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 Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 9:39 am
Melvin had returned from the mission to an open duffel on their bed and clothes neatly folded. Sighing, he tried to focus his mind away from the thought of burning towns of a false reality to the crueler in in his real life.
Moving, he slowly resumed what he had been doing before he left for the lighthouse.
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 10:11 am
When Lawrence got home he was utterly exhausted. Not physically, his body had been in a pod the whole time, but an exhaustion that ran far far deeper. He'd witnessed entire lifetimes and had been torn around from one wild extreme to another. The worst had been the world where he'd gotten everything he'd ever wanted and it had ended in nothing but tragedy.
It had shaken him to the very core and robbed him of the sense of direction he'd gained on the island. While he was there he'd learned the murder and open treachery was the way forward, if you had to throw people under the bus then there was no reason not to do it, it would get you what you wanted.
But what he wanted had shifted.
He stepped into the house with a strong sense of relief, a safe place in the mire of confusion the world had become, a sheltered spot where he'd tried to hollow out a home. He made his way into the master bedroom intending to flop onto the bed and halted in the doorway looking from Melvin to the bag.
"You are leaving?!" he asked, and couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice.
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 10:40 am
He looked up, folding a pair of jeans before placing it into the duffel.
"For now. I want some perspective and I need distance for that." He reached for another pair of jeans.
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 10:45 am
Lawrence gave Melvin a wide eyed hopeless sort of look and for a moment considered folding the same way that other him had folded to the inevitability of it all, before deciding that he wouldn't avoid the situation but just deal with it instead..
"I want what's best for you." he said, and was surprised to find that this was not untrue. "I'd prefer you stayed because it's not as much a home without you."
He exhaled. "But if you think it will help, I can't stop you. I'll just miss you. Every single day."
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 11:06 am
The mingling looks moving across Lawr's felt far too naked that it surprised him, even more then the fact that Lawr resigned to it. Everything about his posture screamed exhaustion, and he wondered if he was just as tired of alll clothe changes to their lives then Melvin was.
"Thank you. I appreciate it. You and Rodney can move in here. It won't bothering me and logistically you two need more room. " He placed the jeans into the duffel and felt a tightness in his theist to what he said and what he was doing.
Don't stop. Don't loose momentum.
Looking up, he frowned. "You look tired. Do you want to lay down and keep me company?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 11:22 am
Nodding, Lawrence moved to lay on the part of the bed that wasn't occupied by Melvin's clothing, half curled like a cat.
"There's plenty of room in the house." he said. "We don't need more room, there was always enough for all of us before, I don't know why it is so different now. But I accept that for whatever reason it is. If it's something you need to do then it is."
He exhaled a little shakily, still looking traumatised. "There was a world in that place where I was so far gone that I was willing to let a twisted version of Rodney kill me. And it was still me, just a version of me, but with my logic and my decisions. I can't stop thinking about it."
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 11:48 am
Such a statement had him stopping his packing to give Lawr his attention. "You were in the Library too?" He asked, not sure the Lawr's he had seen had been real. Then again, they could have been faked in his worlds - projections of his mind. It wouldn't be the first time.
Setting a pair of jeans down, he moved a pile and sat down.
Asking how Lawr felt about that wouldn't be the right approach. Telling him that That Rodney wasn't real was stating what Lawr already knew.
"Why did you - the you in that world- let Rodney kill you?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 12:08 pm
He nodded weakly, looking bone tired. "Yes, I was. It was very taxing." And it had been, watching innumerable versions of him live different lives all the while applying logic that made perfect sense to his normal waking mind.
"I let him kill me because it was that or prison. I had everything I wanted and what I wanted there was murder, constant, relentless murder. In that book I'd killed Mikael, Malkam, Melody, all of them because I could. I had become nothing more than a conduit for those darker desires." he shook his head.
"And it didn't fill the hole in me, if anything the hollowness spread to consume the whole world. Death was favourable in comparison, a logical solution."
He shrugged. "I don't want to die obviously, but it is being able to see a place where logically I would is ..chilling."
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 12:51 pm
He shifted, leaning against the headboard and taking off his glove sonhe could reach over and let his fingertips graze through Lawr's hair.
"I think I could understand that - a world where there was no options but a bleak end. And Rodney of all people."
He didn't express that he was somehow glad he either hadn't been mentioned in Lawr's murder spree or hadn't been involved in it.
"A world where you could see that logic and that being a possible end you would choose.....do you think it would ever happen in this world?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 4:00 am
Lawrence was fine being vulnerable around Melvin. Even in spite of everything that had happened, he trusted the other man not to harm him. He appreciated him removing his glove before touching him and leaned into the contact on his hair with all the affection of a contented cat. It was always satisfying to be deemed someone clean enough for Melvin to touch, or even if it wasn’t being deemed clean exactly, it was being deemed – the same – and to him that was as good as being stated a human.
