Esmeralda dances to the rhythm of the tambourine (changewillcome) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-06-06 09:42:00 |
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Well. That was done. With all the singing and lyrics that had been going on, Esmeralda had been… confused. Not to mention the fact that she’d ended up in a long conversation with Grantaire through music lyrics. While she had a feeling it was an Orange County thing, she was still worried. That, and honestly it had been long enough. Grantaire needed to get out and she was going to make that happen.
Once again letting herself in without bothering to knock, the young woman went back to Grantaire’s room announcing her presence before going in.
“Alright, Grantaire. Get up, we’re going out.”
No room for arguing. Looking to his closet, she found some clothes and threw them at him to put on.
***
Grantaire grunted as the clothes hit him, rolling over so his back was to Esmeralda and cuddling up with the clothes so she couldn’t take them from him and force him to wear them. He didn’t want to go out. Part of him knew that he should, but the part wasn’t big enough to overcome the bone-deep ache or the weariness. Also, he’d just had a weird week where he had to fight not to compulsively burst into song or quote lyrics instead of speaking normally. He flapped a hand behind him.
“I’m fine,” he told her in French. “Go on without me, I’m just going to take a nap.”
***
It had certainly been an odd week and Esmeralda had found herself with many people singing at her. It was...awkward to say the least. Even so, she brushed it off as typical Orange County nonsense and moved on, because that was all she could really do about it. But she wasn’t about to take no for an answer either. And French it was, which was fine by her.
“You’re not fine, you’re coming out with me.”
So she walked over to the bed and started to tug at Grantaire to make him sit up. If she had to forcibly change him, she would.
“We’ll go somewhere without people. But you are getting out and getting fresh air.”
***
“I’m always fine,” he told her, but then groaned as she pulled him upright. His muscles screamed in protest, already unused to such movement after only a few weeks. ‘Fresh air’ sounded like torture. “I have windows, you know,” he grumbled, even as he let her move him how she wanted. “Open them, that’ll let in some air. And we’re in a city, the air isn’t even that fresh.”
Seeing that he wasn’t going to be allowed out of this, R flopped back down, but picked up the shirt and started trying to wiggle out of his pajama top (or, the oversized novelty t-shirt that Kurt refused to let him wear out of the house) and into the shirt that she’d provided. “If I sing at you again will you leave me alone?”
***
“Where have I heard that before?” Esmeralda was always ‘fine’ and they both knew that she only said that to keep people from worrying. So that sort of answer wasn’t exactly going to fly with her. “And it allows you to continue to hide away in your thoughts of what happened.”
Hands on hips, Esmeralda at least noted that Grantaire was relenting and so she kept an eye on him to make sure he didn’t try to get out of the plan.
“I didn’t leave you alone before, and my mind is made up. Have you ever known me to back down once that happens?”
***
“It’s terrible, isn’t it? Annoying to hear, especially when you know that’s not the case.” There, the shirt was off, the other one he was working on. It would be slow going. Maybe if he was slow enough about it she’d forget her quest or get sick of him and leave. In the long run that would probably be the worst outcome, but in the short term, for right now, it seemed ideal. R was only ever good at dealing with things in the short term.
“My friend, you’ve never backed down from anything, mind made up or no.” The shirt went over his head finally and he rolled over to try and work it down his back. It wasn’t working and, oh no, guess he would just have to give up. His pillow was very comfortable anyway. He pulled it close and buried his face in it so he wouldn’t have to see her eyes when she realized what he was doing.
***
Was that a pointed comment? It was probably a pointed comment and so Esmeralda just quirked a brow. It was true she underplayed her own concerns and issues as she knew there were others worse off than she was, and it wasn’t like her own problems were the ones on the table right now.
“Quite.”
Arms moving from hips to being crossed, she continued to wait, though did comment on the next sentence.
“Precisely. And I’m not about to start now.”
So any hope he had of her giving upon him because he was taking a long time to change? Well, he’d have to give up on it. Especially as she noticed he’d stopped fiddling with the shirt and seemed content to just stay on his side. So they were going to do this the more difficult way then were they? Dropping her arms, Esmeralda went to the bed and sat down to start pulling the shirt down and into place.
****
It might’ve been a pointed comment, though R wasn’t going to say either way. Could have just been a pointed observation. He tended to make those.
