#and “the sleeping and shapeless” is too large for a title

[third--planet]

If you pronounce IX the nihility's name as 'Iks' i'm gonna instantly fall in love with you ngl

[birdofdawning]

The Woman From the Sea

6. Orderliness

The beginning is here; the previous part is here.

Jane has been wearing gloves since the Woman From the Sea met her. They are black woollen fingerless gloves, and she wore them while she ate and then while she washed the dishes. She’s wearing a sweater too, but this doesn’t seem as odd. Her hands seem to be stiff or sore too, judging by how she moves them. Cutlery was just a little bit tricky for her, and she gritted her teeth several times as she manoeuvred the plates with her fingertips while she washed them. An injury? But in both hands? The Woman From the Sea is curious, but she is also shy; she knows Jane is angry with her.

“Okay, you can have this room. I changed the sheets this afternoon. Aired it out in case you were staying.” Jane opens a door off the hall and the Woman From the Sea steps into a small, white room with an iron-framed bed taking up most of the space. The window faces east, and she can see a rotary washing line in the twilight. “Yeah, it’s pretty basic,” Janes says, looking around. “But at least you didn’t turn up here in winter. These side rooms get icy. I usually sleep in the common room through January and February. Stay by the fire.”

“It’s very nice,” says the Woman From the Sea politely. “Um, I guess I could sleep in this?” she gestures down at her borrowed clothes.

“Oh! You probably want a shower! And a change of clothes too, hang-on.” Jane darts out of the room and is back a minute later, carrying some more t-shirts and pants. “Sorry, not used to guests (obviously). Uh, I have fresh underwear but nothing, uh new new — would boxers be… Oh, hey, maybe don’t look in there…"

But it is too late. Exploring the room, the Woman From the Sea has opened the trunk at the foot of the bed and is staring, eyebrows raised. “Oh!”

“Not mine!” Jane hastens to assure her, cheeks red. “As you probably guessed, it’s been all male crews before me. So when I took over I had a big tidy up and…” she gestures at the trunk and cringes. “I didn’t want to… I don’t know, burn it all or whatever; I mean, I’m not always gonna be the keeper…”

The Woman From the Sea reaches in and examines the contents. “What an exceptionally large collection of pornographic magazines,” she says.

“Yeah. Well. You know. Guys,” says Jane. “I actually forgot it was in here.”

“There is material here from the Seventies!” The Woman From the Sea has started making piles on the floor, only half-listening to Jane who has started explaining about the shower, and tank water, and possibly there are some warnings about brevity and economy. But she is content for the first time in many, many days, sorting out the various periodicals of explicit pornography. First chronologically — year, month, issue — then by title. Perhaps she pauses over the older covers, just for a moment, admiring some of the sleeker women of the Sixties and Seventies. She takes note of two issues she will examine more closely later. When she is finished she carefully stacks the periodicals back into the trunk, keeping them in order.

“So you’re easy to entertain,” says Jane, making her jump. She looks up and realises that Jane has been watching bemusedly from the doorway this whole time. Or perhaps not: she has a towel now too.

“I like to organise things,” explains the Woman From the Sea, rising.

Jane hands over the towel and the pile of clothes. “Well, don’t touch my books. Or dvds. I know where everything is. Or at least,” she adds, “ask me first. Or take one at a time?”

The Woman From the Sea hugs the clean clothes. “Thank you, Jane,” she says, smiling shyly.

“Yeah, well.” Jane looks away. The sharp angles of her face catch the light in a way that pleases the eye. “I’m gonna guess you need me to explain about the shower again?”

“Yes, please.” And the Woman From the Sea follows her down into the laundry house.

She decides that Jane striding forward in a shapeless woollen sweater and work slacks is currently more interesting than the old trunk and its salacious contents.

[eclecticstarlightconnoisseur]

EDINBURGH TO BOSTON - CHAPTER 15 - AN EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE

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Good evening all! As promised here is Chapter 15 of Edinburgh to Boston. This picks up right after Chapter 14. Our lovebirds grappling with the argument they had. As the title implies there is a lot of soul searching going to happen. 

At the end, I will include some interesting information. At least, I think it’s interesting. I do need to thank my betas for their magnificent and tireless help, suggestions, and comments. Thank you @curlsgetdemgurls and @scubalass. You guys keep me on my toes and push me to do my best. Honestly, a lot of work on the part of @scubaless went into this and unjumbled the mess I made at times. How do I thank @curlsgetdemgurls who always tells me I can do this and supports my desire to write.  I am truly blessed to have you both. I honestly don’t know how I would do this without you. 🧡🧡🧡🧡 

As always I welcome any thoughts suggestions, comments you would like to share with me.I hope you enjoy reading. Without further ado I give you:

Edinburgh To Boston

 Chapter 15

An Examination of Conscience

                                                                ***********

 Click! 

Claire stood mutely watching as the door closed with a muffled and insubstantial sound.  Biting her upper lip, she watched the handle for any sign of movement. She fully expected it would reopen momentarily and Jamie would walk through. Nothing happened. With the bolt slipping into place, it created a barrier as strong as any prison wall between her and the man she loved.

 She didn’t know what to do. Should she go after him or call him? At the edge of her vision, she caught a glimpse of his phone resting on the bedside table along with his wallet and money. “Idiot bloody man,” she huffed. She had no choice other than to wait. Maybe it would turn out for the best allowing him time to sort through his thoughts. Perhaps they both needed a little time away from each other to calm down and become more rational. 

What a bloody mess this turned out to be. If Claire was honest with herself, she never expected that it would come to this, that he would leave. She fully believed that they would have a loud and impassioned fight concluding with...what? Forgiveness? Compromise? Possibly the dissolution of their tender three-day-old relationship? At this point, she didn’t know what to think.

Needing a distraction, Claire began to set the room right. Taking a large bath sheet, she wiped up the spilled whisky and the broken crystal discarding everything into a wastebasket. Jamie’s still sodden jeans rested on the floor where he had discarded them earlier anxious to crawl into the warm bed and into a still warmer Claire. “Ye ken the fastest way to warm up is with body heat,” he murmured erotically against her ear. She did know and had shivered in anticipation of his intention. 

Her jeans and jumper left a trail from the door to the bed. The lacey black bra that he removed, lay on the floor. Her skimpy panties drooped from one of the four posts of the bed, like a flag hanging limply in a windless sky. 

She felt like a live wire skittering across the ground shooting off sparks. Remaining on edge and unable to concentrate, she padded around the room picking things up and putting them down. Every little noise or echo of a footfall in the hallway drew her attention. “He’ll be back, won’t he?” she said to herself.  

Scanning the room she saw reminders of him wherever she looked. His shaving kit, suit, shoes, jeans, jumper, cologne. She ran her hand over his things aching with the need to connect to him. His touch, his scent, his look. The room felt empty. Not because of the lack of his physicality in the space, but from his essence. Jamie filled a space with his being. Claire suddenly felt lonely. She missed him already - terribly.

Exhaling a huge sigh, she walked over to the window, peering down at the street. She had a very strange sensation that Jamie just might be standing down there next to a lamppost looking up at the window. From her perch high above the street, she had a commanding view of the area around the hotel. The street was devoid of people.  Not even a taxi cruised around looking for passengers. Even though Claire knew that it a foolish thought, she couldn’t help feeling disappointed she didn’t see him standing there. She rubbed the glabella, the tender skin between her eyebrows, in an effort to thwart a beginning headache.

Relationships are complicated things, she considered. For Claire, relationships were hard for her because she has trust issues. A gift courtesy of one Frank Randall.  She gave him her heart, love, and trust only to have him toss everything carelessly away like a worn-out, useless,  old shoe. She was hurt, betrayed, and doubtful to ever trust another man again.  And then Jamie Fraser walks into her life. After working with him for over a year, she knew him as a kind, thoughtful, gentle, considerate, loving man. 

In spite of their close working relationship, Claire continued to hold back her feelings, her trust. She knew Jamie to be a good man and it wasn’t that she didn’t trust him because she did. Well, professionally she trusted him implicitly. Personally, she did but... Maybe it’s because she feared how he would judge her if he knew the whole truth. Whatever the case, she thought he deserved someone better than her. She didn’t blame him for leaving after the way she treated him. Truth be told, she all but forced him out after insinuating that he was to blame for what happened. 

Claire knew that Frank had been watching them. He admitted it to her. ‘I’ve been watching you with him all night. What the fuck do you see in that Neanderthal?’ She also knew that Frank observing her with Jamie fanned the flames of his jealousy.  He always had been a jealous and possessive man. Come to think of it, Claire refected, this is just like the time he almost thrashed poor Albert, the young assistant professor that had the misfortune of spending time with and talking with her. 

