it's always science vs. romance, really

[sobrellevar]

for my own record-keeping purposes; this is a tiny tiny little ficlet response for unfoldings, who requested pete/jeanae:


event horizon vs. the speed of light.

1. this is the part of leaving that he likes, but can never tell anyone: that after you leave, there is no other verb left but to return, no matter how long it takes.
   
   
2. she sleeps over at his house one night when he's back in town, and they share earphones listening to regina spektor's "samson" in the dark, neither of them really in love with the song, neither of them overly sentimental. it's just that they both know the phrase you are my sweetest downfall backwards and forwards, having seen it with their own eyes, having done that to each other. sometimes it was bitter. sometimes they were merciless.
   
   but it isn't, sometimes, like now. she asks him what they're just old light means, and he runs to his bookshelf to show her the distance from the solar system to the next star, his eyes uncharacteristically bright. when she laughs into his collarbone the sound goes right through him.
   
   she falls asleep when the song is just beginning to fade out -- i loved you first -- while he lies awake and stares at the ceiling, thinking about the spaces that stretch from star to star. he thinks also about black holes; about how nothing, not even light, can escape.
   
   
3. In general relativity, event horizon is a general term for a boundary in spacetime, defined with respect to an observer, beyond which events cannot affect the observer. Light emitted from inside the horizon can never reach the observer, and anything that passes through the horizon from the observer's side is never seen again.
   
   
4. he has online journals with usernames that aren't clever phrases cut from away messages. each one is actually, truly secret, with usernames that combine fictionalized parts of her home address with the names of birds and the names of dead french writers. each journal contains only one entry and is never revisited. pete is actually capable of telling things to no-one, of keeping things to himself, only no-one will believe this to be true.
   
   
5. so maybe this is from 16sparrowstreet-voltaire (dot blogspot dot com):
   
   too familiar with how it feels to walk away from you.
   on first name basis for sure.
   (and its always calling me.)
   
   heres what i figure..
   if i keep leaving, ill get better at it.
   its not a bad habit if its on purpose.
   we are all just practicing for perfection.
   
   i just want to get things right .
   for even just once in my life.
   
   posted by xo @ 2:42 AM
   
   
6. how there will never be enough words for all this. and by ‘this’ he means leaving, by ‘this’ he means in some way that she feels like home. each time is completely different and each time is exactly the same.
   
   walking away from her like a house on fire. walking away from her like a house of cards.
   
   walking away from her like a highroller leaving the table with nothing. with odds turned against him, the house always winning.
   
   walking away from her like losing everything, like being lost. walking away from her like light from dead stars, the slowness undetectable but completely deliberate.
   
   walking away with his eyes closed. walking away pretending it’s for real, for nothing, for everything, forever. walking away knowing that will never be true --
   
   -- and walking towards her so seldomly (but meaning it every time), and walking beside her only sometimes (meaning everything, meaning more than it should).
   
   but mostly: walking away from her, far away, intangible and unreachable and always.
   
   .
   .
   .
   ( nevermind the way his shadow keeps stretching back on the sidewalk, how it keeps trying to lay itself at her feet. that’s just the morning-after daylight working. it doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. )

oh god, matchsticks_p! your trowa/quatre drabble of atonement is totally coming soon, as i know this inspires only sentiments of 'GTFO my flist, katrina' in you.