R groaned as Esmeralda approached, going limp so as to provide her the most difficulty. It was childish and he knew, but he was at the point of not particularly caring about his maturity level. He didn’t want to go out, the prospect of leaving the apartment was daunting. He’d only just barely managed leaving his room for more than a few minutes. He was content with baby steps. This was shoving him off a cliff and expecting him to fly.
***
It was obvious what Grantaire was doing. Honestly, Esmeralda had dealt with less troublesome children. Even so, she wasn’t about to be thwarted in this. The singing had made it so that she was delayed, however now? Now it had been nearly a month of self imposed isolation and just as she had hunted him down while he’d been on a bender, so too she would make sure he got outside, even if they didn’t interact with other people. He could hate her for the moment, Esmeralda didn’t care. Just so long as in the end it helped.
So with more struggle than there should have been as he was doing the most to give her as much difficulty as he could, Esmeralda finally succeeded and worked to pull Grantaire up and out of lying down again. She wasn’t about to leave him alone to his own devices in this. No, she was going to be by his side. But like it or not, Grantaire was getting out of the house and fresh air.
***
Grantaire groaned again and finally just rolled onto the floor. After a moment he managed to get his legs under him and stand, though it was shaky going. He felt weak. Maybe spending weeks in bed was a bad idea. Oh well. Grantaire was made of bad ideas and cheap alcohol.
“Can we at least go somewhere and get me something to drink? I haven’t had anything in several days.” Anyone he managed to sweet talk into bringing him something, someone else confiscated it. That had been the only thing to almost make him get out of bed. Almost. Depression won in the end, as it usually did with him.
***
Yes, spending weeks on end in bed did tend to be a bad idea. She understood the depression, or more she understood it was part of Grantaire and there would be the times it won out and that was why he needed someone to come and check on him. She just tended to throw any depression into her dances or helping others. It was productive. Really.
“Perhaps later.” Yes, it was going to be dependent on how everything worked out. And even then, probably not because the alcohol would undoubtedly heighten the depression. But it was incentive. Looping her arm through Grantaire’s, she led him out. She had a place in mind, just somewhere it was the two of them where he wouldn’t have to worry about other people. Not right now. Baby steps and all.
***
Grantaire had never been productive in his life, and took great care not to be - he worked (or, well had worked before all of this) at a sex shop, he spent most of his free time drinking (when he was allowed, anyway), he did not use any of the skills or his education. He provided no use to anyone, and it was his preference to be that way.
That was as good as a no, but R hadn’t expected a positive answer to his question. He allowed himself to be led out of the apartment, though he didn’t pay much attention to where they were going. It didn’t matter, he had no say in the end. He would just allow Esmeralda to take him where she wanted him to go.
***
Well if Grantaire wanted to believe he provided no use to anyone, he would be mistaken. Some people just needed friends and he was that for them. Which was why Esmeralda refused to give up on him. Despite all his seeming disinterest in the world around him beyond drink, he was always there for his friends and did not give up on them.
So for now, it was getting Grantaire outside and to an isolated part of a nearby park. Oh, it was nothing like the parks or gardens in France, California was sorely lacking in that sort of nature or types of locations. But in her random explorations of the area, Esmeralda had found places that had a similar feel and it was there she took Grantaire. Not too many people, but fresh air.
***
California was certainly almost depressing in its lack of greenery. Paris was full of parks with green grass and looming trees and water features. California was full of dust and desert-tolerant plants, and people desperatley clinging to green grass like a lifeline. It was so strange that Americans would waste water they didn’t have on something like that. Americans were strange in general. Perhaps R was strange for moving here. He certainly regretted it after the last few weeks; he’d never experienced any of these dreams in Paris, despite that being the location they’d taken place in. How odd that a journey across the ocean put him right back in the place of his birth.
Thinking of the dreams put him right back into the final moments - his final moments. The sight of the artillery guard, Enjolras’ hand clasped in his own, warm and calloused from drills with muskets and grasping pens to write desperate letters and fliers. The crack of gunfire. The pain of a bullet piercing his flesh, somehow both quick and eternal. Seeing his blood pouring from his body, seeing Enjolras pinned to the wall. Each moment took eternity, and yet, his gasping breaths rattling in his ears seemed to run out far too fast. He had a final moment to think, I am a fool, and also How happy I am to die at his side, a believer at last, if you if not in your doomed cause.
