Smoking - Chapter 29
Title:: Smoking
Genre:: Drama
Fandom:: RPS Vam, Villinde, Dugera, Lindunn, others.
Rating:: R
Summary:: A story, reaching back to the beginning like a twisted, curling whisp of smoke from a slow burning fire.
Disclaimer::Most characters are property only of themselves; I own the storyline and the writing. This is a work of ficiton; treat it as such.
Links
Chapters 1 - 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Shaking hands wrapped themselves tightly around the white porcelain mug of coffee - “black, extra black, no sugar, no milk, just black” - sending ripples running to the outsides of the mug, where they splashed helplessly against the edge before falling back on their followers. Ville hadn’t brought himself to drink any of it yet. He was too absorbed with watching the ripples as they followed each other like lemmings to crash into the walls of his mug. Weak metaphor, he thought to himself. Weak, effective only maybe, but mostly weak - writing a song called the dance of the lemmings was a bad idea, he dismissed it merely as a cause of the lack of coffee and steeled himself to put the mug to his lips and drink. . . but he couldn’t.
Sighing, he set the mug back on the table, almost letting the drink slop over the sides but not quite. He stretched so that he could find the pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket, and pulled them out, flipping the top back with an expert flick of the finger. Cigarette before coffee, take away the taste. He couldn’t stand the taste of coffee but he needed it, he almost wished he could have it intravenously, often wondered if he could get a doctor to prescribe him a caffeine drip. It might stop the shaking. It might make it worse. The cigarette lit, he took a deep, almost desperate drag, feeling the smoke dry his throat out on the way down but loving the way the nicotine hit him - such a little bit but oh, how well he could feel it. Marvelous substance, magical stuff… Soon there were little boats of grey ash floating in his sea of black coffee. Seeing this, he groaned, but a small thing like that wouldn’t put him off drinking that cup of piping hot coffee. His lungs were dirty than that ash anyways, what was wrong with a little of it going in his stomach? It might even make the coffee taste better.
The cigarette smoked away in its niche in the ashtray in the center of the table and his shaking hands were clutching the cup again, staring at the picture in front of him, wishing he was artistic enough with the camera like Migé to take advantage of this photo opportunity and wondering why it was that he loved the way it looked. Artistic enough with a camera like Migé, or Bam, but he wasn’t going to think about Bam now, and he wasn’t going to think about Lily and how much he loved Migé’s pictures, and he wasn’t going to think about the way Lily and Bam used to talk about photography because it was the only thing -besides Jack Daniels - that they had in common. Ville knew they did it for him. He wishes they hadn’t. He wishes he could stop thinking about the cigarette smoking in the ashtray and the coffee cup shaking in his hands as if they were the incarnations of his friends - Lily the bitter liquid that he didn’t want but had to have and Bam the lovely, intoxicating, glorious and sublime drug that he couldn’t get enough of…. Or was it the other way around, was Bam the thing he was clinging to even though he didn’t like him at all and Lily the best friend, the life partner smoking away in an ashtray just out of reach because he, Ville, didn’t want to pay attention to him, slowly dwindling away in wisps of smoke as grey as the sky outside and all the prospects that Ville could think of for the future, quietly, silently disappearing into nothing but ash, fading away forever but leaving traces as he went, contaminating everything left in Ville’s life like the ashes floating in his coffee, which, when thinking about them, Ville didn’t actually mind so much.
He should call them. He should call them and he should stop thinking about these things, should stop staring at the ashes floating in his coffee as if his staring would make any difference to them at all.
The coffee tasted horrible and his shaking hands spilt just a little bit down the front of his jacket, but he didn’t worry about it because it’s black and so is coffee so why should he worry?
That’s what he was going to do, he decided. He was going to finish his coffee, light another cigarette and then he was going to get the hell out of the country, out of the goddamn city that never sleeps, as far away as possible from New York as he could get and he was never going to come back.
He nodded to himself, but his hands were still shaking and the cigarette had burnt itself down to a mere butt by the time he’d reached that decision and he realized, only then, that he didn’t have a single one left. Typical. Bloody typical.
In the end, he went back to the hotel, letting himself in with only a nod to the bellboy. It was a nice hotel but not up to the standards of the hotels people would be looking for him in. He was safe here. As long as no one squealed his whereabouts. He ended up back in his room with a brand new pack of cigarettes and the TV on, just staring at some old ugly guy talking about god only knew what, he most certainly didn’t know, he wasn’t paying attention. He was just staring and thinking, contemplating, brooding about what had happened, about what he was going to do, about what might happen next… wondering just why on earth it bugged him so much.
