Yuletide story!
The authors have been revealed over at yuletide so now I can post my story!
Title: When Claire Met Trevor
Fandom: Cupid
Author's notes: Written for elishavah in the Yuletide fic exchange. Thanks to mysticxf for reading and encouragement, even though I didn't believe her at first when she said it was good.
"…so then she says, 'Let's just be friends.'" The entire Tuesday night singles' group meeting let out a collective groan as Nick finished telling his story. He raised his eyebrows and nodded. "I know, right?"
"Let's explore this a little more," Claire jumped into the murmurs of conversation that were just beginning to rumble through the room. "What's wrong with friendship?" Everyone in the room turned to stare at her as though she had said something beyond ridiculous. "No, come on, I want to know," she insisted.
"It's code," Trevor spat from the back of the room. "No woman who says she wants to be your friend actually wants to be friends. She wants you to stop calling her and not have to feel bad about it tomorrow. It means she doesn't want to sleep with you."
"Why does a lack of sexual desire have to be the end of a relationship?" Claire questioned, searching the faces of the people sitting in front of her. People who had been coming to this group two nights a week for months now, people who said they didn't want to be alone anymore.
"What else is there?" Trevor demanded. Clearly she'd touched a nerve. Perhaps that had been her intention in following this path of discussion.
"Companionship? Conversation? Common interests?" Claire replied. Trevor had crossed his arms against his chest. He didn't buy it; he never did. She hadn't expected him to, in all honesty, but she'd been interested in his reaction all the same. "Okay," she said, turning her attention from him to the others in the group, "what is it about the idea of friendship that's so repulsive? Men and women can't be friends?"
"'Let's be friends' is such a crock," Laurence said. "Once you've been designated as a friend, you're going to stay a friend, because she never wants to take the risk of screwing it up."
"If you're a friend, she doesn't think you're exciting enough to sleep with," Mike said.
"Men are just as bad," one of the women protested. "If a guy is friends with you, he wants into your pants. Plain and simple. If he'd never in a million years sleep with you, he's not going to bother being your friend. They stick around for just that one hint of possibility."
"Aren't these stereotypes?" Claire asked. "The possibility of sex is not the root of every relationship." As she looked around the room, no one would meet her eyes. There was silence. She was intrigued by this. "Men and women are not such fundamentally different creatures that they can't have real friendships with one another." Still nothing. "Friendship isn't something that only occurs between people of the same sex. It's a relationship between people, men and women are both --" She stopped, ultimately frustrated. "Really?" she asked. "Not one of you, any of you, has a friend of the opposite sex where there's no element of sexual attraction there at all? Where it's not even a factor? You don't just enjoy their company or …" She was still looking into blank faces. "It's just me, then," she said, frowning now.
"And they say I'm delusional," Trevor said. Mocking her with his low tone of voice.
"That's enough," Claire said, more snappishly than she would have liked. "There's no reason to buy into this outdated, 'When Harry Met Sally' idea that men and women can't just be friends, without sex ever entering into the equation."
"Then why do your friends always ditch you once they get married?" Nick pointed out. "Ever notice that? Guy, girl, don't matter. Once they've got that ring on their finger, they don't need anybody else. Not really."
"Friendships have expiration dates," Claire said. "As we go through life and have different experiences, the things that brought us together fade away, and sometimes the friendships fade along with them. It's only natural."
"People don't have friends once they're out of school anyway," one of the women said. "Who has time? Spend all day at work. Make friends with the people there, leave 'em behind when you quit or get fired. Family and just trying to get through life and maybe have a date once in awhile takes up what little spare time you've got left."
"Friendship is obsolete, is that what I'm hearing?" Claire asked, as there were murmurs of assent from the different corners of the room. "It's something that serves a purpose until we develop into sexual beings and then it falls by the wayside or is transformed into a ruse, just another part of the complex mating dance?"
"Pretty much," Mike said, and everyone agreed with him.
"Well, I'm…I'm…I'm shocked," Claire said. "I don't know what to say."
"And they said it couldn't be done," Trevor retorted. She looked at him sharply, but he just shot her a smile that expressed his confidence that he was being charming, whether she agreed or not.
"Okay," Claire said, brushing her hair back behind her ears. "I'll see you all here again on Friday." She watched them pick up their belongings and prepare to go, still not quite able to believe what she'd heard tonight. And as the majority of the group made its way toward the door, Trevor moved against the current, approaching her.