Albert took pleasure at her admiring his wit.  Frank watched from the sidelines following her every move, smile, or laugh. He watched and drank, drank and watched until sufficiently drunk enough to physically menace the younger faculty member. Dragging her out of the party, he called her every vile name he could think of slut, whore, tramp bringing tears to her eyes. “You're mine, Claire. I don’t share well. You are my wife and you had better act like it. Don’t do it again,” he threatened. “Or so help me, I’ll…” He raised his hand to strike her. “Or you’ll do what Frank, beat me?” she called his bluff and succeeded. He dropped his hand grabbed her and pulled her to their car.

She exhaled deeply and walked away from the window. Claire knew that neither she nor Jamie could have changed what happened in the restaurant. Frank, hellbent on creating trouble, would have followed them determined to create mayhem.

She knew deep in her heart she wronged Jamie. Letting her anger get the better of her, she created a wedge between them. She knew she needed to admit her mistakes and tell the truth about her life with Frank. He needed to understand. No more secrets. No more lies.

Claire yawned and stretched feeling overwhelming fatigue settle over her. She hadn’t slept much since they arrived in Boston. It became an emotional roller coaster fueled from jetlag, too much alcohol, the newfound intimacy with Jamie and the disaster in the restaurant. No wonder she felt exhausted. She decided to rest while waiting for Jamie to return. Spying one of the tee shirts he had recently worn, she walked over picked it up and inhaled deeply. It smelled of him. Heady, musky, woodsy with a slight undertone of citrus from his aftershave. Claire pulled off her sleep shirt and put his on. It was too big, baggy, and shapeless on her small frame. Running her hands over the fabric, she felt the softness of it from frequent use. She climbed into the bed, breathing in his scent. She pretended that instead of his shirt wrapped around her, she lay enveloped in his arms and protected by his body. I’ll make it right. I must. Slowly she drifted off to sleep.

                                        **********************************

Ding!

The elevator door slid open with a soft whoosh permitting Jamie Fraser to step in. Entering the lift, he leaned against the glass wall dropping his head back to rest against the cool slick surface. He needed to get away, clear his mind, try to figure things out. 

An enigma. A puzzle. A mystery. How else to describe Claire? Damn the woman. He only wanted to offer her comfort, tenderness. Instead, she turned away from him. She says one thing I love you and only you and then she rejects him. Why would she do that? Frustrating. Infuriating. Confusing. 

He sought oblivion. Tonight was a double-edged sword. On one hand, he wanted to understand what was happening with his Sassenach. Then, again, he wanted to forget and to reduce the memory of this evening to ashes. Raising the bottle of whisky to his lips, he drank deep. The spirit slipped across his tongue cascading down his throat followed by its familiar burn. 

The door slid open allowing Jamie to exit into the main lobby. He strode past the reception desk. 

“Dr. Fraser, can I be of assistance?” The pretty receptionist inquired.

“Thank ye kindly lass, but no.” His face appeared slightly flushed.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to call a car for you. It’s quite cold out. Definitely not a night to be on foot.” 

“I’m a Highlander, born and bred. I’m used to the cold, ye ken?” With that, he exited through the hotel’s sliding doors into the fridge embrace of a Bostonian winter. Jamie searched the pockets of his jacket for his cap and gloves finding neither. He also discovered he neglected to bring his wallet, money, or phone. “I’ll do,” he muttered to himself. Mercifully, his jacket had a hood which he pulled up over his head while cramming his hands, carefully, into his pockets. His bottle of whisky tucked into a pocket inside his jacket.

Lacking familiarity with Boston, he wondered where he should go, though it really didn’t matter. He was not out to sightsee but out to clear his head. 

Taking another long drink from the bottle, he turned to his left and began to walk, then jog, eventually running without direction. He slipped and slid on the black ice, tumbling into a snowbank laughing at his own foolishness. He was drunk, very drunk, he thought as he took another big gulp of the whisky. His Da always said, “Yer never drunk if ye can still stand up.” And he was still standing, albeit with the assistance of the snowbank, but standing he was. 

Jamie found himself back at Boston Commons where he spent the day with Claire. He walked slowly through the whispering white silence of the park looking at the places where they had gone. The park had an ethereal feel to it.  Streetlamps cast shadows across the park’s snow-encrusted expanse giving shape and form to the spectors hiding in the gloom. Evergreen trees, tall, imposing, majestic released their sharp piney tang around him. Deciduous trees with branches bare, naked without their leaves, covered with smatterings of snow or encased in ice. The wind howled through the trees causing clumps of snow to drop around him. At night, the park became a desolate place reflecting the wretchedness of his soul.

He came across the spot where they met the sparrow family. Collapsing onto the cold bench, he found himself surrounded by the memories of the day. 

“The lass has ye twisted around her wee finger, ye ken? Ye even speak to birds if it makes her happy. She’s even gotten you to believe that they have the souls of her dead family,” he snorted. He sat there shaking his head. “What wouldn’t ye do for her? Nuthin’. Then why is this so hard? If she doesna want to have the scoundrel arrested, then let her have it. She has her reason, Fraser. Ye trust her word, do ye no’? Aye, I do. Then leave her be. She’ll tell ye why when she’s ready or when she can.”

“Remember lad, she’s been hurt.” Harry had said. “Be gentle wi’ her.”

“Aye, ‘tis all true, but why did she no’ discuss this agreement she made with me first? I mean we’re supposed to be partners.” His fingers tapped out a rhythmic tattoo against his thigh as he sat in contemplation. “Ye ken the reason, ye eejit. Ye would have said no. She did this for ye, tae protect ye. Tae sacrifice herself for ye. No’ because she loves the man. She loves ye enough tae do such a thing.”

Jamie knew all this within his innermost heart, but he still wanted justice for her. He did not want to be the one causing her to lose that chance.

“Besides,” he told himself, “ye heard her, she blames me for what happened. For failing tae protect her, for leaving her for,” he choked, “no’ being the man she needs.” Abruptly he realized that he also broke his promise to the bird family. 

‘I promise tae see her safe, care for her and love her all the days of my life,’ he vowed to the birds. Jamie slammed his hand down on the bench. “Ifrinn! Fraser, ye are useless, and no’ a man of honor. Ye couldna even keep yer word tae a cluster of sparrows now could ye? If ye canna do something as simple as that, how could ye keep yer word tae Claire? Ye dinna deserve her.” He took another drink, the bottle very nearly empty.

He saw the bird tree just a short distance from where he sat. Feeling the need to apologize, Jamie staggered toward the tree calling out loudly, “If ye can hear me wee birds, I am sorry, sae sorry. I let her down and ye as weel. I’m no’ a man.” He hung his head in shame but quickly his anger rose to the surface.

 He unleashed his fury against the tree hitting it hard reinjuring his right hand causing it to become scraped and bleeding. The pain from the single blow shot white-hot up his arm into his oxter. He collapsed into a mound of still soft snow at the base of the conifer. He let loose a torrent of Gàidhlig curses and self-deprecating rants. Hanging his head between his knees, Jamie took a deep breath trying to stem the waves of pain, nausea, and dizziness gripping him. No good. Heaving and retching, his stomach turned itself out of whisky and bile. He felt numb, tired and decidedly less drunk than before. 

“What a waste of that verra fine whisky,” he ironically thought as he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. 

It was cold, colder than before. “Weel, yer sitting in the snow, yer no’ dressed for the weather, and yer just vomited up all yer antifreeze, what do ye expect?” 

The problem, he considered, came down to where to go. He could go back to the hotel but he did not want to see Claire, just yet. He didn’t have his wallet with his credit card nor did he have any money. As he saw it, he needed to keep moving to stay warm. He stood up with great difficulty. Choosing a random direction, he began to walk. Jamie began to feel better walking. After walking about five blocks he came upon a Church with a brightly lit sign outside.

Cold? Tired? Hungry? Or just need a place for the night? The Lord Loves You. All are welcome!

He looked up and saw a statue of Blessed Michael the Archangel standing guard over the entrance.

“Blessed Michael of the Red Domain defend us,” he thought and knew he had found a safe refuge for the remainder of the night. 

Brother Stanislaus Kostka possessed an imposing figure. In his previous life, he was a former naval corpsman serving with a marine unit.  He had blonde wavy hair, kind green eyes, and maintained a muscular physique hidden by his simple religious habit. He wore a brown habit with a hood, a cord wound around his waist and sandals. The cincture tied around his waist had the characteristic three knots symbolizing poverty, chastity, and obedience. A black rosary hung from the cingulum completing his attire. 

Jamie stood quietly in the back of the shelter, observing the clergyman caring for his flock. The friar had a gentleness and compassionate way that emanated from him.  A woman had approached him with a problem, to which he devoted his full attention. After considering and weighing the possible alternatives he smiled and presented his proposal. The woman grinned nodded in acceptance, then moved away.

Looking up he spotted Jamie standing in the doorway waiting to be acknowledged.  

