βͺ she knows him ββ this part of him. he'll vent about the kids sometimes, and god, so does she β they're a handful, each and every one of them. but it's venting, and under all that is a deep, genuine love for each of the youths that pass through the doors of the centre, no matter how fucked up (or eager to fuck someone else up) they might be.
all that said, though, she can take a hint. there's a considerable silence between her words and his, and while she's not pretending that everything's fine, she wonders if she's really bringing that across by not addressing any of it at all. does she want to address it? the wish to leave him privacy, to give him time and space and whatever else he needs, is battling with her own wish to know. perhaps it's a need, even, the necessity of communication between two people who... who'll be like this, for a while. maybe for all the while she possibly has to give, if anyone asked her how she feels about him.
she doesn't want to prod, hell knows she'd needed her own sweet time before she could talk to boris about some of her life. pushing doesn't build trust. but leaving him sitting there, maybe feeling as if she's feigning normalcy, probably doesn't build much of anything, either.
that, she dwells on, as she mixes together the batter for the pancakes in silence. then: β«
You know I'm not... upset about you taking time and space when you need it, right?
( he blinks, as if he'd checked out of the conversation at some point and had only just now found some errant thread to bring him back to it. he wets his lips, his fingers tighten on his glass. there are smudges in the condensation. )
No. I know.
( two distinct, separate clauses. he sort of tips his head off to one side. he doesn't really want to keep on. talking about it. but the thing is — he likes flora, wants to make things work with her. and he's been trying to put some of the tools he's picked up in therapy into action.
his expression cycles through several different emotions. annoyance, disgust. shame. it settles on something like resignation, and then: )
βͺ in a way, she's grateful to be cooking right now. talks are always easiest when she has a task on her hands, something to do so she doesn't go picking at her cuticles or start biting her nails, or any of the other habit she's been mostly successfully kicking the past year and change. β«
I don't think it would do much. Except maybe make you feel bad, and that's not really what I'm about. That's not helping anything.
βͺ the pan's heated now, sizzling away, and she pours the first ladle-full of pancake batter in. β«
It wasn't great, for me. 'Course I'd have liked to know. βͺ she shoots him a glance, trying to read him. β« But I think this is something you did because it brought you... some kind of relief. And I'm not going to shame you for trying to do something to help yourself, you know?
( he makes a sound that's sort of like a harsh bark of laughter. you know, she has a point and he knows it. it doesn't last, and then he takes another somber drink of his orange juice. )
Sorry.
( he says it more out of reflex than sincerity. truth is, he's not entirely sure how he feels. badly, sure, but not... entirely apologetic. because she's right, he needed to do it for himself. he can feel bad for how he did it but not the doing itself.
he stretches his legs out, pushes the stool back away from the island. looks down at his hands briefly, flexes them. there's bruises beneath the skin across his knuckles. dead blood pulled up to the surface, yellowing with the age of the injuries.
more than anything, he's fighting the urge to. stop. stop talking, stop this. get up and walk out. it's what he always does with women when things get in too deep. without even realizing it, his breathing's ticked up. the slightest, faintest bit uneven. )
I know it's not the best, uh. You know. Coping method.
( but it's what he's got. he used to run himself down for it. sorry i'm a shitty person. he's mostly worked that out with himself. in the most awkwardly stilted tone she's probably ever heard out of him: )
I'll try and give you a heads up next time.
( because he can't promise there won't be one. he's not there yet. might not ever be. but, you know. he's not dead, and that's something. he left his gun in the lockbox under his bed when he left, that's something too. not that there wouldn't have been ways to orchestrate his death without it, but. it's the quickest, surest method, and it's the one he's sat up long nights with, letting the weight of it drag in his palm.
the truth was, he didn't really think of flora when he did it. he told bill, because she's been such a cornerstone of his life for more than half of it now. they've known each other twenty years, dated and married for ten. she's still the one he reaches for.
he does love flora, but she's part of his new life. not the old one that's ruled and ruined in equal measure by what the desert wrought in him. and when his past crept in and threw out all the progress he thought he'd made, he'd gone to ground.
