2019-06-08 - Word Problems

Violet's been living here for several weeks now, but it's safe to say she's yet to make this house her home. For two solid weeks, all she brought over were some clothes to put in the closet - and not even all of them. But as the month of May dragged on, she soon began to fill a single drawer and then another, until a whole side of the dresser was just for her, and the closet in the apartment lay bare. And now, as we head into June, things have begun to appear. They are quiet things, small additions - a few history books to wedge between the medical ones, another potted plant now hanging in the kitchen window and blooming trailing flowers. A navy blue crystal slim crystal vase in the center of the kitchen table, a throw-pillow and quilt for the sofa. And a single picture of the two of them for the mantle, out of the way of the others, as though Violet's not sure where yet she fits in his family but knows there is a place for her still.

These things come in small doses. She puts them out one by one and waits a few days to see if it disappears, as though that would be the trigger to know that she isn't allowed to bring any more things, that she isn't allowed here. But one by one, Violet makes a space for herself in his space.

Today she comes through the front door with a small wicker basket. Inside are various items for the bath and an antique jewelry box. She bumps the door with her hip and draws herself inside, the basket handle dangling from her fingers. "Alex? It's Violet," she calls out from the door, straying there as though she were still not comfortable with letting herself inside. "Are you here?"

None of Violet's things have vanished. A few things have been moved after their arrival - the quilt got folded slimmer, the vase got lilacs put into it (and new ones put in when those ones wilted), the picture got arranged among the others. The maid is the one that moved the potted plant, in case it ever comes up, because she didn't like wiping potting soil off the counter all the damn time. The books and the throw-pillow were fine where they started out, so they're still in the same place. So, yes, Violet's thing shave been permitted to stay, as has Violet herself.

She must have some way of coming-and-going independent of Alex's car? Because he obviously didn't give her a ride here this lovely spring evening, but there are signs of life inside. The downstairs lights are on, and Alex's shoes are next to the door. Despite having thought it was very weird the first time she came over, he seems to have adopted this habit as a good one. The lights leading up the stairs are also on. And the ones in the loft. And the ones in the bedroom. So we can assume that's where Alex is. It helps that his voice comes from up there, where he calls, "Yes," to answer her.

Violet does, in fact, have her own way of coming-and-going independent of Alex's car. It's called her feet, which explains why she's wearing sneakers with the polka-dot skirt she's got on. She actually likes the walks now that the weather was warming up, but maybe she should get a car at some point. At least it wasn't raining. She toes off her sneakers and sets them neatly by the door before she dares to step inside further, a small smile touching the corners of her lips when she hears him by the door. "Okay. I'm coming upstairs!" Was she warning him? Maybe.

Either way, she flicks off the light once she climbs the stairs, and frowns at the one that is on in the loft. That one gets turned off, too, the smile slipping from her face. "Are you okay?" she asks as she turns into the bedroom, the basket swinging from her fingertips. "You left the lights on." That wasn't like him.

He is, in fact, all the way in the bathroom. She'll figure that out eventually. But first she gets to pass the shirt on the end of the bed, with the big tears and all the blood. So that should be fun for her? "Mmm, I've been better," comes the tight-voiced response.

Assuming she's going to come the rest of the way into where he actually is, she'll find that Alex is doing some lovely home-remedy work. He's gotten himself down to his boxers, and he's had enough time that she's not walking into an incredibly gruesome scene, but it's not pretty. There's a bruised slice on his abdomen, cutting from his belly-button toward his back, and that's what he's in the process of stitching closed right now. It involves a lot of hissing, but he's like ninety percent done already. The slice across his chest is another problem, but he's obviously taken the time to clean these wounds. And whatever; the one on his chest probably doesn't even need stitches.

Violet does, in fact, pass by his shirt on the way into the room. "Oh," her hand not on the basket goes to her throat, and she finds a quickness to her step to chase herself into the bathroom. Where she immediately comes to a full stop, her already owlishly wide eyes practically bulging when she sees him giving himself stitches in the bathroom. The basket falls out of her hand, soap and shampoo and bubble bath bottles tumbling out. The jewelry box makes a THUNK sound as it clatters to the floor. "Oh, oh no," the color drains from her face, making her almost translucently pale. "What happened? Oh, are you .. No," her voice shakes, and she kicks a bottle of shampoo to send it scattering off into the bedroom as she pushes her way into the bathroom. The words come out in a rush, "Alex, why didn't you call me? You're hurt, you're so hurt!"