This time, when the phone rang, he answered it. He didn’t mean to answer it. It was a reflex. He was off in another place in another time, and the phone rang and he automatically reached out and picked it up without registering that he was doing it.
“Hei?”
“Oh thank God you picked up.”
“Lily.” It was a statement, not a question, a statement, cold, unfeeling, the phone was almost burning his hand and he was so tempted to push the button next to his thumb, hang up, forget about everything for ever.
“Come home, Ville.” What, Ville thought, no explanation, no pleading, no whining, no prostration that oh, Ville, it wasn’t my fault, it was a thing of the moment, I’m so sorry, you know I am, we didn’t mean to, we were drunk, don’t hate me. Just that, an order, almost. Three words, from Mikko, Linde, Lintti, his best friend, giving him an order?
“Get screwed, Lily.” Dripping sarcasm almost burnt through the mouthpiece of the receiver, the acidity was so clear, so potent in Ville’s voice. But Linde’s reply was no sweeter; it stung with the same bitter acidity, biting cruelly at Ville’s ears and eating away at his heartstrings, though he was hard pressed to define the sensation properly.
“I already have.”
“You fucking little…”
“Ville, shut up and get your ass over here, will you? You’re not doing anyone any good, with all that moping. It’s not such a goddamn big deal.”
“Not a big deal!? Not. A big. Deal?!” Ville’s voice almost squeaked; he could almost hear Linde rolling his eyes on the other side of the line.
“Just … look. Silke is booking you a flight, again, just please get on it? Hiding out in New York isn’t going to work, you have to come back sometime.”
“No, I don’t, I could apply for citizenship.” He was being petty and he knew it but he didn’t care.
“Ville. Just… get over yourself and get back here. You don’t have to talk to us ever again just get your ass back home. Your mother is going crazy.”
“Stop guilt tripping, Lily, admit it, you just want me home.”
“Ville, honestly? I don’t care if I ever see you again. Just get your ass back here so people stop killing themselves over you. It’s the least you could do. Silke will call you later, and you’d better get on that plane.”
The line went dead in Ville’s limp, shell-shocked hands, and his mouth hung agape with shock. Linde had just denounced him, had just hung up on him.
A shard of a tear glittered in the corner of one of Ville’s brilliant, glassy green eyes, but he ignored it, scooping up his pack of cigarettes and pulling one shakily out of it. The nicotine hit his system quickly but it wasn’t enough to stop his shaking; would his shaking ever stop now?
He picked up the phone again, exhaling smoke reluctantly from betwixt two perfectly pouting lips. “Silke? Mutti?” The tears threatened again and he took a deep breath, pressing the cigarette to his lips desperately to disperse them. “Get me home,” is all that came out from those exquisite, cupid’s lips, in a croaked, harrowed whimper.
For what else was there left for him? Nothing, besides the base comfort of home… and even that… that would never be enough.
--------------------
I moved out.
What else was I going to do? Lay in the guest room every single night and sit and stare at the ceiling and think about how nice it would be to be back in his arms, even if it didn’t mean anything?
No, that would never work.
I moved out, I moved back in with my mom for a little while and then found a small place of my own. I still had to see him almost every day, and every day, it got a little worse.
Because every day, he got a little bit more flamboyant, a little bit flirtier, a little bit more painfully obvious, trying to show me he didn’t care, that he just wanted sex however he could get it, basically, that he didn’t care that I’d moved out, that he was doing fine without me.
I don’t even want to tell you who all he slept with - for varying amounts of time, from one night to one month, sometimes it was even more than one a night - because I don’t care to remember myself. Some of my best friends fell to his charms and I was robbed of them, because I could never look at them the same again.
I hated him. Loathed him, in fact, and yet I was aching to have him back again. Love’s a funny thing, isn’t it?
There was only one person that he didn’t fuck around with in our entire acquaintance. One singular would be saintly person. Perhaps he was saving the best to last. Or maybe he knew what he was doing, he was doing it on purpose and he wanted to save Bam until he was done with his games and could actually settle down. Maybe he actually loved Bam.
Yeah. Right. Sure. Hahahahaha. Do you hear the sarcasm there? I hope so.
