⚜ savannah, a freaking brave idiot. (shadowbinder) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-07-13 17:24:00 |
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Over the months that they’d been in a relationship and the time that they’d been friends, Damien and Savannah had become something of a partnership. One of them could hold up the other, one could be the hopeful party when the other was losing faith in the idea of keeping hope. It worked. But somehow, they’d come up against the one obstacle that their partnership couldn’t overcome: packing with injuries. Damien’s left leg was now in a cast, and he had been using crutches. Savannah couldn’t use her arm. Packing things had turned into difficult task, and Damien trying to do so couldn’t walk without crutches wasn’t the greatest of his ideas. He was now sat on the edge of his bed, wondering if he could bundle some of his clothes under one arm and just use the other to help himself with the crutch. “We might need to call in help,” he finally admitted defeat, leaning over to where she was sat next to him and giving her a deeply apologetic look. Savannah snorted her laughter, not wanting to rankle her side too much. “How about you just sit like that and I’ll hand you everything you need to pack? We can put your bags and leave ‘em open on the floor, but I’m gonna let you worry about the organization part; sorry,” she smiled wryly, clearly not sorry at all. Turning to his dresser, she began pulling out the top drawer, saying a silent thank-you to whoever was listening that it was her left arm--the non-dominant one--she had to be ginger with, not her right. But the elephant was standing there, large and looming between them. Savannah bit her lip, not wanting to bring it up, but she had to. They had to talk about what they were going to do now. Slowly, she turned around, a wan little smile on her face that in no way advertised how much she dreaded this. “So--how much are you lookin’ forward to going home? Hockey playin’ on all the channels, moose in your backyard …” She trailed off, incapable of making it sound as funny and stereotypical as it should have been. No, he didn’t want to talk about it. He dropped the pile of clothes into an open suitcase, seeming barely concerned as to whether they were neatly folded or not. It didn’t really matter to him. Two thousand, eight hundred and fifty miles. Give or take a few as he didn’t remember Savannah’s exact address. He’d looked it up the night before, heart heavy as he tried to contemplate such a distance. He exhaled slowly. Damien had already fought with Fin over his reluctance to say goodbye, and had been dreading this moment. “We need to talk, don’t we?” He asked her the question quietly. Unwittingly, Savannah mirrored his sigh. “We do.” She didn’t hesitate before moving to sit next to him on the bed, beside his good leg as she rested her head on his shoulder, trying not to let the pang in her ribs bother her. Once she got home, she would see to it that she’d be high as a kite on pain medication. “Here’s literally all I know--I wanna stay with you.” There was a pause. Normally, she thought, this would be the part where the first and biggest question asked was, Are we staying together? “Okay, I also know we need to work out some kind of compromise. Because Vancouver and New Orleans are practically on opposite freaking ends of the world.” “Two thousand, eight hundred and fifty. Ish,” he told her. “I checked.” He couldn’t even bring himself to look at her as he spoke, a lump rising in his throat as he started to speak again. “I need to go home, Sav. So do you. I can’t just abandon them, they need me and I need them. But I need you too. It’s like I want to split myself in two so I can just be with everyone that I love, you know?” He stared up at the ceiling, unable to speak without his voice shaking a little. Damien was usually good at holding it together, even in those times when he fell silent and refused to confront something. But not now. “But I made you a promise, months ago. I promised that if you’d have me then we would work it out. And I want to, if you do. But I don’t know what to do or how to go about anything. I feel like I’m stuck and I can’t figure it out. But I made you a promise, and I keep my promises. I want to stay with you.” Once again, they were on the same page. Savannah wasn’t as stuck to keeping her word the way he was--she knew reality often blew her plans to high hell--but they both wanted to split themselves in half. “I was gonna suggest,” she half-joked, “that we halve that distance and go live at the halfway point. Except it’d probably be some real boring place, because it’s always the case that there isn’t much in-between.” She felt her stomach work itself into a knot, tightening. A year ago, she would have been stammering all over herself at this point, reluctant but panicked enough to ask if they were breaking up. But twelve-months-later Savannah had been through a lot since, and among many things, she’d learned that if she kept a firm grip on herself, most everything else worked out for her. “You don’t have to keep anything,” she insisted softly. “I mean, it’d be kind of impractical at this point.” It would take her a few days, she knew, before it would hit her that he truly wasn’t with her, and it’d be at some stupidly inconvenient moment. Like right when she sat down to have an order of beignets and a cup of coffee at Cafe du Monde, or when she visited Sallie Ann Glassman’s shop, hoping