it's funny. he doesn't really panic. anxiety has always been easy to keep at bay. but he can't get his breathing under control. can't even it out. can't regulate. christ, he wants to sink right into the floor. )
βͺ she flips the pancake, but she's losing focus on her task. this isn't the first time he's spoken of something that very, very clearly troubles and haunts him, this isn't the first time she has seen him in a difficult situation. but this is the first time it seems almost as if he is losing a fight with himself. there's a tension to him she hasn't seen in that fashion, has only gotten hints of when he'd spoken of the war. her hearing's fine, finer than most humans, it's one of the perks ββ but it means she can hear the unevenness in his breathing. β«
If it's an option. If not... I'm not gonna get mad, either. You said it yourself, you're coping. I wanna make it easier for you, not harder.
βͺ and if easier means hearing it from bill rather than from sam himself, then that's alright with her. this isn't some kind of game of closeness she's trying to win. it's important to her that he knows that she would want to know, it's more important that he knows she's got his back no matter what.
still, she pushes the pan back on the stovetop. the first one's never much good, anyway, and the batter can wait. β«
Is it okay for you if I take a look at your hands?
βͺ she doesn't say: it hurts just to see them like this. it's true though, seeing him as he is right now is painful, and in no pitying way. β«
You can say 'no'.
βͺ there are a lot of implied questions in it, after all: is it okay if she gets closer, is it okay if she sits down with him? she's not asking if it would help β she's not sure he'd have an answer for that one in the first place. much as she wants to help, this is new for her, and she's got no manual to go by. what she has is so much love for him that she wants to find out what works, step by step, for today and any other day that's as hard on him as this time. β«
( wordless, he holds them out. split knuckles, blistered palms. nothing seems infected, at least, which is miraculous considering how little care he'd shown himself in that missing week. )
βͺ she gives his hands a quick look, before picking out a bowl to fill with lukewarm water. dried blood, angry, red blisters. it looks as if he did some hard labour of a sort, but she bites the question back. once the water's ready, she picks a clean towel ββ kitchen towels have been moved into one of the drawers there, as by her request ββ and sits herself down by his side, guiding his hands into the water so they can soak a bit. works best with dried blood. β«
Bill told me.
βͺ she guesses that won't stay a secret long, or that it might not have been one in the first place. β«
That you just need space like that sometimes. So you... don't have to talk about it anymore than you want to. I mean, of course I'd like to know, I care about you. But if you can't, or if you just don't want to β
( he lets her move around him however she wants, resists nothing. but when she goes on with reassuring him that it's okay, something tightens in his jaw. )
Flora. Hey.
( he shakes the water off, and reaches for her hands. just holding them for now. )
That's the thing. It's not. I know it's shitty. I'm not looking for you to excuse my behaviour because I know it's not. Right, or healthy, or whatever the fuck else you want to call it. Stop it. Just... stop it.
βͺ she looks at their hands, intertwined for a moment. hers have never looked more nicely cared for, his, she's never seen looking worse. β«
Okay.
βͺ it is, at least, a valid point she can recognise ββΒ in the long run, it won't do for her to just nod and justify everything. and if he can work on this, if he can let her know, if they can maybe a reach a point where he won't have to run and vanish for a week, that would be better. healthier, if that's what they're going to try and call it. he can probably sense the 'but' before she opens her mouth again. β«
I think what I'm trying most to say is you get to be unhealthy, and unwell, and not perfectly together. And that I'm going to be here for you through that. I don't want to put the pressure of a miracle solution on you and you alone.
( he needed those words most when he was young. knowing that it was okay to be vulnerable, to hurt, to be fucked up beyond all reasoning, that came later. he still struggles with it, maybe because it wasn't a formative part of his experience. ptsd? he still grew up in a time when the prevailing attitude towards it was, you pussy, what's wrong with you? he's lost more comrades to suicide than combat, that should fucking tell him something.
he's the first one who assures other people it's okay to be not okay. the kids he works with, fellow front-line workers in cpd, the few friends he's got left from the rangers. it's okay for them. it's never been so for him. it's nothing but a stupid, self-imposed ultimatum.
his hands flex. the contrast to hers hardly goes unnoticed. )
I know.
