Who: Elise & Billy What: A random run-in where Elise is meeting psych release and Billy is scheduled for physical therapy. Where: Local hospital. When: Backdated to when Elise was released, and also before Spidey got his ass kidnapped. Warnings: Words cannot be taken back.
The concert had gone surprisingly well, the audience well-chosen and the buzz small but poignant. Billy wasn’t interested in returning to to the public music scene yet, but he missed singing and the natural stage high. He was writing on his own, but it was a slow and ponderous experience and he missed being able to work out a beat from his mind to a set, and the constant stiffness and requisite pain meant it was hard to sit still for any amount of time, whether it was holding a guitar or not. It was a little easier to work out melodies on a piano, but Billy was a better percussionist than he was a pianist and he always had been. He was finding ways around it, finding new paths for his life the same way his spine figured out new pathways to send and receive signals from his brain. It was a good metaphor, and his PCA used it all the time, but he still winced when it crossed his mind.
The new path had a cost, however, and standing for that long caused him a few sleepless nights and his back, knee and hip kept freezing up on him, sometimes mid-step. Physical therapy had been even more of a bitch than usual, but he got through it and after a hot shower he came out feeling almost human, even if it was on two wheels instead of two feet. After one of his bimonthly appointments at the hospital, Billy was looking forward to going home and trying to relax--and failing that, just going home.
He wheeled through the lobby, the sleek blue lines of his Colours chair and his casual jeans setting him apart from the temporarily disabled in hospital gowns. They were being wheeled in their stiff clunkers from hall to hall, while his chair didn’t have any handles on the back to speak of, a Corvette to their old wheelbarrows. He waited patiently for the ER bustle to pass, pulling on some tan fingerless gloves for weightlifters that took some of the pressure off his palms.
Therapy was only one of many thorns in her side. Not just because of the persistence of her doctor, the strangely named October, who she was fairly certain had disguised feelings of infatuation for the photographer that just couldn't die. Or maybe he was just one of those doctors that just cared a little too much. His bedside manner bordered on intimacy. Unfortunately, he wasn't a push over. No, this one was quite professional. He wasn't buying into the laughing nonchalance or the explanations on how this was all a misunderstanding. Elise's emergency room excursion developed into a seventy-two hour minimum hold. Typically she relied on her agent to lawyer up or bullshit his way through these kinds of American red tape, as he'd always done before, but this time seemed different. This time he actually had the balls to tell her to wait it out. Ultimately the prison sentence passed and she was sent from the psych ward and back to the main building of the hospital for a final blood test and documentation of her vitals. When they decided that all was well, they signed her release and she was free to roam for the quickest way out of the lysol-swabbed hellhole.
The main lobby was crowded with primarily emergencies, but some established appointments. Regardless, it made for a clusterfuck of bodies(both standing and sitting), gurneys, EMTs, and a few flustered nurses with clipboards. Elise navigated her way through the mess in a half attentive pilgrimage. She'd arrived at the emergency room half naked in a night gown, but the staff supplied her with a pair of blue scrub pants and a janitorial tee shirt that was a few sizes too large. Her blond hair was down in limp waves and there was no feline eyeliner hieroglyphs against her blue eyes. The hospital bracelet still dangled loose and plastic on a peachblossom wrist. She could have been anybody. Hell, she was just anybody. Despite gallery praise and her agent's stimulated thrill at the sight of her new work, she was nobody. Not in this city, not anywhere. She was just the unblinking eye behind a swollen lens.. and she preferred it that way.
She itched for a cigarette. Maybe some strong chai and an afternoon with her camera. There was no chaperon to tail her, she could go anywhere.. anywhere. That is, until she stumbled into the back corner of some stalled wheelchair. The stylish chrome crammed into her thigh and sent Elise falling back a step with a foreign curse. Then, quickly in English because why waste the grimacing rage on anyone who couldn't understand, "Wheels are for moving, ja?" She still hadn't seen even the faintest corner of his face, or her response might have been the most uncharacteristic of all.. flee.
