when we collide we come together

[atouchofka]

Alain had thrown himself into the work Kyrat offered, not without some gratitude. It was something to do, to take his mind off everything that had happened and might still be happening, far off in New Canaan. He knew Roland and Bert were alive - couldn't believe he wouldn't have felt it if they weren't - but the rest? He couldn't help wondering what was going on with them, any more than he could help wondering just what Walter's presence here had meant. The pieces didn't add up, no matter how he tried to arrange them, and it was both frustrating and a little frightening.

It wasn't exactly reassuring that he hadn't been able to pick up Walter's spoor, either. He'd looked, and looked closely, investigating every street and every building he could, but after a week of searching, he had to admit that the wizard - and Vidalia, though he was slightly less concerned with her; she was Nariko's business, Kyrat's business, not his - wasn't going to be found. In all likelihood, they were both long gone, probably off with Farson's forces. He went on searching, but without much urgency, and that chore fell in priority. He had other work to do - helping the local people bring order back to their city, where they could, and trying to win their trust, and watching over Nariko (from a distance, usually, since he doubted she'd appreciate him hovering over her shoulder all the time).

But it was Walter he was looking for outside the city walls, when he heard the horn. It pulled him up short, and he looked up at the horizon, where the gunslingers were a tiny smudge of shadow which even his keen eyes couldn't make out clearly. The horn, though - that was unmistakable.

He turned on his heel and ran, ducking through streets he was coming to know, and finally knocking on Nariko's door. "Roland's near!"

Comments

[apassingafternoon]

"Because people who love each other help one another. If I'm bleeding out I'd think you'd be the first to come over and help me not bleed out. So I'm not understanding why you keep holding on to all of this anger and sadness when you could just deal with it and let me help you. Right now it feels like you love your anger and how easy it is to be afraid of not having it more than you love me."

When she huffed it was shaky and her eyes immediately filled with tears of her own, but she kept her gaze forward, as if looking at him might destroy her resolve.

"I know you were like this before, too, to an extent but it wasn't this bad. Before, you were at least kind of healed, but now you just keep bleeding and I thought if you yelled and got angry then maybe it would help, but it's not. So am I just supposed to keep pretending everything is fine when you are very obviously not 'fine'?"

[askthelookout]

For a moment, Bert stared at her in pure incomprehension. It was clear that none of this had occurred to him, and really, why should it? He'd never had much in the way of emotional intelligence, not really. In his experience, physical injuries and real-world problems were the ones you could do something about. Bleeding out and being angry were different because...

...Well, because they just were.

(Alain, halfway across the building, caught a wave of what was going on and pressed his hand to his forehead. Gods, this was going to take some untangling, and he wasn't at all sure how.)

"I'm not..." Bert said after a little while, and his voice was as confused as his expression. "I mean, I am dealing with it. I mean, trying to." He could feel some part of him, the part he really hated, wanting to crumple up and cry. Can't you see I'm trying? Can't you see I'm doing all I can? He screwed up his face for a moment, to hide the tears that were momentarily threatening. "What do you want from me? I mean, you can't slap a bandage on what's happened, you can't stitch it up, and if even Alain hasn't healed, what the hell do you expect from me?"

And there was that anger again, coming up like a shield, but it wasn't the same anger, not really. It didn't have direction, didn't have even the pretence of being about anyone else. It was anger at himself, for his own vulnerability and his own inability to understand. He looked away, slamming his fist against the top of the wall so hard there was an audible crunch of cartilage.

[apassingafternoon]

Kaine had no right to complain about her reaction when she’d essentially asked for it, so she held back the desire to flinch when he crunched his hand along the wall. She waited a moment or two, as if it really might do some good. When she spoke again she’d found some evenness, and looked out at the city again. Maybe it would help if she wasn’t staring at him, or maybe she still found it difficult to open up about this stuff and she needed to alleviate the pressure.

“You’re right, I can’t do any of that.” She pauses, narrowing her eyes out into the distance. “I can’t stitch anything anymore than you can make me stop being upset. You can’t make me un-sad about the decisions that both you and Roland have made. What I have to do is wait until it feels like everything is manageable, and then I’m going to go and cry underneath my comforter. It’s going to be ugly, gross, and awful. At the end of it Gilead and Aranasa will still be gone, Jaime will still be dead, Devola, Lena, Christie, my parents, my grandma - crying isn’t going to bring them back, and I won’t magically recover after doing so, letting myself feel stuff is awful. It’s the worst.”

