WHAT: An attempt to move on, an plan to move forward, and an exchanging of gifts WHERE: The Valentine's Bonfire at the Asetenarra mountain dwelling WHEN: This evening WARNINGS: Some talk of trauma STATUS: Complete
Despite the fact that it had been Leon who’d first floated the idea of using the Asetenarra bonfire to try to help him move on from the past, he was now pretty sure that this was a terrible idea and he probably should have had his head examined for even suggesting it. The whole thing was dumb. Stupid superstition and symbolism. It wasn’t going to actually accomplish, except make Leon look like an idiot. And he didn’t want to think of D today anyway. It was Valentine’s Day, for Christ’s sake. He shouldn’t be thinking of D. Even if the fire could magically make him move on from his past - and James had assured him it couldn’t actually - he was pretty sure the collection of items in the small cake box he held in between his hands wasn’t going to do the trick.
He didn’t have anything from D, not really. So he’d bought some jasmine tea - D’s favourite - and a small fruit tart, and a couple sticks of incense that didn’t quite smell like the unique incense D used to burn, but was the closest Leon could find to it.
The only thing that might’ve done the trick was Chris’ drawing, folded into a square along the creases it had been folded into when D had tried to take it with him. He’d slipped it into the box too, making sure to tuck it somewhere where it wouldn’t come into contact with the tart – as if that made any fucking sense, given the fact that the whole thing was about to go up in flames – and now that he was here, standing in front of the magically colour changing fire, it was what his mind kept coming back to.
He’d carried the drawing with him, protected it, for ten years. It wasn’t anything special. A child’s crayon drawing, on a piece of paper torn from the coiled sketchbook, tattered edges and discoloured from cigarette smoke and ten-years travel. For ten years it had been Leon’s most prized possession, a little piece of something Chris had created and D had cherished that somehow come to represent everything, even if he hadn’t looked at it much these last few years for fear of wearing it out before he could return it to D.
And every time he tried to throw this stupid box into the stupid fire, he couldn’t make his hands move, as if a bunch of tea, dessert, incense, and a beat up old piece of paper actually meant anything. It didn’t. It wasn’t even real. This fire wasn’t some magical cure for an obsession Leon should’ve let go of in his twenties.
The longer he stood here, the more he was pretty sure people were going to start to notice, and he’d already been here for too long. He wondered what James thought watching him. Probably nothing good. Maybe something along the lines of ‘how the hell am I supposed to love someone who can’t even throw a dumb fucking box in a dumb fucking fire?’ Scowling, Leon opened the box and removed the slip of paper, and slipped it into his pocket. Even still, he hesitated with the box.
“Well, D,” he muttered, as if D could somehow hear him talking to a box in a different dimension. “It’s been … Alright, it’s been pretty fucking awful all around but…” He cleared his throat. “I mean, I can’t keep chasing you forever and…” He frowned. Took a breath. “I miss you. But I found something I want more. And I can’t keep doing this.”
And then the box was in the fire, the smoke sweet and floral, and Leon stalked away from the warmth and the light, the slip of paper in his pocket weighing down his pocket like a sack of bricks, feeling like nothing so much as failure.
As usual, Asetenarra knew how to make a stellar bonfire there on top of their mountain dwelling - it was beautiful, truly, almost like a monument. A tempera painting that was all orange and red, fiery tongue leaping out - then the colors would change, and it would be ice blue, or something lilac tree purple; it all depended on the mood of who was nearby, and what they had to offer. James stuck with his covenmates, helping them prep the communal dinner of goth pasta (it was similar to a hot pot setup, with a huge pot in the middle of a long table, with other tables scattered around) - he knew Leon needed time to come to terms with what he was doing, but James also wasn’t about to leave him to process everything by himself. Especially not on a night that was meant to be about romance.
Not only the act of romance itself, but love - love of all kinds, and celebration of such things and how lucky you were to have them in your life. He had a gift for Leon too, and some encouraging words - James was proud of him. Truly, he was, even if the expression on Leon’s face was hard to read.