People who always walked on two legs tended to get handsy (pushy) with wheelchairs. It was like they considered his chair communal property, like a shopping cart in a grocery store parking lot. Billy felt that when you were in a wheelchair you thought of it in many ways like your body, and when people put their hands all over it, pushed, or got too close, the effect was much like angry commuters on the freeway cutting each other off. Billy’s PCA said it was something about how humans defined personal space. Whatever the reason, it pissed him off, and not very many things pissed Billy off, when it came down to it.
Billy turned his chin over his shoulder and then lifted it to catch whoever was pushing right in the eye, his smooth face annoyed. “I would if...” The retort drifted off as he recognized the person behind him. Billy’s voice had the cadence of his singing, though at a much lower range than he was fully capable of; when he was surprised, that tone became almost musical, and he said now, in tones both melodic and stunned: “Elise? What are you doing here?”
His clear blue eyes took in first her face, and then traveled down her body to the rest of her appearance. His hands dropped naturally to the wheels at either side of his hips and he turned one so he rotated neatly on the spot, better to see her with a tip of his head back and down. “Are you okay?” he said, obviously concerned and losing his irritation in the space of the single moment it took to realize she was in borrowed clothing and wearing a hospital bracelet.
Surprise did not even convey the static blink of her december eyes when she registered Billy as he in turn registered her. The creative instinct of secrecy and self-chaos had her hiding that braceleted hand behind her back a moment too late. She had no sleeves to push down, it was a jerky movement and a quick glance past him to the herded lobby of people beyond. Was this some kind of trick, what was he doing here?
His chair was disorienting. Not because she'd never seen him in it or because its brilliant chrome and jazz blue stole her eyes away from his own. It just felt like some spill through wonderland, all those memories of having to glance up to hold his stare from all those years ago.. they were now flipped. She took a step back instinctively, hospital socks and no shoes. "I'm fine," she said with an almost fearful note of uncertainty riding the blitzkrieg curve of her accent. Selfless concern was the last thing she'd expected to cross in this lobby and it left her swallowing loosely, glancing away from him and toward the automated doors beyond where a taxi was said to be awaiting her soon enough. "I was just leaving." The explanation came with a smile as she brushed some flaxen blond behind one ear. That hospital bracelet jangled, the suicide pact friendship bracelet. Little black print that read her name, age, sex. Bold red block letters that defined her as HIGH RISK.
"Preparing for wheelchair drag racing?" She asked with a glance down to the NASA technology of his chair.
It was very disorienting for Billy to be sitting when he so much wanted to stand, and her hips and that disappearing bracelet were neatly at his eye level. His gloved left hand twitched as he thought about making a swipe to grab her retreating fingers, but he knew he would be too slow. He let his fingers fall back down into his lap, and then, self-conscious, rested again on the wheel that rounded him to face whichever direction he chose. Billy was far more observant than he had been in years past; there was more to see when you were sitting low and people were avoiding your eyes and doing their best to pretend the sight of you on wheels wasn’t awkward or strange. Looking at her from this angle was equally odd, and he noticed her strange attire and, by this time, he was pretty good at reading bracelets.
He paused, obviously trying to decide how and when to mention it. He decided to answer her question, and gave her a fleeting smile. “What, in this? No. You should see racing chairs; they kick ass. Nothing like this. They’re lighter, not as much metal, the wheels are at a different angle, too.” He was rambling without paying much attention to what he was saying, determined to avoid imagining her comparing the Billy now to the Billy then, and doing so mostly by trying to figure out what the hell she was doing here. After a moment he gave a tiny little motion with his right hand, and the chair moved forward a neat two inches in the direction of the door. It was much like an inquisitive shift of weight in one direction, a question that asked for accompaniment. “Where are you going?” Despite himself he looked at her sock’d feet.
There was an awkwardness despite the situation. Perhaps it was the setting or the circumstances, or simply the fact that every time she crossed him these days felt like a frank and cruel little jab at some part of herself that she'd neglected for years. She didn't care for it, and who could blame her? When lovers broke apart abruptly, they were not intended to circle back around. It was a cringing, uncomfortable reincarnation. All of the little things that would have once been appropriate(or perhaps not, but Elise would have done them anyway) were now blocked off with caution tape and mildewed boards of condemnation. She would not run her fingers along the chrome lines of his chair, and she would not dare for him to take her for a spin, or a ride, or a reckless race through the line of people on crutches. She did not even look him in the eye, as she was uncertain of what hers would look like. Since when did she care what he thought? Or anyone? The hospital brought a softness to her, a skittish tension that never belonged to wild things unless they were going rabid.