The amount of awkward twisting that it must have taken for Alex to get the stitches on his side had to have been comical. Even now, that he's to the point that it's just what's immediately in front of him, he has to lean his head back several times, comparing notes with his actual sight against what he can see in the mirror. Trying to stitch up one's self is bad enough. Trying to stitch up one's self while looking in the mirror is even harder. His chuckle is sparse, trying not to break focus - and also not make his stomach move too much because ow. "Call you to do what, Violet?" He pulls on the string, snips it, pulls, snips, looks at her in the bathroom mirror with a smile that apologizes for this fairly gruesome scene. But still, "I'm almost done."

So at least he's too preoccupied to notice her spilling toiletries all over the floor. WTF.

Hey, at least they didn't open and splooge all over the ground! She'll pick them up later.

Right now, she is very preoccupied with ignoring the makeshift surgery he's performing on himself while assessing the rest of him. She'll just ignore the gruesome and concentrate on the.. slightly prettier? Like his face, yes, she could look there, and at the tight apologetic smile that reflects through the bathroom mirror. Her steps stagger slightly at his question though. Call her to do what? "To.. to tell me you were hurt," she touches her hand to her chest, tightening around the pendant that still hangs there. She very rarely takes it off now. "I just.." No, there was no need for emotion right now. She takes in a breath and comes a little closer, reaching out to touch his shoulder. Her fingers were trembling. "Alex, what happened?"

"Because it seemed more important to do this," with the stitches. And the rubbing alcohol on the counter, the bottle of antibiotics, the gauze that he'll get to shortly. "Than to call you and tell you that I was hurt." The phrasing of which only occurs to Alex as particularly bad once the words are out of his mouth, leaving him frowning at his own reflection. "No," that's not what he meant. "I thought I better take care of this first, and then call you." There, that's what he meant. He snips the last of the string he's going to need, and puts things down on the counter, waiting to tell her what happened after he finds out if his initial and dumb response is going to bite him in the ass.

Those first words make her stomach drop, and Violet's very startled reflection stares back at him in the mirror. "Oh," is all she can manage to say in reply. If heartbreak was a visible thing, it would be seen in the way that her blue eyes darken and the red splotches that appear on her cheeks; it was in the way her hand slips from his shoulder, and the way she draws back. "I.." she swallows, casts her eyes down to the floor, and drops her head into a slow nod. "No, I .. completely understand," she lies through her teeth when he amends. "Here," she clears her throat, because it was far more important to take care of him than worry about the heart that he's shattered into a million pieces, and she reaches to collect the gauze. "Let me.. I can.. I want to help."

With commendable gentleness, considering the situation that he's in, Alex says, "That came out differently than I intended it to. I meant - " Something considerably less brutal, we can hope! "I was hoping to get through this," with the stitches and all that stuff mentioned in the previous pose, "before you got here." And hey! He came close! He takes the gauze out of her hands and puts it on the counter, then puts a nice square of bandage over the tidy little row of stitches on his abdomen, beckoning for her (unsterilized, sigh) hands. "Hold this here, firmly, please." While he does things with medical tape.

"No, I.." Violet starts, stops, and wraps her fingers tightly around the gauze. It's gauze, so it doesn't hurt when she squeezes it into her palm, her focus somewhere hovering somewhere beneath his eyes and above that gnarly gash on his body. Like.. his chin! Yes, his chin was a good place to stare. "It's fine," she decides, swallowing again as she starts to unwrap the gauze. "This.. is more important. You are more important, you're hurt and.." she should have been here. But he wanted to get through this before she got here. Her brow wrinkles as she steps forward, scraping her teeth across her bottom lip as she moves first to the sink to wash her hands - because she's not DUMB - and then to hold the square of bandage in place after she dries them off. "Please tell me what happened."