Brother Stan turned his attention to Jamie. “How can I help you tonight, my friend?” His smile could warm a person through and through.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Father, but I need a place to stay for the night,” Jamie apologized.

“It’s Brother, Mr…?”

“Fraser, but ye can call me Jamie.”

“Welcome, Jamie. It seems you had a difficult night so far. You know there is always room at the Lord’s table for one more.” Looking at Jamie he took in his appearance and observed his battered and bruised hand. 

“So Mr. Fraser, er Jamie, come with me and let’s get a look at that hand?” He turned away not waiting for an answer. Jamie followed and they walk into a small room both office and treatment room.

“May I ask how you injured your hand?” asked the Brother as he set up what he needed to care for Jamie’s hand.

Jamie looked abashed. “I, ah, had an argument with (what do I call her?) Claire the woman I love. And I got drunk. I needed time to think things over. So, I jogged to the park and my anger got the best of me, and I took it out on a tree.”

Brother Stan went about the task of caring for the wounds removing any splinters that he found.

Jamie hissed as the open areas were cleaned and dressed. “I have two hairline fractures of my right third and fourth fingers. I, um, somehow lost the splints that were there. Could ye make something temporary to put there?”

“How did you acquire the fractures?”

“‘I was in a fight last night defending a friend’s honor. I ken how it sounds like I’m some kinda drunken brawler, but ‘tis no’ true.”

“And would this friend be, Claire?”

“Aye, ‘twas.” 

By this time, Brother Stan had cleaned and dressed the wounds. “I see,” he nodded solemnly.

Giving Jamie a direct look, Brother Stan inquired, “You are troubled. How can I help you?”

He considered this offer to help. “Ye can let me into yer chapel to pray and ask the Lord’s guidance.”

“Usually, we don’t allow people in the chapel alone at night.”

Jamie leaned back in his chair adopting his storyteller pose. “Let me tell ye a story. ‘Tis a tradition in the Fraser clan that parents make a rosary for each child for their First Communion. My Da carved each of the beads and the crucifix. My Mam strung the beads together thinking on the Glorious Mysteries.  As she placed each bead, she said a Hail Mary, Our Father, or the Glory Be in the appropriate place. They had it blessed by a priest and it was gifted to me on the morning of my First Communion. I put it away after and dinna think much on it again until they died. Then it became the most precious thing I owned. I would ride out on my horse and go tae the old deserted churches in the Highlands and there I would pray. I would pray my rosary, the one they gave me, and it gave me comfort as I believed they were near me. Now, I’m asking ye to grant me another chance for comfort, tae talk tae the Lord so I ken what tae do. I dinna have my rosary with me, but I’ll do. Can ye help me?” Jamie placed his left hand over Brother Stan’s appealing for understanding.

Emerald green met sapphire blue seeking the truth and asking for help.

Brother Stan’s hand went to the cord around his waist and removed his rosary. “Tonight you can use mine.”

They rose and silently walked through the slumbering mass of people. Homeless men, women with children, battered women, runaways, lost souls, those down on their luck. Jamie looked around committing this sight to memory.

As they ascended the stairs to the chapel, the scent of beeswax and incense hung heavy in the air. On the right of the main altar was a shrine to the Holy Family while on the left was a shrine dedicated to St. Michael. The red sanctuary lamp was lit hanging near the main altar announcing the presence of the Lord.

In accordance with the custom of the Roman Rite, both Jamie and Brother Stan dipped their fingers into the holy water font and crossed themselves in the Sign of the Cross. Brother Stan gripped Jamie’s shoulder before leaving, “May your heart find comfort and your soul know peace. The Lord be with you. If you have need of me, you know where I will be.”

“Thank ye for everything,” Jamie replied choking with emotion.

Brother Stan nodded and left.

Jamie walked to the center aisle, genuflected, got down on his knees, then lay prostrate before his God in humility, respect, and penance.

“Lord God, please let me understand her. 

Let me shelter her from all danger, pain, and sorrow.

Let me be her sanctuary, her safe port in a storm.

Let me keep her safe; her protector from what seeks tae harm  her.

Let me help her tae find peace, happiness, joy, and love. 

Let me be her home the place where her heart resides.

Let me love her rightly.

God, oh God, please let me be enough.”

And he wept.

                                        ****************************

Claire woke up looking at the time on the bedside clock. Ill-temperedly it announced 3:38 AM. Shit, she only meant to take a brief nap not fall asleep. Rubbing her eyes ridding them of residual sleep, she scanned the room looking for...

“Jamie?” There was no answer. The opposite side of the bed was cold and not been slept in. There was no sign of him.

Claire began to panic, her heart racing, fingers cold and sweaty. What if something happened to him? What if he had fallen and gotten hurt? He could be lost. Maybe he was hit by a car? Her imagination ran wild imagining different catastrophes that could have befallen him.

Deciding not to let panic consume her, she thought maybe he fell asleep in the lobby not wanting to wake her up. Calling down to the front desk, she discovered he had left about three hours ago. According to the receptionist Jamie did not say where he was going. The young woman did notice that he turned to his left when he exited the building.

Foolish man, where could he have gone to? Guilt engulfed her. She should have gone after him when he left. She should have never left him alone. She would never forgive herself if something happened to him.

Claire decided to look for him and dressed quickly.  Where he could have gone, she had no idea.  But she was damned if she was going to sit here to wait and worry. She grabbed his warm coat, gloves, scarf, hat, and his wallet. Claire thought having his wallet could prove useful as it would serve as a means of identification. Although, a very tall red-headed man would be easy to spot.

Claire turned left following Jamie’s assumed route, hoping luck would be on her side. 

Walking the empty streets, she began to wonder where he could have gone. She trudged along for several blocks before noticing that this is the way to Boston Commons. Of course. That’s where he would go. The open spaces would be a balm to his soul. She hurried quickly over the icy walkways. 

She reached Boston Commons and followed the path they had taken. There was no sign of him. She passed by a tree and found an almost empty bottle of whisky that she recognized from the hotel along with a fair amount of vomit. So! He had been here. She looked around and did not see him. “Jamie, where are you? Jamie!” But there was no answer.

Claire continued walking, looking for any sign as to where he could have gone. She followed the path out of the park and walked straight for several blocks until coming across a welcome sign posted by a church. The sign welcomed anyone in need of a place to stay. She wondered if he would have gone in until she looked up and saw the imposing statue of Blessed Michael the Archangel and knew. Michael was important to the Scots. They often petitioned him for assistance in a time of need.

“No harm in asking,” she considered. Descending down the stairs, Claire entered the shelter and observed Brother Stan at work talking, comforting, praying.  Looking around she did not see any red curls anywhere. Just as she was about to leave, Brother Stan approached her.

“May I help you?” he asked a gentle smile across his lips.

“Well, maybe. I am looking for a tall red-headed Scotsman that…”

“Are you Claire, by chance?”

 She gaped at him. “How did you know? Jamie, is he here? Where is he? Is he alright?” Claire babbled. She frantically scanned the room again. How hard could it be to find him here?

“He is here and safe. Though he re-injured his broken hand, I’m afraid. I had to pull several splinters out of his hand. He had a run-in with a tree, it seems,” he said with a little smirk.

“Take me to him, please,” she pleaded. He was hurt and she hadn't been there to care for him. She felt uneasy until she could see him with her own eyes.

“He is upstairs in the chapel, praying. Come I will take you.”

“Praying?”

“Yes, he said it would bring him comfort and peace.”

They walked up the same stairs and repeated the same blessing. “Go to him. Be with him. He needs you.”

“Thank you Father for everything.”

“You’re welcome my dear. Oh and it is Brother, not Father. The Lords’ peace be with you both.”

Brother Stan left silently as he did before.

Claire put Jamie’s things down in a pew, and soundlessly approached the man she loves.

Kneeling down beside him, she hesitated wanting so much to touch him. Wanting to stroke his soft curls to give him comfort. To reassure herself he was real. But she felt afraid to startle him out of his deep meditations.

Instead, she whispered softly, “Jamie, it’s me, Claire.”

                                        ***********************

Interesting things:

St. Stanislaus Kostka is the patron saint of broken bones. So I named the Brother after him. 

In the mood board, the picture of the church in the left upper corner is a church devoted to  St. Stanislaus Kostka. It is located in Brooklyn.

The Marine Corps is part of the Naval services and do not have their own medics. So that’s why Brother Stan served as a naval corpsman.

You all noticed I didn’t say anything about Chapter 16 and I’m not going to either.

[impromptu-manifesto]

The Literature of the Pandemic Is Already Here

For those engaging in quick-response art, mess and chaos—not polished elegance—are the forms to best mimic a crisis that has no end in sight.

Intimations BY ZADIE SMITH PENGUIN BOOKS And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers From Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic 

BY ILAN STAVANS (EDITOR) RESTLESS BOOKS

A bleak fact of writing is that honing sentences is often far easier than honing the thoughts they convey. 

