calm down my heart, don't beat so fast [tailored but not necessarily locked]
In a tiny, out-of-the-way neighborhood park just outside downtown Chicago, someone is sitting on a swing. He's just rocking back and forth, making patterns in the sand below with the one foot that's hanging down off the swing. The other is tucked up onto it, knee under his chin
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Well, she figures, she'll just sit down on a swing next to this other nice-looking young man. It should be noted that to Gladys, EVERYONE is nice-looking.
This can only end in tears.
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He notices her right away -- she is, after all, the only other person in the park aside from him -- and watches her as she meanders toward the swings. He can't quite work up the nerve to say anything for a long time, eventually going back to staring at the circles his boot is tracing in the sand below him. She doesn't look anything like his hazy memories of Gladys, but then, he doesn't look too much like Jeremy. He's not Jeremy anymore.
After a few minutes, though, he can't stand it anymore. "Waiting for someone?" he asks, softly, glancing over at the woman.
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She reaches into her giant purse and pulls out a bag of cookies. "Would you like a cookie?" she asks. "They're not too old, I don't think."
She swings a little bit on the swing, holding the bag out to him.
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He shakes his head at the offering of cookies. If there was any time he wouldn't be able to stomach anything, it's now.
"Yeah," he says, finally, in an answer to her first question. It takes him quite a bit longer to force the next word out. "...Gladys?"
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And then he says her name, and there are flashes, things she's forgotten and refuses to remember.
"...Yes?" she asks, a little confused, but not scared. She can't be scared of people. "Have we met before? Are you the one looking for me?"
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"It was a--it was...a long time ago. Really fucking long time," he says finally. "I guess--you look different, you know, really different. I do too--it's not that. It's--fuck, how do you not remember?" He can't help but raise his voice, now; the anxiety is giving way to anger, the gut-reflex he's come to know and rely on. "I fucking know what the journals call me. Look at my face. Look at me and tell me you don't remember!"
At that he gets up the courage, the anger to look at her, sweeping his hair out of his face so she can see it. He's changed a lot, grown up, but if she really remembers, she might be able to put the face and the name together.
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Her jaw drops. It's like she's been punched in the gut. She exhales, half-breathing his name. "Jeremy." It's all she can say right now, the name, because the flashes aren't flashes any more. It's visions, the past placed right in front of her eyes, only all grown up. She remembers.
She snaps back to the present, and shakily moves to wrap her arms around him, to hug him. He's back. How is he... how did he...
"How did you find me?" she asks finally.
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He just doesn't want her to heal him at all, touch him at all -- he doesn't know if her wings are out, how well she can control her powers. He just knows that with some angels, they touch you and they heal you and there's nothing one can do about that. She needs to know what the consequences are, really know them, before she touches him ( ... )
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Others. There were others, yes she remembers the others. Vaguely. Wisps of faces blown away, memories she can barely grasp for. "Asa..." She knows Asa, knows of her anyway. A name for one of those vague faces.
"I was in New York," she nods. "But I'm here now. I've been here for close to a year and a half now." A pause, then. "Where have you been? Looking for me?"
She's holding off on the why for right now. She doesn't know why, can't think of any reason, but there must be one.
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He stares at the cigarette burning, watching it eat away at the paper slowly. Where has he been? It's an easy enough question, he supposes, in lieu of the questions she could have asked. He slumps to the ground, leaning against one of the swingset legs. "Part of--part of it," he says, the stops, rethinking how to start the sentence altogether. "I spent a fucking lot of time in an institution. But after--after that I went. Looking."
After a bit, he adds, as an afterthought, "For everyone."
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And then she notices just how badly the itch is right now, the way it pulses behind her eyes, like a chorus of voices. He hurts. She knew that sitting down next to him, but every person in Chicago hurts in one way or another. She feels it acutely now, and it makes her hands twitch. She crosses them over her lap, holding onto her skirt so she doesn't reach out again and touch him.
"And you found them," she nods. "You found me." She pauses, smiling. "I missed you. I thought... I mean. I didn't. It's all very fuzzy, you know. You're kind of fuzzy. But you're there. And I missed you, I know I did."
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She sits quietly while he explains what happens to the others, the others she can barely remember. She wants to remember now, wants to know the faces, wants to remember just what Asa looked like and not the blurry image she thinks she has of her old friends.
And then he switches topics and she looks at him intently. "Anything," she replies. "Absolutely anything I can do for you, just ask, Jer-- just ask me."
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And then she's telling him 'anything' and it sounds like she means it and that hurts somehow more than he was expecting it to. She doesn't even know him. She doesn't know what he's going to ask her, and he doesn't think she'll understand it.
"Don't. I want--need you to--" he breaks off, looking down at his hands, at the ground, at the trees and benches and playground in the park. Anywhere but at her, though he's keeping her in his peripheral vision, watching for movement towards him. Movement at all. "I don't--I don't want you to--just don't say yes before you understand every fucking thing about what I'm asking ( ... )
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