#bleederudite

[goldendichotomy]

❛ i don’t believe each person has just one true love, but sometimes we don’t have enough time to find another. ❜ from garrett

alec looks down at the mug in his hand.  coffee, no alcohol offered by the sheriff in a classic move that had him teasing garrett for quite a few minutes while being offered cream and sugar, a hilarious amount of options that speaks of plenty of babysitters who use his fridge.  even then the conversation turned to family.  it almost always does with them, three children between two households of such varied ages that the talks have hundreds of different directions to take.  

not often do they talk about partners.  it feels taboo to speak of with garrett, sensitive and fragile as cracking glass in shaking hands.  but it’s him who starts the talk.  low voiced and eyes far away, an exhaustion that makes alec’s heart burn and twist into knots he’s unfamiliar with.  an ache that he thinks he may have felt once or twice in his life in different colors, different songs than garrett has with this terrible, wretched splitting of his marriage.  

christ.  a marriage.  there’s where the real difference is, huh?  garrett had the bravery to tie the knot with someone, and alec’s the type who thinks he’d have left any partner from the past at the altar.  his throat feels tight.  sipping on the coffee in his hands automatically, uncertain if it will make it down or end up coughed right back up.  

he likes to think these are the talks that he’s good at, and yet here he is sitting in a silence that garrett lets him keep.  no pushing when you’re caught in your own memories.  ignorant, blissfully, of the fluttering in alec’s stomach that no amount of drinking will ever keep drowned out.  he’s failing, isn’t he?  no comfort for garrett, the one skill alec’s never lost suddenly failing him at the worst of times.

those fingers tighten more and more around his coffee mug.  brings it to his mouth, then lowers without drinking.  alec swallows down air.

     “that’s sweet and melancholy.”  he says faintly, trying to smile and wondering how badly he’s failed.  “but if i’m honest i just don’t know, it’s something that i’ve... never experienced.  weird, right, when i have a kid.  surely i’ve been there once, in terrible love with someone and unable to contain it.”  

laughing, alec feels his throat dry.  clears it, as he looks at garrett on the principle of having to.  of being friends.  fellow parents.  of somehow thinking he deserves to know this, even though they’ve never talked about these things until right, right now.  so why?  

shit.  alec doesn’t know.

     “thing is i don’t know how deeply i’ve ever been in love.  college -- i wasn’t real there, you’ve heard about it.  and then there was philo, and everything in my life has just... been... philo.  i’ve never wanted to ruin that or scare her away.  upset her.  you’ve heard about that with step parents and all i could picture whenever i went on dates was: how could this effect my kid?”  alec’s eyes hurt.  finally he lets himself turn them down to his drink, the dark liquid rippling with each small motion.  “except here she is all grown up, a woman in her own right, and the excuse feels cheap.  i’ve probably met the persons that i’m supposed to fall in love with and have... everything with.  and then i’ve probably just chased them away.”

SOFTER WORLD STARTERS.

[goldendichotomy]

❛ i’m the best there is at what i do, and what i do is think about my mistakes. ❜ from flo

alec putters around just like florence does, shifting and fluttering but with a level of peace and serenity that he’s never seen her contain.  sometimes she implies that it’s there.  work, she says, film like it’s something sacred rather than another form of media.  picks at her drinks and her snacks and tells him with a sincerity that he loves about the details of how to splice film together.  exactly how exhausting working the reels can be, that they have a secretive weight to them and you never quite know what to expect until they sag in your arms for the tenth time that evening.  in return, alec tells her that she’s too small for such things.  

i don’t eat a lot, florence tells him.  

you don’t have anything good to eat, alec retorts.  

such is how it always comes to pass.  another bird with broken wings that alec gives a part of his heart to, another child that he brings home and wraps in blankets.  puts water in their hands and cooks dinner, lunch, even breakfast depending on the hour in which they enter his home by loneliness or even just the urge to eat.  alec doesn’t mind -- the company is welcome.  seeing joy in a face makes him feel full, an addiction he still fuels in his own way.  except here’s the difference with florence; she doesn’t cling to him.  

see, philomene brings people home because she wants alec to take care of them.  a hunger that they take to, and alec welcomes.  but florence is skittish.  she reminds him of a coyote, lonely and content with such unless she’s in need of someone to help her tear the world apart.  he wants to tell her that sometimes -- do you know that coyotes will only come together to hunt large prey?  they’ll cry out and any coyotes in the near miles will join them, teeth to terrified creature the first coyote caught by the leg.

but he worries it would scare her off.  send her away for too long, wondering what kind of prey alec thinks she goes after.  what kind of predator he wants to be.  a fair worry, alec thinks, and bites upon his tongue.  

usually.

it’s when she speaks like this that he feels that nip on the muscle loosen, has to spill every word that he can until he’s dizzy off of it.  a scrape of spoon across skillet as alec pushes at the meat he’s cooking, flips browned edges up into the air and considers.  exhales.  “you know,” alec says after a moment, “i’ve never considered how old you are.  if anything i just sort of assumed you were my kid’s age and moved on from there, but now you have me thinking about it.  hard thing to consider.”

he turns the heat down.  to the other pan warming, alec pours whisked eggs into the butter within and begins to quickly push at them with his spoon into a rapidly forming scramble.  

