CLOSED | prompt eight | RUIN

[dondarrion]

prompt eight | R U I N dressing-room style. closed to rog.

 

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[aware]

[ There's an instant when Grace looks like she's about to cry and in that moment, Peek panics silently — his chest suddenly too small for his heart, his heart suddenly shouting a litany of no no no. He's never liked seeing girls cry, even when he was a little boy. The sounds they make, both the loud and the soft, the way their breath catches in their tiny throats. The tears falling fat or running thin, salt staining cheeks flushed pink and red — still pretty but desperate and alarmingly heartbreaking. All of it triggers an internal panic in Eamonn, one that makes him feel momentarily childish (and in that childishness, overwhelmingly helpless).

He knows, if Grace cries, it's all over. If she cries, he'll have no choice but to give her the things that she wants — however well-intended and poorly-received. (In this interaction, he is the adult and she is the child, but every man has a weakness. And Eamonn's is a girl's tears.) ]

Grace— [ He reaches for her face now, cradling it between his hands. Every attempt to comfort, every reassurance that he loves her, is as good as an insult on top of his perpetual hesitation, but he doesn't know how else to help her without cutting himself out of her life completely. ] —sweetheart.

[ Gracie. It's always Gracie. Except when it's sweetheart and except when it's Grace — the former speaking of fondess (a softness), the later speaking of love (an ardency). ] If t'ere's someone who's needin' t'be sorry, it's me. No' you. I'm sorry. Y'understand? [ Shutting his eyes he exhales heavily. He feels old; he looks old. Still his thumb brushes her cheek. ] M'so very sorry.

[glimpses]

[ She shakes her head as best she can given her circumstances, belly to the mattress and her face cradled in his hands. ]

It's not your fault.

[ (Not your fault I'm the age I am, not your fault I love you, not your fault I know how to do everything but this.)

He's doing what's best, isn't he? In this interaction, he is the adult and she is the child and even though it is her parents who keep him in employ, he ultimately has the last say. (Right? Sometimes she sees the panic in his expression and it's because she's parsed together that that's all it would take that she tries to keep herself from crying. It's not fair. Or at least, that's how she rationalizes it to herself, despite the ache that grows heavier within her chest by the day. It isn't fair for her to wield that kind of power, never mind the shadow that he casts over her life as a whole.)

This argument, at best, is a circular one — both of them eager to take the blame as if it would somehow make things easier — but she doesn't know how else to steer it. As if in turn, she reaches out, too, tracing over the lines of his face. ]

Don't look so sad. Can't take care of you as well as you take care of me.

[aware]

[ He laughs at that, the sound thin and a little desperate. It comes from the right part of him, though, the part of him that would do more for her than simply the bare minimum of wash her clothes and see her feed. It's the same part that draws her baths, that helps choose her clothes when she can't be bothered; the part that brushes her hair and braids it on occasion. (Whenever she asks; whenever she doesn't ask. That's how the heart works.) It's the same piece of Eamonn that would quit his job if it meant freeing up that yoke across this shoulders and being with her in a way her parents would never allow; the piece that would take a bullet for Grace easy, that wouldn't even think about it, just do it.

The part of her that not just loves her but likes her, too — as a companion, as a colleague. As a girl.

Despite the thinness of his laugh, his smile is broader, more generous and true. The very edges of it are still rueful though. ] Y'take care of me just fine, Grace.

[ Even though he aims for levity her name — Grace not Gracie — reveals how close to the bone her words cut. With time, his smile fades, returning Peek's expression to quiet thoughtfulness. Only after a moment does he lean forward and press his mouth to the curve of her forehead and again, lower, upon her check nearing the corner of her mouth. ]

S'alright, Grace, [ he murmurs and it's not quite clear what exactly he means to defend — his actions, her words, the feelings strung so hopelessly between them. How he feels, how they both feel. Eamonn's words are another kiss upon Grace's skin; his lashes move as his gaze takes a path across her face. ] S'alright.

[glimpses]

[ Again, reaction upon reaction pops up at the same time, a mess of words instead of the usual neat mental list she manages. (Don't bullshit me; kiss me again; it isn't alright, it's never going to be; no, I owe you, I owe you, I've never given you anything but you've still given me so much; I'm sorry.) Her hand finally stops upon his cheek, though her touch is more tentative than not, as if she weren't sure that this was the way things were supposed to go or she didn't know if the gesture would meet with his approval (because despite her bravado whenever they're out in public, she still looks to him).

Again, a fist seems to close around her chest, but she manages to pare the reaction down to the barest dig of her teeth into her lower lip.

(He'd take a bullet for her and the equation still holds true in reverse. It's not the sort of thing she's ever truly contemplated but the sort of thing that sits deep in her gut, as unquantifiable as the ache in her chest and the tears that threaten to sting at her eyes. Frustrating, yes, but she's never been more certain of anything in her life. Funny how things work out like that.)

Then, faintly, the words almost a dare despite how quiet they are: ]

Tell me again and I'll believe you

[aware]

[ He sees those tears beginning to fog her eyes and in his chest Eamonn's heart starts to beat out of rhythm, that syncopation slowly twisting him into knots of please, Grace; please, don't; I'll do anything; just don't cry.

To Grace's credit it isn't crying — not yet, anyway — but she's getting there fast (and with him help). Poised on the very cusp of weeping, every inhale threatening a sob or a catch of breath from which she'll never recover, it's either a case of fall forward or fall back and no room for error inbetween. The line Grace is walking is narrow enough as it is, barely enough room for the both of them side-by-side, but Eamonn doesn't intend to abandon her. Come hell or high water, he'll follow her. Even if that means diving headfirst into the salt sea of her tears.

Leaning his forward, his forehead comes to rest against the gentle slope of hers, the curve of his skull rocks once as he nods in silent agreement. (Please believe me; it's all I want.) Eamonn shifts and lifts a free hand to retrace the path that Grace had drawn over his heart only moments ago — one line intersecting a second. A tell-tale cross. X marks the spot. ]

Cross my heart'n hope t'die. Stick a needl' in m'eye. [ Peek pulls back far enough to offer his eyes, to show her with his gaze and his expression. D dozen dozen microexpressions all point to the same thing and that direction is love. ] T'ere isn't anyone else in the wide world f'r me, but you. I promise, Grace — s'alright. An' if it isn't right now — will be soon.

[glimpses]

[ He makes promise after promise (and she doesn't doubt a single one) but never do the words I love you pass his lips. (She, by contrast, still tells him day by day, though the task only grows more difficult — not because it becomes any less true but because she gets the feeling that each time the words go unreturned there is less for her to give. (She figures she can't ask him if it's true. Again, unquantifiable.)

Soon, too, is an unquantifiable term, one that means different amounts of time to different people, but she doesn't much have the heart to ask him to specify. Where he sees the beginnings of tears in her eyes, she sees panic in his, and (and she wonders if love really is as terrible as all that) she bites back the sentiment that threatens to bubble over, walking a tightrope for a series of instants before the line of her lips straightens out again and the flush to her cheeks begins to die back down.

Soon, he says, and she's reaching for the sun again despite knowing it'll burn. ]

I love you.

[ At this point — worn out and worn down — she doesn't particularly care what he has to say in return. It's an affirmation, more than not (cross my heart and hope to die, there isn't anyone else for me, either, not in a million years; a stupid sentiment, in a way — nobody lives that long — but the chiding voice that says so dies away in a matter of instants). ]