2020-02-06 - Setbacks

Getting back from the hospital after...that, is a bit of a blur to August. He manages it, but then, this isn't the first time he's had an episode and needed to get himself somewhere to ride out the aftermath. Far from it; his mid-20s was a study in developing coping mechanisms for it. He'd been happy to put that all to bed in his 30s. Panic attacks and meltdowns had become fairly rare, and much more mild. He'd never been foolish enough to think he was over things, but he'd really felt like he had a good handle on it.

Joke's on him.

He has to sit in the car a few minutes once he's out front of the house. Should he just go the rest of the way back to the cabin? It might not be a good idea but he doesn't want to make Eleanor deal with this. With him, at the end of his rope. His head's full of the static of twenty-three years ago.

Eventually he talks himself out of the car, to the front door, and into the house. He feels disconnected, floating. Should he take a bath? Just lay down in the bed? Make some tea? It's all the same right now. Nothing is penetrating that thick wall of ugliness the hospital dragged up. It's going to be a few weeks (months, let's be honest with ourselves, Roen) before he can go back in there.

Eleanor knows he went to the hospital to visit Alexander. She doesn't know how terrible it was, but she was well prepared for him to come back an uncomfortable mess. She has been checking out the window every 20 minutes or so for him to get back, and lo and behold, there he is. And it looks bad. The tea kettle goes on, she moves to the bathroom to fill the tub and throw in the last of her magical bath bombs, and she opens the door for him when he reaches it, with a worried look and his slippers in one hand.

"How bad was it?" she asks quietly, reading his face for the answer before he can say it verbally.

August doesn't focus on Eleanor until she says something. His eyes are red from crying, though he's had a moment to wash his face from the look of it. A cloud of exhaustion, both physical and emotional, clings to him. "Pretty bad," he says. His voice is hoarse; he clears it a couple of times. "Alexander's okay, but, there was...one of those birds. A white crow. And it..."

He shuts his eyes, winces and looks away. "I think everyone's okay, though," he says, opening his eyes and looking at her again. "I mean. As okay as they can be."

"The bone crows? The one that...said the name of my friend who died. Addie." Ellie shudders a bit and moves him with one hand towards the couch. She closes the door and then takes his boots off for him, slipping his slippers on. "I have some tea brewing, and the bath filling for you. Put the final bath bomb in it; figured you'd need it."

Not that he'd resist Eleanor moving him around in general, but right now August is quite easy to guide. He sits on the couches, watches her put on his shoes with a kind of detached fascination. He knows what's happening now; he's afraid to really get too close to the here and now, or he'll just break down. But maybe he needs to. This is the hard part, knowing what to do after. Shore things back up? Let it all out, decide what to do after?

No decisions, he reminds himself. Not right now.

Instead, he reaches out to stroke Eleanor's hair. It's something of a mistake; it pulls him out of where he's hiding, and closer to what hurts. His throat aches. "Thanks, hon. You're...way too good to your basket case of a boyfriend."

"We're both good at keeping the lids on our respective baskets, AJ. But sometimes we need to let it out." Eleanor sits next to him to wrap her arms around him tightly and just hold him close, let him work through it in his own time. Her hair smells like lavender shampoo and she has that ever-present faint whiff of coffee about her, as if she's spent so much time in the cafe it's seeped into her very skin.

August slips an arm around Eleanor, buries his face against her neck. He does start to cry now, just a little, when she calls him that. Those were the names he'd heard, as the bird shrieked in its death throes when Lilith finally had enough and broke it apart: Rose. Trudy.

He knows it's just Them fucking with him. He knows he has to not listen. That's for Eleanor to call him now, and They can't use Rose and Trudy against him. But God, how it had felt, to hear that, and know it was for him, just like when it had tapped out Isabella's twin's name.

"I think you've got the way shittier end of this bargain, hon," he murmurs against her. He turns his head so his voice won't be too muffled. "It, um...it did something to Lilith. The bird. She killed it, and it--fought back, somehow." The words just start coming out. "I don't know what it did but she lost control and all these people, on that floor, started dying." He swallows. After a few seconds of silence, he whispers, "It was like being back there. With all of them dying under that building, and..." His voice fades, and he sags against her.

Eleanor listens, holding him firmly, affirming her presence, her solidity, her support. "And you saved them all, didn't you? This time?" The fact he made it home at all is what brings her to that conclusion. If they'd died, he would still be there, probably going berserk. She strokes her fingers through his hair gently. "Well, now we know not to try and kill them. If they can get to Lilith, as strong as she is, that is extremely dangerous for any of us."

A chill runs through August. He trembles against Eleanor. "I--maybe. I couldn't stay to make sure, everything was falling apart." He was falling apart. "I...tried to stop what she did, make it so the doctors could fix it." He swallows back more tears. "Then I left before...before anything else happened." Before he was the one losing control, and maybe blasting a hole in a wall or breaking every piece of machinery in the building.

He makes a small sound of agreement. "They're...assholes, but I don't know if they're actually dangerous. But when they came to you, there were a lot of them. That could be a problem." Some of his unhappiness transmutes into a small thread of anger. If they came near Eleanor he was going to dismantle them, and nothing on this planet would stop him, not even the risk of them doing whatever they'd done to Lilith. (Well, maybe one thing would stop him.)

