale still staring up at the ceiling.
"Or maybe we'll go to the states," he said suddenly, tilting his head a little. "I've only been once, when I was little. We went to New York City for New Year's, and it was...well, it was an experience, that was for sure. But I'd much rather go elsewhere, like...like the Grand Canyon," he said, "Or Disneyworld. I was supposed to go with Candace once, but it never panned out."
He shifted a little on the bed, crossing one ankle over the other.
"Maybe we can go to the Netherlands," said Gale softly, his voice quieter, more subdued than it had been a moment before. "We can walk along the rows of tulips in the great tulip fields; I hear they're beautiful."
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:15 pm
If her eyes hadn't been closed, they would have just to picture everything. "Paris . . . We went on a tour there, once, in the summer. Mami and Papi and Maria Lucia and Mateo and me." Her voice softened further as she strove to remember: a heat wave, a long walk through small streets, the Louvre, a cry for gelato. (Nevada liked gelato--) "I was nine, so I don't remember much . . . other than it was really hot and that Mami took a lot of photos. It was one of the last trips we did as a family."
Stormy rubbed her face into the sheets in hopes that doing so would stop the tears; it was about as useful as trying to dry hair with a wet towel.
"Never . . . been to New York," she continued, her voice faltering. Bringing up Candace had given her pause, had made her realize that in all of this mess Stormy hadn't considered how she would react. Not even one check up. God only knew how Candace would take to that text frenzy of hers, vaguely remembering she had been one of the recipients. Just out of the blue: she's dead. No extra notice, no call to help, nothing.
A soft noise left her, and she tucked her head down as the tears continued to burn upon escape. She didn't hear anything beyond what Gale had said about Disneyworld, though Candace had offered her the same. In fact, it was the very trip that was supposed to have been a reward to her training, an incentive to get her out of her funk after Stormy's first trip to the Sahara. She supposed it was a pointless pursuit now, like many things were starting to become.
Useless.
"I-It's . . . my turn to bring you somewhere," she murmured weakly. She remembered she had promised him one day that they'd just go to the beach and relax, but the very idea of stepping out of this room was enough to intimidate her into never getting off the bed again.
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 10:59 pm
"I think I was a little younger than nine," said Gale, trying to remember; but more importantly, he was trying to keep Stormy talking, because when she was talking, the space between them seemed somehow smaller, the walls up around her and her heart lowering just a bit, even if that bit was tiny. "I remember Leslie was upset because she spilled her ice cream, and she started crying, but Mum got her another from one of those vendors on the streets."
Talking about Leslie was painful, but trying to keep Stormy herself was even more so.
She was crying now; he knew it without having to look at her, and it made his heart ache, Gale turning his head to look, his expression softening, his expression pained. He wanted so badly to reach out and pull her into his arms, but again held back, because he was too afraid of what would happen if he tried; if she would jerk away like she had before.
Maybe one time would be all it took, either to push her too far in one direction or push her too far in the other.
Carefully, gently, Gale lifted his hand and set it on Stormy's shoulder. The touch was light, barely there, his fingers hardly pressing down, just in case she wanted him to move, his heart in his throat as he stared down at the girl next to him, the girl who he had long since fallen in love with.
Love was painful.
"You can take me anywhere you want to," he said quietly. "Whenever you want to."
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Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:28 am
"But m'not going anywhere," she mumbled, her thoughts jumbling together momentarily. "Promised you I wouldn't leave. So m'staying right here with you, even if it hurts." It was safe here, as safe as hunters got. Her room, her guest room, with her things and his smell and her heart and his mind.
Stormy didn't recoil from such a light touch this time, though it somehow seemed to open the channels up for more tears as she wondered just how pitiful she must look. She continued on and off again to bite her cheek and tongue in an attempt to stifle the urge, though it was all in vain, her breath hitching. It was as if there was an open wound in her chest she was only now remembering from which all of her sorrow seemed to be pouring from like an unending waterfall, throbbing and bleeding with each heartbeat. If it's existence was due to Nevada's death, then she would have had hope it would heal in time. But her sister's passing were only part of the thoughts that ran through her head now, mixed with a myriad of other black creatures that swarmed her mind like bugs.