I don’t know why he saved Bam for last. It was obvious he wanted him. It was obvious that Bam was just another fly stuck in his sticky web of lust, but he was a fly that got special treatment, and that irked me.
So I did what any jilted, jealousy-steeped ex-lover would do. I crawled in, right underneath Ville’s glittering, manic eyes - for of course, he was guarding his prey with his life - and I got there first.
---------------
“Ryan? It’s me, I mean, Linde.”
Linde looks over his shoulder at Ville’s figure still sitting on the balcony, still smoking his cigarette - or maybe this is a new one.
“Ah, Linde, hey man. What’s shakin?”
“I… um… I’m at Ville’s.” He speaks quietly. He doesn’t want Ville to hear this conversation; he doesn’t want to be having this conversation at all, really, but mostly he just doesn’t want Ville to know about it.
“What, really? But … I thought you went yesterday afternoon?”
“Yeah, I um. I’m still here.”
“Still? Jesus. . .”
“No, I mean, it’s not what you think… it’s just… we were talking and I fell asleep.” On the other side of the line, Ryan chuckles, making Linde’s pale cheeks flush red.
“What did you think I was thinking?”
“I… I mean… I don’t know…”
“Don’t worry, man. So, what’s the occasion?” He means, why are you calling him, Linde tells himself.
“I… uh… I think… I think Bam needs to come over.”
“What, to Finland?”
“Yeah.”
“You think?”
“I… yeah. I think… I think they need to talk, Ry. And not just… not just over the phone.”
“This is your idea?” Linde looks down at the floor, casts his eyes quickly through the glass door to check Ville hasn’t heard him, and nods, though he knows Ryan can’t see him. He doesn’t know why Ryan is so reluctant to believe it’s his idea. Why shouldn’t it be?
“Yeah, it was my idea.”
“Linde… Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Do what? I mean… yeah, I’m sure, what difference does it make to me?”
“Linde…” Ryan says that like he knows that they both know what difference it will make to him. And they both do. They both know, now - or at least, Ryan has guessed, now - that Linde is making a decision not just for Ville and Bam, but for himself, and probably for Ryan too.
It’s not just a decision for Linde. It’s a sacrifice.
But the way he sees it, he has no choice. He has no chance, so he has no right to hold on to straggling ends of old passion and prevent what could be new happiness, even if it means misery for himself. So he has no choice.
“What?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, of course, they need to talk.” Linde brushes it off, puts on a carefree tone; he doesn’t want to talk about this to Ryan.
“Right.” Ryan doesn’t sound happy, or convinced, but he carries on anyways. “Well, I’ll see what I can do…”
“No, Ryan, that’s not good enough. Bam needs to come over… and he needs to come over soon.”
“Or else?”
“Or else … or else … or else something bad will happen. I can tell.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Ryan, can you stop being anal and just get him over here?” He wants Ryan to stop arguing before his willpower gives out, before he stops being able to steel himself into this.
“Linde, why are you doing this?”
“What?”
“Giving up.”
“Giving up what?”
“Ville.”
Linde laughs, a bitter, cold laugh. It stings Ryan to hear; it’s hard for him to believe that such a despairing, defeated laugh could come from Linde - he was quiet, to be sure, but it was the last thing Ryan expected from him, to be so negative, so dejected.
“Ryan, how can I give up something I never had?”
Ryan is silent for a moment, before nodding and sighing a little.
“I’ll bring him, if you really want me to.”
“I really want you to.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t tell him it was me. You know, that told you to bring him. Just get him over here somehow.”
“I will. And Linde?”
“Yeah?”
“Just… take care of yourself.”
Linde laughs again - “Yeah, sure. See you, Ryan,” - and hangs up. He takes a moment for himself, to breathe deeply and calm down, before heading back out onto the balcony to stand next to Ville, who is staring at the ash clinging to his cigarette as if he’s trying to figure out what it means.
“I put the coffee machine on.”
Ville nods, tapping the side of the cigarette, watching the ash float away on the breeze, dusting off whatever falls on his pants instead.
“Thanks.”
But he makes no move to get up, even though the wind is cold, and he’s still in the t-shirt he was wearing yesterday without a sweater, and Linde doesn’t make a move to go inside. They just stand there, like that, on the balcony, looking out over their city’s lights in the perpetual dusk of the winter morning, neither of them thinking, really, neither of them wanting to think at all, ever again. Both just wishing that something, somewhere, would tell them what the hell they were meant to do next.