A corollary fact is that polished, elegant prose serves as a useful, if not always intentional, hiding place for half-baked ideas. 

Walter Benjamin wrote that a key element of fascism is the aestheticization of politics— the concealment of bad thinking behind bright optics. Even in fascist-free situations, the concealment principle is common enough that I have come to approach beauty and neatness in art with some skepticism.

So far, the nascent literature of the coronavirus pandemic has reinforced my distrust. Three assemblies of coronavirus-response writing—

Zadie Smith’s essay collection Intimations; 

NY Times’ short-fiction compilation, The Decameron Project; and 

the mixed-genre anthology And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again, edited by Ilan Stavans—

tell me why: 

No one has had time to truly refine their ideas about personal life in a state of widespread isolation and existential dread, and literature, even when political, is a fundamentally personal realm.

It relies on the ability to channel inner experience outward, and because no inner experience of the coronavirus pandemic could plausibly be described as complete, prose that renders it static and comprehensible rings false. In the shaky realm of literature reacting quickly to a crisis in motion, mess and chaos are the forms that speak best to painful realities.

Zadie Smith opens Intimations, which contains six short, beautifully structured essays written largely in her characteristically gleaming prose, by acknowledging, 

“There will be many books written about the year 2020: historical, analytical, political, as well as comprehensive accounts. This is not any of those—the year isn’t halfway done. What I’ve tried to do is organize some of the feelings and thoughts that events, so far, have provoked in me.” 

So, instead of social insight, which Smith admits is not yet available, she chooses self-organization. The turn inward is entirely logical, but the structuring impulse does not bode well.

To be fair, Smith’s opting for order is unsurprising. 

In fiction, she’s a master of structure and form. Traditionally, she has allowed greater looseness in her essays and criticism—I am thinking, for instance, of Feel Free’s shaggy, implausibly delightful “Meet Justin Bieber!,” which uses a pop-star meet and greet as an occasion to revisit Martin Buber’s I and Thou—but not in Intimations. Its essays are short, tight, and glossy: pleasurable to read, but coy and cagey with their fundamental subject, which is death.

Take “Peonies,” in which a startling, lush garden sets Smith thinking about human vulnerability to biology. In theory, “Peonies” acknowledges the creative and destructive primacy of nature over determination—which includes its primacy over art. To Smith, art and determination are nearly synonymous: “Writing,” she explains, “is control. The part of the university in which I teach should properly be called the Controlling Experience Department. Experience … rolls over everybody. We try to adapt, to learn, to accommodate … But writers go further: they take this largely shapeless bewilderment and pour it into a mold of their own devising. Writing is all resistance” to experience.

Of course, this is not true for all writers. Some seek to portray bewilderment rather than shape it into reason. Smith attempts to do the former in “Peonies,” but when it comes time for her to wrangle with the crushing confusion and helplessness that disease generates, she bails on her project. The coronavirus appears explicitly in “Peonies” only once, not named but described as our “strange and overwhelming season of death”—and the moment Smith mentions it, she arrives at her argument’s end. “Peonies” is a conventionally structured literary essay, which means, as we learn in high school, that its conclusion recapitulates its beginning. Rather than continue thinking about overwhelming death, Smith returns to the place where “Peonies” began: a flower garden, and the stifled yearning for disorder that it provokes.

“Peonies” is not the only essay in which structure helps Smith turn from death. “The American Exception,” a linear, op-ed-style argument, addresses death as a mass phenomenon, but never as a personal one. “Something to Do,” a reflection on why writers write even in crisis, reads like the first portion of a writing-workshop lecture. In “Screengrabs (after Berger, before the virus),” Smith returns to the section-heavy style of her 2012 novel, NW, in which neat, titled chunks of narrative replicate the unwillingness of her hyper-controlled protagonist, Natalie, to engage with emotion. But here, Smith is the one unwilling to engage.

In its premise, “Screengrabs” does reach for emotion: Six of the essay’s seven sections are nonfictional character sketches in which Smith implicitly says goodbye to her New York life’s minor players before leaving to shelter in London. The essay is faintly elegiac—as I read, I could not escape thinking that its subjects, even the man who insists, “I survived WAY worse shit than this,” might not survive the virus. But its fragmentary structure lets Smith stop short of expressing grief. The form demands that she move quickly, even as its content might more fully emerge if she slowed down. The lone exception is the seventh section, titled “Postscript: Contempt as a Virus,” in which Smith describes and mourns the killing of George Floyd. Here, her dealing with death is not fleeting or abstract. Her prose is ragged and free of ornament; her consideration of racism as deadly contempt is the only idea that Intimations sees through from beginning to end. The reason seems clear: Floyd was killed in late May, and I received my advance copy of Intimations in mid-June. The section was evidently written quickly, but it emerges from centuries of American history. Smith has no need to hide behind structure here.

The Decameron Project has a bigger problem than a proclivity for organization. Many of its 29 stories are emotionally neat and one-note. Etgar Keret’s contribution, “Outside,” is unique in that its neatness is negative: Keret’s narrator squashes the common and sustaining dream of post-pandemic empathy and solidarity, asserting cynically, “The body remembers everything, and the heart that softened while you were alone will harden back up in no time.” Other contributors take the opposite approach, pursuing positivity and beauty at the expense of honesty. Take Alejandro Zambra’s “Screen Time,” in which the small graces of family life—watching a toddler sleep, conducting a fingernail-growing race—outweigh the stresses of quarantine, which Zambra describes with less imagination and in less detail. The mother in “Screen Time” manifests anxiety primarily by no longer “reading the beautiful and hopeless novels she reads,” which may reflect a common desire for optimism. But Zambra’s apartment-size world is too sweet, its calm too accessible and unexamined. The result is charming, but, for me, unconvincing.

Still, the Decameron Project does contain successes. Rachel Kushner, Téa Obreht, Leila Slimani, and Rivers Solomon all smartly smuggle very good stories about older, different topics—storytelling, exile, storytelling again, incarceration—into coronavirus frames. Only Tommy Orange dares an actual portrait of quarantine in “The Team,” which wobbles like a kid on her first two-wheel bike. Its language is often confusing, sometimes ugly. Words tumble from its narrator, who monologues about time, turkey vultures, marathons, pig slop, racism, Oakland housing prices, and more, with no plot or connective tissue between each topic but the speaker himself. The result demands attention simply by virtue of the narrator’s need to be heard. It has no moral or fixed meaning; to borrow Zambra’s formulation, it offers neither beauty nor hope. Yet as I read its description of time ticking past in quarantine, as “hidden and loud as the sun behind a cloud,” I felt a jolt of recognition. It is like that, I thought. Orange’s messy descriptions and run-on sentences, alone in the Decameron Project, offer small new truths.      

And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again, a genre- and border-crossing anthology of mostly translated reactions to the coronavirus, is full of mess. In fact, the editor Ilan Stavans seems to invite it. He juxtaposes styles—poetry next to literary criticism, experimental fiction next to personal essay—in a way that is consistently disorienting and sometimes jarring, but pleasantly so. He permits political contradiction: In one contribution, Mario Vargas Llosa lauds Spain’s quarantine protocols, while in another, the translator Teresa Solana expresses terror at the Spanish government’s treating the pandemic like “a war, establishing a military scenario and using bellicose language with patriotic resonances.” If Stavans’s goal were coherence, he might have cut one piece, but he lets both remain, offering non-Spanish readers multiple views of a country unclear about its path forward—and implicitly accepting his own lack of knowledge.

Uncertainty is a driving theme in And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again. So is brokenness: broken bodies, hearts, medical systems, immigration systems, and more. Lynne Tillman takes a Tommy Orange–like approach to the breakdown of time, writing hectic, unadorned prose that turns into a breathless pileup: “I am exhausted, lie down, sit up, touch my toes, swing my arms, make a phone call, ignore a call, hear a voice, see a message, answer it, don’t, there is plenty of time, too much time.” Tillman’s sentences are cramped, confined, and unbeautiful. They don’t try to impress the reader. Reading her contribution generates the same restless boredom a writer—or any inessential worker—might feel while pacing the same apartment for the 100th day, knowing that there’s nowhere to go. So does the French Tunisian writer Hubert Haddad’s, which takes the pileup strategy much further. His story is a collage of fictional “false starts, drafts, approximations, [and] broken-off openings” that describe and evoke the “hazy driftlessness” of quarantined life. Its choppy, static structure captures the dysfunction of pandemic time.

In a May essay on coronavirus journals, the New York Times book critic Parul Sehgal described the diaristic impulse as “beautifully ordinary.” 

Records of quarantine may be banal, she writes, but their very existence is reassuring enough to be lovely. In other forms of writing, however, beauty is not enough to comfort. In fact, it runs the risk of 

trivializing, 

distorting, or 

evading the crisis it portrays. 