"Hate to be the one to break it to you, but romantic love is all there is," Trevor said.
"I refuse to believe that," Claire said. "Even the ancient greeks -- your people! -- believed there was more than one kind of love."
"Really?" He glanced around. "I don't remember seeing the god of friendship anywhere."
She looked at him, wondering if this refusal to acknowledge anything other than erotic love was part of his delusion that he was Cupid. The fact that the other people in the group also felt that way was just a sign of their shared romantic trauma, because she was certain that it was romantic trauma that had driven Trevor Hale into this state. "I have friends I don't want to sleep with. I can't be the only one."
"That has more to do with you being repressed than the true nature of friendship," Trevor leaned in to murmur in her ear.
"No, Trevor, I really don't want to sleep with them," Claire insisted, shoving him away from her, and suddenly she didn't like the way he was looking at her. "You don't count."
"Because you want to sleep with me," he taunted.
"You are a patient," Claire reminded him firmly.
"You brought me soup when I was sick. You take an uncommon interest in the things I do. You follow me around, admit it, I've seen you, sounds pretty friendly to me," Trevor said.
"The court made me responsible for your welfare, Trevor," Claire said.
"Otherwise you'd just walk away," he challenged.
"I might, yes. I could," she said. But there was an odd twinge in her chest. Could she? She was too fascinated by his case to let him get away. Was that more or less predatory than the pretext of friendship being based on sexual attraction?
Trevor's smirk grew into a smile. A great, big, knowing grin. "You wouldn't. You're too intrigued. Fascinated. Desperate to figure me out. Sounds like a crush to me."
"I do not have a crush on you, Trevor!" Claire cried.
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Trevor teased.
"Oh, right, I'm supposed to just agree with a complete lie? One that would threaten my professional reputation? You're my patient, Trevor. Of course your delusion is fascinating to me, from a professional standpoint. Nothing more," she declared vehemently. "If you were cured tomorrow I would never see you again, and probably be glad of it."
He practically wilted before her eyes, and she knew she'd gone too far. He nodded, his head dropping down a little farther between his shoulders with each nod, and then he looked up at her, beguiling and sad. He didn't say anything; that was how she knew she'd really hurt him. The he turned and walked away.
Claire sank back into the chair she'd been sitting in to conduct the singles' group meeting. Thoughts tumbling through her mind. Trevor's refusal to believe in any sort of platonic relationship at all, be it friendship or doctor-patient; the hurt in his eyes. Did that mean he had feelings for her? She knew it happened, patients misinterpreting their feelings about being well as feelings for the person who'd helped them. In Trevor's case, would that keep him from letting go of his delusion? It was startling for her to consider. She didn't know what to do with the thought now that she'd had it.
So she did what she always did: she went home and did research. And in the intervening days, she didn't see Trevor at all. By Friday she'd begun to become aware of his absence in her life. It was strange how she'd gotten so used to his manic, mouthy presence.
She was relieved to see him slip into the back of the room just after the Friday night group meeting began. For a few moments there, she'd worried he wasn't going to show, and then she'd be in the position of tracking him down and deciding what to do next. If it came to that, she would have to change the nature of their professional relationship, either require him to act like a patient or tell him to find a new doctor. She didn't want him to find a new doctor. She wanted to find the truth; she had to write her book; and most of all, she knew no other doctor would be willing or foolish enough to take him on, and she couldn't bear to see him institutionalized.
"I want to go back to the subject of friendship," Claire announced, and a wave of dissention flowed through the room. She ignored it. Just because they didn't want to face something didn't mean they should be allowed not to. Avoidance was a symptom of a greater problem.
"It turns out you were right," she said, folding her hands in her lap with a satisfied smile as dissention turned to surprise. "According to some theorists, friendship is obsolete. C.S. Lewis wrote in the early part of the century that friendship had fallen out of favor, and what was true then is even more true today. We have so many options available to us to stay in communication with one another -- email, cell phones, chat rooms -- but when was the last time any of us reached out and touched our best friend? Or even had a best friend?"
They were smiling now. Nodding. The sort of thing she liked to see. "Sternberg's triangular theory suggests friendship is an incomplete form of love. It's intimacy without passion. But this theory also states that romantic love is equally incomplete, providing us with passion but not intimacy. What I want to try to explore today is why friendship is undervalued. Why we expend so much energy chasing passion when intimacy would be more satisfying in the long run."
