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summer_of_giles2012-07-31 05:10 pm
Comfort continuation
Wordcount: 2,049
And, to round off...
Comfort part 2
He looked like he’d been kicked. With fumbling hands he undid the seatbelt, tossed open the door, threw the bottle back onto the seat, and made to stalk down the street, making it a few steps before stumbling, and Ethan was out of the car after him in a heartbeat.
He stopped him with a hand to his shoulder, and stepped back out of the way of the blow that was swung almost automatically in his direction as Rupert turned.
“What the hell are you doing, Rupert?”
“I’d have thought that was fucking obvious. I’m walking. Wouldn’t dream of coming between you and your wife,” the bitterness in that last word could have frozen water, “you can crawl back inside. I’ve been fine on my own for this fucking long already; what’s the rest of another worthless life?”
“I’m hardly going to have this argument with you standing here in the middle of the bloody street, Rupert,”
“wouldn’t want your wife to overhear,”
“and you’re in no fit state to be walking anywhere. Get back in the car.”
Ethan found he was half-hoping for another flare of fire and rage; another sign that Rupert wasn’t as bad off as he seemed to be. But the anger went as quickly as it had hit, and he was face to face with a broken man again, just as quickly as he’d been toe to toe with an angry one. He saw the slump pass through Rupert’s body, and watched as he turned back to the car and lowered himself towards the seat again, pausing only to nudge the whiskey bottle off the seat and out of the way.
Ethan closed the car door and circled around to the driver’s side, and as he slid back into the seat Rupert twisted pointedly away to stare at the door. Sighing he turned the key in the ignition, and glanced towards Rupert again, taking in the misery that seemed so apparent. He wished briefly that he’d rung for a cab, rather than wait.
It would have been a lot easier on Rupert if that hadn’t just gone down. He could have slipped off the ring discretely, out of sight, out of mind and all that, and then explained things on a phone-call, tucked away in some quiet corner, or out the back of Rupert’s garden. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, after all.
But that wouldn’t have been fair on Amber, not in the slightest. Especially not as she’d spent the last three years supporting him, had helped him back onto his feet after his escape from that wonderful place in Nevada. It had been Chaos’ doing that had given him the chance to escape, and even more so that he’d found a road before he’d collapsed from lack of food, water, or energy.
He still only remembered fragments of it. Adrenalin, and fear, and pain, and the sound of rifles; pot shots being fired after him as he tried to weave some form of camouflage while fleeing into the unforgiving desert.
On top of that, the fact that the first car he’d happened along had been driven not only by a fellow Brit, but by someone that he’d actually known once upon a time (A.R, for After Rupert. All time was divided into either B.R or A.R; it kept things a lot more straightforward) was almost beyond belief.
Amber had spent six months helping put the pieces of him back into a whole, and after that, when he’d been more or less himself again, he’d asked her to stay with him, and had sealed the deal with a ring. The papers had been signed, and witnessed by her father, and that had been that. For two and a half years he’d been happy; a lot more so than he could think of in recent memory.
And now… he glanced sideways at Rupert again as he took a corner, the pale man slumped against the door, obviously putting as much space between the two of them as he could in the limited space.
Quietly, he kicked himself that he could have even considered going behind her back. He wasn’t used to guilt; it left a sharp taste in the back of his throat that he wasn’t entirely fond of, if he were being honest with himself, which it seemed that he was. If it wasn’t exactly love in every sense of the word, then it was still the closest that he’d ever found himself coming to it A.R.
He enjoyed her company; she was clever and had a cutting sense of humour that complemented his own, and he certainly liked her well enough. And lately, that had seemed more important than a love that he couldn’t touch. And the sex didn’t leave anything lacking, either.
If he never called her love, then that was something that she didn’t notice, or care to notice. He’d told her that he’d been burned before, although none of the specifics, and that had been enough to satisfy her.
He drove up the drive to Rupert’s, and shut the engine off, undoing his belt and swivelling in the seat to look again.
And you call me a bloody spanner in the works of the universe, mate?
Without a further word, Rupert got out of the car and managed to unlock the door on the third attempt. Reaching down to pick up the bottle from where Rupert had knocked it to the floor, and tucking it into the shopping bag that he’d put his change of clothing and the other bottle into, he heaved himself out of the car and locked it behind him, heading up the steps to the front door. After the way that he’d been he half expected to find the door already shut and locked again, but it seemed that Rupert’s need for company was still just outweighing his anger.
He pulled the door closed behind him, and locked it, standing just inside the door with his hands down by his sides, feeling unsure of himself. Once Ripper would have mocked him for such uncertainties, but that was long ago and far away.
“Rupert?” he kept his voice soft, as he finally left his post beside the door and headed down the hallway.