( rationally, intellectually. he knows. but he's just not there yet. setbacks happen.
his hand aches, where the knife went through. it seems like it gets worse every year. )
βͺ there isn't any use in ignoring a direct request, even if she... even if she thinks that reassurance might be among the things he needs right now. it's less her agreeing with him, then, and more her saying that it's perhaps just not the time for reassurance, yet. like putting together a puzzle of a kind, some pieces need finding first. β«
Where did you go?
βͺ she... has an idea, but she'd like to hear it from him. likewise, she is picking up the towel, gently dabbing at his hands to remove the blood, see the truth of the damage. β«
( part of him wishes she'd be rougher about it. it feels like the blood's in every line and crease and whorl of his fingerprints, even though he knows it isn't. christ, he feels like a walking cliche, that unhinged parable of a soul that's scrubbing their hands bloody in a sink after some traumatic event.
he closes his eyes. deep breath. five things. fridge, stove, knife rack, window, flora. )
The cabin. (four things. countertop. glass. towel. flora. ) It's out of the way.
βͺ pain grounds, not words she'd ever thought, but actions she'd taken. digging until her paws hurt just because it's easier than thinking, and dealing. she wonders if that is what he'd done, why his hands look this way right now. not digging, but something repetitive to focus on. β«
It's a lovely place.
βͺ it's much more to him than that, and her words sound empty even to herself. his eyes are closed, this is costing him much more than he's saying, much more than he is trying to show.
his hands look less awful now that she's done, but there's little she can do against the blisters. perhaps it helps if all he has to do for a moment is to sit and breathe. β«
Not to hype it up too much, but I'm going to mix some cinnamon into the pancake batter, 'cause it's Christmas.
βͺ flora, it's november. early november.
she's back on her feet, though, and back by the stove. now, she wouldn't say that food is going to fix it, but she's had enough dark days to know that no food is usually worse, and there's something soothing in knowing that, even if he might not have an appetite, he's at least willing to give eating a try. pancake number two already spreads in the pan, and this is one's going to turn out perfect, she feels it. β«
( he repeats that like he's trying to grasp the passage of time, and glances out a window. no, can't be december yet, the house next door always puts up their lights on the first of the year. hyperbole. right, that's a thing that exists and that flora uses sometimes. he lets out his breath in a huff. )
It was always hard to tell on deployment. Hundred and twenty degrees never really felt like the holiday spirit, you know?
βͺ with holidays, it's not so much hyperbole and more of a... habit she's picked up ever since she managed to scrape her way off the streets. holidays are hard to miss, and that's just about the worst thing about them β nothing like a thirty-odd days-long stretch of reminders that this must be just about the loneliest time of an already lonely year. now that she has people to spend these times with, her enthusiasm is...
well. hard to rein in. but she hears his hesitation, catches the glance. he must have lost track of time, and hard, on his timeout. β«
No, I guess not. βͺ can an unexpected turn still be expected? she flips a pancake, fetches a plate so it's ready to go. β« The whole of it doesn't sound too much like it'd be feeling like any kind of cheer, to be honest.
( he pulls the plate towards himself when she puts it down. normally he'd insist that they eat together once there's enough, but he really is famished and knows she won't mind. he leans across the island so he can grab cutlery out of the drawer, butter's already on the countertop in a little dish. syrup... shit. cupboard?
honestly he doesn't even care. butter's enough for now. he's slathering it up as he continues; )
Hoi was a fucking Buddhist, but he — you know, he always found a way to decorate for the rest of us. We used to do this thing with ammo boxes. They were already green, so... you know. A couple strands of lights from back home, some kitschy candy canes, Jefferson's fucking... Harry Potter scarf. Gaudiest thing I've ever seen, I think his girlfriend made it or something. But we made it work.