In his defense, Alex was going to take his chances with her unwashed hands. He definitely took some antibiotics before she got here, so he was probably trusting to the fact that penicillin > whatever she has on her fingers. The hole was already deep enough that he wasn't going to fuss about her germs, so he just winds up wearing a guilty frown when Violet goes and washes up, all unbidden. WAY TO MAKE HIM FEEL EVEN WORSE.

Anyway, while he's doing the thing with the medical tape, holding the bandage down where it belongs, he explains, "I took a walk after work." Because they weren't planning to meet up until later, for whatever reason. "The fireflies were out, and it was very nice, actually. But then this tree had a face in it and a heartbeat and..." He shakes his head, like he can't explain that part, so he just keeps doing the tape. "Your friend was there, too. Hannah? And there were lumberjacks with axes. But they were also trees. And they wanted to put us into the sawmill. The axes did this." The important bit is, "I'll be fine. It looks very bad," and hurts very bad, but he has all that composure for a reason, "but it's not life-threatening."

Violet does a very good job with her very clean and sanitary hands of keeping the gauze in place even if her hands were trembling. She also does a very good job of looking anywhere but his face, so whatever guilty look he's wearing? Will have to stay his own. She keeps abusing that poor battered bottom lip of hers, gnawing on it over and over as she listens. And though her eyes mist up, she somehow blinks back the tears, keeping herself together ... for now. "Oh, Alex," she whispers. "Axes? You.. you could've.." she hiccups the words. "I'm so glad you are o.." but the 'k' part of that doesn't manifest. Because in her eyes? Which have now finally focused on the wound on his side? He was definitely not okay. "I'm so sorry. But you made it out," she swallows back the sobs. "Is.. is Hannah okay?"

"Yes." Axes. That's what he said, right? Like, in English? Alex repeats his, "Yes," for the okayness of Hannah. "I think she was... using her abilities?" Is that the right term? "To launch pieces of their bodies back at them. It was very strange." He might still be a little dazed himself, but - with the bandage in place, with everything all buttoned up and no more of his blood coming out of his body - he's finally able to take a nice, calming breath, peel off his sterile gloves and pitch them into the trash can, and put his hands on either of her shoulders. "I'll be fine, Violet. I promise. It looks bad, I know, but that's mostly bruising." Because axe.

"Oh," this was fine. Everything was fine. Violet's breathing was staggering now, but at least she's not bursting into tears. This was growth, right? Sure, she couldn't look him in the eyes, but hey! Her hands linger in place for much longer than necessary against him considering he was all patched up now, as though she could somehow will that wound into healing, though it was probably far too large for her to handle. She blinks a few times, letting her hands finally drop, about to take a step away when he lowers his hands to her shoulders. And that's about the time that her breath catches. "Yes," she says numbly. "You're fine. That's why you didn't call me. Because you are fine. You're just.. s-stitching yourself up in the bathroom and you were going to call me after maybe and you're fine, you're fine. I should .. should text Hannah, maybe."

So, like, is this the point at which Violet starts to maybe understand why Alex is divorced? Because he does shit like this? Just curious.

"I didn't call you, because I wanted to take care of this before you got here." Alex repeats this patiently, like slowing it down will help it get through to her. "It looks very bad, and I suspected you'd be upset." And was right, because he's always right! "So I was trying to make it look better." And it does! Kinda. Like, compared to how it looked when he first got home, but she wasn't here for that, sooooo.

Anyway, this hole is pretty deep. So he just gives her shoulders a squeeze and releases them, nodding. Sure, text Hannah. He's going to put away all the crap on the counter while she does that.

Violet's eyes finally snap up to him, and there's a little heat behind the stare. "I said I understand," she says firmly, far more direct than Violet typically is, and she pulls away from him immediately. Her steps are a bit clipped as she goes out of the bathroom, taking a moment to right the basket that she dropped on the floor and throw the bottles back into it with just a hint of aggression. She tucks the basket out of the way, and she really should go and get her phone to send a message to Hannah. Instead, she turns right back around, folding her arms across her chest.

"What do I mean to you?" The words come out suddenly, far more forcefully than she meant them to, and it actually makes her recoil as though she could run away from them. But even though the question scares the hell out of her? She doesn't take it back.