to find some new spiritual oils. Or when she was on board the Gretna Ferry, en route to visit a couple friends of hers in Algiers Point. She couldn’t share any of those things with him, the way she wanted. But she couldn’t be selfish--he had a life, too. And most likely, he had a list of things he wished he could do with her. But they had to wait, both of them. “What if--” she began, stopping herself for a moment before hurrying on. Why not? She’d made several fast, seemingly unreasonable decisions in the past five days, and for the most part, all of them had resulted in a better outcome than she’d expected. “What if maybe we--waited? Like, take some time to remember what it’s like to be allowed to live.” She raised her eyes to his face, where he wasn’t looking at her. “See our families, figure out what being home’s like. Say for like, a month? And then we can talk about it again and see where we’re at.” It wasn’t an ideal solution. In that ideal, unrealistic world he would be there all the time but in Vancouver too. He knew she’d love it, his mom’s gallery in Gastown. The house by the coast in Richmond. He’d even get her to a game when the hockey season started, and make sure she cheered for the right team. Hanging out with Marty. But that wasn’t reality, and Damien knew it would be impossible for now. It wasn’t an ideal solution but it was the best, most realistic one that they had. He nodded slowly, meeting her eyes finally. There were things he could do, reasons he could move. He had a few vague ideas but most of them seemed too outlandish to even voice. He’d always been an underachiever, but the grades he’d got at IVI had surprised him. It was only the start of an idea, however, so he wasn’t ready to properly think about it or tell anyone. “We can work it out,” he promised her quietly. “And I’m going to call you all the time. Bore the shit out of you with dumb news about my day and how much I miss you, and you can do the same to me.” He didn’t quite smile, but it felt a little more positive than he had in days. No, weeks. He had some reason for hope again. It hurt, but he had some kind of hope. “A month?” Damien asked her softly. “A month,” Savannah agreed, adjusting her posture so that she could kiss his shoulder. It was a calm, affectionate gesture that belied the lump that was threatening to rise into her throat. If she gave in completely, she would be a weepy mess before long, sobbing her eyes out in her pillow. “It’s gonna be a rough decision to make, but I guess--people do say if it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. And I’m not the wisest person in the world, but I like to think we’re pretty freaking strong, together and apart.” She reached for his hand, needing additional physical comfort. She didn’t want to let go until they touched down in San Francisco, or wherever the heck the North American flight’s first stop was. “Plus,” she added wryly, “you can always get on Skype and see me drunk on absinthe, if I can get my hands on any. Or laugh at my morning hair. Or my really freaking terrible attempt at one-person zydeco dancing.” He took her hand and squeezed it gently before raising his hand to brush some of her hair behind her ear. “I’m going to miss your morning hair, and you being unable to handle your drink. And you when you’re sleepy, or cross. Or telling me one of your stories,” he kissed her forehead softly. “And it’s going to be the hardest month of my life, I swear it. But I feel like if we can sit and work it out, find out where we are. Have time to adjust to real life, we can work it out. I don’t know how, but we can.” Damien kissed her again, this time meeting her lips. “I’ll miss the morning hair far more than you know.” Savannah wasn’t sure what broke her, the words or the kiss, but by the time he pulled away, her eyes were filling rapidly with tears, lower lip trembling to keep the sobs at bay. “I’m gonna miss you, too,” she got out, her voice quavering and higher-pitched than normal. “Your calm and your sweetness and just bein’ able to wake up next to you. I’m gonna miss you so much.” The last two words were choked out, and for once, she didn’t bother brushing the tears away, instead moving to put her arms around him--both of them--ignoring the burn in her shoulder. “Can we--just hold off on packin’ for a while?” The number of miles was still repeating in his mind, but he nodded and moved to wrap his arms around her. Taking care of her shoulder, he kissed her again and held her close. He didn’t really have many words left, there was no way to adequately express just how much he’d miss her. He already knew that his days would be emptier, and phone calls were no replacement for what she brought to his life. “Please don’t cry,” he mumbled, close to a rare emotional outburst of his own. “I love you, please don’t cry.” Damien repeated the words a few more times, trying his hardest to believe that things would be okay. They could find a way, they had to. “I’m trying,” Savannah sniffled, her voice still unsteady. “I just need a moment.” But a moment turned to several minutes, and the minutes to an hour as she lay curled awkwardly against him on the bed, the skin around her eyes swollen and puffy. It was what both of them needed, a moment of peace and no obligation. Tomorrow, they would be safe and on a plane home, and she had to get out her crying now. It would have made for a bad, undignified memory, bawling her eyes out on Damien’s shoulder during their last hours together. |