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fellowshippers2004-07-03 02:56 pm
springfall-kg.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2004-07-03 02:56 pm
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Title: Pronouns
Author: Kayte![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
springfall_kg
Rating: G or PG?
Pairing: Domlijah, Viggorli
X-Posted:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
domlijah and personal journal
Shmoop as usual. Feedback adored. :)
You and I are strange and fickle words. After twenty-seven years I’ve decided that they cause more harm than good. Last night I was sitting outside on the screened porch with him and he told me that he loved me. ‘I love you’. It has both words in it, and it hurts and it cuts to your very soul before it lets go of you. He was putting wildflowers into my hair and I swatted his hand away and he told me ‘I love you’. I didn’t reply but he didn’t mind. He understands that it’s hard for me to say things sometimes.
No one would ever know looking at me, of course. Outside I’m loud and I’m boisterous and I’m anything but shy and withdrawn. But when he starts to cry, I don’t know what to do. When someone calls me with upset quivers in their voice, I return them with a bemused ‘uh-huh, yeah, okay’. It’s hard to tell me what I am- I don’t know the answer myself. He knows. He’s never tried to put me into words. He doesn’t have to.
I’ve tried to embrace him with adjectives. I’ve tried to tell him what he is and how he is and who he’s like to me. He smiles with gapped-teeth and pats my arm and says not to think so hard, you hurt yourself and I can see it on your pretty face. I laugh at him calling me pretty. I do. It’s not something I am. Words don’t hold my hands. I need to have some way to make people real to me- I choose language. It’s ironic, pinning people down with a concept that can never quite touch you.
It’s just a few more days till dead-on summer, which are the words I would choose for this kind of day, and I remember New York- but more importantly I remember him. It’s so hot here in Idaho- I like it. Not a muggy-steamy-sweating-stay-inside-with-lemonade kind of hot, which is the kind I’m used to, the New Zealand kind, but a dry-dusty-pure-go-outside-and-put-your-feet-in-the-water kind of day, the kind of day that starts fires when it storms. He likes it muggy. I like New Zealand, so I guess you could say that I like it humid too.
Last year at Christmas- when it was exactly opposite to this fretfully calm July day, we went to visit with Debbie and Hannah. He was wearing an ‘I Heart NY’ shirt that I had bought him. He loved it and has worn it until there are holes in the heart and frays on the sleeves. He won’t let me throw it out, even though I promised I’d buy him a new one. ‘I want this one. You gave it to me.’ I and you getting in the way of everyday life, even- I and you interfering with wearing proper clothes. It was no kind of shirt for an L.A winter but it was new then, and the heart was shiny.
His sister scoffed at it as soon as he walked in the door.
‘How can you love a city?’ she asked him. ‘Those shirts are so dumb- whatever you wear it for, patriotism or something. It’s not even that great of a city, Lij- I mean, it’s so smoggy and gross. I hope I never go there.’ He shook his head, carrying my bag in from the taxi. He looked over at Hannah, her big gray-blue eyes, and smiled.
‘New York is not just a city, it's a whole life. You have to go there to feel it. It's alive, and it's wonderful, and that's why people love it.’
His mother and Hannah looked at him, surprised. He winked at me, and I turned my face to hide my awkwardness. After living there and practically becoming another brother, another son, I still got quiet and awfully tongue-tied. His mother noticed, but chose not to speak. Hannah was too busy trying to think of a comeback to figure it out- not that she’s not a brilliant kid, because she is, but because she’s competitive. He’s not- he says what he means. He meant it, what he said about New York. He never has a hidden agenda- it isn’t Dom’s style to sneak a meaning in where it didn’t hang out for everyone to see.
‘We’ll take you sometime, Hannah. It’s the people that make New York as much as it is the buildings,’ I said, looking sideways at him.
Hannah snorted, but his ears pinked and he smiled sheepishly down at the duffel bag he held by the handle. While he never put anything in code, he’s incredibly clever at picking them out from other people’s comments. He knew. I knew. It didn’t matter who else heard it.
Right now he’s inside, playing some video game or another with Orlando, which I suspect is the main reason he agreed to come. I accepted because I wanted to see what the magic to this place is. Viggo is right- it’s serenity that you can’t find other places. It’s not Britain and it’s not L.A and it’s certainly not New York- I feel like New Zealand has snuck itself home here, to offer us a place to remember if not to relive. The door opens behind me and boards creak as someone- him- makes his way to me. Another intimate moment with me and him and the screened-in deck.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘You’re being so introverted. Are you okay?’
No, my heart says. ‘Yeah,’ I say aloud. He settles down next to me, on the floor, smooth wooden boards beneath us. He’s wearing his ‘I Heart NY’ shirt again. He took my hand and his fingers found the spaces between mine that words never do.
‘Would you live without me, Dom?’ he asks, quieter than anything I’ve ever heard from him. The night pauses to listen, crickets and cicadas holding their breaths against songs screaming to burst forth, just for me.
I cannot be without you, actually, my heart says inside me. I need everything you are and everything you bring and everything you do and say and smell and hear and touch and tease and sing. I need you by me or else I don’t feel like I can breathe. I need you and your stupidly frustrating ‘I Heart NY’ shirt and I need you and I to stop and just let us be us. I don’t reply. He rests his head on my shoulder. He understands what I mean even when I can’t say it. He allows us to remain there in that moment for a heartbeat, and the insects resume their tune, nothing more to see here tonight. The way his palm feels and the way his eyelashes brush my throat let me know that he heard it all. With the TV inside on and Viggo kissing Orlando hard where we can very nearly feel it ourselves, we can both hear everything that doesn’t need words to be said, and both of us know that there are no ‘I’s or ‘you’s anymore.