(There was no solution to it, nor was there a source. It existed as much as air did and seemed just as innately given.)
"M'going n-nowhere," she repeated. "M'going nowhere at all. No paths, no direction, no future. I built my house on the sand when they told me not to, a-and now the high tide's swept in to take it away." She quivered, holding her breath against a sob. It happened several more times, her grasp on her legs tightening as she found it more and more difficult to breathe--but the less she could, the less likely she could break down after all. There was such strain in holding herself in that she swore she was going to pull something, or that her face would stay wrinkled.
She made quick, shallow breaths, trying to calm herself down. "I've...I have heard the mermaids s-singing, each to each," Stormy recited in a small, tight voice, lengthening her breaths again once she was sure the wave was passed. The more she focused on other things, like the poem or Gale's hand, the better she'd be. It didn't stop the next line, "I do not think that they will sing to me," from sounding disconsolate, however.
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Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 10:44 pm
There was a slight pause, and even though he knew it already, just from how she'd acted previously, there was something about saying it out loud that stung harder, perhaps, a little deeper. Gale folded his hand in his lap and took a deep breath.
"It hurts being with me," he said, and it wasn't really a question, more a statement. The hand that was on Stormy's shoulder squeezed, very slightly, because he could feel the tremors beginning to reverberate throughout her frail body. Words were tumbling out of her like a roller coaster; quick confessions like bullets, each one a reminder to Gale that he needed now more than ever to stay with her, to be with her every step of the way.
Now if only she would let him.
"My house was built right next to yours on the sand," he said quietly. "But every time my house is crushed to the ground, what do I do? I build it back up again."
His fingers moved from her shoulder to very, very lightly touch her cheek.
And would it have been worth it, after all," Gale whispered, and some of the words were messed up, jumbled together, but he was determined to get them all out anyway; that the weeks spent with his nose in various books would be helpful now.
"Would it have been worth while / after the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets / after the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— / and this, and so much more?— / It is impossible to say just what I mean! / But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen / Yes, it would it have been worth while."ol-j-man have a half asleep post oops
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Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 12:12 am
She hadn't considered what she sounded like out of context; that required more brain power than she was capable of. At best Stormy was running on Safety Mode, if anything about her was really safe in terms of stability, but she was cut off from the majority of herself nevertheless by doing so. Things that made utter sense in her head normally would at least be given a question before being asked; now she was tempted to just spew whatever came to mind because it felt like it didn't matter.
It hurts being with me was correct, but not in the way it sounded. Stormy hadn't considered the obvious answer, not she who always went for the less apparent meaning with little or no explanation. Maybe it was better that she couldn't do what she usually did and imagine how hurt he would feel from the more evident connotations--there was enough inside her to hollow her out without adding more.
She knew Gale was trying as best he could to keep her afloat, doing everything in his power and staying even when she was utterly useless, and in her moment of self-evaluation it hurt her to know that not even this fact was enough to pull her from her pit, guilt like burrs catching her feet and stinging with any attempt to move. It was a good thing she had no plans to any time soon.
And then Gale began reciting intimately familiar words as she felt his fingers brush her cheek. Her quivering began to lessen and was replaced with quiet astonishment, though her breathing remained less than even. For a while, Stormy was too stunned to say or do anything, simply trying to process with what limited energy she had to comprehend that he had taken the time to look up the poem--memorize it even. Her hands lifted to cover her face as a sudden, soft sob overtook her, and then another. She hadn't . . . H-He didn't need . . . No amount of biting down would stop the new influx of tears pouring over her cheeks now. She didn't deserve him, not for a moment.
"Would i-it've been worth while," Stormy picked back up shakily where he had ended, noting he had corrupted the line (probably to make her feel better). "I-If one, settling a p-pillow or throwing off a--a shawl, / And turning toward the window, should--should s-say--"
What a life she had, that even little things that should comfort her only reminded her of her misery.
