#just finished this book and I’m feeling the strangest whirlwind of despair and hope and trust and grief

[sallyrooneygf]

James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

[adulttrio-imagines]

dialogue 1. for Chrollo ;-)

1. “You said that I’d get to have you all weekend. Why can’t you just tell them you can’t go?” - “Because it’s my job, and it’s important.” - “And I’m not?”

The strangest thing about gut feelings were how sudden they were. The ease of which days blend together into a seamless flow of normalcy gets upended from a simple spark, and suddenly your stomach is now the host of a swirling sense of unease that gradually makes its intentions of clawing its way out your throat very known. 

It’s funny how these things come about. There was no reason for you to feel upset. The humid summer heat is speckled with cool breezes that grace your home, an underappreciated comfort. Life was good. You thought between peppering Chrollo with kisses, planting them strategically around his neck to elicit an appreciative moan from him when you eventually worked your way to his lips. He sighs, wrapping his arms around the blades of your shoulders as he carefully pulls you in, and you both tumble into a mess of limbs.

By normal standards, you have it all. 

But the itch remained. The blankness in his eyes as he stared into unseen things, the silent moving of his lips in the dead of night as if he were having a conversation with someone, the half-hearted way he returned your wandering touches; he said it was the stress from his job, but you’ve seen the way he stares into the corner of the room, pale as snow and looking as though he’d seen a ghost. 

You had hoped this sinking feeling would just disappear and tried your best to go about your life with as much calmness as you can muster as the monster flipped your insides inside out. It gnawed on your mind as you notice the glazed look in your boyfriend’s eyes as you struggled to pick a movie after dinner one night. You tried pushing it to the back of your mind, never mind the fact that the sweat from your palms made it difficult to reach out to him for support you so sorely missed. You swallowed the mounting anxiety with the accompanying cup of whiskey that never left you whenever he would disappear for days on end, hoping, praying to drown the unease that appeared, unwanted, and had decided to lodge itself at the pit of your stomach to throw a wrench in the one thing you have ever cared for in your life. 

“I have to leave.” Chrollo announces, the cup of black tea he takes before bed every night untouched. You sat across from him, curled underneath the covers.

“What?” You wonder if the clusters of words from the book you were reading had somehow jumbled your hearing.

“I’m leaving.” He repeats.

Your heart is wrenching as you feel the all-to-familiar clawing feeling from your gut beginning to manifest itself, “why?”

He shrugs, nonchalant. "Just because.”

You laugh nervously, throwing back the covers as you crawled into his lap. His hip bones jut uncomfortably into your thighs, “you’re kidding, right?”

He smiles sadly, pity dripping from his face as he swirled the tea in his cup, as he slides you off, all this time avoiding your gaze like the plague.

“Please tell me this is a joke.” Fingers brushing against his chin as you try to navigate his eyes towards you, you kiss his cheek. It’s freezing to the touch and leaves a lingering bitter taste, a strange concoction of smoky ice.

“It’s not.” His voice is distant, it echoes endlessly, and fog clouds your vision.

“It’s our anniversary tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“We were supposed to go out.” You grab his sleeve

“It’s unfortunate, yes.” He sips at his tea, grimacing. Like it’s just a duty he needs to fulfill, like it’s more trouble than its worth. As if being with you was just a chore that needed to be completed for the greater good.

“You said that I’d get to have you all weekend.” When did your voice get so hoarse, you wonder, feeling the monster snaking its way around your neck and squeezing hard, “why can’t you just tell them you can’t go?”

He closes his eyes, and you see the light fade from the shades of grey that had always fascinated you so. When he finally answers, his voice is soft and shaky from exhaustion, as if he had single-handedly lifting the weight of the world on his shoulders for the past millennia.

“Because it’s my job, and it’s important.”

And he means it, just as much as he doesn’t. It is his duty, but it is also more than simple responsibility. The fog is thickening, and it suffocates you with its darkness. Truth intermingles with lies into a furious dance, sprawling and spinning into a beautiful and horrible mess that leaves you breathless.

(it destroys you. he lets it.)

He allows you push him back down, and you bark out the sentence echoing in your head.

“And I’m not?”

