passionbound (passionbound) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2010-08-15 22:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | fenrir, hel |
Who: Simon and Aura
What: Aura goes on an away mission to check on Simon
Where: Raleigh, North Carolina
When: Monday, August 9th
Warnings: None
Notes: None
He was moving in a fog, a haze that wouldn’t lift, would only let him see bits and pieces of the world around him. Aura was coming. Billy was worried. His mother looked like a ghost. His father had dark circles beneath his eyes. His older sister couldn’t stop crying. And he? He wasn’t sure what he should be doing. So he moved around the house in a daze, responding to the questions that were asked of him, but most of the time he sat in the family den, a photo album open in his lap, flipping through the pictures that had defined his childhood, his focus resting primarily on his little brother who wasn’t around to pester him.
Sighing, he gave a look to his cell phone, then pushed it aside, instead leaning forward with his hands pressed to his eyes, a deep, ragged breath released through slack lips.
The flight in had felt endless to Aura. She’d already started to settle into thinking of Simon as her brother, but the idea of him across the country, dealing with something like this on his own sent her possessiveness over her sibling into full force. If any of her sisters had passed, Aura would have been inconsolable, and she couldn’t imagine Simon, who she saw as someone who needed her protection, dealing with it alone. Yes, he had his adoptive family with him, but it wasn’t the same. Strange, yes, but there it was.
She rushed the cab driver, texted Billy about her annoyance with everything in the away mission, and she worried irrationally about facing Simon like this. After all, they were still only dipping their toes in the pool that was a lifetime lost. This? This was like kicking everything into high gear.
When the cab stopped, she threw her money at the driver and she hiked her backpack on her shoulder. She stomped up to the door, a determined knight in a Star Trek shirt and braids, and she knocked, ready to demand they hand her brother over immediately, if need be.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) for Aura, it was a petite, blue-eyed blond that answered the door, face mottled red from crying. She swiped at her nose with a tissue, framing herself in the half-opened door, obviously wary to the apparent stranger on her doorstep. “Yeah?” she asked, her greeting not as polite as it probably was normally, but this was hardly normal.
Aura automatically softened when she saw the crying girl. It was instinctive, born of the hospice work she did, and she held out a hand and gently squeezed the girl’s shoulder. Words, sometimes, made things harder for the grieving, she knew. Signs of affection were easy things to accept, they made no demands and held no strings. Aura’s hand was soft, and her voice, once she finally spoke, was even softer. “I came to see Simon,” she said, without offering her sympathies. Grieving people needed kindness, not words.
The girl released a breath as Aura touched her shoulder, and she managed the faintest, frailest of smiles in return. “You’re Aura, right?” she asked, already stepping back to let her in. The house was modest and comfortable, a slice of Americana that could have been pulled from nearly any place in the nation. “Simon said you’d be coming here. I’m Alice, his sister.” Once the door was closed, a hand was offered to her, her other arm wound around her middle, protective and pulled in.
Aura took the proffered hand with one of her own, and she cupped the girl’s hand with her own, free one. She gave her an open look that said she was sorry, that she understood, that she felt and knew and a million other things. It was an acknowledgement without words that came from years of knowing that sometimes words couldn’t cover the hurt a person felt. “I’m Aura,” she concurred. “How is Simon doing, Alice?” she asked, because she knew that it was easier to worry about other people you still had, that were still there, in times like these.
Alice released a breath, giving Aura’s hand a squeeze before releasing, tucking her arm back around her middle as she cast a look over her shoulder towards the rest of the house. “He’s... I’m really not sure how he’s doing, to be honest with you.” She looked back towards Aura, trying to smile, then she gave up, stepping further in and gesturing for Aura to follow. “It’s been a while since we’ve even seen one another, so I don’t really know what to say about it.”
She was quiet as she led Aura through the house, the rooms silent other than the soft white noise of the ceiling fans humming. “Mom and Dad are out. I made them leave for a bit before they started crying again. Simon won’t even talk to me so there’s nothing I’ve been able to do for him. He’s hardly said a word since he got here earlier.” Alice frowned, pausing in front of the door to the den, turning to look back towards Aura. “Maybe... you can do something. I hope so.” For a moment, it looked like she wanted to linger, but she stepped away slowly down the hallway, leaving Aura to the door by herself. “He’s in there. If... if you need something, just let me know.” A pause, a breath, a heartbeat. “It... it was nice to meet you, Aura. I wish it could have been under better circumstances.”
Aura followed in respectful silence, though a worried look crossed her face when Alice said Simon wouldn’t talk to her. She didn’t know about the severe fight he’d had with his brother, about how bad it had been, and so she didn’t know that he was battling with guilt as well as loss. Still, the admission worried her, and she glanced at the closed den door before looking back at Alice. “Go on and try to rest, Alice. I’ll take care of Simon,” she said with a reassuring smile.
A moment later, she pushed open the den door, and she walked in without announcing herself. The door closed behind her, and she started speaking before she’d even located Simon in the room. “Casper?”
The room was quiet, and if you hadn’t known that there was someone inside, you might have though the room empty. It looked like a cozy sort of room, several over stuffed couches, a fireplace dominating one wall, bookshelves lining the walls. It was warm, lived in, but solemn for the moment.
Simon was sitting by the sliding glass doors towards the rear of the room, leaning against the glass, eyes closed, a photo album spread out over his lap with pictures from happier times, not just the moments when his brother still lived, but moments where he was rarely found without a smile on his face. He looked to be asleep, but it hardly seemed restful; circles beneath his eyes, his hair messed and hardly tended to.
Aura noticed him a moment after she said his name.