Genre:: Drama
Fandom:: RPS Vam, Villinde, Dugera, Lindunn, others.
Rating:: R
Summary:: A story, reaching back to the beginning like a twisted, curling whisp of smoke from a slow burning fire.
Disclaimer::Most characters are property only of themselves; I own the storyline and the writing. This is a work of ficiton; treat it as such.
Links
Chapters 1 - 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Shaking hands wrapped themselves tightly around the white porcelain mug of coffee - “black, extra black, no sugar, no milk, just black” - sending ripples running to the outsides of the mug, where they splashed helplessly against the edge before falling back on their followers. Ville hadn’t brought himself to drink any of it yet. He was too absorbed with watching the ripples as they followed each other like lemmings to crash into the walls of his mug. Weak metaphor, he thought to himself. Weak, effective only maybe, but mostly weak - writing a song called the dance of the lemmings was a bad idea, he dismissed it merely as a cause of the lack of coffee and steeled himself to put the mug to his lips and drink. . . but he couldn’t.
Sighing, he set the mug back on the table, almost letting the drink slop over the sides but not quite. He stretched so that he could find the pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket, and pulled them out, flipping the top back with an expert flick of the finger. Cigarette before coffee, take away the taste. He couldn’t stand the taste of coffee but he needed it, he almost wished he could have it intravenously, often wondered if he could get a doctor to prescribe him a caffeine drip. It might stop the shaking. It might make it worse. The cigarette lit, he took a deep, almost desperate drag, feeling the smoke dry his throat out on the way down but loving the way the nicotine hit him - such a little bit but oh, how well he could feel it. Marvelous substance, magical stuff… Soon there were little boats of grey ash floating in his sea of black coffee. Seeing this, he groaned, but a small thing like that wouldn’t put him off drinking that cup of piping hot coffee. His lungs were dirty than that ash anyways, what was wrong with a little of it going in his stomach? It might even make the coffee taste better.
The cigarette smoked away in its niche in the ashtray in the center of the table and his shaking hands were clutching the cup again, staring at the picture in front of him, wishing he was artistic enough with the camera like Migé to take advantage of this photo opportunity and wondering why it was that he loved the way it looked. Artistic enough with a camera like Migé, or Bam, but he wasn’t going to think about Bam now, and he wasn’t going to think about Lily and how much he loved Migé’s pictures, and he wasn’t going to think about the way Lily and Bam used to talk about photography because it was the only thing -besides Jack Daniels - that they had in common. Ville knew they did it for him. He wishes they hadn’t. He wishes he could stop thinking about the cigarette smoking in the ashtray and the coffee cup shaking in his hands as if they were the incarnations of his friends - Lily the bitter liquid that he didn’t want but had to have and Bam the lovely, intoxicating, glorious and sublime drug that he couldn’t get enough of…. Or was it the other way around, was Bam the thing he was clinging to even though he didn’t like him at all and Lily the best friend, the life partner smoking away in an ashtray just out of reach because he, Ville, didn’t want to pay attention to him, slowly dwindling away in wisps of smoke as grey as the sky outside and all the prospects that Ville could think of for the future, quietly, silently disappearing into nothing but ash, fading away forever but leaving traces as he went, contaminating everything left in Ville’s life like the ashes floating in his coffee, which, when thinking about them, Ville didn’t actually mind so much.
He should call them. He should call them and he should stop thinking about these things, should stop staring at the ashes floating in his coffee as if his staring would make any difference to them at all.
The coffee tasted horrible and his shaking hands spilt just a little bit down the front of his jacket, but he didn’t worry about it because it’s black and so is coffee so why should he worry?
That’s what he was going to do, he decided. He was going to finish his coffee, light another cigarette and then he was going to get the hell out of the country, out of the goddamn city that never sleeps, as far away as possible from New York as he could get and he was never going to come back.
He nodded to himself, but his hands were still shaking and the cigarette had burnt itself down to a mere butt by the time he’d reached that decision and he realized, only then, that he didn’t have a single one left. Typical. Bloody typical.
In the end, he went back to the hotel, letting himself in with only a nod to the bellboy. It was a nice hotel but not up to the standards of the hotels people would be looking for him in. He was safe here. As long as no one squealed his whereabouts. He ended up back in his room with a brand new pack of cigarettes and the TV on, just staring at some old ugly guy talking about god only knew what, he most certainly didn’t know, he wasn’t paying attention. He was just staring and thinking, contemplating, brooding about what had happened, about what he was going to do, about what might happen next… wondering just why on earth it bugged him so much.
