[PRP] In The Midst Of The Garden (Lawr + Rodney)

[Toshihiko Two]

"It's not as if it's easy," Rodney said, looking paler. "Or something...I'm-I'm sorry. If I didn't say it all right. A-at the heart of it, there's...no rule, that everything's...destroyed. It's...a personal decision."

Rodney looked at Lawrence.

"S-so, I can...decide."  

[Baneful]

This lost Lawrence again, he'd been following up until a point, there had been an assurance but now it seemed like Rodney was simply adding a statement on that he could destroy everything whenever he chose and that he'd just need to decide it.

He could feel himself getting upset again and Butch paced, whining at his master's distress and wanting to lick his face to calm himself and him.

He was quiet for a moment as he sought for a way to even vocalise these feelings, to explain to Rodney he was confused. "You can decide...what?" he said. "Things on a whim? Does that mean its just a personal decision now?"

Weary and confused he lay back. "I don't like discussions like this because I feel stupid."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"N-no," Rodney said, "Not like that, just...I'd thought that, s-sex was a physical b-bond, between two people, that once broken was...gone. That it couldn't be...repaired. That...you couldn't...choose to be together in the same way, ever again. L-like that you...become one person with them, but after they....bond with someone else, you're...separated and cast apart, forever."

He felt himself on the edge of tears again.
 

[Baneful]

"If you think that why are you still with me?" he said. "Every time you say that it simply makes me feel like you must think of me as a tiny sliver of a person, broken and broken time and time again. I have slept with hundreds and hundreds of people, people I've been married to, people I haven't, multiple people at once, people I didn't even get to see outside of their genitals. None of that meant anything to me and I didn't lose anything from it. None of them lost anything from it either."

He shook his head. "I am not diminished. I want to be with you, I care about you insofar as I'm able but so much of what you say and so much of what you do seems to be aimed at diminishing me or to imply I am lesser. I know you don't do it intentionally, it's simply what you believe. But.."

It was very difficult to explain, he felt constrained and trapped by the rigid way Rodney felt about things, the idea that sex was some kind of divine bond getting his hackles up, implying that virginity was somehow the only way to purity. It made him angry, that same wild frantic rabid dog anger that wanted to tear the throat out of innocent things simply to sate the pent up scrabbling restlessness that danced behind his eyes.

He forced himself to lock it down and to stay calm because he knew anything else would upset Rodney and end their discussion.

"To me there is another sort of bond which is more enduring and permanent, something which lasts beyond failing bodies, age and everything a life can do. Loyalty comes before sex and loyalty has nothing to do with fidelity."

He wanted to shake Rodney for getting upset, angry at him for that too, for being sentimental about a concept which meant nothing at all.

"But we've had this conversation a hundred times, I am playing by your rules, even if they aren't what I actually believe." Because there wasn't an option not to.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Now Rodney didn't understand.

"I don't know," he whispered, "how it...fits together. If you...should still be with Melvin. If you should still...be with all of of them, if I...can even be...with you, and it mean something, or if it's all just...j-just adultry, from..from your first wife. If I did the wrong thing."

He listened anyway.

"...I don't...I don't know what you mean. F-faithfulness. Fidelity. Loyalty i-it's...the same."  

[Baneful]

Lawrence just got angrier and angrier, his pride rankled by the thought that even for a moment in the time they'd been together that Rodney had thought such things, thought that he was just committing adultery from Maja, that since that time he'd been lost and simply getting more and more lost, that he thought he'd made a mistake.

It wounded Lawrence more deeply than he had expected, the only sort of emotional hurt he could truly feel that of the wounded narcissist. It was bad enough that he wanted to strike the other man, though he didn't, he knew better than that, he had at least that much self control.

"They are not the same. Loyalty is sticking by someone no matter what they do, no matter the mistakes the make or the things that go wrong. It is a grand and lifelong commitment. Fidelity is nothing but who you sleep with, something small and irrelevant." He bristled, something that became literal as the chains and steel twisted around his hands and he found himself looking at Butch in a distant, sort of dazed way.

"You do think that I'm just broken. Deep down. That's what you think. That's what you've thought." And his voice grew flat and emotionless.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"You...don't like the idea of being imperfect. But...but that's how it is. I'm...not perfect either, or...good. N-nobody is. It's why forgiveness is important. I-it's why...q-questioning is, important, and...addressing, s-sin, the...mistakes and the deliberate choices. W-we can't....turn away. I d-don't think...I'm better than you. I've...never b-been better than anyone, I j-just, try not go get in....anyone's way, to n-not hurt anyone, but I st-still end up..." Rodney clutched his chest. "M-making people angry. H-hurting them. C-causing damage. For a long time I just wanted to...disappear."  