She walked across the room on quiet feet, and she sat beside him just as quietly. She pressed her back against the glass, and she scooted close enough to lean into his side wordlessly, her chin on his shoulder. Without asking, she reached for one of the photos from the photo album, and she brought it close to both of their faces, looking at the smiling boy in the image. “Whatever it is, he forgives you for it,” she said quietly, because Simon’s reaction was as guilt-ridden as it was hurting.
Feeling a familiar warmth settle next to him, dark eyes opened to look across the room, his free shoulder shrugging up slightly, shaking his head and looking away from both her and the photograph she brought up so close. “I don’t forgive myself,” he said softly, pushing the album off his lap and drawing away from her. One fluid motion took him to his feet and he strode several paces away, keeping his back to the other.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Olivia. You really shouldn’t have.” His voice was short, the words hinging on rudeness. The easy smiles of the days before, the warmth and happiness he had found in finding Aura... All of that seemed to be forgotten now, replaced with a cold wariness that hung about him like a protective aura.
She watched him quietly a moment, and then she climbed to her feet. She didn’t crowd him in, didn’t close the space between them. “Do you want me to go?” she asked simply. She knew grief had no rhyme or reason, and she wouldn’t hold it against him if he said yes. Grief was a powerful thing, and she knew better than to get hurt over what a grieving person said or did.
“Yes.” Simon answered quickly, perhaps too quickly to be honest, relying instead on trigger-quick reactions. “No. I mean.” He sighed and closed his eyes, bringing a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, his breath ragged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want right now.” His hand drew away and he looked around the den for a moment, indecision hanging about and then he moved in a purposeful manner towards the small wet bar that sat in one corner of the room.
There was nothing said as he dropped down to a crouch, giving a tug to the cabinet doors only to find them locked. Another tug and he sighed, rocking back and sitting down hard with his arms looped over his bent knees. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t even think straight.”
She walked over to the couch, and she perched on one of the arms. “You don’t have to do anything, Casper. Just be. No one expects anything of you right now,” she said softly. “If me being here makes it harder, I’ll go to a hotel. Maybe we can fly back together?” she suggested.
For a long while, there was only silence, and then he was pushing himself up to his feet again. Apparently, this sort of grief made him agitated and restless. “I don’t want you to leave. I just...” Silence again, his hands curling into fists at his side, and he let out a ragged breath, hands relaxing and clenching several times before he strode towards the sliding glass doors, pulling them open and letting the August heat into the room. Without pausing, he left the den, almost sprinting. Before long, there was the thud of two objects slamming into one another, and then again, again, over and over.
“You can’t fucking do anything right,” he snapped under his breath. “You left. You didn’t even call them to let them know where you were going! This is what you get when you do this. You deserve this! All of it!” There was another growl and he slammed a white-knuckled fist into one of the trees in the backyard again, his face a mask of anguished fury.
She followed him, not even wincing at the sounds of destruction. She’d seen this enough to know what it looked like. The anger that came when you carried guilt about someone you loved dying, the sense of not being able to make things better, to fix whatever had been broken. She leaned in the doorway a moment, and she waited until he punched the tree. Then she closed the space between them, laid both hands on his shoulders lightly. “Not your fault, Casper,” she repeated simply.
He flinched slightly as her hands found his shoulders, but Simon forced himself to relax, eyes falling shut as he let out a long breath. “I know it’s not my fault. But I’ve still messed up.” Simon looked back towards the tree, reaching a hand up, the knuckles bloodied, touching the bark lightly. “Last time I saw him was right before I left. He didn’t want me to go. I rounded on him and beat the hell outta him, Olivia. He was nearly unconscious before I realised what I was doing. I ran after that. I couldn’t stay.”
“Where he is, he forgives you, Casper,” she said, and she meant it. She knew death and dying. After death, there wasn’t anger; not anymore.
Simon swallowed hard at those words and he gave a small shake of his head before leaning forward, pressing his forehead against the tree. “I can’t forgive myself. I just.” There was another ragged breath, a hitched sob from deep in his chest, and Simon slumped forward slightly, giving his weight over to the tree to hold him up.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and she rested her cheek between his shoulder blades. She was warm and solid against his back. “I’ll forgive you for yourself,” she said stoically. Simon was soft, fragile; she could be strong enough for both of them.
Dark brown eyes squeezed shut at those words, feeling her arms wind around him, and he reached up to wind his fingers around one of her hands, holding tight. “What did I do before I found you again?” he asked roughly, hot tears falling on their joined hands, the dam finally broken to let the grief flow through.
“Toil in obscurity?” she asked, but her voice cracked as she said the words, belying the casual jest. “We’re going to be okay, you know. You, me, we’re going to get on a plane once all this is done, and we’re going to light candles and talk about him, and you’re going to be fine, because we’re going to do it together.”
For a long while, Simon said nothing, just listening to her voice when she spoke, her breath in the warm North Carolina air, and he tried to let go of the tension that had been building over the past day. Swiping at his wet eyes with one hand, he managed to nod slightly, squeezing her hand. “You’ll stay for the funeral?”
“I’ll stay as long as my brother needs me to.”
Turning around and dislodging her arms from his shoulders, Simon pressed his back against the wall, drawing his arms around her waist to rest there, looking straight at her. “Your brother needs you there,” he said quietly. “He’s not sure he could do it without her there at his side.”
“He doesn’t have to worry about that,” she assured, because he didn’t, and she kissed his cheek softly. “Ever.”
Simon didn’t say anything further, just leaning in to rest his head against her shoulder, his posture that of a man filled with grief and still carrying a burden of guilt, but at least he didn’t have to stand alone. Somehow, he would get through this, and then he and Aura would go back...
Home.
It had been a long time since he had considered any place home, and the thought made him smile, small and fragile.