Dusting his hands off, he passed by one of the warming lamps - magic too, a combination of spells; the lamp glowed a silvery moon up here - and headed toward Leon. “Well - I’m rather curious about how that went?” he said, wrapping his arm around his boyfriend’s.
Leon sighed, resting his head James' shoulder and grasped at the hand James had wrapped around his arm with his opposite hand. He didn't say anything for a long moment, taking comfort in James' presence, and his scent under the smell of bonfire and pasta sauce.
"I don't think I did it," he admitted. "I mean, I did, kind of, but I couldn't…" He let go of James' hand so he could pull the folded slip of paper out of his pocket. He offered it to James. "I couldn't get rid of this, and it was the only thing that was actually D's. I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do with it."
James took the paper curiously, studying the drawing - it was clearly some kind of...family portrait? Something scrawled by a child, but something that held meaning - something that Leon obviously kept close to him, figuratively and literally considering the nicotine stains that were like a varnish at that point, not exactly going away.
He considered for a moment - was thoughtful, as he breathed in the night air tinged with sweet smoke from the bonfire. “Keep it, I suppose?” he suggested. “We all have things we can’t let go of entirely - but we get to decide what to do with the pieces.” Like him, like his family - he couldn’t put all the photos into the flames and be done with it; there were parts, good parts, mostly with Julia and even with Avelina, that he didn’t want to burn. And didn’t think he could. “Let go of the parts that hurt you - but the others, keep them. Because they’re still a part of you - doesn’t mean you can’t move forward, of course. We all have our own histories and stories. I think the right people will accept you for all of that - I know that I do,” he added, handing the paper back to Leon.
“That is because you’re weirdly chill about everything. Seriously. Gives me the creeps.” He was smiling when he said it though, and he lifted his head from James’ shoulder so he could give him a kiss on the cheek. He probably would’ve been creeped out if James was always chill, but he wasn’t. He’d seen him angry. He’d seen him passionate too, fairly often.
“My kid brother drew this,” Leon said, taking the drawing. He sat up a little straighter, not leaning on James’ anymore but still pressed against him. “When he was about six, he went mute. Trauma and anxiety and a bunch of shit. He’d had a fight with one of his sisters. So after a few months when he wasn’t getting better, his parents sent him across the country so he could go to this special school that could help him. He was only supposed to stay with me for a couple days before the term started, but…”
Leon shrugged, shoulder bumping against James’. Leon had been shot in those couple days – nothing serious, it had only hit him in the arm, but he’d been knocked out. He thought he’d talked to his mom while he’d been out. He’d been sure he’d heard Chris calling to him.
“Anyway, he stayed with us for a year. At first I just had D watch him while I was working, but he eventually moved in to the petshop. I think it was good for him. And he couldn’t speak, but we could hear him anyway. Me and D, and I think probably all the pets in the petshop. Chris told me he’d thought they were people. And that,” he pointed to the little girl, “was a racoon. Or a European badger. Whatever. And that,” he pointed at the teenage boy with horns, “was some creepy-ass goat-dog-tiger thing. D called it a totetsu. When D left L.A., this was the only thing he’d planned to take with him. But shit happened and he had to abandon it in the end, and so I’ve been carting it around to give back to him.”
Oh, so that made more sense. It wasn’t exactly a family portrait - but it sort of was? James smiled a bit, bumping his hip against Leon’s - support and affection and solidarity; whatever he wanted to do with the drawing, of course James wouldn’t stand in the way of that. “I can see why you want to keep it,” he said. There was a special sort of bond between siblings, even if Leon was much older than Chris and ultimately didn’t spend a lot of time with him - but it was still there. James felt similarly about Julia. He’d honestly die for her - they’d been through so much together and, for a time, she was all he had in his life that was good. The only positive relationship, a love that wasn’t entrenched in darkness and dangerous expectations.
“You see animals the same way,” he added - because he knew that had been a thing with Leon, until it wasn’t. “It seems like that was because of the shop, but - you could also hear your brother? Could you hear me, do you think?”