[Baneful]

And now he was being called names, told he was imperfect and worthless. He hated these discussions.

He wanted to feel soft and mercyful towards Rodney's vulnerability but there was nothing in him that really felt mercy towards anything, especially not right now. All he wanted to do was lash out, except there was red tape around that, fenced in with Rodney's phobias and weaknesses.

"You've told me all of this before too." he said, still flat, still looking at his claws.

"I'm not imperfect. That is a lie that you keep trying to strangle me with. Yes perhaps I could be better, but there is nothing wrong with me as I am. I don't hurt people."

Clenching his hands he eyed the other man coldly. "But you have me, you have me doing everything you want, dancing to your tune, obeying your rules. I will never get to sleep with anyone else ever again, never get to truly engage with anyone else but you again. I have no personas I can viably use, no escape, no fun, no challenges, no greed, no Melvin, no America, no anything."

He pointed a long claw at him. "So you had better not ******** disappear." he said, the curse word sounding strange in his normally melodic tone. "Or I will just find you and bring you back because right now you are literally all that I have left, because you made me get rid of everything else, all my other selves, all my other ways of coping. I'm just an old gay husband."  

[Toshihiko Two]

"I- I know, I've asked a lot. And...sorry, I'm s-sorry-"

He felt...relieved, in some ways, even though he could feel the restrained anger, even though it felt like being stabbed-

"I came here," Rodney said softly, "a-and some day, I'll...die for it. And if I've...I've taken everything that's- important from you, then...that's all it will take to h-have it back. I can...give you a lifetime. Th-that's...what I've promised. If...if it's unbearable, it...won't be for long. I just want...a little time."  

[Baneful]

The look Lawrence gave Rodney was one of sheer cold self restraint. He hated people pleading weakness and uselessness, finding it abhorrent. The idea that Rodney considered himself so little was an insult to the decision he'd made in choosing him, it was therefore yet another insult to his ego.

"You say you'll give me a lifetime, but it's a lifetime where I spend the whole time being who you want me to be and nothing else, nothing more, nothing greater, nothing free."

He said he wanted a little time and it sounded like such a small ask if it didn't take so much out of him day after day just to be a decent person. At the rate things were going, he'd die first, drained completely by constant daily boxing himself up into a gentle and palatable package, chaining the part of him that wanted to be wild and free.

"But I am already committed to it, nothing has changed, I won't go anywhere until you do."

He wanted to desummon the claws and relax, but felt like he couldn't, the anger and tension still pent up so tightly it felt like it nestled under his ribs making it hard to breathe.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Gr-greater, free, that's...sleeping with other people. Even if...you don't care about them. Or st-stealing from them, or hurting them. That's...what I'm keeping you from."

He looked away from Lawr, shoulders slumping.

"Has...it all been that bad."  

[Baneful]

Lawrence just stared at Rodney, caught again in another trap of words, if he said it was bad, Rodney would take it as an insult against him when it was nothing to do with him, it was like hunger from not eating, if he was hungry it wasn't Rodney's fault and nor was this kind of hunger. He'd just carry it with him like every other sort of hunger, letting it gnaw away at him until he was a revenant creature the way he was before.

"It hasn't been bad." he said, just giving in to it, saying what he knew the only viable answer was. "I enjoy spending time with you. I enjoy what we have." And that wasn't a lie, he did enjoy it.

He desummoned the claws finally, moving over to the bed and slumping down onto it on his side like a cat. "Everything is fine." he said.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"It's...not fine, and, I'm sorry," Rodney said, breathing out and curling towards him. "I...just wanted to say I wouldn't leave. And why. That's all."  

[Baneful]

"You said that and then you muddled it and confused it as if you didn't mean it." he said, exhaling. "I wish you'd just say what you meant."

He felt more confused than ever, and even laying down the restlessness flickered in him.

"You wanted to say both of those things, but I'm still none the wiser." It was tempting to reach out to touch him, but he didn't, everything feeling overstrained and over-taxed, even his skin feeling too sensitive with the pent up momentum.

"I wish I understood."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Everything I explain makes things less clear." Rodney said. He...had been trying to say what he meant.

"And...y-yes, I meant it. I only meant...I'd be...still wrecked if you slept with someone else. But that...it wouldn't be the end. I'd rather know. And...I'd rather work on things."