Sometimes the hardest decision is the right one...
Written for the openveinwriting October Comment Fic Party.
She'd forced him to come to the label. His complaints could probably go down into the legendary book of whining, but he needed to get out of his apartment and she had to work late. He sulked in the corner, reading something or other on his tablet. She triple-checked contracts and hotel and train reservations and the release information for the new single and video that were dropping while they were in Germany, all the while trying to ignore the uncomfortable air around the two of them.
"What the hell are we doing here?" He finally asked, cutting through her thought process. "You didn't need to bring me here, you know."
"You needed to get out."
"And you aren't my nurse."
She sighed and turned to him. "I need to say something and I needed it to be here and not ..." She found her courage. "Not in a place where we used to share a life, okay?" She hadn't wanted to ambush him. But she also had needed to do this on her turf. She wouldn't have the strength otherwise. It was so tempting to just fall back into his arms and she knew they couldn't. Not. Right. Now. If ever.
He paled a bit and frowned and she suddenly felt even more guilty. If she hadn't been so messed up all those years ago, he wouldn't have reacted like he did. If she wasn't so messed up now, she could help him better. God. This had to stop. They needed to end on a mature note and needed to give each other the space they needed so they could possibly, maybe, actually become friends. She missed her friend.
"Okay ..." Marshall finally said, looking at her expectantly.
"Look." She curled her legs up under her in the chair and rested her elbows on her knees. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"A lot of shit went down between us when we broke up, Marshall. And I'm not excusing you of any of your behavior, okay? I'm not. Some of the things you said and did really fucking pissed me off. And they hurt. They hurt because ... they weren't the guy I'd fallen in love with and if they were, then I felt like I'd fallen in love with a lie." She reached out and took his hands and used advantage of his wheels to pull him closer to her. He rolled his eyes a bit but didn't protest beyond that. "But Marshall, I could have reacted better too. I know I could have handled things differently. I didn't have to cower in the corner. I could have told you to just shut up and be a man." She sucked in a breath and met his eyes. Raising his fingers to her lips, she kissed them and made the confession that she hoped would at least bring them from this toxic mess they currently swam in to something much more like the friendship they'd developed all those years ago. "Marshall, I need to say this and you need to hear it. Really hear it because we both wallow in a lot of fucking guilt over what went down. Emma isn't completely wrong about how I've treated you. There are times I do fan the flame of your torch. There were times I really did like that you were so fucking miserable because you'd hurt me so much. I hate that I did that to you. I hate that we did that to each other and I worry we're still doing it, just in a different way right now."
He was quiet for a long time. She watched the emotions cross his face and finally he looked at her. "So what are we doing now then, Laniey? If you aren't fanning that flame? Is that why you showed up? To fan the flame? Not to be there for me?"
"You have to believe that I have been here with you over these past few weeks because I want to be. Because I didn't feel like I could be anywhere else. My heart demanded I be here. And maybe it's just to get you through things and maybe it's to move us forward or all of it or none of it. I don't know. But whatever it is has to change when I go on the road."
"Why? I mean you're the only person who isn't treating me like ..."
"What, like a cripple? Come on, Marshall. Your family is trying and you have to face them some time."
"So what about us then? What about this?"
It was time to force him to accept her reality. "I'm going to be out of the country until March. When I get home, I'll be here for maybe a week and then I'm on the road again through the summer. I won't be home for more than two weeks at a time until September and you need family who can actually give you that connection. It isn't fair to you."
"So? Who are you to decide what is fair for me?"
"I am also deciding what is fair for me."
"I can handle it!"
"I can't, Marshall. Don't you see that?" She sighed. "This has always been our problem. You get to decide what we handle. You get to decide what is good and fair for you. I'm telling you what is fair for me and as usual, you aren't listening."
"So what, you actually can't handle the wheels?"
"That isn't what I mean and you know it so stop. Don't pull that on me." She glared at him. He stared down at his legs. "You need people who can be here for you consistently. Someone who isn't going to take off at any point because her booking agency called. You need stability right now and, fuck, Marshall, I'm not stable. Not in any sense of the word. You know that."
"I thought ..." he shook his head. "Never mind. I get it."
She hated the guilt in his voice, but bit her lip and stared down at where their hands were still linked.
"Can I ask a question?" He asked.
"Of course." She didn't look up at him though. She still looked at their fingers.
"Do you still ... I mean ... would you still ... if this hadn't happened?"
"God," she looked up at him. "When in the past four years have either of us done anything that would lead to our getting back together on a long term basis being a healthy choice?"