"Because it's passion," Trevor said from the back of the room, right on cue. "It's exciting."
"It's designed to be exciting," Claire agreed. "But it burns out quickly and then what are you left with, without intimacy to fall back on? Passion's exciting, sure, but you could find passion in any bar, on any street corner. The reason you are all here is because whether you know it or not, you're seeking a deeper connection. Aren't you?"
"Love without sex," Mike said. "That's what you're talking about, love without sex."
"Maybe I am," Claire said leadingly.
He was shaking his head. "That's not what anybody wants. It's what they end up with, maybe."
"Divorce," Nick said. "You wanna know why the divorce rate's skyrocketed? Love without sex, it ain't enough."
Claire looked at Trevor, since he'd claimed initially that the skyrocketing divorce rate was part of the reason he'd been sent here. It played into his delusion. Was this why he'd latched onto Cupid, or Eros, who was the god of passionate love?
"Sternberg would agree with you," Claire said. "Which is why he believed neither intimacy nor passion alone were enough. He introduced the idea of consummate love, which united both intimacy and passion, along with commitment. That would be everyone's ideal of love, wouldn't it? In a perfect world?"
Murmurings of agreement. She nodded, like they were on the right track. And then she held up her index finger. "But we don't live in a perfect world. Ideals are nice, but they're rarely achieved. Unrealistic expectations are part of the reason most of you are here."
"I agree," Trevor said, and she looked at him, the surprise clearly showing on her face. "In a minute, she's going to tell you to settle for friendship. Go for intimacy, right, Dr. Allen?" She started to say something, but he just kept talking, as he often did. "You can have intimacy with your cat, with your diary, with the guy in the next cube. Go for passion. Passion is what's missing in your lives. When you find that, the rest of it will follow. Even she said it herself -- intimacy without passion isn't love. It's friendship."
Claire found it interesting. They were advocating the same thing, but in completely opposite ways. She tucked it into the back of her mind while the rest of the group session moved on to open discussion.
Later, as people were filing out the door, she made a point of reaching the threshold at the same moment as Trevor. "Remind me again what you say you were sent here to do," she challenged him.
"Match up 100 couples."
"And yet you were advocating passion back there like that would get the job done," she pointed out. "But one-night stands aren't what move your beads, are they, Trevor?"
"Depends on what beads you mean," he replied smoothly.
She ignored the remark. "What you were sent here to do was find consummate love between 100 couples. Yes passion, but also intimacy and commitment."
"What do you think I used to do with my bow and arrow?" he asked. "Shoot people up with a healthy dose of friendship? Passion, baby. Have that, the rest will follow."
"How's that working out for you now?" she asked.
He raised his hands and looked at them. "No bow. No arrow. Concept's the same."
"Maybe you don't have your tools because what you were doing with them didn't work," Claire pointed out. "Maybe passion was blinding people to their true potential."
"Blinding people was someone else's job entirely," Trevor said. "Fates, man, don't mess with them. Scary people. Scary."
"Intimacy and commitment work, Trevor. They do. Passionate love can grow out of mutual respect and admiration."
"Are you advocating arranged marriages now, too?" he asked.
"They work. In many, many cultures," she replied. "Our particular culture places too much emphasis on passion, and that's the problem. There's nothing wrong with friendship. There's nothing wrong with platonic love."
"Uhm, platonic love is kind of a misnomer," Trevor said. "The dude liked to bang teenage boys. He was the Michael Jackson of his day. He just made it out to be sweet and innocent so they wouldn't kill him. Oh wait, they did anyway. Too bad."
"That doesn't mean the concept was flawed," Claire said quickly, aware of the straws she was grasping at. "Just the execution, perhaps."
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" he asked.
"No, actually," she admitted, tugging at the hem of her sweater where it might have ridden up a millimeter or two while they were walking. "I want to have this out with you, Trevor. I think it's important."
"Important because you always have to be right, even though you never are?"
"Important because I am right," she said, "and because it has direct bearing on your case."
"My case," he said. "I don't have a case. I'm Cupid. End of story." He started walking away from her.
"Fine," she said, standing her ground and calling out after him. "How many couples have you matched up?" She watched his walk slow, and he turned his head to answer her but the wind carried off his response. "What was that?" she asked, taking a few measured steps toward him. "How many?"