You know what Alex doesn't have? Random bottles of Percocet laying around. 🙁 Extra Strength Tylenol will have to do, and he's just gotten a couple of them into his hand when Violet returns, having fixed the basket of stuff. See, he thought she was going to go off and text someone, so he thought there'd be time to take the Tylenol and tidy up a little. So he's visibly surprised when she comes right back with that question, blinking through his confusion while asking an awkwardly-phrased one back at her: "What do you mean what do you mean to me?"

At least she didn't come back into the bathroom. She was purposefully standing outside, not blocking the doorway, but sort of hovering in that space. The returned question sort of startles her though, and she's left blinking rapidly. Though it probably wasn't readily apparent, there was consideration to backing off and just going to text Hannah. That's absolutely what she should do. But she was frozen in space, fretting over the words that came tumbling without her putting enough thought to it, and while what she was thinking wasn't really projecting? The fact that she was hurt should be. "I just.. Because if I.. and you.." she stumbles, falters. And then, fuck this. "This hurts, Alex," she says finally, quietly. Honestly. "That you didn't.. think to call me right away. That you didn't let me help. That you didn't think .. I was important enough to be informed."

Alex starts... and stops. And starts... and stops. He never looks anywhere else but at Violet during all this. Even when he slides the untaken pills off his hand and onto the edge of the counter, next to the things that need to be put away, he's still holding dark eyes on her blue ones. Finally, "I understand." And he does, it's not just lip-service. There are no excuses offered nor further attempts to explain himself. Levelly, "It didn't occur to me that you would take this," words words, he's looking for one that's not coming to him, "the way you are. I'm sorry, Violet. It won't happen again." They live together; he's frustrated; she would know this. The exhale through his nose, the thumb tapping the edge of the counter, the relentlessly level and near-unblinking fix of his eyes on hers, he has his tells.

They were quite the pair, weren't they? She upset, he frustrated, and his level words didn't seem to make anything any better. Mostly on account of the nose-exhale, the thumb tapping, all those little tells that suggest he wasn't very happy. She doesn't move towards him, but she doesn't move her gaze from his eyes either. "I am.." she licks her lips, swallows. "I want to be someone .. who is important enough to call," she says that quietly, slowly, because the words are very awkward. "I want to be that person. To you. Because you're that person to me. That's what.. that's what you mean, to me," she bites her bottom lip, "And it's okay if you're frustrated with me but it's not okay if you don't tell me why."

Alex understands. That much was already said, and it was true. But understanding is not agreeing. "You are someone important enough to call. If there was anything you could do, or if there was anything you needed to know, I would call you. But you were coming home anyway, and there was nothing you can do, so why would I call you?" That's the source of his frustration. "What purpose would it have served? I would still have had to go through the same sequence of events, and all that would have been different is that you would have been here, worrying, because it looked very bad." Once more through the nose, and he shakes his head, chasing away the irritation creeping into his voice. "I'm sorry. It just doesn't make sense to me."

"Because I could have been here for you! I could have been here with you. Because it doesn't matter if I could have helped with the stitches or if I would have fussed over you being hurt, Alex, because I want you to.." Violet tries to make sense of this mess of feeling, and she wraps her arms around herself to fold herself into a hug. "Because I want you to want me here. When you're hurt. When you're scared. When things don't make sense. I want you to want me to be here with you. I want ..." she flinches, because this was all so very hard for her to say. "I don't know how to make sense of this, Alex. But I .. I care about you, and it shouldn't matter if I could've fixed you, I could've been here. I want you to want me to be here."

"You are here." Alex continues to be confused and frustrated. "I knew that you would be here. It's not as though I called you and said to stay away. Why are you taking this as some sort of referendum on how much I care about you?" Can't think of the word 'personally,' no problem with 'referendum.' GG, Alex. "I didn't ask you to rush home because it looked very bad, Violet. Which I can handle. In fact, it's what I do for a living. So I'm sorry that it hurt your feelings that I didn't think you needed to be here while I was dealing with an immediate problem that I'm wholly capable of handling by myself." He holds a hand over the bandage, the solution to that immediate problem. "I am glad that you are here now, because I am scared and things don't make sense. Including this whole conversation."