"So you are here because of the wheels."
"I'm here because I care about you. I'm not here because I feel sorry for you. If I felt sorry for you, I'd be sneaking into your apartment and leaving before the sun came up and we wouldn't be having real conversations. I'm here because I care and because I want us to have something healthy." She wiped away a tear. "I want you in my life, Marshall. I miss my friend."
"I miss mine too," he said quietly. "But I don't know if ... if friends is all we can be, Laniey."
"I know." And she did.
"So what then?" His fingers tightened in hers and she realized that yet again, she'd made a mistake with his heart.
"What is that I'm leaving in two days, Marshall."
"And there's someone else ..."
There. He'd said it. Tucker. The question in the room. At least he said it. She hadn't been going to.
"He has nothing to do with this conversation," Elena said, defensive. Because he didn't. Because she didn't know what to do with her feelings for him and she wasn't ready to figure it out and Marshall was special. He always would be.
"Really?"
"Really. Give me some credit, okay?"
"So why don't you think I can handle you being on tour?"
"You couldn't last time, Marshall."
"We were twenty years old! You were suicidal!"
"I am as suicidal now as I was then!" Why couldn't he understand her brain? Why didn't he get it? "None of what bothered you last time has changed. I can still be set off at any time. I'm still a hair trigger from doing something stupid. I'm just managing it differently." She sighed and shifted her tone. "God, Marshall. You have enough going on and enough to process without worrying about me."
"You think I won't worry anyway? You think I don't stalk the boards and watch the fans talk about how you react after shows? I need to know how you are."
"I'm saying no, Marshall. Please respect that. I'm saying that you have this huge part of my heart and that is never going to change. But we both need to move on and be healthy about it."
"How?"
"By leaving it better than we have in the past and treating each other as adults."
His hands clenched hers so hard it hurt for a minute but she didn't pull away. A huge part of her soul understood exactly how he felt because if she was honest with herself, she knew that if they weren't about to leave the country, she wouldn't be going anywhere. Marshall was speaking. "I wouldn't ask you not to go. I get that you have a life and a job. I understand that now. Laniey ..."
"And what about me, Marshall? I am not ready to be bonded to someone back at home. I need ..." she sighed. "I need a freedom that you can't give me right now."
"Because of the accident."
"Partly. Do you think ... I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility, okay." He did pull away but she didn't let him. "Hey, don't get like this. When this all started this month, you told me you wanted me to be honest with you. Well, here you go. I'm sorry if it hurts. But I can't go off on this tour with you thinking that we ..."
"We're back together? Yeah, no. I've got the gist now. We should go back to my place and then you can go home and back to your life."
She winced at the bitterness in his voice but she wasn't going to let him sink back into his poor-pitiful-me place. Not with her. He could use that on Emma or his mother. He could get angry at therapists all he wanted. But she wasn't them. "Haven't you been paying attention? That you're part of my life?"
"And so what then? You're going on tour. You're leaving. You're leaving me. And I get that it's part of what we deal with, but you're leaving."
"I want us to get to a place where we don't do ... this ... to each other. I'm tired of you holding my heart in your hand and squeezing and I'm tired of doing the same thing to you."
He stared at her. She tried to hold his gaze but had to eventually look down. "You really feel that way?" He asked.
"Yeah ..." she picked at her nails. "I do. Emma isn't wrong. We can be really toxic to each other."
He was quiet for a long time and she was ready to just give in and take him home and let it end badly when he spoke. "Yeah, we can be. I still ... I still get mad when you date people who aren't me. I get mad when I see you making dumb relationship decisions. I get mad when you have a good time without me. I don't like that I do that."
"I don't like it either. And I don't like that I needle you. It's been years. We need to get over it."
"Somehow." He chuckled sadly. "God, I was such an idiot to let you go."
"Yeah," she offered half a smile, "you really were. But ... you did. And maybe it's for the best because we can have other experiences. We were babies when we were together."
He was silent for a long time but she didn't try to talk. "Well, I can say this ..." he finally said. "You're a lot more adventurous in the sack."
She rolled her eyes but laughed. "Well, I've had some ... lessons ... and not all of them were terrible."
This time he took her hand and she smiled at him. "Do me a favor," he said.
"What?"
"Just ... I know this needs to end. I get it. Your arguments are stupid but they make sense. But ... give me these last couple of days? Before I have to deal full time with my family and my therapists and you aren't there at the end of the day to bounce issues off of?"
Even knowing it was probably a bad idea, she nodded. "Of course. I said I'd be here for you and I meant it."