He was making an unhappy face at her. "Ten," he said softly.
"At this rate we're both going fifty by the time you finish," Claire said, almost as softly.
A smile sparked across his lips. "Immortality. Time's on my side."
"But you want to go home now," she said. Wondering where his home was. Was this yearning for home indicative of a deep-seated desire to be cured?
"More than anything," he said, and his brown eyes were clear and serious as they met hers.
"And you want to go back because you can't experience passion yourself while you're here," she said, pushing just as hard as she could because she had him. "Isn't that the deal? Your punishment? Sex with a mortal and you lose it all? How does it fit, Trevor? How can you advocate for everyone else something you're terrified of?"
"You don't understand," he said. "You'll never understand."
"Help me," Claire invited. "It's why I'm here."
"You're here because of your book and your reputation and the court," he said, the words thick and angry, and he was walking away again.
"I'm here because I care, Trevor," she said. "I care about you as a person. Otherwise it would be so easy to give up, but I'm not going to do that. No matter how many innuendos you sling at me or how infuriated you make me or how many times you walk away from me. It's not passion so you can't understand that, apparently."
"Sternberg have a word for that one? Intimacy and commitment without passion?" Trevor asked.
"I think he called it platonic love, which we've already established you have a problem with," Claire replied. "Friendship is no less an interesting emotion than romantic love; it's just different."
"But we aren't friends. You were very clear on that," he said, but he was facing her now. Looking at her. Looking less hurt and more intrigued, although his manner was still quiet, though with the tension of held-back energy.
"I think I was wrong," she admitted. Maybe friendship wasn't the right word for their relationship, but without the structure of regular office-based sessions, maybe it wasn't so wrong after all. She looked after him and he checked in with her; wasn't that what friends did? She held out her hand for him to shake. "Friends?" she offered.
He nodded, taking her hand in his and using it to pull her into an embrace. It was awkward, but also unromantic and nonthreatening, and somehow to Claire it felt like progress. "Friends," he said against her ear. Then he gave her the double-back-pat of a male-bonding hug and stepped away. She watched him until he disappeared through the door of the bar up the block, thinking that friendship was good. Love was overrated.
End.
Title: When Claire Met Trevor
Fandom: Cupid
Author's notes: Written for elishavah in the Yuletide fic exchange. Thanks to mysticxf for reading and encouragement, even though I didn't believe her at first when she said it was good.
"…so then she says, 'Let's just be friends.'" The entire Tuesday night singles' group meeting let out a collective groan as Nick finished telling his story. He raised his eyebrows and nodded. "I know, right?"
"Let's explore this a little more," Claire jumped into the murmurs of conversation that were just beginning to rumble through the room. "What's wrong with friendship?" Everyone in the room turned to stare at her as though she had said something beyond ridiculous. "No, come on, I want to know," she insisted.
"It's code," Trevor spat from the back of the room. "No woman who says she wants to be your friend actually wants to be friends. She wants you to stop calling her and not have to feel bad about it tomorrow. It means she doesn't want to sleep with you."
"Why does a lack of sexual desire have to be the end of a relationship?" Claire questioned, searching the faces of the people sitting in front of her. People who had been coming to this group two nights a week for months now, people who said they didn't want to be alone anymore.
"What else is there?" Trevor demanded. Clearly she'd touched a nerve. Perhaps that had been her intention in following this path of discussion.
"Companionship? Conversation? Common interests?" Claire replied. Trevor had crossed his arms against his chest. He didn't buy it; he never did. She hadn't expected him to, in all honesty, but she'd been interested in his reaction all the same. "Okay," she said, turning her attention from him to the others in the group, "what is it about the idea of friendship that's so repulsive? Men and women can't be friends?"
"'Let's be friends' is such a crock," Laurence said. "Once you've been designated as a friend, you're going to stay a friend, because she never wants to take the risk of screwing it up."
"If you're a friend, she doesn't think you're exciting enough to sleep with," Mike said.
"Men are just as bad," one of the women protested. "If a guy is friends with you, he wants into your pants. Plain and simple. If he'd never in a million years sleep with you, he's not going to bother being your friend. They stick around for just that one hint of possibility."