He should just go back to saying 'hmm' and 'interesting.' 🙁

"It's not about the fact that you're hurt, Alex!" Violet was also scared and confused, and the twitch of her shoulders and the way that she was squeezing her arms around her chest in a great big hug showed that she was just as frustrated as he was. And probably extraordinarily uncomfortable with where this conversation has been going. "I just want to be the person that you call, even when They take a big bite and it looks really bad. Even when they take just a nibble and you're not bleeding and giving yourself stitches in the bathroom, Alex, I want to be the person you need here because I lo--" Oh, that word gets stuck in her throat. And it's like someone shakes her awake, how quickly she doubles back, and throws her hands up in surrender. "I don't want to fight."

"I don't know how else to explain this. I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings." It obviously wasn't his intention or even on his radar as a possibility. Clearly, this is not a situation that's resolved between them; she still wants to be the person he calls, and Alex still doesn't understand why he would call anyone, but he nods faintly anyway, because he also doesn't want to fight. "I want to take some Tylenol and lay down. I would like if you would come and lay down with me. It would," something something think of words, "make me feel better. To hold onto you." Now that his blood's staying inside his body where it belongs.

"I.. I'm sorry that I frustrate you," is Violet's demure response, but there's a lot of weight there too. Because it's true. She folds her arms around herself again, rubbing at her upper arm slowly, and finally dropping her gaze to her feet. It takes a minute for her to compose herself, to keep the tears on the inside, but she nods her head. "Okay," she says of laying with him, and thinks to retreat. She even casts her gaze over her shoulder, back to the bed that's waiting. But her feet carry her forward, crossing the threshold between the bedroom and the bathroom, until she's close to him. And she doesn't know the right words, and her pronunciation is terrible. But she reaches up to lay her hand on his cheek, and she stands on her tiptoes to look him in the eye, and in Spanish she says: "Call me because you want me here. Not because you're hurt." She probably got the tense all wrong. But dammit, she tries.

Alex is touched by her effort, even if her llamas and porkays leave a little to be desired. Gingerly, because he got hit by a couple of axes today, let us not forget, he draws both arms around her, looking right back into her eyes with a nod. In slow, careful Spanish back to her, "I always want you here." No ifs, ands, or peros. Then he presses a careful kiss to the center of her forehead, breathing in the smell of her hair for a moment before he switches back to English, just to make life easier; "I'm really starting to hurt quite badly, though. In my professional opinion? I need to go rest." He even makes a couple of injured noises, like pained half-grunts while he steps back from her and puts a hand to the pills on the counter.

So see? She didn't miss it all. He's still in enough pain to share some with her!

It was enough to settle her for now, those quiet words with no ifs, ands, or peros about them. Not even nalgas, not tonight anyway, which was going to be a disappointment later. But she sighs into that careful kiss and strokes her fingers along his cheek, and she is okay even if this wasn't entirely resolved. Even though that word she almost said remains stuck in her throat. There's a guilty wince when he says he is hurting, and the compassion nearly bleeds out of her as she steps away. "Come on. Let me get you in bed," she murmurs, reaching to take his hand - the one not reaching for the pills. And she is gentle when she gets him to the bed, and steps away only long enough to get him a cup of water, before she comes to lay beside him and hold him until he falls asleep.

And there was no way she was going to ever be able to heal those awful gashes, but in the lingering moments while he was still awake, she runs her hand down the places on his chest that weren't torn up by Dream axes, and she breezes kisses along his jaw; and maybe there was just enough to take the edge off the pain, a bit of warmth to run through him. Just enough. For now.

Someday, Alex is going to be like 'holy shit, she keeps trying to say she loves me and i'm fucking stupid for not picking up on that.' But that is not this day.

This day, Alex is put to bed, and even if she can't fix his owies, he's obviously comforted by her presence. There's only a little effort made to put details to the rough sketches of the story he told earlier, but - with adrenaline well and truly spent, and the difficulty of that conversation taking its toll on his brains - he is likely to drift off sooner rather than later. His sleep is troubled and uncomfortable, but in the mundane way of someone who probably should have gotten something stronger than Tylenol, not the way of someone getting chased by more bad Dreams. So that's something.