Thus far, the coronavirus literature that works best admits certain truths about life mid-disaster: 

The news is terrible and relentless. 

Nobody knows what will happen. 

The search for a vaccine is ongoing, 

as is the search for sources of hope and meaning. 

Will the coronavirus pandemic lead to stronger social safety nets? 

Better health-care systems? 

Will it produce cohesion or despair? 

We have no way to know yet. What true story besides an uncertain, unbeautiful one is there to write?

[terminallydepraved]

Epithymy Chapter Nine

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 Chrollo slept fitfully and awoke fitfully to the sight of Silva’s bare chest pressed against his cheek. For a moment, he almost wondered if it had all been a bad dream, if they weren’t just sleeping still in that tavern’s bed, the angry barkeep none the wiser to Chrollo’s presence. Chrollo closed his eyes and wished with all his might that it was true.

 Silva would never sell him out. Hisoka would never reward someone for dragging Chrollo back kicking and screaming.

 It almost worked for a moment, but then a draft rolled past, chilling Chrollo in a way that only the Underdark’s ever present cold could. He opened his eyes and sighed, looking into Silva’s sleeping face. The man held him close despite Chrollo’s warning the night before. It was hard to begrudge the contact now when it was cold, but Chrollo still wrinkled his nose and began the process of untangling himself from the hunter. It wouldn’t do to reward Silva for this kind of behavior. Not when Chrollo was still mad at him.

 Carefully, arduously, Chrollo extracted himself from Silva’s embrace, slipping out of the bed as quietly as he knew how. Silva didn’t stir, probably still worn out from the dinner yesterday. Chrollo ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his eyes to take in the room around him. This was just a guest room, so he would need to go back to his own for clothes. There was no telling what Hisoka had done with his old ones, the ones he had worn on the surface, or his satchel. Silva’s room held only his own belongings, the bed, a wardrobe, and a few paintings that illustrated Hisoka’s unwelcoming mood towards Silva in general.

 Chrollo’s lips curved into a slight smile as he drew near the closest one, his fingers brushing the smooth frame. Hisoka really didn’t like Silva. The picture was unsettling, even to Chrollo, the portrait of some Drow with sharp, piercing eyes that seemed to follow the viewer’s every move. One of Hisoka’s ancestors, probably, but that didn’t negate the creepiness. If anything, it sent the message that even if Hisoka wasn’t watching Silva, someone was.

 Such theatrics. Chrollo really was home.

 He rolled his eyes and dropped his hand, heading to the door. The hallway was as chilly as it had been the day before, barren of all life and just as welcoming. Chrollo closed Silva’s door and began the long walk back to the room he and Hisoka shared, arms wrapped around his chest to keep out the cold. Hisoka was probably already awake and gone, off doing his duties as a noble. If Chrollo were lucky and quiet, there was a good chance he would be able to get in the room and out before Hisoka became wise to his location.

 The thought alone made Chrollo frown. He turned another corner of the seemingly endless halls, ears tuned to any sound that might mean someone was ahead. He didn’t want to see Hisoka at all, not after last night and certainly not after that horrible reunion. As much as he had missed his lover, Chrollo couldn’t forgive him after what he had done. Not until Hisoka realized how out of line he was and apologized properly for it.

 Sighing, Chrollo spotted the room he needed and made for it, opening the door slowly and peering inside only to find it empty. As quickly as he could, he darted inside and locked the door behind him, heading to the wardrobe where he kept his clothes. They were all outfits that Hisoka had bought for him–  beautiful, expensive things that highlighted his figure or his skin, his collarbones or his ankles. They felt like woven water as Chrollo skimmed his hand down the lengths of the hanging garments. Chrollo closed his eyes with a frown.  

 What he and Hisoka had shared had always been more understood than outlined. They had never needed to discuss boundaries or rules. There was no need when Chrollo was comfortable with anything Hisoka wanted to give him. Pulling one of the outfits from the wardrobe, Chrollo set to stripping, wondering when things had gotten so out of sync. Once upon a time, they had understood each other implicitly. Now, Chrollo would be lucky to make Hisoka understand why he had done what he had done.

 “It never used to be so hard,” he muttered under his breath, tossing his worn clothes to the floor, leaving them for someone else to deal with. Scrubbing at his eyes, he snatched up the new outfit, tying the strap behind his neck clumsily as he went. Hisoka used to do it for him, but Chrollo didn’t need him. He pulled on the leggings next and closed the wardrobe with a slam, marching to the door. He unlocked it and slammed the door behind him too for good measure, making off down the hall for…. somewhere.

 Where was he even going? Chrollo slowed for a moment, but then forced himself to keep moving. Back to Silva’s room? Silva wasn’t in much better standing than Hisoka, and if Chrollo lingered around with him, Silva would no doubt try to suck up to him in hopes of making amends. Back to the master bedroom? Chrollo held back a grimace. It would just be a matter of time before he ran into Hisoka there, and there was no way Chrollo wanted to put himself near a bed while Hisoka was in the vicinity.

 His cheeks warmed at the thought. Hisoka was nothing if not convincing, and angry as Chrollo still was, he had missed Hisoka’s unique brand of touch. But, no; no, Chrollo wouldn’t tempt fate by making it easier on his lover. He looked to the left and then to the right, puzzling over his options just as an idea took root. If Hisoka were working, then he would be off in his study. The library was always empty this time of day. Empty most times, in truth, since Hisoka mainly kept it as a gift to Chrollo anyway. The added bonus of Silva not knowing where it was clinched it as the obvious choice.

 Decision made, Chrollo turned left and moved as quickly as he could down the hall, past the judgemental eyes of the portraits along the walls and around the various statues and art pieces Hisoka liked to clutter the place with. The library took up a sizable portion of the manor’s third floor, dominating an entire wing all on its own. The heavy oak doors opened with a strong push and Chrollo slipped inside, breathing in the familiar and comforting scent of paper, ink, and dust that always seemed to linger in the air despite regular cleanings. The grime never bothered Chrollo. If anything, it was nice to be in a place that wasn’t quite pristine and perfect. Relatable, in a way.

 Looking around the large, cavernous room told him that Hisoka hadn’t changed much during Chrollo’s absence. The shelves towered high above his head, still sitting where Chrollo had left them. There was an ever-present fire in the fireplace, and a thick layer of dust along the chairs nearest to it. Something tugged in Chrollo’s chest at the sight, but he didn’t linger on the thought of why the sight of it upset him. It wasn’t as if Hisoka had spared all that much time to sitting and reading with him anyway. Too busy, Hisoka would say. Instigating the ruling class was a full time occupation.

 The thoughts made Chrollo frown and hold himself tighter. Ignoring the fireplace, he looked instead to the shelves. They were as they had always been, sculpted from obsidian and polished to a deadly shine. In the light of the fire, they glistened like the darkest of ink. Reaching out a hand, Chrollo trailed his fingers along the dark surface, taking in the books nearest to him. Hisoka had never paid any mind to a cataloguing system, but Chrollo knew them all by heart.

 His fingers trailed over the titles. In the Blackest Pit, In Mortal Fields, The Tale of Visitric, Under the Azure Sky. There was no helping the sigh that came. They were all memoirs and tales of adventure, of travel and intrigue. Chrollo had read them all at one time or another, the only form of escape he had from the oppressive darkness he called home. He pulled one from the shelf and stroked the cover gently. For a moment, he had seen and felt what the books had promised. It was just a shame that his story had to end so abruptly.

 Pushing the book back into its spot, Chrollo moved towards the far wall out of habit, sitting down on the pillowed window sill just as he would always do on days where he felt suffocated. The glass was cold but the cushions were warm, and when he leaned his forehead against the window, he saw that not much had changed outside either since he had left. He had only been gone a few months, which in their world was as good as the blink of an eye. Why had he expected things to look different now? Maybe the surface really had spoiled him.

 The city twinkled back at him grimly, seeming to agree. Hisoka was far from the shady, disgusting places where Chrollo had spent most of his childhood, but that didn’t mean much in the Underdark. Practically every burrow held its own measure of danger, just in different forms. The streets were glossy black here, well-maintained and redolent of the wealth residing along its length. Arching posts hung overhead, providing light in the form of shapeless, white balls of undulating magic. What little plant life there was was painstakingly maintained to the point of artificiality, cultivated to appear as something more fetching than just undergrowth planted along the street in measured intervals.

 His eye followed the line of the street until he grew bored of it, and then he turned his sights further away, where he finally noticed a spot of different among the sea of sameness. Across the way, Chrollo could see the facade of another building. Unlike before, its windows were now boarded up, the sharp, wicked fence around the property broken and fractured.