( he doesn't talk about his team. but he always does swear more when he mentions anything military. call it a tic. )
βͺ they're not names she's heard before, hoi and jefferson. 'course, she knows where the syrup is, she bought the stuff in variations, and she sets the bottle of it down in front of him, even though he's already chosen butter. seeing him eat, and eagerly so, is as much of a relief as she thought it'd be, and she's not about to waste time watching when she could instead make some more pancakes. looks like he needs them.
and it keeps her hands busy while she wonders if hoi and jefferson are out there somewhere, too. jefferson with his girlfriend and (what she suspects might be his own, enthusiastically-purchased) harry potter mugs β they make mugs, right β having coffee in the morning. hoi, elsewhere, turning over for an extra five minutes. better that way than to think of the alternative.
she knows she's being overly optimistic. he's talked of the desert, even if it hadn't been much. β«
Somehow the only stockings I can picture got holes where the toes should be.
I will have you know, Kurik was an expert tailor. We used to pay him with smokes for all obligatory uniform mending.
( something about being raised by his grandma. he wishes he'd paid more attention. if he'd known how much those men would come to mean to him, he'd have listened more and talked less in those early days. and now the door is closed, no going back. )
βͺ there's the 'was' again, right by the image of a guy who was, what? maybe twenty? calling sam 'crowe' and wrangling his entire hand in the gash of a uniform shirt, incredulous or amused, but with a cigarette between his lips for sure.
she wonders how many things sam sees on the day to day that remind him of those friends. β«
Oh, I never really smoked. Cherry cigarillos a couple times a year.
( he was a highschool athlete with scholarship prospects. somebody would've killed him. whether it was his parents, or bill and hers, or his coach remains to be seen. plenty of rangers smoked, but sam'd learned by then to value his lungs. which is probably a good thing, now that he's missing part of one. )
But they were good currency. Kinda like prison that way.
βͺ flora's never had the money to waste on cigarettes, and really... most else had felt like a slope to fall down on. hell knows she's not drinking anything at all these days for good reason. β«
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
βͺ she knows him ββ this part of him. he'll vent about the kids sometimes, and god, so does she β they're a handful, each and every one of them. but it's venting, and under all that is a deep, genuine love for each of the youths that pass through the doors of the centre, no matter how fucked up (or eager to fuck someone else up) they might be.
all that said, though, she can take a hint. there's a considerable silence between her words and his, and while she's not pretending that everything's fine, she wonders if she's really bringing that across by not addressing any of it at all. does she want to address it? the wish to leave him privacy, to give him time and space and whatever else he needs, is battling with her own wish to know. perhaps it's a need, even, the necessity of communication between two people who... who'll be like this, for a while. maybe for all the while she possibly has to give, if anyone asked her how she feels about him.
she doesn't want to prod, hell knows she'd needed her own sweet time before she could talk to boris about some of her life. pushing doesn't build trust. but leaving him sitting there, maybe feeling as if she's feigning normalcy, probably doesn't build much of anything, either.
that, she dwells on, as she mixes together the batter for the pancakes in silence. then: β«
You know I'm not... upset about you taking time and space when you need it, right?
no subject
No. I know.
( two distinct, separate clauses. he sort of tips his head off to one side. he doesn't really want to keep on. talking about it. but the thing is — he likes flora, wants to make things work with her. and he's been trying to put some of the tools he's picked up in therapy into action.
his expression cycles through several different emotions. annoyance, disgust. shame. it settles on something like resignation, and then: )
It'd probably be easier if you were.
no subject
I don't think it would do much. Except maybe make you feel bad, and that's not really what I'm about. That's not helping anything.
βͺ the pan's heated now, sizzling away, and she pours the first ladle-full of pancake batter in. β«
It wasn't great, for me. 'Course I'd have liked to know. βͺ she shoots him a glance, trying to read him. β« But I think this is something you did because it brought you... some kind of relief. And I'm not going to shame you for trying to do something to help yourself, you know?
cw suicidal ideation;
Sorry.
( he says it more out of reflex than sincerity. truth is, he's not entirely sure how he feels. badly, sure, but not... entirely apologetic. because she's right, he needed to do it for himself. he can feel bad for how he did it but not the doing itself.
he stretches his legs out, pushes the stool back away from the island. looks down at his hands briefly, flexes them. there's bruises beneath the skin across his knuckles. dead blood pulled up to the surface, yellowing with the age of the injuries.
more than anything, he's fighting the urge to. stop. stop talking, stop this. get up and walk out. it's what he always does with women when things get in too deep. without even realizing it, his breathing's ticked up. the slightest, faintest bit uneven. )
I know it's not the best, uh. You know. Coping method.