"Aren't these stereotypes?" Claire asked. "The possibility of sex is not the root of every relationship." As she looked around the room, no one would meet her eyes. There was silence. She was intrigued by this. "Men and women are not such fundamentally different creatures that they can't have real friendships with one another." Still nothing. "Friendship isn't something that only occurs between people of the same sex. It's a relationship between people, men and women are both --" She stopped, ultimately frustrated. "Really?" she asked. "Not one of you, any of you, has a friend of the opposite sex where there's no element of sexual attraction there at all? Where it's not even a factor? You don't just enjoy their company or …" She was still looking into blank faces. "It's just me, then," she said, frowning now.
"And they say I'm delusional," Trevor said. Mocking her with his low tone of voice.
"That's enough," Claire said, more snappishly than she would have liked. "There's no reason to buy into this outdated, 'When Harry Met Sally' idea that men and women can't just be friends, without sex ever entering into the equation."
"Then why do your friends always ditch you once they get married?" Nick pointed out. "Ever notice that? Guy, girl, don't matter. Once they've got that ring on their finger, they don't need anybody else. Not really."
"Friendships have expiration dates," Claire said. "As we go through life and have different experiences, the things that brought us together fade away, and sometimes the friendships fade along with them. It's only natural."
"People don't have friends once they're out of school anyway," one of the women said. "Who has time? Spend all day at work. Make friends with the people there, leave 'em behind when you quit or get fired. Family and just trying to get through life and maybe have a date once in awhile takes up what little spare time you've got left."
"Friendship is obsolete, is that what I'm hearing?" Claire asked, as there were murmurs of assent from the different corners of the room. "It's something that serves a purpose until we develop into sexual beings and then it falls by the wayside or is transformed into a ruse, just another part of the complex mating dance?"
"Pretty much," Mike said, and everyone agreed with him.
"Well, I'm…I'm…I'm shocked," Claire said. "I don't know what to say."
"And they said it couldn't be done," Trevor retorted. She looked at him sharply, but he just shot her a smile that expressed his confidence that he was being charming, whether she agreed or not.
"Okay," Claire said, brushing her hair back behind her ears. "I'll see you all here again on Friday." She watched them pick up their belongings and prepare to go, still not quite able to believe what she'd heard tonight. And as the majority of the group made its way toward the door, Trevor moved against the current, approaching her.
"Hate to be the one to break it to you, but romantic love is all there is," Trevor said.
"I refuse to believe that," Claire said. "Even the ancient greeks -- your people! -- believed there was more than one kind of love."
"Really?" He glanced around. "I don't remember seeing the god of friendship anywhere."
She looked at him, wondering if this refusal to acknowledge anything other than erotic love was part of his delusion that he was Cupid. The fact that the other people in the group also felt that way was just a sign of their shared romantic trauma, because she was certain that it was romantic trauma that had driven Trevor Hale into this state. "I have friends I don't want to sleep with. I can't be the only one."
"That has more to do with you being repressed than the true nature of friendship," Trevor leaned in to murmur in her ear.
"No, Trevor, I really don't want to sleep with them," Claire insisted, shoving him away from her, and suddenly she didn't like the way he was looking at her. "You don't count."
"Because you want to sleep with me," he taunted.
"You are a patient," Claire reminded him firmly.
"You brought me soup when I was sick. You take an uncommon interest in the things I do. You follow me around, admit it, I've seen you, sounds pretty friendly to me," Trevor said.
"The court made me responsible for your welfare, Trevor," Claire said.
"Otherwise you'd just walk away," he challenged.
"I might, yes. I could," she said. But there was an odd twinge in her chest. Could she? She was too fascinated by his case to let him get away. Was that more or less predatory than the pretext of friendship being based on sexual attraction?
Trevor's smirk grew into a smile. A great, big, knowing grin. "You wouldn't. You're too intrigued. Fascinated. Desperate to figure me out. Sounds like a crush to me."
"I do not have a crush on you, Trevor!" Claire cried.
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Trevor teased.
"Oh, right, I'm supposed to just agree with a complete lie? One that would threaten my professional reputation? You're my patient, Trevor. Of course your delusion is fascinating to me, from a professional standpoint. Nothing more," she declared vehemently. "If you were cured tomorrow I would never see you again, and probably be glad of it."
He practically wilted before her eyes, and she knew she'd gone too far. He nodded, his head dropping down a little farther between his shoulders with each nod, and then he looked up at her, beguiling and sad. He didn't say anything; that was how she knew she'd really hurt him. The he turned and walked away.