 Chrollo hummed, only vaguely wondering what might have happened. It wasn’t an odd thing to see down here, and he assumed it had to do with politics. Hisoka might have even been responsible for the demise of the neighboring family, though he would never be so brash as to publicize the fact. He would save that for later, for when he had Chrollo in his bed or on his lap, close enough to whisper of his deeds proudly. No doubt the family that had once occupied the manor was now dead or exiled, perhaps even married off to save face and preserve what little standing they had left. At any rate, their demise presented something new to look at, which Chrollo thought was nice.

 He still sighed. He couldn’t help but stare at the other building ruefully, wishing he could go over and explore it, perhaps check for things that might have been missed in the looting. There were always so many secret compartments and hidden mechanisms lurking behind walls and within the floorboards. Jewels, deeds, money… There was no end to the possibilities, but Chrollo knew that Hisoka would never allow it.

 On a whim, he tugged at the window’s frame. A short, fleeting zap stung his fingertips, informing him that yes, Hisoka had indeed updated his security spellwork. There would be no sneaking in or out of the manor this time.

 Kneading at his eyes, Chrollo brought his legs up onto the window sill as well, wrapping his arms around them as he stared forlornly out the window. It wasn’t that surprising. Hisoka would have reinforced them after Chrollo’s escape. It had taken years of waiting for the charms to wear down enough to let Chrollo slip away, and there was no way Hisoka would let the same thing happen a second time. If Chrollo wanted to go outside, Hisoka would have to be the one to let him out.

 He nearly scoffed at the thought. The only way that would happen would be if Hisoka accompanied him. Before, Chrollo had been able to come and go as he pleased so long as he gave notice and told Hisoka where he was going. Chrollo hadn’t left much in those early days, too content with the wealth around him, with the gifts and pleasure and attention as it was heaped upon him. Now he doubted that he would ever see that level of freedom again.

 What a mess it all was. The situation, his relationship, his… whatever it was he shared with Silva. The greatest casualty of all had to be Chrollo’s head. His thoughts were spinning and racing like a dervish, longing for a solution to the problems before him. Perhaps time would bring answers, but for now, Chrollo knew he just needed space enough to think.

 The sound of the door opening told him quite tersely that space was one thing he would not be getting any time soon. Shoulders stiff, lip between his teeth, Chrollo ignored the sound of Hisoka entering, instead focusing all of his attention on the view outside the window.

 “Good afternoon, my blackbird,” Hisoka greeted, his voice soft and musical in the still air of the library. For a moment, Chrollo was transported back to before, when Hisoka would come upon him in here and carry him off to bed. “I hope you slept well,” he added, when Chrollo said nothing, “wherever it was you ended up sleeping.”

 Chrollo heard it for the question it was. He just ignored it entirely. If he ignored him long enough, perhaps Hisoka would take the hint and leave him be. Just because the man knew where Chrollo liked to sit didn’t mean he needed to seek him out in hopes of getting Chrollo to talk to him. It wouldn’t work.

 Hisoka’s frown was practically audible behind him. The Drow began to pace, his clothing whispering softly as he moved. Out of the corner of his eye, Chrollo saw him pick up a book from a shelf, flip through it, and then put it back. If Chrollo wasn’t mistaken, it was the same book he himself had looked at. “I missed you last night,” Hisoka offered next, his eyes heavy on Chrollo’s shoulders. “After you left, you know. Meals never taste as good when you’re not there sharing them with me.”

 Lips curling into a frown, Chrollo held his legs tighter. That almost sounded sincere. It would be more sincere if followed by Hisoka excusing himself for his pigheadedness and apologizing for all he had done wrong, but Chrollo knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not anytime soon, at any rate.

 “You don’t feel like talking to me now either, do you?” Hisoka sighed. His pacing resumed, closer this time, his eyes raking over Chrollo’s figure no matter how tightly he held himself. The glass was shiny, and when Hisoka approached, Chrollo could see him in the reflection. He looked mournful as he took Chrollo in. “Your hair is longer. I guess you really have been away for awhile.” Giving a mirthless chuckle, Chrollo watched him shake his head a little. “It looks so much like it did when we first met. So messy and unkempt. I forgot how much I liked the look on you.”

 Chrollo frowned and told himself to cut his hair at the soonest opportunity. He stopped looking at Hisoka’s reflection. He had humored him enough already.

 “You aren’t wearing your jewelry,” he observed next, and if Chrollo cared to look harder he was sure he would find confusion on Hisoka’s face. “Where is your collar? Your sandals? I see you kept the earrings, but it’s odd to see you without the rest too.”

 The silence dragged on for a minute, maybe longer, before Chrollo let out a breath, realizing that Hisoka wasn’t going to leave without being acknowledged. “Perhaps I didn’t see the need to wear them,” Chrollo said dismissively, eyes firmly rooted on the window. He wondered what Hisoka would say if he learned that the vast majority of Chrollo’s gems and baubles were now occupying various pawn shops.

 Hisoka hummed pensively, moving around the room smoothly for want of something to do. “Could it be because I bought you those things?” he pondered aloud. “The earrings were the first gift I ever gave you, but the rest are still sentimental items, I would think. Could you really be so angry with me?”

 Chrollo didn’t answer. He had nothing to say to Hisoka. Nothing at all.

 “Or could it be,” Hisoka went on, not hampered in the slightest by an unwilling conversational partner, “that you no longer have them?”

 Despite his best efforts, Chrollo stiffened. His jaw went tight and he kept his eyes on the outside world. “What makes you think that?” he asked as flatly as he could, hating that he had to encourage Hisoka with conversation just to learn what he knew.

 Hisoka laughed a little. “Oh, a few reasons. Would you care to hear them? I suppose you do, since you bothered answering me.” He sighed wistfully. “I know where you keep them, firstly, and I saw they were missing soon after I realized you were gone. They haven’t been put back, and I doubt you would keep them on you but not wear them. At first I wondered if you weren’t just hiding them in that human’s room, but the staff I had in there reported that there was no sign of your usual adornments within his belongings.”

 Chrollo opened his mouth to complain about the invasion of privacy, but Hisoka was still talking. “Secondly, you’ve gone back to wearing your usual clothes. I know what you like to wear with what. You never wear a low collar without something around your neck, and if you choose to go barefoot, you always wear your sandals. You are a creature of habit, my blackbird, no matter how much you may think otherwise. I know you far better than you give me credit for.” He paced a little behind Chrollo, the soft sounds of his spidersilk cloak whispering as he moved. “But then again, I suppose the most damning piece of evidence would be this.”

 A familiar chiming cut through the air and Chrollo turned woodenly, only to see Hisoka cradling  the silver and ruby bracelet between his fingers. The very same that Chrollo had almost sold a few weeks ago to some foul-breathed pawn shop owner but kept because sentimentality. Hisoka was smiling softly at it, and Chrollo watched him glance up, lifting another piece from his pocket. The gems glistened brightly in the room, mocking him for his weakness.

 It only grew worse when Hisoka dipped back into his pocket, this time bringing out a jeweled lace collar, one that Chrollo had ended up selling to pay for Silva’s exorbitant fees. So, Hisoka knew. He knew that Chrollo had sold them, and he knew that he had kept the oldest pieces, too attached to see them in the hands of another.

 “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, it won’t work,” Chrollo said, finally meeting Hisoka’s eyes.

 “I’m not.” Hisoka crossed his arms, staring evenly at Chrollo. His fingers tapped against his silk-covered arms, almost as if he were staring at an unsolvable problem. “Did you not like them? The gifts, I mean.”

 Why did he care so much? “They were fine,” Chrollo answered. “I just needed money and I wasn’t about to pawn things that weren’t mine.” He looked back down to the streets below, taking in the grimy streets, the dark that loomed just out beyond the ever-present glow of the city. “I didn’t think you’d notice or care much one way or another. You give me so much already.”

 “I don’t think I cared much until I was informed that you kept the earrings and bracelet. Protected them viciously, they said. It may have been decades ago, but I still remember giving you these as the very first tokens of my claim.”

 Hisoka paused for a moment, sighing wistfully. “They said you killed half a dozen bandits to hold on to them, and in all honesty, it just made me want you back even more, hearing that.” He gave a soft chuckle. “Do you want these back, pet? They’re rightly yours, your personal attachment to them notwithstanding.”

 Chrollo just shook his head. “I won’t wear them while I’m angry with you,” he said dully, turning away again. “I know how much you like me wearing them. Consider it another punishment for you. Another of your own making.”

 The jewelry made a sad sound as it was tucked away, one that nearly rivaled Hisoka’s sigh. “I don’t think you’ve ever been this cruel to me before,” he remarked. “Even when I first found you. Don’t you remember?” Hisoka murmured, his voice lilting and smooth in the quiet of the room. “You came to me so eagerly compared to this. A half-starved creature with no master, yearning for a kind touch; though you hardly knew yourself what you wanted.”

 “And instead I found you,” Chrollo said petulantly, curling up tighter in his small windowsill. He kept his eyes on the city below even though there was nothing to see. Nothing that held interest at any rate. It had been like that before, back when Chrollo had lived on the streets, stealing and fighting to survive. His curiosity had taken him here, into Hisoka’s palace, and then once that had lost its luster, it had taken him above.