     “bringing it up because you seem way too young to consider all your mistakes, flo.”  alec looks over at her with a soft smile, a tug of his mouth.  “i’m over fourty years old and i’m damnably full of mistakes, way more than you’ve made in your lifetime.  i try to think them over every once in awhile but... by now it’s a good time to do that.  because i’ve lived enough to learn from them all for the last of my years.”

fresh parsley falls into the eggs, flipping them casually until his wrist begins to ache.  alec winces a bit.  “look, all i’m saying is this age i think you’re at is when you need to be bold and wild.  making mistakes is crucial, kiddo, if they weren’t i wouldn’t have tried to set a police car on fire when i was in college.”

it’s a casual drop.  meant to distract and disturb from her sorrow as much as draw a laugh when he wiggles his eyebrows at her from across the room.

SOFTER WORLD STARTERS.

[bridester-blog]

❛ nothing matters at all. might as well be nice to people. ❜ from florence

( @keykoded ♡ )  Svetlana frowned at such a statement. “Flo, you could’t think in such a way.” She says while gently pushing a plate overflowing with baked goods. They were surrounded in a kitchen filled with staff of all shapes and sizes. A human, safe in a room filled with monsters? who could of imagine such a thing? 

lifting the kettle to gracefully pour fresh tea, her eyes dart to the others with genuine care. a human was granted a life of mortality, a promised death, and one should not waste time worrying of such things. placing the fine china cup in front of Flo came naturally, she was the host one might dream to be. 

“it all matters,” she begins as she gracefully plops down on the free chair, “you must believe it till the very end. we all exist for a reason and that is one we choose for ourselves.” 

[noospherica-blog]

“I wish you the best that can be hoped for, and no worse than can be expected.”

noah tries so desperately to speak little of herself to professional contacts.  that’s what rafael is – his kindness and their meetings are dramatically informal no matter how much she tries to keep herself patient, calm, not giddy at the sight of any information and any book he’s willing to offer.  it’s made them into a peaceful dichotomy: noah with her professionalism and that wicked blackness inside her, rafael with visits to bars and the warmth of a smile over his shoulder.  

so sometimes she says things when their conversations of books grow quiet, and they hesitate before letting it become stale.  just something to fill the space, noah always tells herself, a simple sharing of self that’s nothing more than what a social media profile might offer.  a nod and hum with mindless stories – oh, i have a sister who would probably love to try this, she’s the littlest and new to being an adult.  all while noah stretches her gums a little too wide, lets her teeth show a little too much in some mimicry of a smile that makes her feel just a bit less melancholy.

more nostalgic, maybe.  that’s something noah would like to be considered, delicately nostalgic in a way that makes people chuckle and shake their heads with a humoring sort of fondness.  as a story of her brother fades, the eldest one who wants to wed sooner than later, she stares down into her glass.  is that why she tells rafael about these things?  to make him shake his head just like she imagines everyone should when they see her; to feel like she’s benign and kind and absolutely worth sparing a few moments to get to know?  it’s pathetic, noah knows that much.  

that’s not the person her parents raised.  then again, noah thinks as she sips from her wine glass, where has that girl been for the last few years?

     “you sound a little bit like bilbo baggins, from lord of the rings, you know?  that uh… pretty speech he gives when his birthday is coming to an end and he just wants to leave.  funny.”  noah adds, and leans her free arm onto the table.  when did the world get so heavy?  has her glass been emptied – has it been refilled, and if so how many times?  nerves flare in her belly for a split second, an ice that she forces herself to swallow down with another mouthful of alcohol.  “pretty funny.  half as well as you deserve.”

it takes her a second before her shoulders sag.  noah drags her eyes up to rafael’s, meets them and peers there for a long moment that no doubt feels tense only to her.  it’s his eyes that do it, too deep.  maybe too human, if that’s something ever possible.  he looks like he’s seen every sort in his books come to life before him, and collected all those traumas.  another hoard for the dragon, another collection for the miser.  another.  another… shit.  she’s drunk, absolutely gone for the first time in so long that noah’s not sure what to do beyond laugh at it, herself, the very bar they’re in and the wetness at her eyes.

     “pretty funny,” noah says again, “how nice you are to me.  i don’t know if i’m worth that, but thank you.  …and.  that’s a sign that i should go before this gets anymore unprofessional.”

CATHERYNNE VALENTE PROMPTS.