( but it's what he's got. he used to run himself down for it. sorry i'm a shitty person. he's mostly worked that out with himself. in the most awkwardly stilted tone she's probably ever heard out of him: )
I'll try and give you a heads up next time.
( because he can't promise there won't be one. he's not there yet. might not ever be. but, you know. he's not dead, and that's something. he left his gun in the lockbox under his bed when he left, that's something too. not that there wouldn't have been ways to orchestrate his death without it, but. it's the quickest, surest method, and it's the one he's sat up long nights with, letting the weight of it drag in his palm.
the truth was, he didn't really think of flora when he did it. he told bill, because she's been such a cornerstone of his life for more than half of it now. they've known each other twenty years, dated and married for ten. she's still the one he reaches for.
he does love flora, but she's part of his new life. not the old one that's ruled and ruined in equal measure by what the desert wrought in him. and when his past crept in and threw out all the progress he thought he'd made, he'd gone to ground.
it's funny. he doesn't really panic. anxiety has always been easy to keep at bay. but he can't get his breathing under control. can't even it out. can't regulate. christ, he wants to sink right into the floor. )
no subject
If it's an option. If not... I'm not gonna get mad, either. You said it yourself, you're coping. I wanna make it easier for you, not harder.
βͺ and if easier means hearing it from bill rather than from sam himself, then that's alright with her. this isn't some kind of game of closeness she's trying to win. it's important to her that he knows that she would want to know, it's more important that he knows she's got his back no matter what.
still, she pushes the pan back on the stovetop. the first one's never much good, anyway, and the batter can wait. β«
Is it okay for you if I take a look at your hands?
βͺ she doesn't say: it hurts just to see them like this. it's true though, seeing him as he is right now is painful, and in no pitying way. β«
You can say 'no'.
βͺ there are a lot of implied questions in it, after all: is it okay if she gets closer, is it okay if she sits down with him? she's not asking if it would help β she's not sure he'd have an answer for that one in the first place. much as she wants to help, this is new for her, and she's got no manual to go by. what she has is so much love for him that she wants to find out what works, step by step, for today and any other day that's as hard on him as this time. β«
no subject
no subject
Bill told me.
βͺ she guesses that won't stay a secret long, or that it might not have been one in the first place. β«
That you just need space like that sometimes. So you... don't have to talk about it anymore than you want to. I mean, of course I'd like to know, I care about you. But if you can't, or if you just don't want to β
βͺ she's rambling, she knows. β«
I need you to know that this is okay.
no subject
Flora. Hey.
( he shakes the water off, and reaches for her hands. just holding them for now. )
That's the thing. It's not. I know it's shitty. I'm not looking for you to excuse my behaviour because I know it's not. Right, or healthy, or whatever the fuck else you want to call it. Stop it. Just... stop it.
no subject
Okay.
βͺ it is, at least, a valid point she can recognise ββΒ in the long run, it won't do for her to just nod and justify everything. and if he can work on this, if he can let her know, if they can maybe a reach a point where he won't have to run and vanish for a week, that would be better. healthier, if that's what they're going to try and call it. he can probably sense the 'but' before she opens her mouth again. β«
I think what I'm trying most to say is you get to be unhealthy, and unwell, and not perfectly together. And that I'm going to be here for you through that. I don't want to put the pressure of a miracle solution on you and you alone.
no subject
he's the first one who assures other people it's okay to be not okay. the kids he works with, fellow front-line workers in cpd, the few friends he's got left from the rangers. it's okay for them. it's never been so for him. it's nothing but a stupid, self-imposed ultimatum.
his hands flex. the contrast to hers hardly goes unnoticed. )
I know.
( rationally, intellectually. he knows. but he's just not there yet. setbacks happen.
his hand aches, where the knife went through. it seems like it gets worse every year. )
Please stop trying to reassure me.
no subject
βͺ there isn't any use in ignoring a direct request, even if she... even if she thinks that reassurance might be among the things he needs right now. it's less her agreeing with him, then, and more her saying that it's perhaps just not the time for reassurance, yet. like putting together a puzzle of a kind, some pieces need finding first. β«
Where did you go?