She probably wasn’t making the best case here, which was why Bert really needed to patient with her. “But if I get rid of all of that there’s room for other stuff. There’s more room for being able to spend time with you for however long we’ve got. There’s teaching the girls about carving and learning their birthdays and their favorite colors. Eventually there’s room for being okay. Everyone’s still dead and it’s awful and it hurts, but at least I’ll be able to get up and function without feeling like every moment I’m conscious I’m just a living dead woman.”

Kaine finally looked back at him and reached out to put her hand over his fist, though she hesitated, fingers wavering before she simply did it. “I don’t know what you need. But throwing around jokes and quietly burying it and expecting it to go away on its own isn’t working. You’ve been doing your absolute best, and I am proud of you for that, but you don’t have to bear it silently. I’m right here.”

For all that she’d managed to string together it all felt terribly useless and thin, though towards the end it felt as if she was pouring her heart into each sentiment. That was the most torturous part about love, she could never fully express how badly she wanted to help make everything better, words would never do the job.

[askthelookout]

Bert was quiet for a long moment, looking from her hand to her face, biting down on the inside of his cheek. It was almost a minute before finally, wordlessly, he turned his hand over to grasp hers, lacing his fingers through hers and holding tight. He looked away then, closing his eyes tightly and heaving a deep sigh.

"Never thought anyone'd accuse me of bearing things quietly," he said at last, and looked up at her sidelong, from under his long, dark lashes. His smile wasn't really a smile at all: faking them was getting harder and harder, apparently. "Roland, aye. Alain, sure. Pretty sure my job around here's to bitch as loud and long as I can." That not-smile faded, and he shook his head, casting his eyes downwards again. For a moment more, he worried at his lip, tussling against his own pride and stubbornness, before he managed to string the truth together. "Every time I think we're pulling something back, it gets taken away again. We came back to our kin; they died. We retook Gilead; it's gone. We found the girls; they're staying here. I just..."

He screwed up his face, embarrassed by this touchy-feely conversation, wishing he'd never started saying this in the first place. "What about when you go? What then? Alain's tied himself to everyone he meets, and Roland's got Nariko and his thrice-damned Tower, but me? I'm the fucking ka-mai with nothing left to keep hanging onto." To his horror, his voice cracked audibly, and although he tightened his jaw, it wasn't enough to stop the sobs from threatening. "I need someone to stay, Kaine. Just stay with me. Just tell me when I die, someone's gonna be with me longer than it t-takes to bury me and say a prayer..."

Now he was crying, like something in him had burst; it came out in humiliating, gasping sobs, the sort of childish all-encompassing crying that made it hard to breathe. He pushed his free hand hard up against his mouth, but it did nothing to stop the tears, which had been building up for months and weren't about to be pushed back inside now.

[apassingafternoon]

She reached up to take his hand from his mouth, gripping it so firmly that he couldn’t hope to untangle it from her own without a real fight. “Come on, you sound like you’re already halfway there, go for broke. If anyone tries to say a word I’m gonna say it’s me, and then I’m going to punch the shit out of them.” That wasn’t an attempt at humor, Bert was a man and men had weird forms of pride and they were technically out in the open-ish, but an ego wasn’t getting in the way here. Bending inward, Kaine pressed the back of his neck to her shoulder, not only because she wanted to hold him, but because she really did want to protect him from roving eyes.

“You were stuck with me the moment that Nariko engaged us, Cuthbert. I’m going to follow wherever you go whether you damn well like it or not! I don’t care if it’s the Tower or another world or all of this one! I’m going to be with you even if ka or whatever the hell else tries to get in the way.”

It was her turn to crack at the seams, her voice wobbled at it’s edges, and her grip on his neck was becoming harsher as she tried to keep herself together - and failed. “You might go a moment before me, Bert, but losing you is the only thing that could well and truly kill me. I won’t leave you alone in this life or the next, I’ll lie next to your grave and you’ll just see me on the other side.”

