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fellowshippers2003-02-13 07:34 pm
ethrosdemon.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2003-02-13 07:34 pm
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Title: Untitled
Author: Kassie
E-mail: naturallycalm@yahoo.com
Pairing: VM/OB
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Completely invented. No intention towards reality.
Notes: This is a wip.
This is some part of my newest Viggo fic. It's more of the other stuff, set after it. I don't know where in the whole story this will fit, or where even I am going with it as of yet.
*********
"Did you put the knives in the sink again?" The world beneath the surface of any water can be dangerous. Like the shoals hidden, ready for the hulls of ships. Like the pond that seems deep until a diver meets the bottom and breaks himself. Like a sink of dishwater covered in a slick of lemon-scented bubbles filled with knives I sharpen myself on a whetstone.
"I told you I was sorry about that." It wasn’t an accusation, but guilt is often like the objects in water, waiting and unseen from the surface. When I turned, you had a glass in your hand, and your face was pinched between annoyance and worry.
"I was simply asking, not provoking you." I pivoted back to the task at hand and trusted you. It was only three stitches and one more scar on a hand that carries far worse.
"Why don’t you ever let me help?" You stood behind me perfectly positioned so that I couldn’t see you at all. And I knew that probably meant something. That you didn’t want me to see, or that you wanted me to show interest by turning around completely.
"You break things. And I like repetitive actions because it allows me to think." I didn’t intend to say the second part, but since I thought you might have been trying to argue, I offered it.
"I can break things any fucking time." I know now you wanted me to turn around, to look at you, to see or say something I didn’t. When you approached me, there was more happening than I was aware of in the simple stillness of post-meal cleaning. You told me that when you flung the glass against the cabinet.
I did turn then, and all I saw was your back exiting the kitchen, your shoulders tight under the black sweater, your head shaking back and forth in negation to either my actions or your internal dialogue. And I stood in flipflops watching thousands of fragments of glass reflect the entire kitchen, and maybe someone else could have read them like tea leaves and known what was on your mind, but I couldn’t.
I finished the dishes and didn’t follow you. I let my mind drift as it wanted, and I remembered at least ten other occasions glass was hurled because or at me. Strangely, you never reminded me of Excene until that night.
**
After the kitchen was scrubbed of tomato sauce and swept of glass, the leftovers were put up, and three poems were started and aborted, I decided to call you. When I found you sitting on the couch, I was only surprised you could be silent that long, not that you never left.
I stood looking at the back of your head in the bad lighting from one forty-watt bulb and waited to see if you would speak. This scene was something you created, you needed to express, and I wanted to give you the chance without anything extra from me. I went back in the kitchen and got the first bottle on the shelf.
You didn’t move or look at me when I sat on the couch and put the bottle between us on the cushion.
"You can talk or not. Either way, we’ll be friends when you leave here." I wanted to know, but not knowing can be just as good since I try at times like this to remember my own inner self, the thoughts I will never share. Like how terrified I was before Henry was born, like the time I stole fifteen bucks from my dad to pay a bet, like how I used to dream of shoving Excene off bridges serially.
I uncapped the bottle and took a couple swallows straight. You finally looked at me then. Watched me drinking scotch from the bottle sitting next to you in the dim living room after you nearly hit me in the head with a heavy leaded glass tumbler. I wondered exactly what your thoughts were, the prelingual pictographs of inchoate impressions, or if you think in fully formed phrases. I wanted to capture your thoughts and transform them into *something * I would have later, after, when we are both different people in different places maybe not even speaking anymore.
You held your hand out for the bottle. You didn’t wipe the rim before you started pulling on it or wince as the liquid burned your throat. Just then I realized you might have been half drunk from the wine at dinner.
"I’m sorry. That doesn’t really do, but there it is. I wasn’t aiming for you." Which was self-evident, because you have good aim and a great arm. If you meant it, I would have been knocked cold with a new scar, maybe many new ones from shattered glass and hitting the edge of the counter as I fell.
I know about your temper, have seen the tantrums, heard the screaming, watched you stomp off set to come slinking back ten minutes later. Somehow I don’t think it’s a product of your youth and lack of experience like Ian and Sean do. It’s just you, how you will always be, boisterous and fully committed to everything you do, even anger.
