Waiting On...
@ruginite
There’s a thing that you don’t get used too when you’re him. Have done what you’ve done, and are more literally than metaphorically paying for it for the rest of the foreseeable future. And that thing is being apologized too. At least more so than in passing. More so than an accidental shoulder check in the street, or when his coffee or food order took a little too long. Or when his mother is so deep in her meditations she doesn’t hear him ask her if she knows where his shirt is. Or his father accidentally startles the piss out of him because Bastian hadn’t heard him come in the side door of the garage.
So when Beth repeats her sentiment…there’s a second or two of deer in the head lights staring. That thousand yard look on his face, because his brain is lagging, and that higher IQ of his just can’t compute at the speed it’s used too. So for a minute, while he settles in the passenger seat he looks a bit dumb. Because he really can’t figure out what the hell she’s apologizing for. She came and rescued him apparently–and he’s pretty sure him being knocked stupid (almost literally) on the side of the road hadn’t been Apples fault.
“F’what?”
Hol’still.
For about a solid fifty-six seconds there’s no real difference between Bastian Barton and one of those Japanese animated characters that just saw the person of their dreams. All stunned and near stars for eyes. And while the idea is commical, the way his face translates it is anything but. Caught up in green, and the silk sensation of her fingers. He can’t be sure he’s even breathing but that’s become oddly (or maybe not so oddly) unimportant. Lost somewhere in between the person that Beth is and what’s happening.
And what’s happening is…it feels like coffee after a few hours of out in the snow. That first sip that weaves its way down into his insides. That spreads out into veins. Followed by another and another until every aspect of him is warm again. Has forgotten what the numbing cold and the snow felt like in his skin and bones. And maybe it does take him a second to realize that the haze is quite literally burning off. Evaporating in the wake of whatever it is, that Beth’s doing. Because she’s got to be doing something right? The dawning revelation that she’s something more than she seems; and that, that is somehow a secret. A secret (that though she hasn’t asked) he’s going to keep.
Dis. Le’me know….clear-head. Need two sets eyes…can’t search an’ drive….at once.
He lets it linger though doesn’t he? Misses that point of clarity. Rushes right by it at a snails pace and doesn’t even notice. At least not until the warmth has stopped spreading because there’s nothing left for it to dispose of. And a hand is coming up, moving as though it were going to dare reach out and touch her in like kind but—common damn sense slaps him in the back of the head. That hand shifting its path to rest instead on her own. A squeeze given to it, though he doesn’t pull it away. And maybe though he’s very well balanced on his senses now, his voice is still a little husky. A little shy. Something that settles in his ears in so many light shades of red.
“M’good.”
“Thanks, Apps.”
It's not something she's used to. Doesn't have the experience or the control to be subtle, to finesse it so that it's more about the magick and less about herself. She unfolds layer by layer blooming like roses that she hates, opening herself up to him until the connection is as raw as a flayed wound. There's more of herself in that single touch than in a thousand screen kisses, and she's never been more vulnerable before. The ghost of hurt haunts her, looming out in the darkness beyond the glass of the car's side window, and she doesn't know if it's what's been or what's yet to come, but she feels it just the same.
It's pins and needles and limbs waking from long slumber; it's snowflakes on a tongue still warm from the inside where it belonged. It's chains she'll never be free of because of some twist of fate; she'll bleed herself dry some day and still look to see what else she can sacrifice. She can do no less than that in this moment. But what she sees is blankness and it comes crashing down on her with a mountain of regret that she almost thinks would make a fitting end. He hadn't asked for this, and she shouldn't have intruded.
She makes excuses because ‘it’s the right thing to do’, because ‘he’s hurt and your gift is to heal’. It has nothing to do with that, though. She stays away from the truth of the matter which is she wants to, has wanted to for a while now. Deprivation though has been something she’s aimed for, made a goal because it’s weird, Beth. No one likes it when you do it. Not so much using her power, but to touch. It’s a need that has become painful, that lays just under the surface, that she tries to ignore. And the silence is killing her by slow degrees, the look in his eyes that she can’t interpret.
It spooks her when he finally seems to remember he’s alive, when breath staggers drunkenly into his chest and expands his lungs. She can feel that too and exhales a soft sigh in the wake, not out of any sense of relief but rather that she hasn’t done any harm with her impulsiveness,
She wants to pull her hand away, no worse for the wear outwardly; but inside she's a sea tempest, voices ~all of which are her own~ hounding her, asking her what exactly she thought she was doing, why now, this moment, when so many other chances had passed her by. So when his hand comes up she thinks he's going to push. To pry her fingers off his skin and hurl accusations. When he doesn't she finds herself on the edge of tears. She blinks them back and forces her eyes to find some other focal point, beyond the windshield, and in the night. She stumbles over the right words to say, how to express everything she’s overwhelmed with in the moment, but it all falls flat in the small space between them.
"I'm sorry...I no mean..."
But he thanks her just the same and she doesn’t know what to do with that. So she doesn’t do anything at all. Her fingers flex beneath the warm weight of his own and with the tables turned, tries to find some place to hide, to run away because she can’t really stand the awkwardness she feels, the way her heart is hammering too loudly in her own ears, throbbing at the pulse points in her throat, her wrists, elsewhere.
“Are you...” we “...good? Like for reals, or jus’ sayin’ dat?” The question is barely a breath, a reiteration of what he’s just said because she needs the reassurance, needs just a little more though for the life of her she isn’t sure what that is. She was never good at this kind of thing, and until recently, had something larger and stronger than herself to run interference, to make the world make sense. Now, she only has her own judgement to rely on.















