aviary | OPEN | prompt one

[ It isn't her turn to do the cleaning up but when Johnny helps, then Madchen helps too. It's only fair and it's only right and there's only so much she can expect him to bear, even when his shoulders are so broad and his arms so strong. She's the one who had hadn't been mindful the first time, after all. (One time, just the once, but one time was all it took.) She has messed this up once already and Madchen has no intentions of doing so again. Guilt is a strange creature like that. And quite often it can be as dogged as love.

When Johnny bends to gather a few of the plates from the ground — no more than some hammered out metal, roughly circular — it's her hand that grips the edge of it first. Narrow wrist, delicate fingers despite the patches of rough skin. Perhaps in another life they would have never grown so worn-down, but they have no other life than this one anymore and all the doors of possibility that would normally branch away at all sides have been shut permanently to them by tragedy and time. (There'll never be another, she'd wailed when she woke. Never ever again. And so there hadn't been.)

She looks up at him with attentive eyes which smile even though her mouth naturally frowns. ] I got it, sweetpea. Don't you worry. [ She nods him back towards the mouth of the tent, where the rain threatens to blow inside and turn the dirt floor into muck. ] Go on now.

[ (He has always loved that — the brightness in her eyes that smiles even when her mouth doesn't. That had made her grief all the worse because, for a while, he hadn't been able to see that light anymore.)

When she takes the plate, he straightens up, not looking unhappy about it so much as he does mildly surprised. (She is too kind, that is what he'll always say. Not as anything meant in reproach or detriment, but after the fashion that people will speak of something so close to the heart as to be part of it.

That's my wife.) ]

You sure? [ he asks, brow crinkling just the slightest bit. He pauses, looking about what still remains to be cleaned up. ] Ain't that much left, I guess.

Sure as ever, [ is her reply and she means it. There are plenty of times and many different things that make Madchen hesitant and uncertain. But when she knows something she knows it — through and through, without a doubt, both in her bones and in her blood. (Things like: Mother Charlotte knows the way and they were asking for it and I love you, Johnny, I do.)

She pauses in stacking the dirty plates one on top of the other to join him in straightening, her face turned upwards towards his like a child waiting for instruction or looking to hear a bedtime story. ] Nothin' these two hands can't handle. [ (She's in a good mood today. Sometimes it's rare.) ] Go on now, [ Madchen repeats and there's a little more emphasis to it, though in her drawling sort of way. ] You've up an' done enough.

[ (She's in a good mood today, and that means that he is, too.) ]

Alright, hon, [ he says, leaning down (his frame casting a shadow over hers) for a split second as he kisses the top of her head, the base of his palm briefly finding her cheek. (He keeps his fingers curled away; there's dirt on his hands and he doesn't want to get it on her. There's no way of really staying clean, not in this environment, but still. He tries.)

Smiling at her one last time, he excuses himself from the tent. He spends the time between his arrival at their own tent, pitched a little ways away, and hers, doing what he can to tidy the place up. (Again, there's little point, considering how constantly they move, but still.

He tries.) ]

[ By the time flap of their tent peels back and she ducks in from the rain, which has only gotten worse. Her hair hands limp and loose around her damp face, her clothes stuck to both her back and her legs. Despite the rain though, there's still a smudge of dirt on her chin and another up along the pale rise of her cheek. (He does the best he can; he tries.

But still.)

The wind blows in after her, gutting the candles dotted around the small enclosure, threatening to blow them out completely. All it takes is a strong gust, the loose fabric of the open flap snapping noisily behind her and half of the lights snuff out completely, for which Madchen curses (unlady-like, her good mood threatening to falter) once under her breath.

Hastily she tries to refasten the door. ] I tell you what, sometimes—

[ Sometimes she doesn't know what she's thinking; sometimes she wishes she could just do something right. The rain's not her fault and neither is the wind, but Madchen's like that, always has been.

Blaming herself for things outside of her control.

(Sometimes things just happen.) ]

[ In the dark: ] It's alright, baby, I got it.

[ Quick as you like, the tent flap is refastened and there's a candle lit. (Sometimes things just happen, but Jonathan has always done his best to patch things up after the fact. He's good at that. At fixing things. His hands, though rough-skinned and indelicate in appearance, are careful, gentle things.) Once he's checked the flap of the tent again, he turns to look at his wife. ]

You alright?

[ She struggles in the darkness to keep her composure, even as the shadows press in around her, the weight of them almost a tangible thing on her face, applying painful pressure on her temples and eyes. There are terrible things that lurk in the pitch black of night and it's been that way ever since the baby died. When Madchen was still young and Johnny young with her, she'd never been afraid dark, used to think being afraid of those sorts of things was funny and strange.

(Not anymore. She's seen the dark, the actual dark. The very edge of where the world drops off into a horrible, hollow nothingness.)

It's at a horrible cost, but they can't go without light, not ever, or else risk Madchen going into hysterics. Between the two of them they hardly see a whole night slept through, having to light and re-light the lamps so that there's always something to keep the darkness at bay. (It's such a burden, Madchen knows. Such a terrible weight.)

Her eyes are large and frantic when Johnny's match flares and his candle pierces through the shadows, bathing Madchen's face in blessed, thankful light. Her hand reaches for his sleeve, curls into the fabric, pulling him closer. ]

Just fine, Johnny. [ She sounds like she's trying to convince herself, not him. ] Good as ever.

[ To most, it might seem a high price, but to Jonathan — to Johnny – it's nothing. (Or if it's a price steeper than what he ought to be paying, then he doesn't notice. He never does, because all that he sees is her. He is devoted, and his devotion is a singular, loyal, stolid creature, not a fanatical thing in the vein of some of those who would lay down their lives for Mother Charlotte. It's a quiet thing that will protect Madchen until there's no life left in him anymore.)

His hand rises to curl gently about her elbow, the hand holding the candle kept to the side so as not to burn either of them, even if the wind should blow any harder than it does now. ]

Okay, [ is what he says (it's probably one of the most-used words in his vocabulary).

There are a lot of things to be afraid of, and he doesn't blame her for a single one. ]

I'll get the other candles, okay?

OPEN | prompt one | RAIN

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