He kissed her hand and then leaned in to kiss her. She returned it.
She'd forced him to come to the label. His complaints could probably go down into the legendary book of whining, but he needed to get out of his apartment and she had to work late. He sulked in the corner, reading something or other on his tablet. She triple-checked contracts and hotel and train reservations and the release information for the new single and video that were dropping while they were in Germany, all the while trying to ignore the uncomfortable air around the two of them.
"What the hell are we doing here?" He finally asked, cutting through her thought process. "You didn't need to bring me here, you know."
"You needed to get out."
"And you aren't my nurse."
She sighed and turned to him. "I need to say something and I needed it to be here and not ..." She found her courage. "Not in a place where we used to share a life, okay?" She hadn't wanted to ambush him. But she also had needed to do this on her turf. She wouldn't have the strength otherwise. It was so tempting to just fall back into his arms and she knew they couldn't. Not. Right. Now. If ever.
He paled a bit and frowned and she suddenly felt even more guilty. If she hadn't been so messed up all those years ago, he wouldn't have reacted like he did. If she wasn't so messed up now, she could help him better. God. This had to stop. They needed to end on a mature note and needed to give each other the space they needed so they could possibly, maybe, actually become friends. She missed her friend.
"Okay ..." Marshall finally said, looking at her expectantly.
"Look." She curled her legs up under her in the chair and rested her elbows on her knees. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"A lot of shit went down between us when we broke up, Marshall. And I'm not excusing you of any of your behavior, okay? I'm not. Some of the things you said and did really fucking pissed me off. And they hurt. They hurt because ... they weren't the guy I'd fallen in love with and if they were, then I felt like I'd fallen in love with a lie." She reached out and took his hands and used advantage of his wheels to pull him closer to her. He rolled his eyes a bit but didn't protest beyond that. "But Marshall, I could have reacted better too. I know I could have handled things differently. I didn't have to cower in the corner. I could have told you to just shut up and be a man." She sucked in a breath and met his eyes. Raising his fingers to her lips, she kissed them and made the confession that she hoped would at least bring them from this toxic mess they currently swam in to something much more like the friendship they'd developed all those years ago. "Marshall, I need to say this and you need to hear it. Really hear it because we both wallow in a lot of fucking guilt over what went down. Emma isn't completely wrong about how I've treated you. There are times I do fan the flame of your torch. There were times I really did like that you were so fucking miserable because you'd hurt me so much. I hate that I did that to you. I hate that we did that to each other and I worry we're still doing it, just in a different way right now."
He was quiet for a long time. She watched the emotions cross his face and finally he looked at her. "So what are we doing now then, Laniey? If you aren't fanning that flame? Is that why you showed up? To fan the flame? Not to be there for me?"
"You have to believe that I have been here with you over these past few weeks because I want to be. Because I didn't feel like I could be anywhere else. My heart demanded I be here. And maybe it's just to get you through things and maybe it's to move us forward or all of it or none of it. I don't know. But whatever it is has to change when I go on the road."
"Why? I mean you're the only person who isn't treating me like ..."
"What, like a cripple? Come on, Marshall. Your family is trying and you have to face them some time."
"So what about us then? What about this?"
It was time to force him to accept her reality. "I'm going to be out of the country until March. When I get home, I'll be here for maybe a week and then I'm on the road again through the summer. I won't be home for more than two weeks at a time until September and you need family who can actually give you that connection. It isn't fair to you."
"So? Who are you to decide what is fair for me?"
"I am also deciding what is fair for me."
"I can handle it!"
"I can't, Marshall. Don't you see that?" She sighed. "This has always been our problem. You get to decide what we handle. You get to decide what is good and fair for you. I'm telling you what is fair for me and as usual, you aren't listening."
"So what, you actually can't handle the wheels?"
"That isn't what I mean and you know it so stop. Don't pull that on me." She glared at him. He stared down at his legs. "You need people who can be here for you consistently. Someone who isn't going to take off at any point because her booking agency called. You need stability right now and, fuck, Marshall, I'm not stable. Not in any sense of the word. You know that."
"I thought ..." he shook his head. "Never mind. I get it."
She hated the guilt in his voice, but bit her lip and stared down at where their hands were still linked.
"Can I ask a question?" He asked.
"Of course." She didn't look up at him though. She still looked at their fingers.
"Do you still ... I mean ... would you still ... if this hadn't happened?"
"God," she looked up at him. "When in the past four years have either of us done anything that would lead to our getting back together on a long term basis being a healthy choice?"
"So you are here because of the wheels."