βͺ she... has an idea, but she'd like to hear it from him. likewise, she is picking up the towel, gently dabbing at his hands to remove the blood, see the truth of the damage. β«
no subject
he closes his eyes. deep breath. five things. fridge, stove, knife rack, window, flora. )
The cabin. ( four things. countertop. glass. towel. flora. ) It's out of the way.
no subject
It's a lovely place.
βͺ it's much more to him than that, and her words sound empty even to herself. his eyes are closed, this is costing him much more than he's saying, much more than he is trying to show.
his hands look less awful now that she's done, but there's little she can do against the blisters. perhaps it helps if all he has to do for a moment is to sit and breathe. β«
Sam? Do you want to lie down?
βͺ or would breakfast be better? β«
You look like you need it.
no subject
( believe it or not, the easy slang is actually better than sharp, truncated enunciation. nah means he's doing better than no. )
If I went to bed and missed out on a patented Flora Hansard breakfast I'd really be in it.
no subject
βͺ flora, it's november. early november.
she's back on her feet, though, and back by the stove. now, she wouldn't say that food is going to fix it, but she's had enough dark days to know that no food is usually worse, and there's something soothing in knowing that, even if he might not have an appetite, he's at least willing to give eating a try. pancake number two already spreads in the pan, and this is one's going to turn out perfect, she feels it. β«
no subject
( he repeats that like he's trying to grasp the passage of time, and glances out a window. no, can't be december yet, the house next door always puts up their lights on the first of the year. hyperbole. right, that's a thing that exists and that flora uses sometimes. he lets out his breath in a huff. )
It was always hard to tell on deployment. Hundred and twenty degrees never really felt like the holiday spirit, you know?
no subject
well. hard to rein in. but she hears his hesitation, catches the glance. he must have lost track of time, and hard, on his timeout. β«
No, I guess not. βͺ can an unexpected turn still be expected? she flips a pancake, fetches a plate so it's ready to go. β« The whole of it doesn't sound too much like it'd be feeling like any kind of cheer, to be honest.
no subject
( he pulls the plate towards himself when she puts it down. normally he'd insist that they eat together once there's enough, but he really is famished and knows she won't mind. he leans across the island so he can grab cutlery out of the drawer, butter's already on the countertop in a little dish. syrup... shit. cupboard?
honestly he doesn't even care. butter's enough for now. he's slathering it up as he continues; )
Hoi was a fucking Buddhist, but he — you know, he always found a way to decorate for the rest of us. We used to do this thing with ammo boxes. They were already green, so... you know. A couple strands of lights from back home, some kitschy candy canes, Jefferson's fucking... Harry Potter scarf. Gaudiest thing I've ever seen, I think his girlfriend made it or something. But we made it work.
( he doesn't talk about his team. but he always does swear more when he mentions anything military. call it a tic. )
no subject
and it keeps her hands busy while she wonders if hoi and jefferson are out there somewhere, too. jefferson with his girlfriend and (what she suspects might be his own, enthusiastically-purchased) harry potter mugs β they make mugs, right β having coffee in the morning. hoi, elsewhere, turning over for an extra five minutes. better that way than to think of the alternative.
she knows she's being overly optimistic. he's talked of the desert, even if it hadn't been much. β«
Somehow the only stockings I can picture got holes where the toes should be.
no subject
( something about being raised by his grandma. he wishes he'd paid more attention. if he'd known how much those men would come to mean to him, he'd have listened more and talked less in those early days. and now the door is closed, no going back. )
no subject
she wonders how many things sam sees on the day to day that remind him of those friends. β«
Kinda hard to picture you with cigarettes.
no subject
( he was a highschool athlete with scholarship prospects. somebody would've killed him. whether it was his parents, or bill and hers, or his coach remains to be seen. plenty of rangers smoked, but sam'd learned by then to value his lungs. which is probably a good thing, now that he's missing part of one. )
But they were good currency. Kinda like prison that way.
no subject
Probably more brotherly than straight up cash.