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 Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2015 10:55 am
Jan We need to talk. Can you come home?
Melvin sat on the bed, waiting. He had texted Jan waiting for him to head back home from his shift. The time between when they were away gave him time to be alone and think. Time to think of the future, of future missions and past ones, and he worried deeply every moment what might happen to Jan if a mission he was on went wrong just like the lighthouse. He wasn't able to let the distractions of just going on normally ignore what really mattered here and he had to focus on what really had been the issue for months now. The problem that Jan had told him that he couldn't ignore.
That he had to choose. That if he wanted Rin, that he had to place her existence above that of Jan. If he wanted Jan, he would have to admit to Rin that he failed in bringing her back like he had promised her, and that he was choosing Jan over her.
He would have to decide who he loved more to keep alive, and if he was willing to ignore morality to keep one person over another. There had been mental discussions. There had been teary moments he would lay in bed, bringing up memories and feelings that were wonderful yet painful, and failed miserably to compare one to another on some sort of value scale.
In the end, he sat on the bed, texted Jan once he got word of his return, and waited.
There really was just one answer in the end. Either way, he was going to loose someone he loved. Either way, he would fail someone. There was no WIN in the situation, but there was a right choice.
He waited for Jan and Rin to come home.
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Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2015 1:33 pm
Lawrence eyed the text from Melvin with a sort of weary dread, he had just gotten changed out of his infirmary scrubs and was about to head back to the room anyway, the fact he had received an ominous text to hurry him back only made him slightly more wary of it. Melvin wasn't one for sexy or overly romantic gestures, so he doubted it was this, the only assumption he could make was that it was going to be a negative scenario. Perhaps someone had managed to convince the other man about how truly evil he apparently was.
He opened the door and headed into the room with a smile.
"Hooome~" he crooned. "Is something the matter?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2015 5:06 pm
Despite texting him to arrive, despite this being THEIR room, despite waiting, he suddenly felt unprepared and rushed. This WAS IT. He was about to say something, do something, there was no turning back from. A finalization that would strike a nail in deep that he couldn't pry apart after to retract what eh was about to do.
It would be no different than playing a knife in his hand and letting him decide what to do with it.
As Jan came in, he looked down. Those eyes held two people. Those eyes had two souls in them. Those eyes - what would they think of him after this? What would they BOTH think of him after this?
After all he had done to them. After all he was and would remain to be.
"Yeah. Something is wrong. Can you sit here a moment. This....is something that's been a long time coming. I just...........needed time. ......Time you really don't have."
He looked up, looking at what he would be loosing if he let things progress as they were, and patted the spot next to him on the bed. Everything around him, everything there was, felt delicate and fragile.
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Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2015 1:00 pm
Lawrence eyed Melvin with his usual keen curiosity behind the smile, the other man positively reeked of distress and to his experience to date, whenever Melvin was upset it was something to do with Rin. There was a moment when he found himself coldly wondering if the man had made the inevitable decision and finding himself indifferently going over how the scenario would go when he chose Rin over him.
They were not pleasant scenarios and somewhere in his thoughts, Butch perked up his ears. His smile did not falter at all.
He sat down, all warm concern and rested his hand on Melvin's shoulder reassuringly. "I'm here." he said. "And all ears."
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Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2015 1:26 pm
The hand on his shoulder was gentle and he set his hand up, holding it and giving it a gentle squeeze as he pulled it down between them. Holding it in both hands he spent some time before taking a breath and starting. "Jan…..I've been thinking of what you said for a long time. Since I met you, you have done nothing but give everything you've had to make me and Rin happy. You gave more than I could ever give you. You gave your ear to listen to what no one else believed. You gave your mind and body when Rin had none. You gave us love and intimacy when I thought I would never receive it from her again. You gave us precious time that you could have used yourself but instead gave away."
He brought the hand up and kissed it. "Then you gave me something I never thought would happen. You gave me you. Not Rin. You gave me friendship. You gave me your time outside of what Rin needed. You continued from the first moment to continue to hear me out, and let me listen too. You gave me a second chance at feeling these things for someone else, even when you knew what had happened to Rin."
"And then….you gave me a choice."
He looked up, looking up at Jan, every part of him searching his face for some certainty to the decision he was making.