"I'm here because I care about you. I'm not here because I feel sorry for you. If I felt sorry for you, I'd be sneaking into your apartment and leaving before the sun came up and we wouldn't be having real conversations. I'm here because I care and because I want us to have something healthy." She wiped away a tear. "I want you in my life, Marshall. I miss my friend."
"I miss mine too," he said quietly. "But I don't know if ... if friends is all we can be, Laniey."
"I know." And she did.
"So what then?" His fingers tightened in hers and she realized that yet again, she'd made a mistake with his heart.
"What is that I'm leaving in two days, Marshall."
"And there's someone else ..."
There. He'd said it. Tucker. The question in the room. At least he said it. She hadn't been going to.
"He has nothing to do with this conversation," Elena said, defensive. Because he didn't. Because she didn't know what to do with her feelings for him and she wasn't ready to figure it out and Marshall was special. He always would be.
"Really?"
"Really. Give me some credit, okay?"
"So why don't you think I can handle you being on tour?"
"You couldn't last time, Marshall."
"We were twenty years old! You were suicidal!"
"I am as suicidal now as I was then!" Why couldn't he understand her brain? Why didn't he get it? "None of what bothered you last time has changed. I can still be set off at any time. I'm still a hair trigger from doing something stupid. I'm just managing it differently." She sighed and shifted her tone. "God, Marshall. You have enough going on and enough to process without worrying about me."
"You think I won't worry anyway? You think I don't stalk the boards and watch the fans talk about how you react after shows? I need to know how you are."
"I'm saying no, Marshall. Please respect that. I'm saying that you have this huge part of my heart and that is never going to change. But we both need to move on and be healthy about it."
"How?"
"By leaving it better than we have in the past and treating each other as adults."
His hands clenched hers so hard it hurt for a minute but she didn't pull away. A huge part of her soul understood exactly how he felt because if she was honest with herself, she knew that if they weren't about to leave the country, she wouldn't be going anywhere. Marshall was speaking. "I wouldn't ask you not to go. I get that you have a life and a job. I understand that now. Laniey ..."
"And what about me, Marshall? I am not ready to be bonded to someone back at home. I need ..." she sighed. "I need a freedom that you can't give me right now."
"Because of the accident."
"Partly. Do you think ... I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility, okay." He did pull away but she didn't let him. "Hey, don't get like this. When this all started this month, you told me you wanted me to be honest with you. Well, here you go. I'm sorry if it hurts. But I can't go off on this tour with you thinking that we ..."
"We're back together? Yeah, no. I've got the gist now. We should go back to my place and then you can go home and back to your life."
She winced at the bitterness in his voice but she wasn't going to let him sink back into his poor-pitiful-me place. Not with her. He could use that on Emma or his mother. He could get angry at therapists all he wanted. But she wasn't them. "Haven't you been paying attention? That you're part of my life?"
"And so what then? You're going on tour. You're leaving. You're leaving me. And I get that it's part of what we deal with, but you're leaving."
"I want us to get to a place where we don't do ... this ... to each other. I'm tired of you holding my heart in your hand and squeezing and I'm tired of doing the same thing to you."
He stared at her. She tried to hold his gaze but had to eventually look down. "You really feel that way?" He asked.
"Yeah ..." she picked at her nails. "I do. Emma isn't wrong. We can be really toxic to each other."
He was quiet for a long time and she was ready to just give in and take him home and let it end badly when he spoke. "Yeah, we can be. I still ... I still get mad when you date people who aren't me. I get mad when I see you making dumb relationship decisions. I get mad when you have a good time without me. I don't like that I do that."
"I don't like it either. And I don't like that I needle you. It's been years. We need to get over it."
"Somehow." He chuckled sadly. "God, I was such an idiot to let you go."
"Yeah," she offered half a smile, "you really were. But ... you did. And maybe it's for the best because we can have other experiences. We were babies when we were together."
He was silent for a long time but she didn't try to talk. "Well, I can say this ..." he finally said. "You're a lot more adventurous in the sack."
She rolled her eyes but laughed. "Well, I've had some ... lessons ... and not all of them were terrible."
This time he took her hand and she smiled at him. "Do me a favor," he said.
"What?"
"Just ... I know this needs to end. I get it. Your arguments are stupid but they make sense. But ... give me these last couple of days? Before I have to deal full time with my family and my therapists and you aren't there at the end of the day to bounce issues off of?"
Even knowing it was probably a bad idea, she nodded. "Of course. I said I'd be here for you and I meant it."
He kissed her hand and then leaned in to kiss her. She returned it.