She tightened her posture and curled up more to try and hide the embarrassing sight, shaking occasionally as a little more of her broke away and crumbled. Her words were lost to her momentarily as she buried her face into both her hands and the sheets, wishing with all her heart she could just shrug off the heavy air hovering over her but knowing that her heart was a weak and fickle thing anyway. The spot beneath her face was quickly growing damp, her sniffles thicker. It was taking everything in her not to simply breakdown, and she could only attribute to getting that strength through Thane, because Stormy was certain she couldn't be capable of it at this point on her own.
She gulped down deep breaths, half of them exhaled sharply as her body tried to convert them into more sobs. ". . . sh-should say: / “That-is-n-n-not-it-at-all," she said more quietly, more apologetically, trudging through the words like they were mud, "That-is-not-what--I-I--meant, at all.”"
Her fit was starting to subside, though the tears kept coming in a slow and steady flow despite her attempted to wipe them; Stormy felt her eyes starting to grow puffy from all the attention and continued to hide behind her hands, glad her back was still turned to him. The place his fingers had touched tingled.
"'It hurts being with me,'" she repeated softly for clarification, though her voice was sandpapery. "Yes, b-but also no. It . . . It hurts in the way that lets you know i-it matters what happens. Every little thing." She couldn't explain herself normally, let alone like this, and her tongue pressed against her teeth in silent frustration, her sigh a much more audible version of it.
"You can rebuild things. That's who you are. E-Enough's happened t'you that you know how." Another hitch in her breath caused her to struggle for a moment to swallow the rest back down. "The only thing I-I know is how to tear things back down if I stay too long. Even the good things."
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Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 10:57 pm
He had remembered the poem from another time, another place. Gale had gone to look it up soon after, and had spent several hours each day attempting to memorize at least parts of it (the poem itself was much too long to actually try and memorize the entirety of it, and he wasn't quite certain he had the mental capacity to do so); not because he thought it was pretty, which he did, but because it somehow felt strangely necessary. Stormy herself was full of poetry and lyrics and thoughts all jumbled together, occasionally spilling out in bursts here and there. He had never minded these bursts; had embraced them, in fact, became fascinated with the way that her mind had worked; and Gale had thought that maybe, just maybe, one time a burst would happen and he could be prepared for it.
So he'd looked the poem up one day on one of his day trips through the portals; back before anything had happened, when times were not as grave as they were now. A small book of poetry was easy to find in a bookstore, and Gale had returned within only a couple of hours. After that, he'd sat with it at his home, eyes scanning the lines, his mouth moving silently as he formed the words without saying them aloud. Jinhai had helped him after a while, the dragon supplying some of the forgotten words when he attempted to recite them, and though he couldn't have possibly memorized the whole thing, at least some part of it was inside of his head; and Gale felt, strangely, that that was good enough, at least for now.
Maybe that was why, sitting here with Stormy now, her body curled away from him, her heart broken in a way he could only hope would one day work again, she seemed surprised; frozen in place as he whispered the words. Some were wrong; he stumbled over them, the recitation not perfect by any means, but at least he'd managed to get it out.
He felt, rather than heard, a sob run through her, her shoulders quivering; and his fingers on her cheek were damp from the tears that had started to flow across her face. Gale moved his hand gently, barely touching her, but his fingers were soft as they brushed her cheek. Her words were stuttered, quiet, and muffled by her curled-up position, but Gale heard them anyway, and his heart was in his throat, blinking rapidly.
He didn't answer her for a long time. Finally, he took a deep breath and said softly, "Your slightest look easily will unclose me / though I have closed myself as fingers / you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens / (touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose."
His fingers had moved to the back of her neck, gently stroking.
"I need you," said Gale, and his voice was barely above a whisper. "I will help you rebuild your world as many times as it takes."
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 12:54 am
For once, the silence wasn't oppressive to her. Neither was it quite amicable, but something quite different: like someone had taken the expectant breath before a piece and stretched it to something longer.
