salt and unanswered prayers
title. salt and unanswered prayers
fandom. digimon a la the digiverse
characters. catherine/takeru, catherine/wallace, implied takeru/daisuke, takeru/michael
rating. pg
prompt. ocean/sea
warning. confusion ahead unless you understand my use of italics. :)
She thinks that as soon as she lets him go, she is going to drown.
She has been holding on to him for what seems like years. She does not know how she has kept herself afloat this long; after hours, treading water becomes more of a necessity for survival than anything else, so what can she say about the days and weeks and months of having her tapered fingers wrapped around his arm, her delicately-manicured nails digging into his skin?
She thinks of him before she sleeps, her breaths deepening and settling into steadiness as she struggles to keep her head above the surface, to separate the airiness of good dreams from the dimness of nightmares.
She thinks of him when she wakes, when the clear glass of her windowpane shows a light-blue sky - a sky the color of hopes and robins and his eyes.
She thinks of him when she should be thinking of someone else - of her father, or her mother, or that young man she sees seated in front of her during French class with a smile that would make any other girl sigh.
He is almost her only reason for living at one point, but she doesn’t mind. Since they met, he has been her fantasy-turned-reality, her charming above-water prince, while she is the mermaid with blonde hair that doesn’t match the aquamarine shades of the ocean.
If she forgets him, she does not know what she will do.
--
‘I miss you.’
His voice is astonishingly clear despite the miles and miles of ocean between them, the telephone wires stretched across continents, and their past weeks of not touching each other. She can sense his smile in the upward lilt of his voice, can almost see him standing up in the hallway of his apartment, bouncing on the balls of his feet with the barely-suppressed energy he always seems to exude.
She twirls the twisted cord of the telephone around a finger, the crescent moon of the nail of her index finger touching her lips lightly as she too paces the hallway of her house. She looks down at her ballet flats, then up at the pristine diamond chandelier dangling above her head, and sees little versions of herself reflected in the mirrors, and the distance in her own eyes as if she isn’t herself.
‘I miss you, too,’ she responds, warmth that she cannot seem to feel properly seeping into her words - and she sighs upon feeling it, upon hearing him sigh in return, a thrill traveling up her spine at the sound of his breath.
If she could embrace him, she would, and if she could kiss him and feel his soft, warm lips against her own, she would gladly lean into him and do it; but if she tries now, all she will taste is the cold plastic of the phone receiver and an echo of her longing.
--
At times she wonders if he is only a replacement for the person she first fell in love with. They have the same hair, after all, blond and tousled, and blue eyes that show her the world. Right away she hates herself for thinking so, because she loves him for himself, not because he looks like him, because he is a reachable version of him. She is a horrible girlfriend. She is a horrible person.
But even after their shared experiences and that time when she forgets who she is (and the fact that she is loved), soon their daily calls over the computer, over the phone, dwindle into weekly ones, and then into those that come once every two weeks. He is tired from school (and she is afraid of the world), so he sometimes forgets the difference between their time zones, the fact that she lives in his future, and calls her at four in the morning, a time when his voice doesn’t seem to make sense in between the remnants of her troubled dreams.
One day she finally calls him first and feels as if she is killing herself slowly by doing so. Her eyes are trained on anything but her reflection because her blue eyes remind her of his (and of his).
‘The distance is killing me,‘ she says, and tears flow down her cheeks as she hates herself for being a girl - sensitive, emotional, easily-moved. She cannot hear his reply, hear the confusion in his words as she wonders: If she doesn’t stop crying, will she be able to fill the emptiness in her heart with a warm sea that tastes of salt and unanswered prayers?
--
She, her mother, and her father go to the French Riviera, but even the gods walking among her, their fair skin already bronze from the sun, cannot make her forget. She cries for him and herself and him, for the things she could have done but didn’t, for the thing he did that she didn’t appreciate, for her not being able to see parts of him that everyone else could.
She can blame the demon for it all, the virus, but there were already doubts in her mind when he came. All he did was remind her of them, and remembering is a blessing, is it?
When she dips her toes into the cold water, she tries to block out the laughter around her, the splashes of water wetting her before she is ready. Then, when she is far enough in, she closes her eyes, dives into the water, and allows herself to be swept away.
She would like to forget the past and the present, but she still cannot forget him.
--
Breaking-up is hard to do. By the time that his first relationship is over, a situation she hears about from both sides, she is aware that there is no other way things could have gone with her own relationship if not towards its end, and that, perhaps, this time, this love’s destiny is death, too. She listens carefully, cries with her friend, and then cries for him for reasons she does not quite understand. Fleetingly she thinks that, if this romance, this meant-to-be one, did not last, it is not her fault that he was never in love with her, that her own relationship lived only as long as she let it (which wasn’t very long). She isn’t dysfunctional, defective. She is normal. He is the one wrong.
Still, though it is a betrayal of the worst kind, when she imagines him again, as she walks through the park with her hair loose down her back with her best friend by her side, she can’t help hoping that she might have a chance now. Maybe, just maybe..
Then he goes out with another blond, another friend, and she sighs, her exhale blending in with the gust of wind that lifts leaves from the cobblestones and takes them away.
--
Then one night he is the one who sinks, and when he comes up for air, she is there, wet ringlets falling from the bun she tied them up in. She doesn't understand everything, and he doesn't tell her anyway, but she knows that things will change. He will love her someday. Maybe he already does, but just not in the way she originally wanted.
When he kisses her, she feels as if all her dreams have come true. As if she has finally awoken from the longest sleep. Then, with the lightest of pressures on his hand, she lets go and turns away, away from his earnest gaze, towards the sky.
She hopes that he knows how to swim. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to save him if he doesn’t. But he isn’t the one who needs to resurface, to breathe, to live..