Just us.
Author: Kayte
springfall_kgRating: G or PG?
Pairing: Domlijah, Viggorli
X-Posted:
domlijah and personal journalShmoop as usual. Feedback adored. :)
You and I are strange and fickle words. After twenty-seven years I’ve decided that they cause more harm than good. Last night I was sitting outside on the screened porch with him and he told me that he loved me. ‘I love you’. It has both words in it, and it hurts and it cuts to your very soul before it lets go of you. He was putting wildflowers into my hair and I swatted his hand away and he told me ‘I love you’. I didn’t reply but he didn’t mind. He understands that it’s hard for me to say things sometimes.
No one would ever know looking at me, of course. Outside I’m loud and I’m boisterous and I’m anything but shy and withdrawn. But when he starts to cry, I don’t know what to do. When someone calls me with upset quivers in their voice, I return them with a bemused ‘uh-huh, yeah, okay’. It’s hard to tell me what I am- I don’t know the answer myself. He knows. He’s never tried to put me into words. He doesn’t have to.
I’ve tried to embrace him with adjectives. I’ve tried to tell him what he is and how he is and who he’s like to me. He smiles with gapped-teeth and pats my arm and says not to think so hard, you hurt yourself and I can see it on your pretty face. I laugh at him calling me pretty. I do. It’s not something I am. Words don’t hold my hands. I need to have some way to make people real to me- I choose language. It’s ironic, pinning people down with a concept that can never quite touch you.
It’s just a few more days till dead-on summer, which are the words I would choose for this kind of day, and I remember New York- but more importantly I remember him. It’s so hot here in Idaho- I like it. Not a muggy-steamy-sweating-stay-inside-with-lemonade kind of hot, which is the kind I’m used to, the New Zealand kind, but a dry-dusty-pure-go-outside-and-put-your-feet-in-the-water kind of day, the kind of day that starts fires when it storms. He likes it muggy. I like New Zealand, so I guess you could say that I like it humid too.
Last year at Christmas- when it was exactly opposite to this fretfully calm July day, we went to visit with Debbie and Hannah. He was wearing an ‘I Heart NY’ shirt that I had bought him. He loved it and has worn it until there are holes in the heart and frays on the sleeves. He won’t let me throw it out, even though I promised I’d buy him a new one. ‘I want this one. You gave it to me.’ I and you getting in the way of everyday life, even- I and you interfering with wearing proper clothes. It was no kind of shirt for an L.A winter but it was new then, and the heart was shiny.
His sister scoffed at it as soon as he walked in the door.
‘How can you love a city?’ she asked him. ‘Those shirts are so dumb- whatever you wear it for, patriotism or something. It’s not even that great of a city, Lij- I mean, it’s so smoggy and gross. I hope I never go there.’ He shook his head, carrying my bag in from the taxi. He looked over at Hannah, her big gray-blue eyes, and smiled.
‘New York is not just a city, it's a whole life. You have to go there to feel it. It's alive, and it's wonderful, and that's why people love it.’
His mother and Hannah looked at him, surprised. He winked at me, and I turned my face to hide my awkwardness. After living there and practically becoming another brother, another son, I still got quiet and awfully tongue-tied. His mother noticed, but chose not to speak. Hannah was too busy trying to think of a comeback to figure it out- not that she’s not a brilliant kid, because she is, but because she’s competitive. He’s not- he says what he means. He meant it, what he said about New York. He never has a hidden agenda- it isn’t Dom’s style to sneak a meaning in where it didn’t hang out for everyone to see.
‘We’ll take you sometime, Hannah. It’s the people that make New York as much as it is the buildings,’ I said, looking sideways at him.
Hannah snorted, but his ears pinked and he smiled sheepishly down at the duffel bag he held by the handle. While he never put anything in code, he’s incredibly clever at picking them out from other people’s comments. He knew. I knew. It didn’t matter who else heard it.
Right now he’s inside, playing some video game or another with Orlando, which I suspect is the main reason he agreed to come. I accepted because I wanted to see what the magic to this place is. Viggo is right- it’s serenity that you can’t find other places. It’s not Britain and it’s not L.A and it’s certainly not New York- I feel like New Zealand has snuck itself home here, to offer us a place to remember if not to relive. The door opens behind me and boards creak as someone- him- makes his way to me. Another intimate moment with me and him and the screened-in deck.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘You’re being so introverted. Are you okay?’
No, my heart says. ‘Yeah,’ I say aloud. He settles down next to me, on the floor, smooth wooden boards beneath us. He’s wearing his ‘I Heart NY’ shirt again. He took my hand and his fingers found the spaces between mine that words never do.
‘Would you live without me, Dom?’ he asks, quieter than anything I’ve ever heard from him. The night pauses to listen, crickets and cicadas holding their breaths against songs screaming to burst forth, just for me.
I cannot be without you, actually, my heart says inside me. I need everything you are and everything you bring and everything you do and say and smell and hear and touch and tease and sing. I need you by me or else I don’t feel like I can breathe. I need you and your stupidly frustrating ‘I Heart NY’ shirt and I need you and I to stop and just let us be us. I don’t reply. He rests his head on my shoulder. He understands what I mean even when I can’t say it. He allows us to remain there in that moment for a heartbeat, and the insects resume their tune, nothing more to see here tonight. The way his palm feels and the way his eyelashes brush my throat let me know that he heard it all. With the TV inside on and Viggo kissing Orlando hard where we can very nearly feel it ourselves, we can both hear everything that doesn’t need words to be said, and both of us know that there are no ‘I’s or ‘you’s anymore.
Just us.