This time, when the phone rang, he answered it. He didn’t mean to answer it. It was a reflex. He was off in another place in another time, and the phone rang and he automatically reached out and picked it up without registering that he was doing it.
“Hei?”
“Oh thank God you picked up.”
“Lily.” It was a statement, not a question, a statement, cold, unfeeling, the phone was almost burning his hand and he was so tempted to push the button next to his thumb, hang up, forget about everything for ever.
“Come home, Ville.” What, Ville thought, no explanation, no pleading, no whining, no prostration that oh, Ville, it wasn’t my fault, it was a thing of the moment, I’m so sorry, you know I am, we didn’t mean to, we were drunk, don’t hate me. Just that, an order, almost. Three words, from Mikko, Linde, Lintti, his best friend, giving him an order?
“Get screwed, Lily.” Dripping sarcasm almost burnt through the mouthpiece of the receiver, the acidity was so clear, so potent in Ville’s voice. But Linde’s reply was no sweeter; it stung with the same bitter acidity, biting cruelly at Ville’s ears and eating away at his heartstrings, though he was hard pressed to define the sensation properly.
“I already have.”
“You fucking little…”
“Ville, shut up and get your ass over here, will you? You’re not doing anyone any good, with all that moping. It’s not such a goddamn big deal.”
“Not a big deal!? Not. A big. Deal?!” Ville’s voice almost squeaked; he could almost hear Linde rolling his eyes on the other side of the line.
“Just … look. Silke is booking you a flight, again, just please get on it? Hiding out in New York isn’t going to work, you have to come back sometime.”
“No, I don’t, I could apply for citizenship.” He was being petty and he knew it but he didn’t care.
“Ville. Just… get over yourself and get back here. You don’t have to talk to us ever again just get your ass back home. Your mother is going crazy.”
“Stop guilt tripping, Lily, admit it, you just want me home.”
“Ville, honestly? I don’t care if I ever see you again. Just get your ass back here so people stop killing themselves over you. It’s the least you could do. Silke will call you later, and you’d better get on that plane.”
The line went dead in Ville’s limp, shell-shocked hands, and his mouth hung agape with shock. Linde had just denounced him, had just hung up on him.
A shard of a tear glittered in the corner of one of Ville’s brilliant, glassy green eyes, but he ignored it, scooping up his pack of cigarettes and pulling one shakily out of it. The nicotine hit his system quickly but it wasn’t enough to stop his shaking; would his shaking ever stop now?
He picked up the phone again, exhaling smoke reluctantly from betwixt two perfectly pouting lips. “Silke? Mutti?” The tears threatened again and he took a deep breath, pressing the cigarette to his lips desperately to disperse them. “Get me home,” is all that came out from those exquisite, cupid’s lips, in a croaked, harrowed whimper.
For what else was there left for him? Nothing, besides the base comfort of home… and even that… that would never be enough.
--------------------
I moved out.
What else was I going to do? Lay in the guest room every single night and sit and stare at the ceiling and think about how nice it would be to be back in his arms, even if it didn’t mean anything?
No, that would never work.
I moved out, I moved back in with my mom for a little while and then found a small place of my own. I still had to see him almost every day, and every day, it got a little worse.
Because every day, he got a little bit more flamboyant, a little bit flirtier, a little bit more painfully obvious, trying to show me he didn’t care, that he just wanted sex however he could get it, basically, that he didn’t care that I’d moved out, that he was doing fine without me.
I don’t even want to tell you who all he slept with - for varying amounts of time, from one night to one month, sometimes it was even more than one a night - because I don’t care to remember myself. Some of my best friends fell to his charms and I was robbed of them, because I could never look at them the same again.
I hated him. Loathed him, in fact, and yet I was aching to have him back again. Love’s a funny thing, isn’t it?
There was only one person that he didn’t fuck around with in our entire acquaintance. One singular would be saintly person. Perhaps he was saving the best to last. Or maybe he knew what he was doing, he was doing it on purpose and he wanted to save Bam until he was done with his games and could actually settle down. Maybe he actually loved Bam.
Yeah. Right. Sure. Hahahahaha. Do you hear the sarcasm there? I hope so.