He sighs. "I'm sorry, Ellie. I should've...should've just texted him." He sniffs. "I'm not as ready to go into that place as I thought."

He tried to shore up the damage as it was being done, as she had done at the funeral. She knows the terror of trying to unmake something out of control, of trying to stop that tidal wave of power before it can do irreparable damage.

"No, this is not your fault. If you hadn't been there, then what? Those people would have all died. Lilith would have been unstopped, August. You were right where you needed to be, don't you see that?" She cups his face in her hands. "Just maybe next time, bring me along? Or Itzhak at least?"

August frowns. He hadn't even been thinking of that. He starts to say something, stops. Can he say it would have been fine? He's not sure he can. And what did that mean about Bosnia?

He shows away from that. It's hard to think of everything he went through there as better in the long run. But, without it, would he have met Eleanor in that Dream? Would he be here, now?

His eyes shift to hers, and he nods. He's not hypocritical enough to deny that, not when he'd just been telling Alexander the same thing. "Yeah," he agrees, voice low. He rests his forehead against Eleanor's, sets a hand on one of hers. "Twenty years later and you're still saving me from hospitals." He manages to dredge up a smile.

That gets a soft chuckle. "Not saving, maybe just opening your fool eyes to what's right in front of you. You're a savior August, you save people, and you do everything you can to do it. It's not always going to be possible, like in Bosnia. But sometimes, it is, like today." She smiles at him and kisses his forehead. "You're my AJ, charging into the danger to save everyone but yourself. I love you for it."

The tea kettle whistles and she lets him go a moment to go fill two cups and add tea bags. She drops them off, before she goes to turn the water off in the tub, and returns to him on the couch. "Bath is ready when you are. You can drink your tea in there if you want to."

August's smile turns a little sad. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm no one's savior. I'm just trying to help people that need it, if I can, get them to someone who can, if I can't." He lets her go reluctantly, leans back against the couch cushions as she departs to see to the tea and the bathwater. "Yeah. Tea in the bath with you sounds nice." He doesn't get up right away, though, just leans into her. He's quiet a time. Then, "I remember trying to hold your hand, in the lake. Do you remember that? You pushed me in. And we swam down together, and I held on as tight as I could, but you slipped away." He takes a shaky breath. "The same way everyone under that building did. The same way they did today." He grips her, tight. "I'm so worried that, no matter how hard I hold on, it won't be enough. I won't be enough. There'll be nothing I can do."

"I remember," Eleanor says quietly. "We fought so fiercely to hold on, but it's not the outcome that is important in that, August. It's the trying. It's the trying that makes you who you are. You fight with every fiber of your being, and you don't give up. You keep fighting, you carry on. You don't hesitate to do it again when the time comes. You save more than you lose. It's not about the ones you lose, it's about the ones you save." OK, so she may be quoting The Meg and Jason Statham there, but it doesn't make it any less true.

"Isn't it, though?" August whispers. He can't help it; he thinks of Markale, of the MASH units, of the people who died trying to reach the airport to escape. Three years in hell.

But she was right. They'd saved people: dug them out of collapsed buildings, gotten them to a hospital, evacuated them when the shelling came to their neighborhood. They'd done what they could, what they were allowed to do. It was so easy to forget that at times like this: some people had made it.

The dissociation lets up a fraction, the buzz of his memories in his head abates some. He squints, straightens and looks at her. "Are you quoting a shark movie at me?" he asks. There might be a hint of amusement lurking in his tone.

"I might be," she admits as she sips her tea, watching him over the rim with those bright green eyes of hers. That smattering of freckles still visible beneath her light makeup, the tiny constellations of spots that make her uniquely her.

She strokes his bearded cheek with one hand, warm from the teacup. "You make a difference in this war. You make a difference. Don't ever forget that. Please. You mean everything to me, and that part of you shines so brightly."

"Might be," August murmurs. He turns his face into her hand to kiss her palm. He stays like that a time, eyes closed, listening to her, just breathing. After a spell he takes that hand in both of his and opens his eyes. "You mean everything to me too. And you're brave for getting into this, into things with me, after all you've already been through." He grips her hand a moment, then lets it go to take up the mug of tea. He savors the smell before having a sip. "Bath time?" he asks, looking askance at her. He's tired and achy, inside and out, but the bath will help. Almost as much as Eleanor does.

"You gave me the courage to not let Them control my life any more. To not miss out on life because of the fear of Them. Fear They were probably feeding on to begin with." She smiles back at him and stands. "Bath time," she agrees.

August ducks his head, smiles and kisses Eleanor's hand. "I didn't give you that, Ellie. Reminded you that you were, maybe. You've always been brave, and had courage. At least, as long as I've known you." Which, it turns out, is longer than either of them realized.

He lets go of her hand and gets up, shrugs out of his jacket. He looks down at her a moment, smiles, a little of his usual self making an appearance, and pulls off his sweater, then the shirt under it. The orb weaver and blood root tattoo, newest of the bunch, stands out in stark yellow, white, black, and red, the midline incision scar now incorporated into the spider's back pattern and one of the blood root leaves. He holds out a hand to Eleanor.

Eleanor takes the hand, blushing at his faith in her. She will keep watch tonight, all night, to make sure he's all right. To make sure they don't come for him again, after he undid what Lilith had done. Because she loves him, and she needs him in her life.