Rupert was sitting on the couch, chin on fist, staring at nothing but memories. And for a few moments Ethan’s heart ached for him. At least until he shook his head, dragged himself back into the present.
“What the hell are you doing in here? I fail to see why you bothered.”
“I’m not leaving you like this, Rupert. As hard as it may be for you to believe, I’ve lost some of my love for sadisms since meeting those gems of people and seeing exactly what sort of initiative they took.”
There was no disbelief though. In fact, Ethan wasn’t entirely sure that the second half of his sentence had even been taken in.
“But you will. Maybe not right away, but you will. Never stayed around…”
And there was that pain again. And of course the infuriating man was choosing to forget that the distance between them had been his own doing in the first place.
“Rupert, I’m sorry. Believe me, I couldn’t be much more so. But I waited over half my life for you, living from those scattershot tiny hints of hope, waited for something that you told me would never happen. Can you honestly blame me for eventually taking something that I could actually have?”
“I… I don’t want to talk about this. Please, Ethan.”
Ethan nodded to him, after a few moments of stillness, “I’ll get us a couple of glasses.”
“Fuck the glasses.”
“Could be a rather painful proposition, that.”
Ethan sat on the edge of the couch, away from Rupert, at the far end, again unsure. He almost wanted Ripper to up and hit him, because at least he knew where he stood, then. And maybe that would be better than this pain that still seemed to be writhing in his chest, and it would certainly be a better outlet. Then, remembering the last time Ripper had hit him, he winced to himself. So it wouldn’t be a better outlet for him but that hardly mattered.
The dislocated jaw probably had been on purpose, though, stop him from throwing any spells or some such, which he told himself was a reassuring thing. He would hate to find out that he was obsessed with someone who could do such a thing by mistake, after all.
Uncapping the half-empty bottle, he took a slug from it before handing it across, a tiny peace offering circumventing the distance between them. Rupert took it, and took an even bigger one, before moving towards the middle of the couch where Ethan watched the battle of emotion over his face.
He knew that nothing spoke to Rupert like that quiet language of touch did. Steeling himself, he shifted closer to the shaking man and slipped an arm around his shoulder, half-expecting it to be knocked away, wondering if in a few second’s time he mightn’t find himself winded and staring up at the celling.
That much of a tiny gesture wouldn’t hurt, that much was safe.
Instead Rupert surprised him, twisting to burry his head into Ethan’s shoulder again, and that shaking became worse. His hand grasped at Ethan’s other shoulder, holding on so tightly that it was painful. But he didn’t dare encourage Rupert again, for fear of actually being kicked out.
Although come to that, Rupert probably didn’t have the energy to do such a thing, not at this stage in time at any rate.
He could feel the breaths that Rupert was drawing, cold against his skin.
“How long?” he barely caught the words, muffled against his skin as they were.
“Two and a half years, give or take a little.”
Silence again. He could practically see the cogs turning in Rupert’s head, as he processed it.
“Do you love her?”
He wasn’t surprised that he saw the heart of the matter. He drew back a little way, so that he could meet his gaze.
“Tell me, Rupert, does it really matter? I… I’m happy, and as far as I see, that’s what counts.”
The other man took another swig from the bottle and frowned.
“I suppose not.”
He could feel a tension mounting, again a natural by-product of being in the same room as Rupert for an extended period. He’d never been comfortable with silence, although that was simply a part of his nature. He was getting twitchy, and nothing seemed to be presenting an easy solution.
“Talk to me, Ripper.”
“What about, Ethan? What am I meant to be saying?”
He found that he didn’t have an answer to that, either.
“I’m tired, Ethan. The world has just lost its first line of defence, and I’m sick of having to be rational when nothing else seems to be making a single damned shred of sense. I’m sick of fighting for people that will never know how close they came to it all ending, for a world that will never know the difference. Haven’t I earned a break, just for once in my life?”
“I can’t stop the sun from rising nor the earth from spinning, love. And believe me, if I could, then I would.”
He dug into Ethan’s pocket, and drew out the whiskey cap, twisting it back onto the bottle, and setting it on the ground.
“I’m going to bed,” he looked plaintively at Ethan, and then away again, before slowly pushing himself to his feet, moving like someone that had given up. At the doorway he glanced back again, hesitating.
And again, Ethan knew.
“I’ll sleep beside you, but I won’t sleep with you Rupert.”
Quietly he followed his oldest friend down the hallway, and as Rupert settled under the covers Ethan lay down on top, a single arm tucked over his side. He could pinpoint the exact second that exhaustion won out and sleep stole him; as he lay on his side, wide awake and staring at the creeping shadows that marked the transition from evening to midnight and through the other side, wondering whether he’d just made the best of choices.
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