"Despite everything, you were willing to sacrifice YOU. Everything you are and were, you were willing to give up that. Just for us."
He looked back down at that hand in his, rubbing his hands over it and cupping it. "And I knew, that a person like that couldn't be taken away. Despite everything, it wasn't anyone's right to take YOU away for our sake. I love you." He whispered, looking up at him.
"But I'm not saying I love your more or less than Rin. It's just….it's separate. I really wished we could have all three been together, but I know I can't have it all. I don't deserve that either, but Rin isn't the type of person to want to destroy. Her greenhouse, her life, her time with us, has always been about being caring and helping others. It's on me that I am failing her right now. Her wishes. To find a way back, but I know THIS isn't it. If there is a way, THIS, taking YOU away isn't it."
And if that was it, then it made the decision even more right.
"I failed. I'm the one that ruined everything. I'm the one that killed her back then to save me. I'm the only one who should be paying that price back. Not you. You shouldn't be punished for what happened. You gave us time. Precious time I could never repay back, but – that time is up now. I can't go on killing you." What did Rin think about all of this? Did she know what he was doing again to her.
"I'm sorry, Rin."
The hand in his started to blur as he squeezed it tightly, throat tight as he put everything down concrete, forcing down that final nail to a coffin.
"I can't give up Jan for you. I can't kill two people I love. I can't let you have a second chance, to let you live, over Jan's living here and now."
"I have to let you go."
He had to let her die.
"I'm so sorry…."
Sorry that she loved a monster who did this to her twice.
"…….I'm so………so………sorry."
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Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 4:09 pm
It was already difficult for Lawr, finding himself faced with an outpouring of emotion from Melvin and completely at a loss as to how it was appropriate to respond to such a thing, finding himself instinctually freezing up and icing over and doing everything he could to keep himself soft and as warm as he could manage while not being entirely certain that was appropriate either. He listened to Melvin nevertheless, processing what the other man said, speaking about giving as if it was difficult or some sort of feat to be admired, he gave because it was simple, because he held no intrinsic value or fear and because he had been able to use himself as a vessel within which to entrap someone to care about him.
The kiss on his hand brought him a little more into control, less out of his depth. He could handle being revered and flattered, that was acceptable, that was something he could understand.
He did not interrupt, wanting to hear everything the other man had to say before he butted in and potentially derailed it and he was genuinely surprised to hear Melvin talking himself round to accepting that Rin was gone and against all reasonable odds and against all reasonable anything, seeming to choose him over the pursuit of restoring Rin. He hadn't expected it to turn out this way, if anything he had just expected it to be a test of Melvin, an attempt to see if the other man could be salvaged from his mire of delusion and put to good use in the process, the idea that he might come out of it was startling and something he hadn't really planned for.
"I don't mind what you choose." he said, his voice soft and as reassuring as he could manage. "But I value you a great deal too, and Rin, well Rin's all right with whatever happens, she has said to me several times that she trusts me to take care of you if everything did not turn out the way we'd planned, and I don't know how many times she has said she doesn't blame you either."
He looked away. "I just want you to be happy Melvin, I really really like you and I would do anything to keep you happy. If that meant letting Rin have everything I am then I would be able to accept that, the same way that if you want to keep me I know that Rin would only want you to be happy. There is only a slim chance that she will ever be able to get back and she knew that, and she feels like the world has moved on since she was here, that things are different."
He moved to take the other man's jaw in his hand and place a gentle kiss on his lips.
"I can't explain to you how happy it makes me that you would want me." he said, and it was true. He bloody couldn't.
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Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 5:39 pm
The world had moved. Everyone Rin had called a friend had simply accept she was gone once her body hit the floor, and without stumbling, turned and kept their pace. They accepted it as something simple, something that just was, and while it was true that everyone had their time, their expiration date, none of it had bene startling to them. And yet, despite what all they had seen and all the ways they could be killed, even by the impossibility of thought that was Rin's death (being killed by a horsemen who then killed Death), they did not think coming back was ever a possibility.
They closed their chapters and had kept his open, patiently waiting for a whisper to let him continue writing.
To continue on the pace he had instead of the new pace everyone else was moving.
Then again, what did it matter to them? She had only been a few sentences in their lives. She had been whole chapters in his.
"Everyone did. I didn't want to leave her behind. Leave her alone. I didn't want to turn my back at her. It seems so……..cruel." Unfair.