She tried to imagine racing chairs, but she only ended up thinking of so many other things instead. When he shifted in his chair, she finally glanced down at him. Momentarily unaware that she'd started for the door without a word, only the intention of escape.. and to where? "I'm.." The truth it would be, "famished." The psych center did not exactly satisfy a palette crafted on Germanic culture, roadside diner oddities, and exquisite delicacy. A little caviar with your blue plate special?
"What are you doing here?" She finally pinned him with directness because she knew he did not know about her. Elise quickly looked him over for any new sign of injury or recent surgery. The gentle crease between her fair brows might have been misconstrued as pity or regret in anyone else, but in her it was only.. misplaced, confusing. Something uneasy that did not trust what would come out of either of their mouths.
Billy hesitated. He felt as if he hung somewhere in the space between the moment you lean over and the moment following it, that split-second right when gravity takes hold. It was a gut-wrenching, maddening sensation, and it made his palms sweat in the leather of his gloves. His face was somewhat the same, but a photographer’s close eye would find almost invisible threads of silver in the soft surfer’s blond of his hair just behind his ears. His blue eyes were the same twinkling frankness, but there was a line or two around their seams, and at his mouth, too. The spotlights hid any sign of pain or discomfort at the concert, but there were no spotlights now, just harsh fluorescents and a Billy that was thoroughly uneasy without the music’s rapturous glow. He had to let go of the idea that she could think of him as he’d been. It hurt.
Slowly, he said, “I can stand and walk some but it takes a lot of work. Training. I have physical therapy. Not always here, but today, yeah.” Fuck it, he’d just tell her whatever truths she asked for. There was no point in doing any pretending, and he was shit at pretending anyway, always had been. He made another little movement with both arms, arms that were strong in the stretch of his t-shirt, and he directed his chair again toward the door. They slid forward another two feet. “Did they really let you out, or did you just run for it?” he asked, grinning a little and trying to catch her eye so that she might somehow know it was safe to do so.
She itched for one of those exotic cigarettes if only for something to do with her hands, which suddenly seemed fidgety and useless without a camera to hide behind. Instead she brought both sets of fingers up to her loose, fresh hair. No glamorous salon shampoo, no product.. even without the hospital's lack of luxury, that had never quite been her taste anyway. She'd always liked those brutal spearmint scents, where even the suds tingled all the way down in some senseless, cold kind of heat. But her hair was limp and soft now, no curls, no showy coif. Not that she'd ever been particularly apt at such things, but sometimes she had been and.. it struck her like lightning when she tugged thoughtfully on the ends of her hair.. how different she was from when they'd first met. Older, naturally. In a hospital without explanation, and she tucked her tongue between her back teeth while focusing on him instead of everything that had landed her here. It wasn't the chair and it wasn't the familiarity of his eyes, but rather the little things that only a photographer might hone in on. Lines of pain in the face that were fought against, going smooth, failing into splintered grooves around those eyes, and then momentarily smooth again. She scanned his body for tension, wondering if he was coming or going from therapy when he made his quip about her making her escape.
That made her forget all of the other tumbleweed thoughts dancing loose in her brain, and Elise laughed while covering her face briefly. Photographers had a habit of hiding their smiles. Let her see all the world, yet let her hide from it as well. "Would you distract them if I was on the run?" Despite the bustle, it was almost easy to fall back into the memory of what was. She reached out to touch the new, unfamiliar thread of silver at his temple. Investigative reporting. "Would you sell me out for the bounty?" Despite her accent and her tendency to exaggerate it, Elise had been in this country for a very long time. Her grasp of English was very up to par, despite what she let on. There were very few that she did not pretend otherwise with.
