(Untitled)

[population_ctrl]

Title: Level of Service Quality: N/A
Setting: Modern AU.
Date: 13th of June, 2012.
Summary: The food is horrendous and the situation itself riddled with boundaries and limitations. That is, until Mireille takes over, once more servering the larger picture into something less boundless and impossible.

Comments

[population_ctrl]

The effect of her words is almost immediate - how his body relaxes noticeably, breathing resuming at a less uneven pace. So, she isn’t planning on leaving any time soon. At least only temporarily... He pauses. Pushes the plate to the side, having lost all interest in its contents. Instead, he looks at her for a moment, thoughtfully. The way things are, he can’t justify letting her stay for more than another week at the most; even if she brings a suitcase of clean clothes from home, she’ll have little choice but to keep him company 24/7. And while he wants - and needs - her around, there’s no way they can manage something like that without... well. Without losing patience with one another, whatever that would mean in the present context. He doesn’t want to know. In fact, he doesn’t even want to consider it.

“You’ll need some private office space,” he says, finally, pushing at the hospital table and sending it rolling to the side, leaving the bed feeling less constricted. “If you’re staying.”

The last thing he wants to do is to appear hesitant or insecure; when every physical fact about him, currently, spells ‘weakness’. But all the same, that last bit is a question without a marker. Something they’re both used to, even if he seldom deploys it towards her. In most cases, he’ll always choose to be direct. This particular question, however, he doesn’t want to ask. Doesn’t want to consider its implications, consequences, the possibility of a ‘no’. It must be posed regardless, but his chosen approach clearly shows exactly how uncomfortable it makes him feel.

[unreadability]

A few moments of unresponsiveness follow. Pass her by and them in extension. It isn’t that she’s considered returning home to her everyday life anytime soon; preferring the possibility of staying at the hospital until he’s made a full recovery. Or something, at least, that resembles it. But there have been - still are factors which must be taken into account, of course. How her leave of absence is currently only scheduled to extend to the 1st of July, after which she is to conduct a couple of summer seminars that have yet to be cancelled. She has not been incited to decide on the matter, but neither has it been implied or explicitly expressed that it would be met with understanding, were she to prolong. Stall. Regardless of the consequences, the reactions it might prompt, it is a choice she cannot avoid. Won’t. However, it will wait. They still have weeks at their disposal, before she shall have to determine what options are available to her. And which to employ. For now -- For now, she is here. With him.

Standing up and thus leaving two-thirds of the schnitzel untouched, she picks up the magazine at the top of the pile - an issue she has already read more than once today, but which features a relatively accurate coverage of the investigation into the background of the three surviving Africans. Amongst the gloss and a recapitulation of conjecture. Five steps and she’s moved around the bed, sitting down on the half that is hers in practice. Places herself next to him, cracks and metal bars apart. Gossip spread out over her lap.

“As I have every intention to.”

[population_ctrl]

He follows her with his gaze as she moves from the chair and around the bed, magazine in hand. Then she decreases the physical distance between them significantly, sitting down next to him on her side of the bed, her proximity suddenly palpable; the last remains of her YSL perfume, the heat of her body, the way the mattress moves beneath her as she settles back against the headboard. He shifts closer without thinking about it, the metal bar between them halting his movement before he can notice what he’s doing. He stops. Glances at her before leaning back.

“Good,” he says after a moment. Looks away again, feeling suddenly exhausted. The smell of the leftovers on the plates is nauseating, too, and he reaches down with one hand and pushes the service button once more, to have them come and take the trays away.

He’d lie down, really, if he could move enough to manage it. But for now, he doesn’t try - too tired for that as well. Instead, he leans sideways slightly, just a bit, his good shoulder pressing against hers. Cocking his head, he squints at the contents of her magazine, bangs obscuring most of his vision. Not that it matters. Gossip doesn’t interest him. But it’s a great excuse to rest his chin on her shoulder and so, he does. Waits for the nurse to come barging in; enjoying the quiet for now, for as long as it lasts.

[unreadability]

Sensing how he leans in against her, she chooses to refrain from categorising it within the various clichés of expression - to think of him as a symbol of weight on or off her shoulders. Instead he is heat and the sound of breathing near her ear, evening out. Slowly. He is the embodiment of refusal, to deny oneself the indulgence of selfishness. Towards her, between the two of them. And towards the world, for his own sake alone… He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t deny himself and neither does she. Deny him. Nor denying herself. As such, she doesn’t centre her interpretation of the present on him, well aware that had he wanted her to leave, she most likely wouldn’t. Have. He may be regarded as self-seeking, but she certainly seeks her own comforts, too. Doesn’t she? The comfort he provides.

A nurse enters, yet a different one, who casts a quick look around the room, followed by a longer one in the direction of the bed before she picks up Jean Louis’ tray. First and closest. Doctor Hirsch has indeed made it incontestably clear that his staff isn’t to be considered waiters at personal disposal and as Mireille watches the girl filter out the door, taking with her and thus away their service - in all definitions of the word, it becomes obvious why. That is. She lacks the necessary balance point, her carriage inelegant as a result. Turning the page, Mireille returns her attention to the magazine. Jean Louis’ entire political career mapped out in pictures and headlines; years upon years of rhetoric and agendas in which he’s always acted as the subject. In this, though, he’s made an unmistakable object of himself. It’s the change she’s called for, continuously. Increasingly desperate on both their behalves, isn’t that so?

When she glances to the side, his eyelids have fallen shut. She shall willingly admit that the greater evil wasn’t what went before, because at this point -- She must focus her efforts on ensuring that the lesser evil will cease being an evil altogether.