 Hisoka sighed. Chrollo ignored him. Or tried to, up until the man grew close enough to touch, the warmth of his body a physical presence against Chrollo’s spine. “Don’t sound so bitter, pet,” Hisoka pleaded, hovering his hand over Chrollo’s hair but hesitating to touch. Smart of him, Chrollo thought. He wasn’t sure what he would do if Hisoka tried something, but it seemed Hisoka wasn’t quite sure if he were ready to find out either. “You know I only wanted what’s best–”

 “If the words what’s best for you come out of your mouth,” Chrollo spat, turning to glare at his lover, “I will make you regret bringing me back into your home.”

 Hisoka flinched, his eyes wide. His hand fell back to his side. “My home?” he repeated, a look of utter confusion passing over him. “Since when has it just been my home? Chrollo, this is your home too. It’s been your home for–”

 He couldn’t listen to this. Chrollo stood up and Hisoka backed away, letting him move away from his window sill. Hisoka rallied quickly though, following after him incessantly. “It’s been your home for years, Chrollo,” he continued, throwing a hand towards the window he had just abandoned. “Ever since you came through that window. You don’t belong above. You belong here, where you’re treasured. Not in the arms of some human you stumbled upon, and most certainly not wandering around aimlessly amongst people who would see you dead in a heartbeat.”

 “I… I never thought I belonged up there,” Chrollo said quietly, turning just enough to glance up at Hisoka. His lover was flushed and frustrated, but the fact that he was trying to argue at all was something surprising in itself. Hisoka thought himself above such things, too prideful to risk losing an argument to bother starting one in the first place. “You don’t understand anything. You certainly don’t understand that I’m in no mood to talk to you right now.”

 “It’s been days since you came back,” Hisoka said pointedly, and Chrollo didn’t bother to correct him on the details of his return. It wouldn’t do any good when Hisoka still thought himself in the right. “You dodge my every move. You refuse even to eat with me, let alone share our bed. I fear your mood to talk is as absent as my patience to wait for its return.”

 “Why don’t you just hire a bounty hunter then?” Chrollo sniped, knowing it was childish. “Maybe then it would bring it back for you?”

 Hisoka covered his face with his hand, sighing deeply. Chrollo turned back around, fuming. Why hadn’t Chrollo thought about this eventuality? He should have prepared himself for a confrontation, or at least thought of better ways to deny Hisoka than just childish quips and shouting. He clenched the silk of his mantle tightly, his knuckles going white. Hisoka didn’t even understand what he had done wrong. How were they going to have a mature discussion when Hisoka failed to even pick up on that much?

 His thoughts were cut short, severed like strings hewn with a swiping blade when Hisoka embraced him from behind, his approach as silent as the grave and just as insidious. Chrollo didn’t know what to do. He shook and stared at the floor, Hisoka’s familiar scent washing over him in a heady wave.

 “What do I have to do to have your forgiveness?” Hisoka asked, nuzzling Chrollo’s hair, his hands squeezing his hips. “It’s utter agony having you mad at me, Chrollo. Not when I just wanted you back in my arms.”

 “How can I forgive you of anything when you don’t even understand what you’ve done?” he replied, hating how he leaned into his lover’s warmth. It wasn’t like being embraced by Silva, or anyone else for that matter. Silva was blunt, uncomplicated. He said what he meant and he did what he wanted because it was what he wanted to do; nothing more, nothing less. Hisoka though. Hisoka was a thousand sharp angles wrapped in silk; one wrong move would have Chrollo cut to pieces. Or, it would leave him cold and alone. At this point, he wasn’t sure which one was a better option.

 “Oh, it’s easy, my blackbird,” Hisoka told him, kissing lightly at the tip of Chrollo’s ear. “But let’s not worry about that now. Heavy topics can wait, can’t they? Why don’t we get reacquainted? It’s been so long, after all.”

 Hisoka’s teeth were the worst kind of distraction. They conjured memories of late nights and heated touch, of unbearable ecstasy and dizzying pain. An embrace was never just an embrace. It was a chance to fall. A chance to lose entirely should he make the wrong decision. Should he be weak.

 Chrollo wasn’t weak. He shrugged off Hisoka’s arms and stepped away, turning to look his lover in the eye. His cheeks were flushed but he forced himself to ignore it. It and Hisoka’s hungry, eternal lust both.

 “You really think you can have me again, don’t you?” he asked, holding himself as he stared at Hisoka. “You really don’t think you’ve done something wrong.”

 “I think I’ve done something to make you upset,” Hisoka corrected, his expression falling at the rejection. “You’ve been upset before and you still let me touch you. It’s just a little fight, Chrollo. We’ve been apart for ages, so why won’t you let me make it up to you?”

 “In the only way you know how?” Chrollo scoffed, his hands squeezing tight into fists. He could still feel Hisoka’s warmth on his skin, his teeth against his ear. He wanted it, but if he let Hisoka get his way, nothing would change. Nothing would be learned. “If you want me, you have to do better than that, Hisoka.”

 Hisoka took a step closer, his eyes burning. “What do I have to do then?” he asked, coming to a stop in front of him. “What do I have to do to earn your touch? You don’t want gifts, you don’t want my attention. So what can I give you to make you want me again?”

 “I want to go back to the surface–”

 “Anything but that,” Hisoka interrupted, stopping him before he could finish. “I won’t let you go where I can’t follow, Chrollo. You belong here. Not up there.”

 Chrollo bared his teeth, dropping his hands to his sides. Anything but that? Fine. “I want you to get on your knees,” he said in a silky, pervasive tone. This time, Chrollo came to Hisoka, looking up at him with barely an inch between them. “I want you to get on your knees, throw away your pride, and beg me to share your bed again.”

 Hisoka looked stricken. His nostrils flared and he stiffened. “Excuse me, pet?”

 “You heard me,” Chrollo whispered, licking at his lips and smiling when Hisoka leaned closer to him, no doubt wanting to taste. “If you want me, you have to work for it. Prove to me that you really are willing to do anything to have me back where I belong.”

 “I’m inclined to think you’d look better on your knees,” Hisoka said, his lips barely an inch from Chrollo’s. His hands were hovering at Chrollo’s arms, the warmth bleeding through the air like temptation. “Are you really so stubborn?”

 Chrollo smiled, pulling back just as Hisoka went in for a kiss. “I think I am,” he said, taking a step back, looking over his shoulder at Hisoka with his eyes half-mast. He had forgotten how good it felt, this back and forth between them. Hisoka had never struggled to keep up with him. That at least hadn’t faded with the distance. “Get to kneeling, Hisoka, else I’ll go spend my evening elsewhere. In more accommodating company.”

 It was a heady thing, watching the want and pride war it out in Hisoka’s eyes. His jaw was tight and his shoulders stiff, and he parted his lips as if he wanted to argue, only to think better of it. Chrollo rolled his eyes and looked at his nails, letting out a low sigh. “I suppose Silva will have to satisfy me tonight,” Chrollo remarked, taking a step towards the door. “A shame. I’ve nearly forgotten the feeling of your embrace.”

 “Stop.”

 Chrollo paused, hand posed on the ornate door handle. He turned and raised a brow, watching Hisoka simmer. “Yes?” Was he really going to do it?

 “You really are cruel to me,” Hisoka muttered, averting his eyes as he sank to his knees. “Utterly cruel. I’d kill that human in his sleep if I thought you wouldn’t resent me even more for it.”

 “That… doesn’t sound like an apology,” Chrollo said slowly, his hand slipping from the door. His heart was pounding, cheeks flushed at the sight of his prideful lover on his knees. Had Hisoka ever been so thoroughly knocked down before? It must be hellish for him, feeling so weak.

 Hisoka blinked slowly, seething beneath it all. Chrollo took a step towards him, waiting. “You…” Hisoka looked at the wall. “You vex me in so many ways. Please come back to my bed. To our bed. I can’t bear another night of knowing you’re back but still so far from me.” He looked back, meeting Chrollo’s eyes ruefully. “There. Will you accept me now that I’ve made a fool of myself?”

 “If you think that is what constitutes begging for my forgiveness, I fear you’ll never hold me in your arms again,” Chrollo delivered coolly.

 “Well, excuse me if I’m not familiar with the concept of begging,” Hisoka snapped. “I tend to leave that to you, so unless you’d care to give me a reminder of what it looks like–”

 Chrollo rolled his eyes and moved back towards the door. Why had he even bothered? Hisoka was as sincere as a beast and just as pushy. It had been a mistake to think he might apologize, and an even bigger one to think that maybe, just maybe, Hisoka cared enough about him to show some modicum of weakness.