I don’t know why he saved Bam for last. It was obvious he wanted him. It was obvious that Bam was just another fly stuck in his sticky web of lust, but he was a fly that got special treatment, and that irked me.
So I did what any jilted, jealousy-steeped ex-lover would do. I crawled in, right underneath Ville’s glittering, manic eyes - for of course, he was guarding his prey with his life - and I got there first.
---------------
“Ryan? It’s me, I mean, Linde.”
Linde looks over his shoulder at Ville’s figure still sitting on the balcony, still smoking his cigarette - or maybe this is a new one.
“Ah, Linde, hey man. What’s shakin?”
“I… um… I’m at Ville’s.” He speaks quietly. He doesn’t want Ville to hear this conversation; he doesn’t want to be having this conversation at all, really, but mostly he just doesn’t want Ville to know about it.
“What, really? But … I thought you went yesterday afternoon?”
“Yeah, I um. I’m still here.”
“Still? Jesus. . .”
“No, I mean, it’s not what you think… it’s just… we were talking and I fell asleep.” On the other side of the line, Ryan chuckles, making Linde’s pale cheeks flush red.
“What did you think I was thinking?”
“I… I mean… I don’t know…”
“Don’t worry, man. So, what’s the occasion?” He means, why are you calling him, Linde tells himself.
“I… uh… I think… I think Bam needs to come over.”
“What, to Finland?”
“Yeah.”
“You think?”
“I… yeah. I think… I think they need to talk, Ry. And not just… not just over the phone.”
“This is your idea?” Linde looks down at the floor, casts his eyes quickly through the glass door to check Ville hasn’t heard him, and nods, though he knows Ryan can’t see him. He doesn’t know why Ryan is so reluctant to believe it’s his idea. Why shouldn’t it be?
“Yeah, it was my idea.”
“Linde… Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Do what? I mean… yeah, I’m sure, what difference does it make to me?”
“Linde…” Ryan says that like he knows that they both know what difference it will make to him. And they both do. They both know, now - or at least, Ryan has guessed, now - that Linde is making a decision not just for Ville and Bam, but for himself, and probably for Ryan too.
It’s not just a decision for Linde. It’s a sacrifice.
But the way he sees it, he has no choice. He has no chance, so he has no right to hold on to straggling ends of old passion and prevent what could be new happiness, even if it means misery for himself. So he has no choice.
“What?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, of course, they need to talk.” Linde brushes it off, puts on a carefree tone; he doesn’t want to talk about this to Ryan.
“Right.” Ryan doesn’t sound happy, or convinced, but he carries on anyways. “Well, I’ll see what I can do…”
“No, Ryan, that’s not good enough. Bam needs to come over… and he needs to come over soon.”
“Or else?”
“Or else … or else … or else something bad will happen. I can tell.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Ryan, can you stop being anal and just get him over here?” He wants Ryan to stop arguing before his willpower gives out, before he stops being able to steel himself into this.
“Linde, why are you doing this?”
“What?”
“Giving up.”
“Giving up what?”
“Ville.”
Linde laughs, a bitter, cold laugh. It stings Ryan to hear; it’s hard for him to believe that such a despairing, defeated laugh could come from Linde - he was quiet, to be sure, but it was the last thing Ryan expected from him, to be so negative, so dejected.
“Ryan, how can I give up something I never had?”
Ryan is silent for a moment, before nodding and sighing a little.
“I’ll bring him, if you really want me to.”
“I really want you to.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t tell him it was me. You know, that told you to bring him. Just get him over here somehow.”
“I will. And Linde?”
“Yeah?”
“Just… take care of yourself.”
Linde laughs again - “Yeah, sure. See you, Ryan,” - and hangs up. He takes a moment for himself, to breathe deeply and calm down, before heading back out onto the balcony to stand next to Ville, who is staring at the ash clinging to his cigarette as if he’s trying to figure out what it means.
“I put the coffee machine on.”
Ville nods, tapping the side of the cigarette, watching the ash float away on the breeze, dusting off whatever falls on his pants instead.
“Thanks.”
But he makes no move to get up, even though the wind is cold, and he’s still in the t-shirt he was wearing yesterday without a sweater, and Linde doesn’t make a move to go inside. They just stand there, like that, on the balcony, looking out over their city’s lights in the perpetual dusk of the winter morning, neither of them thinking, really, neither of them wanting to think at all, ever again. Both just wishing that something, somewhere, would tell them what the hell they were meant to do next.