Claire sank back into the chair she'd been sitting in to conduct the singles' group meeting. Thoughts tumbling through her mind. Trevor's refusal to believe in any sort of platonic relationship at all, be it friendship or doctor-patient; the hurt in his eyes. Did that mean he had feelings for her? She knew it happened, patients misinterpreting their feelings about being well as feelings for the person who'd helped them. In Trevor's case, would that keep him from letting go of his delusion? It was startling for her to consider. She didn't know what to do with the thought now that she'd had it.
So she did what she always did: she went home and did research. And in the intervening days, she didn't see Trevor at all. By Friday she'd begun to become aware of his absence in her life. It was strange how she'd gotten so used to his manic, mouthy presence.
She was relieved to see him slip into the back of the room just after the Friday night group meeting began. For a few moments there, she'd worried he wasn't going to show, and then she'd be in the position of tracking him down and deciding what to do next. If it came to that, she would have to change the nature of their professional relationship, either require him to act like a patient or tell him to find a new doctor. She didn't want him to find a new doctor. She wanted to find the truth; she had to write her book; and most of all, she knew no other doctor would be willing or foolish enough to take him on, and she couldn't bear to see him institutionalized.
"I want to go back to the subject of friendship," Claire announced, and a wave of dissention flowed through the room. She ignored it. Just because they didn't want to face something didn't mean they should be allowed not to. Avoidance was a symptom of a greater problem.
"It turns out you were right," she said, folding her hands in her lap with a satisfied smile as dissention turned to surprise. "According to some theorists, friendship is obsolete. C.S. Lewis wrote in the early part of the century that friendship had fallen out of favor, and what was true then is even more true today. We have so many options available to us to stay in communication with one another -- email, cell phones, chat rooms -- but when was the last time any of us reached out and touched our best friend? Or even had a best friend?"
They were smiling now. Nodding. The sort of thing she liked to see. "Sternberg's triangular theory suggests friendship is an incomplete form of love. It's intimacy without passion. But this theory also states that romantic love is equally incomplete, providing us with passion but not intimacy. What I want to try to explore today is why friendship is undervalued. Why we expend so much energy chasing passion when intimacy would be more satisfying in the long run."
"Because it's passion," Trevor said from the back of the room, right on cue. "It's exciting."
"It's designed to be exciting," Claire agreed. "But it burns out quickly and then what are you left with, without intimacy to fall back on? Passion's exciting, sure, but you could find passion in any bar, on any street corner. The reason you are all here is because whether you know it or not, you're seeking a deeper connection. Aren't you?"
"Love without sex," Mike said. "That's what you're talking about, love without sex."
"Maybe I am," Claire said leadingly.
He was shaking his head. "That's not what anybody wants. It's what they end up with, maybe."
"Divorce," Nick said. "You wanna know why the divorce rate's skyrocketed? Love without sex, it ain't enough."
Claire looked at Trevor, since he'd claimed initially that the skyrocketing divorce rate was part of the reason he'd been sent here. It played into his delusion. Was this why he'd latched onto Cupid, or Eros, who was the god of passionate love?
"Sternberg would agree with you," Claire said. "Which is why he believed neither intimacy nor passion alone were enough. He introduced the idea of consummate love, which united both intimacy and passion, along with commitment. That would be everyone's ideal of love, wouldn't it? In a perfect world?"
Murmurings of agreement. She nodded, like they were on the right track. And then she held up her index finger. "But we don't live in a perfect world. Ideals are nice, but they're rarely achieved. Unrealistic expectations are part of the reason most of you are here."
"I agree," Trevor said, and she looked at him, the surprise clearly showing on her face. "In a minute, she's going to tell you to settle for friendship. Go for intimacy, right, Dr. Allen?" She started to say something, but he just kept talking, as he often did. "You can have intimacy with your cat, with your diary, with the guy in the next cube. Go for passion. Passion is what's missing in your lives. When you find that, the rest of it will follow. Even she said it herself -- intimacy without passion isn't love. It's friendship."
Claire found it interesting. They were advocating the same thing, but in completely opposite ways. She tucked it into the back of her mind while the rest of the group session moved on to open discussion.
Later, as people were filing out the door, she made a point of reaching the threshold at the same moment as Trevor. "Remind me again what you say you were sent here to do," she challenged him.