Her eyes, which had briefly opened out of surprise, fell closed again to put her back in those old and varied moments. Always nervousness before a performance, always some doubt that she would blank in front of the audience. It had happened before, albeit back when she was a child. But there she'd be anyway, a ball of nerves in her seat until at last it was her turn to go on the program, where would rise and internalize it all and make her way up the stage steps, and for a moment would just feel like a swan in flight as the hush fell.
She floated in the same manner now, in spite of the soft sobs that still periodically shook her body. Even before her plunge, Stormy had felt that the soul and body, or at least hers, were at a disconnect. What one did would not necessarily taint or influence the other: it was how she could retain her optimism regardless of what her body suffered, or why she could appear perfectly fine physically but be a complete mess inside. It was only when they collided that the real trouble began, like they had for so long: exhaustion met desperation, near-insomnia met fear, numb bug-riddled skin met cautious hope. The friction had caused her enough pain as it was; it was time to let them drift again before the drowning sea morphed into a self-made pyre.
Stormy had started, very slowly, to inch her way out of a less tightly held curl--but Gale broke the silence and she froze again. They were not words she recognized, but there was something in the cadence and phrasing that sounded familiar. Entranced, she kept her eyes closed and let the sound of his voice fill her head, watching as each soft word managed to have the power to carve her just a little deeper.
Almost of their own accord, her hands left her face and folded underneath her. Her tears continued, but they moved in silence.
She would have just fallen asleep again, drained and comfortable atop the sheets. He was stroking her neck, and though a small pang in her chest reminded her why it still felt strange to have direct contact there (her hat was on, her hat was still on, thankfully), shivers ran down her spine the way they did when she heard the right song, comforting and necessary to her being. But the lines of the poem intrigued her too much to leave alone; all of his words did.
Sniffling, Stormy wiped at her face, fruitlessly with her hands first and then against her arm. It was a struggle to move at all, and her arms shook even as they lifted the great and heavy weight that was her body just enough to turn herself to face him. Her face was splotched and still tear-stained, and her eyes were reddened and irritated and still managing to shed tears one at a time: but she had moved. Stormy then fell back on the bed like deadweight, unsure she could pull such a stunt again, and curled her limbs towards her as before.
Her gaze wavered before finally lifting up to find his, a mixture of awe and expectation and something else quietly asking for more. There was music in those words, and she had gone too long without that in her life.
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 10:52 pm
She still hadn't said much, except keep talking; which was why he had in the first place, because maybe it would get her to realize that he really and truly wasn't going anywhere, and that he needed her more than he had ever realized he did.
Her aching heart was painful to bear because he wanted to fix it, and it was not something so easily fixed. It went along with the terrible self deprecation, which had always been a part of Stormy, but had since been magnified tenfold in the aftermath of Nevada's passing. Everything seemed to sink into Stormy like burrs, digging under her skin and remaining there to needle and pick and prod and remind her of everything that had happened, warping it so that the blame lay on her.
Even as he looked at her now, she still seemed so small and so frail.
The poem had been taken out of the same book that Gale had found The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, tucked away in a different section for more freeform verses. He'd skimmed a few of them, trying to find the ones he thought she would like, and one or two of them he had attempted to memorize, absently reciting the words over and over again inside of his head until they stuck.
He had liked e.e. cummings. There was something so very liberating about a poet who had refused to conform to society's demands, who had broken free of the traditional in favor of the free and the heart. Gale found his poetry to be infinitely more interesting than T.S. Eliot, who was mildly confusing at best.
e.e. cummings' poems had heart, and he was drawn to them.
Lost in his own thoughts, Gale almost didn't notice the slow shift of the weight on the bed, the sound of the sobs slipping away into quiet sniffs. When he turned his head, he caught sight of her shoulders moving, and he lifted his hand from her neck in surprise, feeling his heart skip as he realized what she was doing.
She was turning around. She was turning and she was looking at him, curled up on her side and facing him, Stormy's damp eyes meeting his. Gale slowly lowered his hand, and though his fingers itched to reach out to hers again, he didn't try and touch her, instead taking a small breath.
"somewhere i have never traveled,gladly beyond," he said. "any experience,your eyes have their silence: / in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me / or which i cannot touch because they are too near."