When you pass the bottle back, I say "You can wash the dishes next time." And you laugh.
Author: Kassie
E-mail: naturallycalm@yahoo.com
Pairing: VM/OB
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Completely invented. No intention towards reality.
Notes: This is a wip.
This is some part of my newest Viggo fic. It's more of the other stuff, set after it. I don't know where in the whole story this will fit, or where even I am going with it as of yet.
*********
"Did you put the knives in the sink again?" The world beneath the surface of any water can be dangerous. Like the shoals hidden, ready for the hulls of ships. Like the pond that seems deep until a diver meets the bottom and breaks himself. Like a sink of dishwater covered in a slick of lemon-scented bubbles filled with knives I sharpen myself on a whetstone.
"I told you I was sorry about that." It wasn’t an accusation, but guilt is often like the objects in water, waiting and unseen from the surface. When I turned, you had a glass in your hand, and your face was pinched between annoyance and worry.
"I was simply asking, not provoking you." I pivoted back to the task at hand and trusted you. It was only three stitches and one more scar on a hand that carries far worse.
"Why don’t you ever let me help?" You stood behind me perfectly positioned so that I couldn’t see you at all. And I knew that probably meant something. That you didn’t want me to see, or that you wanted me to show interest by turning around completely.
"You break things. And I like repetitive actions because it allows me to think." I didn’t intend to say the second part, but since I thought you might have been trying to argue, I offered it.
"I can break things any fucking time." I know now you wanted me to turn around, to look at you, to see or say something I didn’t. When you approached me, there was more happening than I was aware of in the simple stillness of post-meal cleaning. You told me that when you flung the glass against the cabinet.
I did turn then, and all I saw was your back exiting the kitchen, your shoulders tight under the black sweater, your head shaking back and forth in negation to either my actions or your internal dialogue. And I stood in flipflops watching thousands of fragments of glass reflect the entire kitchen, and maybe someone else could have read them like tea leaves and known what was on your mind, but I couldn’t.
I finished the dishes and didn’t follow you. I let my mind drift as it wanted, and I remembered at least ten other occasions glass was hurled because or at me. Strangely, you never reminded me of Excene until that night.
**
After the kitchen was scrubbed of tomato sauce and swept of glass, the leftovers were put up, and three poems were started and aborted, I decided to call you. When I found you sitting on the couch, I was only surprised you could be silent that long, not that you never left.
I stood looking at the back of your head in the bad lighting from one forty-watt bulb and waited to see if you would speak. This scene was something you created, you needed to express, and I wanted to give you the chance without anything extra from me. I went back in the kitchen and got the first bottle on the shelf.
You didn’t move or look at me when I sat on the couch and put the bottle between us on the cushion.
"You can talk or not. Either way, we’ll be friends when you leave here." I wanted to know, but not knowing can be just as good since I try at times like this to remember my own inner self, the thoughts I will never share. Like how terrified I was before Henry was born, like the time I stole fifteen bucks from my dad to pay a bet, like how I used to dream of shoving Excene off bridges serially.
I uncapped the bottle and took a couple swallows straight. You finally looked at me then. Watched me drinking scotch from the bottle sitting next to you in the dim living room after you nearly hit me in the head with a heavy leaded glass tumbler. I wondered exactly what your thoughts were, the prelingual pictographs of inchoate impressions, or if you think in fully formed phrases. I wanted to capture your thoughts and transform them into *something * I would have later, after, when we are both different people in different places maybe not even speaking anymore.
You held your hand out for the bottle. You didn’t wipe the rim before you started pulling on it or wince as the liquid burned your throat. Just then I realized you might have been half drunk from the wine at dinner.
"I’m sorry. That doesn’t really do, but there it is. I wasn’t aiming for you." Which was self-evident, because you have good aim and a great arm. If you meant it, I would have been knocked cold with a new scar, maybe many new ones from shattered glass and hitting the edge of the counter as I fell.
I know about your temper, have seen the tantrums, heard the screaming, watched you stomp off set to come slinking back ten minutes later. Somehow I don’t think it’s a product of your youth and lack of experience like Ian and Sean do. It’s just you, how you will always be, boisterous and fully committed to everything you do, even anger.
When you pass the bottle back, I say "You can wash the dishes next time." And you laugh.