un squelette dans ton plaquard, un fantome dans ton salon

[namesnotjack]

WHO: his_instrument and afeatherpillow, with guest star namesnotjack for a few tags at the beginning.
WHERE: Nigel and Alex's brownstone
WHEN: Morning of Jan. 21
WARNINGS: Probably none but updated as needed.
SUMMARY: Katurian shows up, probably miserably, on Nigel's front porch.
FORMAT: Para-intro then choose your poison, ladies.

Comments

[implemented]

Nigel doesn't sleep well, not anymore.

In truth, he has never slept fully, being the type of person who doesn't require a proper night's rest. Before the procedure, his evenings and his early mornings were full of reading and lukewarm cups of tea as he spent long hours at his desk, pouring over his notebooks, fiddling with the insides of animals. Ever since he return, however, things have been different. More often than not nowadays he stays in bed -- the covers pulled tight over the back of his neck, putting pressure on the metal collar sealed onto his skin. Nigel remains until Alex has gone off to work (the sound of the front lock shutting with a soft click), though he still emerges while Alex is in the shower to put the kettle on and make his tea.

On this morning, Nigel can hear dishes being put in the sink through the floor of his bedroom. The tap runs briefly before a soft murmur of quiet shuffling; Alex is moving about. Reluctantly, he begins to pull himself out of bed. His body is different (he can feel it when he concentrates) but despite the fact that his skin now refuses to keep bruises, everything manages to ache. Rubbing a hand over the nape of his neck, feeling the press of his palm against cool metal, Nigel sticks his head out into the hall and listens for a moment. After some consideration, he decides to go downstairs and see Alex off for once.

He's also vaguely hungry; he always is these days.

[afeatherpillow]

He spends most of the night walking.

It isn't intentional. He means to take the train home from the hospital, but his legs move mechanically, as though the feelings of muscles and joints can prevent his thoughts from propelling to the surface. His failures. By the time he finds his way back to the subway, his feet are throbbing and his face and fingers are numb with cold. He arrives at his apartment around four in the morning, lets himself fall face first into his bed, and sleeps.

For forty minutes.

He tries to fall back asleep, but by then, it's useless. He tries to write, but by then, it's also useless. Instead, he paces. And paces. Around seven, the sorrow gnaws at him until becomes something like anger at a world that would allow this, at himself for allowing this, and he kicks his kitchen chair, stubs his toe, and decides that the solution involves smashing the chair against the wall, which results in a huge dent, one of the legs snapping off, and some frantic knocks on the front door HEY IDIOT WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE? and Katurian screams at the door SHUT UP, SHUT UP and eventually, there is silence. In that silence, he starts crying again.

Around eight, he decides to see Nigel.

He isn't in a state to think about calling ahead. He just slips on his jacket, boards the subway, and tries to keep himself together. Once he arrives, he rings the doorbell.

[namesnotjack]

Alex has his shoes on and has decided to wash his own damn dishes when the doorbell rings. It keeps him from staring at the ceiling and trying to track Nigel's path across the upstairs floor just by the sound of creaks and floorboards compressing. He doesn't understand what's going on with Nigel these days -- though that is not really unexpected. If there's one thing Alex has never been good at, it's really understanding other people. What's unexpected in this situatio is that Alex cares somewhat.

So when the doorbell rings, he has just finished wiping jam off his plate. He considers, for a moment, calling out since Nigel is obviously awake and since the door is almost certainly for him, if it's not some fucking idiotic salesman getting an early start. But after a moment's thought, he decides not to bother. He sets the plate on the counter to dry and, without thinking about why, pops a few pieces of bread into the toaster before going to answer the door.

His eyebrows jump up when he sees who is standing there on their porch. "Katurian," he says mildly surprised, "you're out early." And then he does call out, turning his head back in the direction of the stairs and shouting, "Nigel. You have a visitor."

[implemented]

Nigel is halfway down to the first floor (back hunched uncharacteristically, his chin dipped down low between his shoulders, his hand still covering that damned collar of his) when the doorbell rings. He stands, a little dumbly, at the foot of the stairs, peering round to watch the back of Alex's head as he goes to answer it. The possibility that it's for him is at the front of his mind, but he doesn't really take the time to consider who it is. Instead, he lets his thoughts wander -- groggy and uncoordinated. At the mention of Katurian's name, however, he takes a few shuffling steps forward down the hall; the hand on his neck dropping away to reveal his collar as he catches Alex's attention and then nods at him, silently.