He stares right through you, lips still quirked into the familiar smile you’ve seen a thousand times over. You shake your head. This isn’t right. This isn’t him. 

But the sinking, beastly thing had grown and lodged itself in your chest, threatening to bubble to the surface and tear apart whatever peace you had struggle to keep. Like an underwater geyser, you thought, staring blankly at the words on the page as you placed your book, tongue like sandpaper.

And just like a geyser, the boiling water erupted, the force of the which rushed to the surface on the ocean, bursting and disrupting the calmness that preceded it. 

You struggle to find your voice, before finally rasping out:

“What happened to you? This isn’t like you at all.”

He smiles into his cup, bringing it up to face as he takes a sip of the now tepid tea, the storm in his eyes eerily complementing the coldness in his gaze as the man before you continuously flashes into different characters you’ve seen him as, each more unrecognizable than the last, at last morphing into a shadow creature that so heavily resembled the man you loved so, so much.

“Chrollo, please.” You’re at his feet, resting your cheek on his knee, a position you know he likes you in. Your hands desperately dance around for his, but he keeps them up and away from you, leaving you settling for the lingering warmth of his coat as you plead, “tell me what’s going on.”

He slowly turns down to face you, looking straight at you for the first time since the conversation started. And you try to find the man you’ve grown accustomed to waking up next to, the man who would flutter his eyes and give the faintest of smiles whenever you were together, the man who gave the gentlest kisses and had a laugh that never failed to warm you up, the man who would read you to sleep, the man you had loved falling asleep next to. 

But instead, a stranger stares back. The fact that you didn’t see a monster in his wake made your insides freeze. It would have been so easy attributing all your problems to a beast who don the skin of your boyfriend, and that your Prince Charming would save you at the end of the day. 

But fairy tales aren’t real, and neither was your prince.

You want to say his eyes are empty, but they never are. They were bright, bold, intellectual, and so very, very lost. Just as breathtaking as a clear night sky, the shinning glint they reflected remained the same, exactly as when you first caught them in that museum all those years ago. You thought you knew him like the back of your hand, that this was the person you’ll spend the rest of your life with. Instead, the tear stained reflection that stares back at you is one where you knew, deep down, was one where a future with you wasn’t even considered.

“Everything.” It’s hauntingly honest, the airy tone delivering the finality behind his answer sounded very much like the calm before a storm. You turn away from him, hands twisting into his coat as you wet his knees with tears you tried to keep hidden from him (you know he hates it when you cry), and you breathe in the scent of old books and rain. Your whole being continues to shake no matter how tightly you force your fists shut, nails leaving little crescent moon dents on your skin from the force, mockingly smiling back at you.

He’s a selfish man. You knew that, deep down. But denial is a funny thing. You’ve seen the warning signs when you dove head first into this whirlwind of a relationship, but the thing with red flags is that rose colored glasses made them all seem just like ordinary flags.

“Please. Stay.” You finally say, breaking the moment of silence imposed unto the both of you. You wanted to be selfish too, just for once. All those nights, lying awake as you both exposed your deepest fears and dreams, where your fingers would brush against his lips and you could feel his hand running through your hair, surely that had to mean something to him.

(he always lies.)

“I can’t.” He doesn’t finish his tea, but keeps it up near his lips. It’s a bad habit, he never finishes the meals you prepare, or the books you recommend. But he never fails to wring your dry and drain every drop of love you’ve reserved just for him. You burrow deeper into lap.

“You can’t? Or you won’t?” It’s easy to let the bitterness spill out into the open. It taste like acid and burns a hole in your tongue.

“You know the answer to this.” He answers your accusation with the same ease he carries himself with, as if nothing can ever hurt him. You want to scream till you bleed your throat raw.

“I do.” The cold bites at your fingers no matter how right you clutch his coat, despite the fact humid summer night is filled with the mocking buzzing of cicadas. Can they tell that you’re shaking from anger or despair? You hope they can, because the lines are so blurred you can’t differentiate between either anymore.

(you don’t want to know)

You wait for his hand to worm its way around your hair, just as he’s always done whenever you got upset, but the comforting feeling never comes. Instead he asks:

“Then why are you so afraid to let go?”