He was more inclined to believe that first thought, in the light of day.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, casually, staring at a bird hopping down the path. “I should have that bullet I woke up with turned into something. A necklace, perhaps.”
***
Esmeralda was all too familiar with being taken back to moments of death. She didn’t let them control her, she refused to, but there were times when she was alone that she was taken to a pyre and watching it lit, the scent of smoke choking her even when no smoke was there. Or the latest, where Gringoire had been the one to hand her over to Frollo. Where she had found the mother she’d been searching for only for her to be killed. Seeing Phoebus as she tried to call out to him once more for him to run. The feeling of a noose around her neck (even without needing to hide her neck with more than make up, she felt it) and the struggle to breathe before nothingness. Dying for her truth. Dying because a man was so obsessed with controlling her that he would sooner kill her.
Those thoughts and memories remained, just because she forced herself forward didn’t mean she didn’t have the memories.
Admittedly, she hadn’t expected what Grantaire had just said, and she looked to him curiously. But it was something, it was getting him to talk.
“Oh?”
***
R hummed in vague acknowledgement. “It’s a thought,” he said. “It feels like I shouldn’t throw it out, but I don’t want to just keep it somewhere where I can stumble across it when I’m not expecting it. If it’s made into something maybe it will be less upsetting.” It seemed sound logic, which R was not usually taken to, but he could occasionally have his moments of clarity.
***
It made sense to Esmeralda at any rate.
“Sort of taking it back in a way so that it does not control you so much.”
She could understand that. True, she hadn’t kept the noose in the haze that had been everything that had happened at Peter’s, and Clopin had gotten rid of the pyre. Not like Esmeralda would have known what to make of or with them if she’d thought of doing such a thing.
“It’s a good thought, if you ask me.”
***
R hummed again, glad she agreed. He thought perhaps he was just overthinking - it was a bad habit, though he pretended otherwise - but it was good to hear that she thought so as well. He wasn’t sure about the reclamation aspect, but he’d feel better knowing where it was.
“What do they call those things when you put them in frames? Or is that too sick?”
***
At Grantaire’s question, Esmeralda just looked to him and quirked a brow,
“That I do not know.” Because she had no idea what the phrase was. She had a vague idea of what he meant but as she didn’t really have all that many framed items she wasn’t exactly sure. Especially if there was an actual proper phrase for it. “Term or if it is too sick an idea.”
Frames were easy to place somewhere in general. Leaning back on her elbows, Esmeralda looked up at the sky and clouds.
“I don’t know what I would have done with the pyre or noose, so what it would mean to frame it or what to do with it? I’m not sure. But I can see how it would be a good idea for you.”
***
R hummed and leaned back as well. “I’d ask a therapist or someone but they don’t really make therapists that would be good at this sort of thing. ‘I died in a dream but it was also my other life and now I have the bullet that killed me, is it weird to keep it?’” He chuckled, a little. Thinking on it more it did seem a little sick, yes, but well. R had never professed to be healthy. He’d talk to Tamaki about it, maybe - or, preferably, Tama and his little friend Haruhi, who seemed to have her head more firmly on her shoulders than a girl her age should. Perhaps they would have some insight. “I’ll think about it.”
***
“I’m pretty sure I have seen people mention on the network mention that they are therapists actually.” Not that she knew who they were. Esmeralda had no need of one, nor would she have felt comfortable going to one even if she should have seen one. Even just for dealing with and processing the fact she’d died twice now and had needed to be brought back by CPR both times. No matter. “I think though that is something only you can really determine, even if someone is familiar with dreams and trained to be a therapist.”
Some things could only be figured out on your own. Having someone talk it through was good, but the decision had to come from within. Keeping a bullet that killed you in the dreams? Seemed to fit the ‘only you can really know the answer to that’ bill.
***
“Mm,” R hummed, noncommital. He didn’t particularly want to see a therapist, had seen too many of them under his parents’ direction that told him that he was just dramatic (which was true, but irrelevant) and that nothing was wrong with him. Even he could acknowledge that he didn’t need that and that that would probably do more damage. “I will think about it,” he said, though he knew that he likely wouldn’t. It was just a moment of clarity, of what he should do, what was the best idea, before he went right back to ignoring the best ideas.
***