Nigel cranes his head and, over Alex's shoulder, he catches a glimpse of Katurian's face. Oddly, perhaps despite himself, he smiles. A very small, seemingly foreign expression on Nigel's face these days. The past few weeks since his return have been strange and misshapen, his friendship with Alex irrevocably off. It's done nothing but make the process of re-adapting all the more difficult, though admittedly Nigel has no illusions that his and Alex's friendship has ever been anything resembling amiable. When Nigel speaks to greet Katurian his voice is a little rough with disuse.

"Hello, Katurian. How unexpected."

[afeatherpillow]

For some reason, he doesn't expect Alex. It's completely irrational, of course, because he intellectually knows that Alex lives there, but running on forty minutes of sleep does funny things. He could only picture Nigel answering the door. Calm, self assured Nigel who, from what he can see, doesn't look self-assured or, at least, not in the same way as before. Immediately, he remembers his friend's recent death. Rebirth. In the last twelve hours, it feels like he's forgotten everything.

"Hello, Alex," he says, a little too late. He doesn't meet anyone's eyes. "Hello, Nigel."

He opens his mouth to ask them if they're well, if he can come him, but the words don't come.

[namesnotjack]

Alex looks sharply between Katurian and Nigel for a moment, not even disguising it since it requires turning his head to look at Nigel standing just behind him and off to one side. There's clear tension in the air, except somehow inverted. Tired, almost. Alex is not empathetic enough to feel it himself, but he can recognize it in how they're holding themselves.

"Come in," Alex says, the pause not quite long enough to be rude or strained. He opens the door wider and, in the same movement, lifts his jacket off the hook on the wall behind him. "I was just heading out to work, so you have the house to yourselves." He looks back at Nigel again and adds, not certain if it's worth anything, "Bread. In the toaster."

[implemented]

Nigel looks at Alex oddly for a moment, as if he's not entirely sure what the declaration of 'bread, in the toaster' is meant to mean. When he does realize what it means, however, his eyebrows lift slightly in a way that makes Nigel seem young and surprised, like he's just woken up. Alex's moments of generosity -- as brief and as accidental as they are -- have never been a given to Nigel so still, after all this time, they manage catch him off-guard whenever they surface. Silently, Nigel nods but doesn't say anything else before Alex turns with one last glance at Katurian and disappears down the front steps and out of sight.

Nigel absently watches Alex go, only thinking to shake himself back to attention when a small shudder runs down his back and through his legs. The open door has let in a cold draft along with his unexpected guest, so quickly he moves to shut it again, his eyes lingering on the worn expression of Katurian's face.

Tilting his head back over his shoulder, towards where the kitchen, he asks (neutrally): "Would you like some toast, Katurian?"

[afeatherpillow]

Inside the building, with Alex gone and Nigel's question still in the air, the tension dissipates all at once. Katurian breathes a laugh, which quickly becomes a louder laugh, which quickly chokes off into the start of a sob. He raises a hand to his forehead and lets the palm of it hang over his eyes. To hide them.

"That would be very nice," he says. Along with the stress and the sorrow in his voice, there's genuine happiness, relief that he's finally with someone he can consider a friend. Someone who understands. "Thank you."

[implemented]

Nigel watches Katurian with what begins as a kind of blank fascination. Being the way that he is and having a best friend like Alex means that there are certain things which Nigel finds himself perpetually lacking. An understanding and appreciation for true human emotion is certainly one of those things: a fact that only being around Katurian properly reminds him of.

Because even though Nigel does know what it means to be angry or amused or (on the rare occasion) sad, emotions remain mostly uncomplicated for him. Each isolated and distinct from the next, they were remote islands that Nigel could visit very briefly on his way to something else, not muddled convoluted swamps that threatened to catch him with the intent to drown. There was something raw and pathetic and objectionably vulnerable about that later approach, Nigel thinks. Emotions -- the few that were redeemable -- were meant to be indulgent and self-serving (neither of which he suspected Katurian of being at the moment).

With one hand, he reaches up and out to grasp Katurian by the shoulder while the other reflexively moves to cover his collar again. Nigel's fingers aren't nearly as certain as they usually are, but their grip remains strong. Chin up, the squeeze seems to say. We are both greater than this.

Nigel uses the touch to lead Katurian along to kitchen, his attention vaguely wandering over the walls, the pattern of the rug. His voice is absent yet teasing when he says: "Somehow, I thought you'd be happier to see me."