His hand moved along the space between them on the bed until it was a few inches from hers, though he didn't move much farther.
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Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 1:01 am
She closed her eyes again as he spoke, trailing after the words as scavengers followed the smell of food. They were familiar to her still in the way things in dreams reminded her of things in waking life, words lighting up briefly before fading back into obscurity. Where, where, where had they come from again? Her mind had been so against condensed and focus thought that it was the same as trying to investigate a Petri dish without a microscope: there was life waiting to be examined, but it requires more than she was capable of. It didn't stop Stormy from reaching, however, stretching and grasping for familiar lines of her own to compare. Lines like flies buzzed in and out of her inner eye:
The art of losing isn't hard to master
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes / Of the beautiful Annabell Lee; (his voice is uncharacteristically soft, as is his expression, as is everything when he reads from his collection; it is one of the only things she laments now)
She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors'.
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son / The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
She mouthed some more quietly, a dull frustration setting in as the answer eluded her. There were more still vying for attention, but all seemed to pale in comparison to what Gale uttered, as much as they all showed themselves incongruent to the style. She eventually let the thoughts fly away again and mulled over what he offered instead, easily taken in.
Her sniffling had lessened for the moment. As Stormy opened her eyes halfway, she saw the extended hand and then studied it as though she had never seen one before: the slight swell of joints, the stretches of skin over dexterous fingers, the minute wrinkles where knuckles could emerge, the natural pallor, the smooth calluses, the memory of black lightning streaking through, Jinhai's ring shining white and gold, the memory of various textured gloves hiding it all.
Then, as if through great difficulty, she dragged her hand over the sheets and placed it over his, light as his own had been earlier on her shoulder. She could not help herself, however, and almost immediately began mapping the layout of his hand with her gentle fingers, tracing mindless symbols: circles, inifinities, hour glasses, triangles, a box to house them all.
"S'beautiful," Stormy said quietly after a few moments, her gaze having dropped to watch her own drawings form, her voice still thick. A shoulder rose for her to clean her face against. "You've been reading more."
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Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 10:08 pm
Maybe he was trying too hard.
Maybe he was coming off as pretentious, full of himself as he whispered words of far of lands, of times neither one of them knew anymore, of different worlds and different people and different everything.
Or maybe he was coming off as pathetic and childish; a terrible attempt at spinning words into feelings and emotions, weak and unfulfilled. He wanted desperately to be able to just connect with Stormy, to bridge the ever widening gap between them, hold onto her hand and her heart without the fear of ever letting go.
It was a sad, sad notion. Gale felt drained and unhelpful, pushing constantly when there was nothing left to be pushed anymore.
Stormy had lapsed into silence as he had recited another stanza of the poem, but her mouth moved every few moments, forming words he couldn't hear, her eyes vacant, as though imagining vast worlds and scenery that he couldn't see either. It didn't bother him; more, it made him curious as to what went on inside of the head of Stormy Ortega.
(He would never truly know, but the mystery was part of the appeal.)
Gale had left his hand purposefully near Stormy's, leaving a space should she decide she didn't want physical contact; but also leaving room to grasp it if she changed her mind about that. The little touches to her cheek and her neck and been light and barely there; a butterfly's wings against a flower, because he knew if he pressed too hard or too fast, it would be crushed.
He didn't see her hand move, but he felt it, her soft and gentle fingers touching his as lightly as he'd touched hers. Gale's pulse sped up rapidly, his heart clambering in his chest, and he turned to look at her, his expression a mixture of hope and affection and confusion, as though he couldn't quite bring up the nerve to dare to hope.
Her fingers moved relentlessly over the back of his hand, and he let her, still and silent beside her. After a moment, some of the tension in Gale's shoulders eased, and he smiled a little.
"I borrowed a book from a library in Chicago a while back," he said. "It's probably long overdue by now."
A joke, to lighten the mood. Gale added quietly, "I bought a book a poems to read so that I could try and give you some of them when you needed them, y'know? I wanted to be able to...to create with you, because you create these worlds with your words and your voice, and I wanted to see if I could do it too."
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