The hardest thing about all of this was that even in the face of doing what he had to do and letting Melvin leave, he didn’t want to. He still loved the other man, and though it might not have been in the same way as Rodney it didn’t feel any less. He couldn’t help the longing for a world where they could all just live together for ever without that scenario being intolerable to Rodney’s sense of morality and wellbeing. It felt irresponsible and cruel, even for him to abandon Melvin when he’d been his faithful companion for so long. It would be strange spending shifts in the infirmary without the possibility of stopping by the other man in the labs when he needed a break. He'd never been able to show any of it throughout their tumultuous relationship, and since Melvin had distanced himself after learning the truth - even going so far as to almost drown him on one occasion by accident - he'd been uncertain about what was appropriate to express or expect.
It still hurt to hear that Melvin would be leaving.
Now especially he didn’t know how to say any of how he felt, so - same as always - he just pushed it down and out of sight, clenching the sense of longing and want in an attempt to smother it and in doing so tensing his own muscles subconsciously. He nodded.
“I thought that it would never be the case at all, that I’d want something like that. As you know I value my own survival and well-being VERY highly indeed. But if I ever ended up so out of control and lost, then it could happen again. I tend to latch on to things, usually people, to give myself a sense of control and stability. When those people leave I lose it. When America almost died I wasn't sure I'd survive it if she did. Now things are different again, she's faded somewhat, distant for so long her brightness is difficult to imagine. I find my stability elsewhere.”
He found it here in their home, in the small group he'd built around him, but it seemed like even that was now coming to an end.
"I don't know Melvin." he said quietly. "Where are you going to?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 7:10 am
"You know, you were my stability. After everything, you helped keep my feet on the ground and from feeling lost. Each time things changed, each time something happened, I tried to work it out because I didn't want to let you go. Sometimes Inwondered if I was clinging on to hard, but even when you were going out for little flings, I felt assured I'd still have your time when you returned. To have a part of you I could dig into. I know I haven't lost you, but I don't feel like I've had what I once had."
He reached down and pulled Lawr up against him, so he could hold him, feel the small weight of his body against his.!he was like a sweet perfume you always wanted to breath in.
"If you get out of control, I'll try to be there." He couldn't. Ale promises, but he knew he wouldn't let him destroy himself. "I don't want to loose what I'm still clinging to to that."
He held on softly and pressed his lips to Lawr's crown before closing his eyes. "I'll be at Jordan's for a few days."
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 8:51 am
Being held about then was all that Lawrence wanted and he sidled into Melvin's arms with all the familiarity of someone who had been there many times in many shapes over the years. It felt like home more than the house itself did and he knew that the place would change for him without Melvin there.
It wasn't that he didn't love Rodney either, he did, he adored him, but both men were so very different that it seemed absurd for them to be mutually exclusive, it was like being told to ever experience the moon you would have to leave the sun for ever.
"When I'm most out of control." he said. "Seems to be when people generally notice the least."
At Jordans.
There was a twist of something desperate and almost monstrous in him at the thought of it, but it was a feeble short lived emotion. Lawrence wasn't a creature capable of passionate anger, it all too quickly died, leaving nothing but the hollow behind. Maybe Melvin would live there for ever, maybe he would sleep with Jordan, maybe it'd be more than that because Jordan was everything Lawrence was not - strong, young, stable. He couldn't change it and so the anger and jealousy wilted into a sort of despair.
Speaking nevertheless was like talking around a lump in his throat. "I hope it gives you the space you need." He said and held the other man tighter, grieving a loss he couldn't prevent. "I wish there was a moral way you could stay. Nothing we did, for all its strangeness ever felt wrong. I don't understand why we can't be the same partners we were before but I have to trust Rodney that it's not okay."
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 9:30 am
"I can't say I won't notice. I can only hope I will in time or stop you before it's too late. I don't want you to feel lost and on your own."
It was almost too easy now to ignore his packing, to just convince himself that he could stay for this and things wouldn't fix themselves. That the thoughts and feelings turning into themselves like some bubbling ball of dough would just resolve itself - but he knew he couldn't turn back now else he could feel something bitter come out of it. Even now he felt chained off from acting in his impulses and that restraint hurt.
"I don't know either, but there isn't any point now in what's already decided. If this is the course being taken, then we have to figure out how we fit in it. I only wish I had more control. I miss being able to have what I had."
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 9:38 am
He was tired in a way that went really, really deep and the comfort of Melvin's presence relaxed him and made him feel better, though he knew it would be short lived.
It was already decided, all in motion, set in stone, he just needed to deal with it, lock it up and not address it like everything else.
"I suppose we'll see." he said, but didn't move away.
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 9:52 am
"If you ever need to talk, just call or send a text. I'll come right over." He reassured him, not wanting his thoughts in death to plague him.
"Did you tell Rodney about it? About the choice of death?"
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