[afeatherpillow]

The hand on his shoulder helps. It grounds him, and he remembers where he is. He remembers that he is strong (or can be strong), and as Nigel guides him to the kitchen, he works on numbing his emotions down to something a little more presentable. Talking is still a challenge. Again, he opens his mouth. Again, nothing comes out.

This is because he knows what he came here to say.

"I'm sorry," he says instead, his voice just above a murmur. "I'm very happy to see you. It's been too long."

[implemented]

The legs of one of the kitchen chairs scrape noisily against the old lineoleum floor as Nigel pulls one out for Katurian just as the bread Alex had taken care of earlier pops cheerfully up in the toaster. Nigel's attention flickers towards it, but only for a moment, before he nods at the chair as if to say sit, but doesn't go anywhere. Just hovers, silently, his shoulders a bit stooped and his posture not so much sloppy as tired. Absently, Nigel runs a fingernail along the hard edge of his collar and stares at Katurian in an attempt to just peer inside him and understand. It doesn't come.

"What's happened?" he asks.

[afeatherpillow]

When he arrived, he figured he would build up to it like in a story. Set the scene. Make it less real, somehow. The words come out faster than he ever expected them to.

"She died," he says. He reaches out to grip the back of the chair, but he doesn't sit down, even as he feels his strength waver. He doesn't see Nigel's stare, because he's no longer looking at him. "A patient I was looking after died, and I couldn't do anything about it."

Couldn't do anything about it. This is why he's with Nigel right now, because he knows only Nigel understands what that means.

[implemented]

Nigel has always had a strange relationship with death. Both here in the City and back home at Leeds, it follows him everywhere (or would it be more accurate to say that he follows it). Now it hangs like a constant reminded around his neck, draped over his shoulders which even now seem to stoop under the weight of it. It shouldn't surprise him or take him aback to hear this from Katurian. In fact, perhaps there was a part of him that even expected it (hoped for it) the moment Nigel knew it was him at the door and had seen his sunken-eyed expression, the thinly-veiled misery of his face. And yet, Nigel's eyebrows lift unexpectedly, perhaps even in a suggestion of sympathy.

The words that Katurian has spoken are deceptively simple, innocuous even, but Nigel knows all the ways in which they have meaning. He makes himself to straighten, to stand a little taller; his voice is not as quiet, he forces it to be more certain. When he looks at Katurian this time, his eyes properly focus.

"Did you try to?"

[afeatherpillow]

He remembers how she looked when she saw him, how she smiled so brightly he could see all of her teeth. There was promise and hope and the future in that smile, and the light in her eyes reminded him that the world is still beautiful, or that she thought the world is still beautiful. He sees himself taking that away. He'd soften the blow with stories and little lies, of course, but he'd still take it away, and he can only think of how he did the same for his brother. How it ruins him even now.

"She was too happy," he whispers. His voice is strangely distant, because he's still in that hospital room, somehow, still hugging that little girl. Still on his hands and knees in the prison, apologizing to someone who can't hear. "She was just too happy."

[implemented]

Katurian is someplace else at the moment; Nigel can tell. He recognizes that distance in his voice as readily as he would if it were in his own and although Nigel does not readily indulge guilt, he does understand regret. If given the opportunity to provide his mother a more peaceful end, surely Nigel would take it; whether he would ever admit this to someone, however, is another story. Absently, he wonders how things would be different if Katurian had ever known Helen Colbie. Would he have spared her a life of being chained to a dull, inattentive sycophant of a husband? Kept her from giving birth to a son who loved her in all of the wrong ways, but loved eternity more?

Pressing his lips together in a thin line, he reaches out and grasps Katurian's shoulder, giving him a small shake. "All happiness is temporary, Katurian." The hand around his forearm tightens and then lets go again. "We both know this."

[afeatherpillow]

He does know it. The problem is, until these last few months, the transience of happiness was something Katurian conceptualized, something he molded blissfully into his stories where it stayed safe and irrelevant to his own life. There, he had the chance to be the smirking god. And that's still true when he writes, of course, but there's something so much more personal about it now that his own life has fallen apart. Now that he has to watch others fall apart.

Nigel's words are a comfort and a blow all at once.

"Hers was," he says, swallowing. "Yes." He pauses, fighting for the words. In the end, he only manages another, quieter: "Yes."

This last 'yes' also meant 'I made a mistake.'