 He was just about to step out into the hall when Hisoka leapt to his feet and grabbed him from behind, dragging him into his arms before Chrollo could manage leaving. He struggled and snarled, glaring at Hisoka, but Hisoka was big, and he was strong, and when it came to a competition of strength, Hisoka would always win.

 “Get off of me!” Chrollo hissed, wriggling and clawing at Hisoka’s arm fixed around his chest. Hisoka was so strong that he felt his feet leave the floor, his lover hefting him easily to carry him away from the door. “Put me down!”

 “No,” Hisoka grunted, carrying him back over to the window sill, plopping him down onto the pillowed edge. He boxed Chrollo in with his arms before Chrollo could dart away, holding him to the seat as he knelt again between Chrollo’s thighs. “I won’t let you go. Not until you forgive me.”

 “This is the exact opposite of how you should be seeking it,” Chrollo spat, shoving at Hisoka’s shoulders. Hisoka’s hands rose up to grab his wrists, stopping him from scratching like he wanted to. The cold glass of the window met his shoulders, his lover rising up to follow him back. “Hisoka, stop,” he pleaded, closing his eyes. “Why don’t you understand? It’s you acting like this that makes me run away!”

 The hands around his wrists let go suddenly. Chrollo opened an eye, breathing heavily as Hisoka edged away, his head cocked and eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?” he asked, brow furrowed. “You’ve never complained before about how I treated you.”

 Chrollo took the chance while he had it, planting his bare foot on Hisoka’s chest and shoving him back enough to let him stand up. He did it fast so Hisoka couldn’t grab his ankle. “If you’re so blind that you can’t even see what’s wrong with your behavior,” Chrollo recited, moving past him and for the door again, “then there’s nothing I can do to help you.”

 “Where are you going?” Hisoka was scrambling to his feet, the sound of his fumbling loud in the quiet of the soon-to-be-empty room.

 “Back to Silva’s room,” Chrollo shot, already halfway out the door. He spared Hisoka only a single glance. One last look to show him just how badly he had erred in this nonsensical apology attempt. “Don’t you even think of following me.” His lover looked despondent. Lost.

     Good    , Chrollo thought, shutting the door behind him. He didn’t care one bit. If he thought it enough, it would probably become true. The sick feeling in his stomach couldn’t last forever.

 Hisoka was an idiot. An utter idiot. It wasn’t hard to see what Chrollo wanted from him. It wasn’t hard to see why he was upset, yet here he was, having to explain it to Hisoka like a mother to a child. Chrollo kicked at the plush carpet, scowling at the ostentatious decorations along the walls of the hall. He remembered a time when he had been dazzled by the wealth Hisoka boasted in his home and on his person. He remembered being so awestruck, so delighted by every bauble he was given. But now, Chrollo could hardly stomach the sight.

 Was it too much to ask for, to be able to wander? Hisoka delighted in calling him a bird, but this place was a gilded cage whose bars loomed closer, growing tighter every day.

 When Chrollo entered Silva’s room, he didn’t let the human speak. He just threw himself into the bed and buried his face in Silva’s chest, wishing the covers would swallow him whole.

 “I’m beginning to wonder if you even have your own room,” Silva grunted, tossing aside the daggers he had been sharpening for want of something to do.

 “I don’t,” Chrollo muttered, comforting himself with Silva’s familiar scent. It was entirely unlike Hisoka’s, woodsy and smokey like the fires they would light in the forest up above. If Chrollo could just lose himself in the scent, maybe it would transport him back there, to a place where the world was quiet and where Hisoka couldn’t get to him. “Do you want me to go?”

 “Do you want me to go?” Silva asked him right back, smoothing his hand down Chrollo’s spine. “I can go find somewhere else to be if you just want a bed to sleep in that doesn’t have him in it.”

 Chrollo smiled against the man’s shirt, lifting his head to meet Silva’s eyes. “How chivalrous of you. Are you that jealous of him?” He stroked down Silva’s chest, biting his lip a little. “You don’t have to leave. I just wanted some space. He won’t come in here so I can avoid him in peace.”

 Silva’s big hand carded through his hair, so gentle despite the size. “What happened?” he asked, his senses too good to fool. “Did you get into an argument?”

 “What do you think?” Chrollo sighed, burying his face in Silva’s shirt. “He’s not understanding me. He doesn’t even seem like he’s trying to. It’s like he’s so focused on having me back in his arms that he can’t see that what he did was wrong.”

 It wasn’t that complicated, was it? Was it really so hard to see why Chrollo was upset? Silva hushed him and petted him, but it didn’t do much to answer Chrollo’s questions, or assuage his worries.

 “I just…” Chrollo began, Silva’s hand stalling for a moment in his hair. “I just wanted to travel. I wanted to see things. Experience things. I can’t be happy trapped in a place like this. I would have come back if he had just waited.” Pausing, Chrollo looked up at Silva. “Is that so hard to understand?”

 “I don’t think it is,” he said carefully. “Have you thought about… leaving?”

 Chrollo snorted, burying his face deeper. “That’s what got me into this mess, Silva,” he said, his voice muffled. What good would leaving do again? Hisoka hadn’t been wrong in saying that the surface was no place for him. The rest of the Underdark was no better either. “I’ve got nowhere to go, no one to rely on, and no prospects.” And for as much as he still wanted to leave, Hisoka was… he was still Chrollo’s lover. Chrollo couldn’t just forget about him, and even if he could, he didn’t want to. Being with Hisoka made him happy. They were good together, aside from this one, monumental thing.

 Silva shifted beneath him, uncharacteristically nervous. “That’s… not necessarily true,” he said quietly, his hand stroking comforting shapes along Chrollo’s spine.

 Chrollo frowned, scooting higher on his chest to meet his avoidant eye. “What do you mean?” he asked, cocking his head. “You know better than anyone how limited my options are.”

 Silva grumbled and pushed Chrollo’s face back down. “I’m just saying you aren’t as alone on the surface as you think,” he muttered. “I mean, if you weren’t still mad at me. I’m not as young as I used to be–”

 “I’ll say,” Chrollo cut in, earning himself another scowl. “You’re ancient.”

 “Says the brat twice my age,” Silva snapped. “You know what? Nevermind. Pretend I said nothing. You're alone on the surface. Carry on with your moping.”

 “Well, now you’ve got me curious,” Chrollo groused, snatching up Silva’s hand and resting it on his cheek. “Come on, tell me what you were going to say. You’re getting old, so…?”

 “So,” Silva bristled, his voice rough but his touch soft as he stroked his thumb along Chrollo’s cheekbone, “I was thinking I might need some help with my work. Collecting bounties is all well and good, but if I had a partner, I could be doing a lot more…”

 A myriad of feelings filled Chrollo at the word partner. Fear. Distrust. Anger. Hope. He averted his eyes and bit his lip, wondering how he was supposed to feel. “The last time you said that,” he murmured, letting Silva pull his attention back onto him, “you stabbed me with a sleeping draught.”

 “We all do stupid things.” Silva frowned, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

 “You mean you do stupid things,” Chrollo amended coolly. “I just sleep with stupid men.”

 Silva let out a mirthless laugh. “You really do,” he said, sighing as he relaxed into the pillows. “But the offer is there. I’m as sincere as I can be. You don’t have to trust me. I’ll gladly work to earn it if that’s what it takes to win you over.”

 Chrollo didn’t know what to say. The idea wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t unpleasant at all. Looking up at Silva, Chrollo felt his cheeks warm. Sculpted face, piercing blue eyes, and a mouth as cruel as it was kind. So different from Hisoka. Maybe that was a good thing.

 Clearing his throat, Chrollo let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “Partner?” he murmured nonchalantly, something like hope flooding his chest. He kept his eyes low, trying not to look as excited as he felt. “You really think of us as that?”

 Silva shrugged, embarrassed by his own admittance. “We work well together,” he said, brushing a lock of Chrollo’s hair behind his ear. “You’re a brat, but I had fun with you. So, yeah,” he went, meeting Chrollo’s eye. “If you were to come back above with me, I envisioned us as partners. Real ones. Share the map ones.”

 Chrollo didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to feel besides elated that Silva had enjoyed his company so much. Leaning up, he kissed the hunter chastely, stomach aflutter at the thought of them returning to normality up above. There were a thousand things standing between them and that dream, but Chrollo didn’t want to think of them. They could wait for later.

 “You aren’t off the hook,” Chrollo whispered, leaning in for another kiss.

 Silva’s hands were gentle on his waist, doing nothing but resting there, letting Chrollo lead. “I know,” he said, looking into Chrollo’s eyes. “But I’d be a poor partner if I didn’t do what I could to make you feel better now. If you’d have me.”

 Chrollo smiled against Silva’s lips, losing himself in the tender embrace. For the moment, for the night, for just a measure of peace that he couldn’t find anywhere else. Reality existed just outside the door, and eventually something would have to give. but for now, Chrollo would focus on this.

 Just this.