In his turn, Billy liked throwing curve balls at her whenever he could. Idioms and funny little sayings, whatever he thought might trip her up. He always grinned a childish, little boy’s grin when he did it, too, a grin that knew she likely wouldn’t know at all what that meant, and then the question became whether she would ask to clarify it, or go away and look it up herself, probably through a curl of exotic cigarette smoke. “You know I’d play patsy for you any day. You’re a damsel in distress.” The first was a challenge, the second was a tease.
His shoulders flexed down into the worn cotton of his shirt, and the sleek convex lines of his shoulders went taut as she reached for something just out of the edge of his vision. She looked beautiful, of course. Oversized t-shirt, tired eyes, sour mouth. Beautiful anyway, not despite it but because of it, because that was Elise: an entire whole. Fuck, he needed to write that down. He lost the smile and stared at her, automatically catching the wheel to keep himself still.
Elise wasn't exactly a creature capable of admitted defeat, no matter all of the screaming, blinking signals. She did not like giving into the idea that she simply couldn't know everything, and naturally Billy knew that. Or he had then, with those imp grins in waiting. A sudden, horrifying thought occurred to her: what if he didn't remember everything. Before the accident and all, what if he didn't remember some of those little things? If not, it was likely for the best, and she pushed that thought away while committing the term patsy to memory, she'd look it up later.
"Never in distress, only of it." The evil ex of fire and brimstone, right? After what seemed to her like a exceedingly long pause, Elise forced her fingers against his temple. Against the hair just above his ear while watching him with nude, guileless eyes. "Are you okay?" Her voice slipped into something almost devoid of accent, she wanted the truth.
Billy was thoroughly disconcerted at the intimate touch. It had been a long time since anybody had touched him like that, and he completely forgot what it felt like. He still didn’t know why she was touching him to begin with, momentarily stunned by the entire situation, and he stopped short entirely. The ER flowed around them like a river over stones, and he blinked twice at her and then smiled a little weakly. “Depends on your point of view. The fact I can get out of this on some days means... yeah. I’m even better than okay. Just not right this second.” Billy reached out and the rough nylon of the gloves where a seam kept them against the soft leather pad spread over her skin just short of her elbow. “You want to get a pair of shoes and then tell me what the hell you’re doing here? Over breakfast?” A late breakfast, but a breakfast nevertheless.
Bluebonnet vision dropped to where his fingers touched her arm. It was a slow motion kind of sensation where the physical touch should have reflected something from the past come to life but rather felt like parallel universe. Him in a chair, her without heels. Something had gone wrong those years ago and the paradox was only now settling in on her as a whole. Sometimes she felt like a different person than whatever vibrancy had flourished in California. Idly, she wondered how long it took for every cell in one's body to replace itself. If it was possible to become, one day, something else. The mention of shoes had her frowning, glancing past his gloved touch and down to the floor where the padded hospital socks guarded her slim feet in a hideous, muted shade of taupe. "I am not hungry," she said.. completely contradicting her earlier statement as she gently pulled away from the nostalgia of his hand.
Billy dropped his hand immediately. He took the rejection personally, a sharp blow that hit him the moment he was vulnerable, because it made more sense to him that she would avoid him and his gimp status than anything else. The fact that she was standing there in a hospital and simply might not want to talk about why hadn’t hit him yet, and it might not. You could go on about societal norms all you wanted, but the fact was that when you were in a wheelchair people looked at you different, and that was just fucking fact. The warm expression on his face froze over and cracked like thin ice. “Don’t want to be seen with me?” he asked, coolly, setting both palms on the wheels and pulling back so the chair slid aside a few inches rather than forward. If he could be remade cell by cell, Billy would probably put in a request, if only so he could move fast enough to make it seem unconscious.