His eyes pulled up as Jan held his clean-shaved jaw, and pressed his lips into his, and he wanted to just evaporate into the breath between them, to turn to mist and stop thinking anymore and just feel warmth.
Looking back, his blue eyes fishbowls filing to their brims, he only gave a small tweak of a smile back. "I'm glad. I'm glad and I feel like s**t for it still. I don't know why I deserve ot feel happy when I'm doing this."
But it would mean Jan would be alive, and for that, he was happy.
"I don't ever want to see someone like you die." He had seen it done once before, and he knew he couldn't handle it again.
Moving, he wrapped his arms around them, and wondered if she would simply go now, gone, and squeezed him tightly as he felt his body riddled with a tightening coils of guilt and a deep, dark misery he had kept at bay for a long time.
"She always knew more than I did. Taking care of an idiot like m-me."
His lips drew in as he held them tightly , tightening his jaw a moment as he then gasped out into a shudder.
"Will she just……….go now?
"I…I want her to know I loved her. That – that she's a great person. And I…I never meant…" He bowed his head down, pressing his face against Jan's slender shoulder as he went quiet.
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Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 5:51 pm
Lawrence didn't know what to do with the emotions he found himself inundated with, but he held Melvin close, all bones and angles wrapped in very soft skin and luxuriant clothing. "I just want to be with you." he said.
As he buried his head against him, he ran his fingertips through Melvin's blonde hair, marveling at the intensity of it all and the way grief seemed to absolutely wrack the other man.
"She always knew that. Of all things." Lawr said as reassuringly and levelly as he could. "She knew you loved her and she loved you back and felt the same. In the end no one meant any of it to happen, it just did, sometimes things just do. She's here right now, but I can't risk giving her my body in case I don't come back, and she has said that she wouldn't let me anyway at this point, that she wants you to have this life for as long as you can. She just asked me to tell you.." and he trailed off and smiled. "Well, to tell you that you are a very silly man, but also that she doesn't regret anything and that she has her own adventures to go on now. She says you should go on yours too, in case one day way down the line you get to tell her what you did. She says she'll be mad if you mope the /whole time/."
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Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 6:03 pm
He didn't look back up, head bowed as he dug his fingertips into the expensive fabrics the other hunter wore, breathing in the soft detergents and soaps, and leaning his body into the other as they said so much. It seemed Rin just knew what might happen, and why shouldn’t' she? No doubt she had been thinking the same questions all along, knew that Jan would be gone if she stayed, and yet never said a word. She had been waiting on him to decide, and she knew what might happen.
She didn't even seem mad at all about it, and just simply accepted it easily. Her body was already gone, she had over a year to deal with that, but maybe she just knew something he didn't about living on without it.
It almost made dying seem not all that bad.
But in the moment, he couldn't say any more. They were both calm, both accepting, and both at ease with Rin leaving. That she would be gone to him, but with the same casual grace of someone who overstayed a visit and had to go back home.
To hear that she loved him too only made him hold on more tightly, glad to know that she knew all along.
He did feel very silly, and he choked a wet laugh to hear before his face twisted. She wasn't gone, not yet, but he couldn't hold it any longer. He wanted to see her out that door with the assurance he would take her words to heart and keep his chin up, that she wouldn't have to worry about taking care of him any longer. Painful as it was, he almost wished she was gone to not see any more, but in those long seconds, he broken down entirely against Jan, all words lost.
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Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2015 12:51 pm
Lawr simply held Melvin close to him, letting him just express the emotions he couldn't contain. It was surprising even now that the other man was so vulnerable, always wounded so intensely by things which managed to get through his determined obliviousness.
He didn't ask him to say anything more to Rin but simply added.
"She says she needs to go now, she needs to to avoid doing any more damage."
Everyone left, everyone left if you let them, it was something Lawrence had learned and he was fortunate it didn't hurt or affect him in the way it did other people, but he did still feel the voids where a life and a person had been, habits and personas built around what they had meant. Maja had left it and the clone still did. It was the closest he could approximate to how Melvin felt now and all he could think to do was to reinstate the same comforting habits they had maintained before.
"But she loves you now and always will. She asked me to take care of you and I will do that too. We forgive you Melvin, it's time for you to forgive yourself."
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