And that was her limit. Kaine shuddered as if she’d been smacked, and sniffled loudly, shifting to wrap both arms around him and pull Bert as close as possible.

[askthelookout]

He tried to wrench his hand away, blindly and instinctively, but only for a moment. Then he relaxed into her grip, going limp up against her as another thick, choking sob racked him. He ought to say something, he knew, something to turn him from a sobbing child into a man again, but he couldn't for the life of him think what that would be. So he just cried against her shoulder, and when she embraced him, he answered by clinging to her in return, desperately tight, his hands clenching into fists against her back.

He didn't know how long he stayed like that, holding her tight with his shoulders shaking and his breath coming in thick, heavy gulps. It felt like forever. At last, though, his sobbing slowed, turning into sniffles and gulps, and he pulled away from her a little to wipe his eyes.

Biting his lip, he looked up at her, opened his mouth to say something, and then seemed to give up on the idea - his quick tongue didn't seem to be answering to him lately, anyway. He settled for kissing her, more forcefully than he meant to, tasting salt from his own tears.

I half apologize for the lil character bomb that has happened today elmo.gif

[apassingafternoon]

When they parted she reached into her pocket to tug out her handkerchief, but she didn't get very far before he kissed her. For a good second or two Kaine stayed like that, arms mid-air and useless and thrown by the strength in that kiss, but she leaned into it as easily as she could breathe. She didn't rush him, but when she had no choice but to come up for air Kaine giggled a bit, her forehead pressed against his.

"You're welcome, I guess?" Assuming that's what the kiss was about in the first place. She hadn't expected it at all, but you'd never find her complaining.

"So on a scale of one to one-hundred, how awful do you feel?" No one should ask her to be a comforting force, her delivery could stand to be refined.

never apologise. not even half.

[askthelookout]

"Two hundred?" Bert suggested brightly, his smile a little less brittle now. Only a little, but it was an improvement. He looked at her more seriously, reaching up to brush her hair back out of her face. "Better. A little. Thankee, Kaine."

He kissed her again, less desperately this time, and laughed rather thinly. "And cry pardon, for getting your shirt all wet. You look like you got caught in the rain." It wasn't that bad, really, but making a joke of it was always easier than being sincere, especially when the sincere thing would have been Cry pardon for breaking like a little girl.

[apassingafternoon]

"It's a shirt, it knows how to dry, Bert." She kissed the side of his forehead, and shifted her sleeve to wipe a part of his cheek affectionately.

"Let's go see the girls, I'm sure they're adoring my room. I have some work that needs doing, so I can't quite show you around yet but I'm sure you've missed Alain."

And since he couldn't seem to exist around Nariko without either of them beginning to snap their fangs, she couldn't ask him to come along with her. It would be nice to have Bert with her, he was a small bit more perceptive than her, he had slightly more experience in bigger groups, in leading them - she'd have appreciated the help.

But not at the expense of anyone's sanity.

[askthelookout]

"He's probably still sitting making cow-eyes at Ro'," Bert answered with a little laugh, wiping his eyes again, and shook his head. His hand came up, light and gentle, to brush over the curve of her jaw, and he was quiet for a moment. "You'll be back later, right? We can take a walk then. Or just go and find somewhere private." He winked, some of that easy humour starting to ebb back into his expression, and kissed her cheek.

[apassingafternoon]

If he could turn her different shades of pink then he must have been feeling a little better in one meaningful way or another. "There's no privacy outside the compound, but I will be back after debriefing, and there's likely one more planning meeting for the day." After that she should be free enough, though Kaine was being generous with herself by thinking she might not have guard duty in some form or another.

Work just didn't feel as important as this moment, or the idea of spending time with Bert when they had been surrounded by men for weeks. It, as well as the overall situation, hadn't left much room for anything ... Physical.

"Come on." Before getting to her feet Kaine leaned in for a short and sweet little kiss, and as she stood she made sure to take his hand

Do we want to leave them here, or...?

[askthelookout]

Bert smiled, although it still didn't wholly reach his eyes. There was something a little glassy about his look, almost uncertain. Still, he took her hand in return, lacing his fingers through hers. "You know," he commented brightly, "when you blush, you really blush. Red as a sunset." He squeezed her hand, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. "I always figured that was just Alain. Maybe it's a blonde people thing..."