The rebuff was unsurprising, as it was something Elise herself had instigated in an effort to find escape from the daunting prospect of such a conversation. Her eyes were archaic and observing of the differences in his face that hardened before shattering. Sometimes she wondered if it was true, if she could be such an egomaniac. If the attraction she saw in him was some warped replica of herself, blonde and blue. The differences between them were bolder now, more than ever, with him in the chair and her in the hospital hand-me-downs. Yet attraction remained, the softness of better memories that negated all of the thrashing tornado fits in between. His question was an icicle meant to barb, but Elise could be just as cold. It was her default reaction to just about anything that came her way, to mimic. Heat got heat, ice got ice. The words brought up memories or old forum arguments, about why she'd ever hung around him in the first place. It lit up her eyes like Tesla experiments when she reached out and snatched at one wheel to keep him from escaping. The hospital bracelet jangled around her elegant wrist like a bell toll of warning. "I don't need the publicity anymore."
She cut him deep with the comment. It showed in a quick crumple of his mouth and a flex of his throat. Billy hadn’t grown armor since the accident, he had simply grown a little more into himself. Now it was just him and the music in his head, and there were fewer friends, less noise, and no opportunities to run physically from his thoughts. There was more about him of acceptance, but he also had enough anger to last him several lifetimes. They told him the anger was natural, which made sense, because it took him over a lot faster than it used to, and it was all adrenaline and flashing eyes. Billy set his hand down to keep the chair from moving in any direction, staring at her with a solid gaze that was snapping static and poor attempts at control. “No, I see you’ve got a hospital for that now. How’s that working out for you?” And without pausing. “And get your damn hand off me.” He didn’t say ‘chair,’ he said ‘me.’
Immediately, she was sorry. It was always a game of pushing until something broke, one step too far, one word beyond taking things back, another gap away from the impossibility of forgiveness. She thought about it, the way to say it, the languages she could say it in. Sorry. Es tut mir leid. She said nothing however, and her eyes said none of it when his sizzled on the anger of hot oil meeting drops of water. Elise smiled at the mention of the hospital, and it was one of those sourbellied expressions that said she couldn't stand to look at him. It was the truth. Looking at him now reminded her that sometimes there was no going back. These days when she spoke with him were nothing like the rabid clawing of arguments when they'd been together. Even those slamming doors echoed with fondness, the knowledge that she could always come back. That didn't exist anymore. In its place had grown this dark, gnawing void. She released the wheel of his chair abruptly, like it burned. In straightening to her rarely seen true height (bare of foot), she was sleek as a muse with her single step of retreat. As if she intended to vanish back into the lysol halls of the hospital to get away from him. "Is not a problem." Her voice was an icy relic of the cold war.
The smile told Billy, incorrectly, that Elise was the exact opposite of sorry. His expression clouded with resentment, anger and hurt, a perfect storm of artist’s bread and butter. He thought that the wistful look was a clean comparison of the man he was to what he had been, a clear vision in which she found him inescapably useless to her. It made him angry, because if he wasn’t angry it generally made him want to die, even if it wasn’t her--especially if it was her. His own anger warred with the concern that he had seeing her in such a state all alone in the middle of a fucking ER. “Fine,” he said, biting off the end of the word and deliberately looking away from her. Glad to be free, he put more distance between them, handling the two wheels with skill that had become natural. “You getting a ride then?” He wanted her to be gone.
She turned and pivoted in need of some artful dodger method of escape, chaotic despite the medication they'd fed her through involuntary tubes and shots during her incarceration. The wild thing, feral jaguar spots of lisa frank blue in her drugged eyes. If the meds were meant to sedate her, they were waning, and those were scripts that would never be filled. He wanted her gone, it rushed like the devil's fever in his beautiful voice, and she could feel it when she rounded with a fresh snap. "Nein, I can walk!" It was meant to brush him off, thinking he was playing so near his normally gentleman fucking best friend trophy awesome guy winning smile assholeness, probably offering to pay for her cab or something. She didn't realize it could sting in a whole separate realm, even when she stalked past his wheelchair in those sallow socks.
Billy was temporarily robbed of words. He watched her walk off, and he had no idea what the expression on his face was, but he felt like the air and thought had been swept right out of him in one cold gust of wintered air, and he was left trying to fill himself back up again. He had not thought that Elise would ever be that cruel; and though the both of them were awful to each other regularly now that they had returned to the same city, most of the hurts had been in anger. He watched her stalk off, somehow managing presence even without heels and designer silk, trying once more to readjust the way he thought of her.