"Match up 100 couples."
"And yet you were advocating passion back there like that would get the job done," she pointed out. "But one-night stands aren't what move your beads, are they, Trevor?"
"Depends on what beads you mean," he replied smoothly.
She ignored the remark. "What you were sent here to do was find consummate love between 100 couples. Yes passion, but also intimacy and commitment."
"What do you think I used to do with my bow and arrow?" he asked. "Shoot people up with a healthy dose of friendship? Passion, baby. Have that, the rest will follow."
"How's that working out for you now?" she asked.
He raised his hands and looked at them. "No bow. No arrow. Concept's the same."
"Maybe you don't have your tools because what you were doing with them didn't work," Claire pointed out. "Maybe passion was blinding people to their true potential."
"Blinding people was someone else's job entirely," Trevor said. "Fates, man, don't mess with them. Scary people. Scary."
"Intimacy and commitment work, Trevor. They do. Passionate love can grow out of mutual respect and admiration."
"Are you advocating arranged marriages now, too?" he asked.
"They work. In many, many cultures," she replied. "Our particular culture places too much emphasis on passion, and that's the problem. There's nothing wrong with friendship. There's nothing wrong with platonic love."
"Uhm, platonic love is kind of a misnomer," Trevor said. "The dude liked to bang teenage boys. He was the Michael Jackson of his day. He just made it out to be sweet and innocent so they wouldn't kill him. Oh wait, they did anyway. Too bad."
"That doesn't mean the concept was flawed," Claire said quickly, aware of the straws she was grasping at. "Just the execution, perhaps."
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" he asked.
"No, actually," she admitted, tugging at the hem of her sweater where it might have ridden up a millimeter or two while they were walking. "I want to have this out with you, Trevor. I think it's important."
"Important because you always have to be right, even though you never are?"
"Important because I am right," she said, "and because it has direct bearing on your case."
"My case," he said. "I don't have a case. I'm Cupid. End of story." He started walking away from her.
"Fine," she said, standing her ground and calling out after him. "How many couples have you matched up?" She watched his walk slow, and he turned his head to answer her but the wind carried off his response. "What was that?" she asked, taking a few measured steps toward him. "How many?"
He was making an unhappy face at her. "Ten," he said softly.
"At this rate we're both going fifty by the time you finish," Claire said, almost as softly.
A smile sparked across his lips. "Immortality. Time's on my side."
"But you want to go home now," she said. Wondering where his home was. Was this yearning for home indicative of a deep-seated desire to be cured?
"More than anything," he said, and his brown eyes were clear and serious as they met hers.
"And you want to go back because you can't experience passion yourself while you're here," she said, pushing just as hard as she could because she had him. "Isn't that the deal? Your punishment? Sex with a mortal and you lose it all? How does it fit, Trevor? How can you advocate for everyone else something you're terrified of?"
"You don't understand," he said. "You'll never understand."
"Help me," Claire invited. "It's why I'm here."
"You're here because of your book and your reputation and the court," he said, the words thick and angry, and he was walking away again.
"I'm here because I care, Trevor," she said. "I care about you as a person. Otherwise it would be so easy to give up, but I'm not going to do that. No matter how many innuendos you sling at me or how infuriated you make me or how many times you walk away from me. It's not passion so you can't understand that, apparently."
"Sternberg have a word for that one? Intimacy and commitment without passion?" Trevor asked.
"I think he called it platonic love, which we've already established you have a problem with," Claire replied. "Friendship is no less an interesting emotion than romantic love; it's just different."
"But we aren't friends. You were very clear on that," he said, but he was facing her now. Looking at her. Looking less hurt and more intrigued, although his manner was still quiet, though with the tension of held-back energy.
"I think I was wrong," she admitted. Maybe friendship wasn't the right word for their relationship, but without the structure of regular office-based sessions, maybe it wasn't so wrong after all. She looked after him and he checked in with her; wasn't that what friends did? She held out her hand for him to shake. "Friends?" she offered.
He nodded, taking her hand in his and using it to pull her into an embrace. It was awkward, but also unromantic and nonthreatening, and somehow to Claire it felt like progress. "Friends," he said against her ear. Then he gave her the double-back-pat of a male-bonding hug and stepped away. She watched him until he disappeared through the door of the bar up the block, thinking that friendship was good. Love was overrated.
End.