*creeps in* rubatosis + joanwind? :3 (if ur taking prompts)
Rubatosis // the unsettling awarenessof your own heartbeat
For a little while you’llbe here
I got in my car and drove away.
Lit Up // The National & So Much Wine // Smoke Fairies
“Joan?” he asks from the kitchen doorway and she blinks, looksup at him. She stands up from the table and turns her back, walks over to thefire and stands there in front of the cold embers. She runs her hands throughher hair, holds it as if she’s going to tie it back and then lets go so that itfalls over her shoulders like black water.
“You have to go, soon,” she says, “I know.”
He frowns at her back and steps inside, the stone floor coldagainst his bare feet. He falls into the sensation, makes himself shiver. Onthe table where she’d been sitting there’s a half empty bottle and a box herecognises. He reaches out to touch it, then passes over it and grabs thebottle instead.
“I wasn’t intending to,” he says, and she laughs, hard andhoarse.
“You’re staying, are you? Here?”
“It’s as good a place as any.”
He can feel an argument growing in the pit of his stomachand takes a swig. He doesn’t notice the taste, nor the burn; he drinks more forthe habit than the need. She doesn’t answer him, and he takes another swig.
She turns on him then, and now that his eyes have adjustedto the low light he can see redness around her eyes, the pinched way she’sholding her mouth. He wants to reach out, wants to touch her, wants somehow tocomfort her, but all his good intentions bury themselves under the realisationthat he has never, not once, seen her cry.
“Joan-” he repeats, aware that his voice has dropped intofear, aware that it’s betraying the deep dread that has awoken at herexpression.
“I wish you’d go,” she snaps, then, and her gaze slips tothe box on the table.
He knows her well enough to tell when she’s lying, and sheisn’t even trying now. He steps closer, close enough to touch her arm. Shestarts to pull away and then stops, looking up at him with wide, watery eyes.
“Why?” she asks, and he frowns.
She yanks herself away from him and storms past him to thetable. She makes to sit down but doesn’t, rests her hands on the table insteadand leans into them, head down, hair falling.
“Why,” she says, slowly, angrily, “Did you give me that.”
He understands then and follows to stand beside her, reachesout and lays his hand against the lid of the box. His heart beats through thewood, and he wants to tug his hand back but he doesn’t.
“I don’t think it’s a question that has an answer.”
Joan breathes in, breathes out. “I walked away from you,”she says, and her voice is soft, softer than he’s ever heard it.
“I never said I was sorry.”
“I never expected you too.”
“Good, because I’m not-” she stops, breathes out again andclenches her hands into fists. If there were something nearby to throw it wouldbe in shards on the floor by now, he knows. “I wish you’d go,” she repeats. Sheisn’t lying, now, but he doesn’t move.
“You’re going to make me say it.”
She looks up at him, looking haunted, looking hunted. “We’dbe even, then,” she pauses, then, for a long moment, and then she turns away andwalks back to the fireplace, “At least you tried.”
She turns back to him, and with a little shock he realises she’sgot fresh tears in her eyes. “You tried! You tried to- to be something betterthan that bastard made of you and I didn’t!I just walked away, and god help me I’m trying now but I still- that’s yours,”she says, gesturing to the box, “It never ought to have been here.”
“This is where I want it,” he says, quietly.