She takes the plunge.
fandom. digimon a la the digiverse
characters. catherine/takeru, catherine/wallace, implied takeru/daisuke, takeru/michael
rating. pg
prompt. ocean/sea
warning. confusion ahead unless you understand my use of italics. :)
She thinks that as soon as she lets him go, she is going to drown.
She has been holding on to him for what seems like years. She does not know how she has kept herself afloat this long; after hours, treading water becomes more of a necessity for survival than anything else, so what can she say about the days and weeks and months of having her tapered fingers wrapped around his arm, her delicately-manicured nails digging into his skin?
She thinks of him before she sleeps, her breaths deepening and settling into steadiness as she struggles to keep her head above the surface, to separate the airiness of good dreams from the dimness of nightmares.
She thinks of him when she wakes, when the clear glass of her windowpane shows a light-blue sky - a sky the color of hopes and robins and his eyes.
She thinks of him when she should be thinking of someone else - of her father, or her mother, or that young man she sees seated in front of her during French class with a smile that would make any other girl sigh.
He is almost her only reason for living at one point, but she doesn’t mind. Since they met, he has been her fantasy-turned-reality, her charming above-water prince, while she is the mermaid with blonde hair that doesn’t match the aquamarine shades of the ocean.
If she forgets him, she does not know what she will do.
--
‘I miss you.’
His voice is astonishingly clear despite the miles and miles of ocean between them, the telephone wires stretched across continents, and their past weeks of not touching each other. She can sense his smile in the upward lilt of his voice, can almost see him standing up in the hallway of his apartment, bouncing on the balls of his feet with the barely-suppressed energy he always seems to exude.
She twirls the twisted cord of the telephone around a finger, the crescent moon of the nail of her index finger touching her lips lightly as she too paces the hallway of her house. She looks down at her ballet flats, then up at the pristine diamond chandelier dangling above her head, and sees little versions of herself reflected in the mirrors, and the distance in her own eyes as if she isn’t herself.
‘I miss you, too,’ she responds, warmth that she cannot seem to feel properly seeping into her words - and she sighs upon feeling it, upon hearing him sigh in return, a thrill traveling up her spine at the sound of his breath.
If she could embrace him, she would, and if she could kiss him and feel his soft, warm lips against her own, she would gladly lean into him and do it; but if she tries now, all she will taste is the cold plastic of the phone receiver and an echo of her longing.
--
At times she wonders if he is only a replacement for the person she first fell in love with. They have the same hair, after all, blond and tousled, and blue eyes that show her the world. Right away she hates herself for thinking so, because she loves him for himself, not because he looks like him, because he is a reachable version of him. She is a horrible girlfriend. She is a horrible person.
But even after their shared experiences and that time when she forgets who she is (and the fact that she is loved), soon their daily calls over the computer, over the phone, dwindle into weekly ones, and then into those that come once every two weeks. He is tired from school (and she is afraid of the world), so he sometimes forgets the difference between their time zones, the fact that she lives in his future, and calls her at four in the morning, a time when his voice doesn’t seem to make sense in between the remnants of her troubled dreams.
One day she finally calls him first and feels as if she is killing herself slowly by doing so. Her eyes are trained on anything but her reflection because her blue eyes remind her of his (and of his).
‘The distance is killing me,‘ she says, and tears flow down her cheeks as she hates herself for being a girl - sensitive, emotional, easily-moved. She cannot hear his reply, hear the confusion in his words as she wonders: If she doesn’t stop crying, will she be able to fill the emptiness in her heart with a warm sea that tastes of salt and unanswered prayers?
--
She, her mother, and her father go to the French Riviera, but even the gods walking among her, their fair skin already bronze from the sun, cannot make her forget. She cries for him and herself and him, for the things she could have done but didn’t, for the thing he did that she didn’t appreciate, for her not being able to see parts of him that everyone else could.
She can blame the demon for it all, the virus, but there were already doubts in her mind when he came. All he did was remind her of them, and remembering is a blessing, is it?
When she dips her toes into the cold water, she tries to block out the laughter around her, the splashes of water wetting her before she is ready. Then, when she is far enough in, she closes her eyes, dives into the water, and allows herself to be swept away.
She would like to forget the past and the present, but she still cannot forget him.
--
Breaking-up is hard to do. By the time that his first relationship is over, a situation she hears about from both sides, she is aware that there is no other way things could have gone with her own relationship if not towards its end, and that, perhaps, this time, this love’s destiny is death, too. She listens carefully, cries with her friend, and then cries for him for reasons she does not quite understand. Fleetingly she thinks that, if this romance, this meant-to-be one, did not last, it is not her fault that he was never in love with her, that her own relationship lived only as long as she let it (which wasn’t very long). She isn’t dysfunctional, defective. She is normal. He is the one wrong.
Still, though it is a betrayal of the worst kind, when she imagines him again, as she walks through the park with her hair loose down her back with her best friend by her side, she can’t help hoping that she might have a chance now. Maybe, just maybe..
Then he goes out with another blond, another friend, and she sighs, her exhale blending in with the gust of wind that lifts leaves from the cobblestones and takes them away.
--
Then one night he is the one who sinks, and when he comes up for air, she is there, wet ringlets falling from the bun she tied them up in. She doesn't understand everything, and he doesn't tell her anyway, but she knows that things will change. He will love her someday. Maybe he already does, but just not in the way she originally wanted.
When he kisses her, she feels as if all her dreams have come true. As if she has finally awoken from the longest sleep. Then, with the lightest of pressures on his hand, she lets go and turns away, away from his earnest gaze, towards the sky.
She hopes that he knows how to swim. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to save him if he doesn’t. But he isn’t the one who needs to resurface, to breathe, to live..
She takes the plunge.