“Because...” It’s impossible to put your thoughts into the open, for saying it meant accepting it, and acknowledging it meant recognizing the broken raft that’s he’s made and sent you adrift into shark-infested water. And you weren’t sure if you could. You try to find a semblance of pity in his face, even the slightest trace of sadness, but it’s empty, empty, empty..

(this is the last time I’ll ever see you again, isn’t it?)

He sets the cup down, it clinks delicately against the wooden table. You keep your eyes at his feet and think of how far they’ll go now that the baggage will finally be shed off.

“Let me help you.” You beg. You’re more than a waste of space, you can show it to him, prove it to him, then, maybe then-

“What can you do? Tell me, how can you solve any of my problems?” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, as if you were a spoiled child demanding bothersome things. You flinch at the unusual harshness in his voice. His rage permeates the room, not directed at you, but at the world who made him so angry, for reasons you knew were beyond your comprehension.

“You know I love you, right? Why must you play these games?” It’s difficult to keep the desperation from your voice. Like wisps of fog, it was just escaping from your grasps, and no matter how many circles you run around in, it all dissipates into the morning sky. 

“Can you help me then?” His fingers are burning, but somehow still icy as they snake around your face, a comforting presence as he brushes a few errand strands away from your face. His fingers trace your lips. You let him.

“Would it make you stay?” You squeeze his hand, fingers feeling so small and fragile when clasps around his. For his affection, you would watch the world burn. 

“Yes.”

(he lies. but you love him anyway.)

He tilts his head to the side, humming, the static in the air sends you over the edge, it’s hard to breathe but you hold his gaze, “Bring back the dead.”

You shoot up, incredulous. He’s smiling serenely; as if he just requested another cup of tea rather than demand you break the realm of the living by dragging the dead back.

(he’s broken. and you cannot fix it.)

“W-What?”

“Bring the dead back.” The stranger returns again, something inside the creature snapping, morphing into a beast angrier than you’ve ever seen, face contorting into a horrifying display of grief and fury, draining the oxygen in the air to fuel the fire raging inside of him. You try to pull away, but his nails dig into your skin, it’s too late and now you’re burning with him. 

You can only watch in horror as he demon before you shakily delivering his lines in your lover’s voice, “can you do that?” He It breathes.

You feel yourself melting, skin peeling away to reveal a bleeding mass of broken dreams and forgotten feelings.  You cannot pull away, for even as a demon you cannot unsee the man you love, and you cannot stop yourself from becoming a human torch. Lungs failing, you choke out a gasp. The flame is all-consuming, destroying every last bit of hope you hid at the bottom of your heart, that perhaps, just perhaps.. 

He blinks, and the fire subsides as easily as it ignites. You inhaled shakily, relief flooding you as an aching feeling crept up your spine. People can die of a broken heart. That wasn’t something unheard off. You wonder if it’s possible to die from the very feeling of your whole being being ripped in half. Your knuckles are stretched so tightly across your skin you’re almost afraid they’ll tear and bleed, and bleed, and bleed; and you wouldn’t be able to stop it until you’re drained and dead on the floor.

“Why do you ask so much from me?” You finally say, pulling away from him.

He closes his eyes, finishing the rest of his tea. “Because you love me.” 

(he is always right.)

You lower your gaze. “But do you love me?” 

He says nothing, starring once again into space, seeing things that only exist in his mind, murmuring unknown names to himself. Under the dim yellow light, he’s aged a hundred years and looks like a man who’s been dragged through hell and back. 

He starts to say something, but he catches himself in time for only a mangled sound to escape him, instead uncrossing his legs and getting up, back facing you. 

“What do you want me to say?”

“Lie to me.”

(like you’ve always have.)

His hands graze past your cheek, gently pushing a few stray strands behind your ear. 

“I do.” He plants a kiss at the top of your head. His lips are chapped and feel as dry as sand. Condescending. You both knew it. You existed in different words, the magnitude of which, a truth you so vehemently denied, was only now crashing down on you with all the weight of the earth. 

“You liar.” You laugh, tears streaming down your face as the laughter turn into heart aching sobs. But the room is empty, and the faint summer breeze that waltzes into the room doesn’t even betray the existence of another.