Just a simple question to kind of get the ball rolling on maybe broaching this subject again. It had been some time since James brought it up, and their relationship had evolved a little - so he felt confident that perhaps they could tackle it for real soon.
“Saw,” Leon corrected, because he couldn’t see them anymore, not unless he was drunk. Not since… his mind shied away from that particular thought, focused instead on not since I gave up on finding D. He grinned at James. “And I can hear you. Right now.”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” James responded with fond exasperation, rolling his eyes. He tugged Leon closer to one his favorite pillows (not really, though the first time they’d done the Asetenarra bonfire thing Leon sank into the cloudlike seating and grumbled about it, which was adorable). But he figured they ought to be sitting, if they were going to have this conversation.
He didn’t want Leon to have to get shitfaced in order to be able to get back in touch with a certain ability - the fact that he still could do it but only under certain conditions meant that the block was psychological; James had never suspected it was anything less, however. It was just something he couldn’t fix himself. “You would be able to hear me, if you let me in.”
Leon folded up Chris’ drawing and returned it to his pocket before he let himself be dragged to the sorry excuse for a chair. He didn’t bother to fight it when the cushioning pushed them together. He wasn’t opposed to public displays of affection, and even if he was, it was Valentine’s Day and the baby goths could suck it up if they had a problem with it. He doubted they did though, or that they were even paying James and Leon much more than a passing glance, if that.
“Oh, I think I let you in plenty, though I guess we could find the time for more,” Leon said, with a suggestive eyebrow waggle.
He knew that wasn’t what James meant either, though, and his grin faded a little. James hadn’t really brought it up at all, and he’d appreciated it a lot. But he’d gone into this relationship knowing James was a telepath and that, unlike his sister, he didn’t avoid his magic. Some part of Leon knew that James probably would’ve liked to have a little more access to Leon’s mind, not because he wanted to snoop around in Leon’s mind – Leon was uncomfortably aware that James could probably manage that just fine without Leon’s permission if he ever wanted to – but because it would imply a certain level of trust.
Leon knew all that, but every time he’d tried to bring it up to James, to seriously think of letting James in, his throat would close up and he found it hard to breathe until he shoved the thought away.
Kind of like right now.
“I don’t know if I can just… you know… I mean, Chris didn’t really have any other way to communicate, so it was really the only way to talk to him but with you I can just, you know, talk to you.”
That was a whole lot of uncomfortable you know’s, but at least Leon was trying - which James appreciated. He snuggled up to his boyfriend on the gigantic pillow (it was probably a beanbag chair? Something like that - and here James thought those died in the nineties), wrapping both arms around one of Leon’s and reaching for his hand. Their fingers laced together, and even though it snowed today it was still pleasant up here on the mountaintop - the warming lamps helped with that and, of course, the bonfire; it continued to glow like a beacon and was currently blood-red, a bright aerial eye from above announcing what exactly Asetenarra was all about.
“It’s about communicating with each other, yes - but also your ability to talk to animals?” he hedged. James wasn’t one to shy away from anything, even if the discussion was difficult - but he was adept at figuring out how to traverse the minefield, if there was one. “Maybe opening yourself up more will help with that.” He was pretty sure it would, but it was something Leon had to agree to - if there wasn’t agreement, nothing would actually be helping.
Leon frowned, ready to argue that that was done, that he wasn't going to talk to animals again. He'd made a choice between humanity and the animal kingdom, and that door was closed.
Except even as the argument formed in his mind he knew that wasn't quite right. He still could talk to animals, sometimes. When he was drunk enough.
He shoved his anxiety down, jaw set, his grip on James' hand tightening. "I don't know how to do it," he admitted. "It was never something I ever did, it was always something that just happened."
“We could practice?” James suggested, fingers of his other hand stroking over Leon’s. It was meant to be reassuring. Because this was hard, he knew that - lots of things were. But it wasn’t like he could encourage inebriation as a way to connect with a part of you that you thought you’d lost - especially if there were better, safer ways to get that back. Ways that didn’t involve unhealthy coping mechanisms and destroying your liver. “Not right now, but - when we’re alone. You can figure it out, Leon, you’re smart and you have so much gumption.”
He’d seen it, of course he had - he’d always seen it, and that was one of the things that attracted him to Leon in the first place. Conviction was a sexy quality (even if it often teetered into stubborn territory in many instances).
Leon didn't want to practise. Practise implied doing it more than once, and he barely wanted to do it that many times. He wanted to claw his way out of this beanbag chair and run down the mountainside, but James had picked a good seat for this talk; the seat had all but devoured him and clawing his way out would have just been an embarrassing flail.
It was a long time before he sighed, relaxing -- he hadn't realized how tensely he'd been holding himself -- and said, "Okay. Yeah, I'll give it a shot. I don't think it'll help with seeing the animals again -- I told you, I picked humanity -- but it scares the hell out of me so that seems as good a reason as any to try."
Leon didn't particularly like the idea that there was anything that could leave him feeling like this.
He rested his head on James' shoulder again, and eager to change the topic, said, "I got you something, by the way."
Admittedly, James wasn’t entirely sure how it worked but he liked to think it wasn’t going to be so black or white, so clear-cut. Some aspects of life were but then some weren’t at all - it just depended. “I don’t know - maybe there’s a way to have both. To find balance,” he said, giving Leon’s hand a squeeze (and James may not be reading his mind but he knew for sure that getting up and running away was the prime solution - James knew what he was doing when he picked this seat though, today wasn’t his first day).
But he could go along with a subject change, that wasn’t an issue. “Oh, what’s this? You got me something? Because it’s Valentine’s Day and you’re very romantic?” he teased, leaning in and dropping an air kiss on Leon’s face. Then a real kiss - because why not. “I may have gotten you something too.”
“Oh yeah, I’m a regular Casanova,” Leon snorted, but he accepted the kiss, and gave James one of his own. “It’s not chocolate or flowers or anything like that.” Though he did have a heart-shaped black forest cake for two back in his apartment that he’d had to order weeks in advance. He shifted, leaning into James more as he pulled something from his back pocket, and then present him with a leather keychain embossed with a large Ψ and smaller Dr. James Barlow under it, with a silver key attached. “It’s for my apartment. So you can come by whenever you want..”
Oh, now wasn’t this nice. James had to laugh a little as he took the keychain, slipping it into his leather jacket pocket. “Apparently we’re on the same wavelength even if I haven’t read your mind yet,” he pointed out, handing Leon a little box with his own keychain inside - the design wasn’t as eye-searing as some of Leon’s own shirts, but it was on brand and still close. The silver key attached didn’t quite go to James’s heart, but close enough.
“Just until we get a place of our own - but I thought freedom would be a good thing in the meantime. What’s mine is yours and all of that,” he said. Lots of positive advancements in their relationship for this Valentine’s Day - James felt pretty good about all of it, in that warm sepia-toned daydream kind of way.
Leon laughed when he opened the box, partly at the idea that they’d decided on the same gift, a little bit at the keychain, but mostly as a release of nervous energy. Tonight had already been a lot, and Leon was exhausted, but he hooked the keyring around his finger and pulled James in for a kiss, drawing energy from it. There was still weird goth pasta to be had, and then cake, and then dessert, and Leon intended to see the whole night through even if all he wanted to do right now was curl up in James’ arms and watch the fire, or maybe go home and fall asleep watching a movie on the couch or something.
“This count for my pasta portion? Because if this charcoal business makes it taste like I’m eating a bonfire, I’m giving it all to you.”
“It’s good, I promise,” James grinned - he’d able to assure that eating a bonfire wasn’t going to be a worry (and anytime Asetenarra got to show off their cheese, that was a positive - they were quite proud of what they were able to create). “Come on, you can see for yourself,” he added, unfolding long limbs and standing up relatively easily - he held out his hand for Leon too, because he was a supportive partner who wouldn’t let his love sink into quicksand cushions.