Small Steps [4/?]mikkary_bonesOctober 7 2011, 01:02:29 UTC
vi
The next day Elizaveta comes to him. They have been friends since they met at a party; she was tipsy and Francis was flirtatious; he kissed her and she hit him over the head. Their relationship improved after that; she is probably Francis's closest friend outside the ballet company.
"Arthur called me last night," she says after letting herself in. Francis wonders whether he does not bother to lock the door or everyone just happens to have a spare key. "He talked about you."
Francis closes his book - a courtesy for Eliza. "Oh?" he asks. It is easier, with Elizaveta, to get words past the weight on his chest. She does not bring all the mornings with her.
"Francis..." she says, looking at him and sighing. Francis sees all the words on the tip of her tongue - you never go out, you need some fresh air, you're not smiling, you're taking too much medication, this isn't healthy, you can't live this way, why can't you get over it? - but then she glances away. "He's coming over as a favor, and I think you could use the company..." because you are too helpless to go out on your own.
"Ah," Francis says. He can see what she isn't saying. Maybe she's not even thinking it consciously, but it's there, the pity, the incomprehension, the impatience.
Elizaveta bites her lip. "Would you like to go shopping with me?" she asks. "I want to get you some things to fill up your refrigerator."
Francis glances outside. The clouds are high and cover the sky. "No thank you," he said. He doesn't know the last time he went outside.
"Any, any requests, then?" Elizaveta asks. He looks back at her; she is twisting her car keys in her hands. She doesn't know how to interact with him, Francis realizes. None of them do.
"Fresh bread, maybe," Francis said. He has not had that in a long time. "You can take my card. It's on the mail table." His arms seem stuck to the armrests of his chair; he makes a weak gesture with his hand toward the small table by the door.
"Right," Elizaveta says. Francis can see the words again, lining up in her brain and at the front of her mouth - this isn't healthy, you need to get outside, I can't keep doing this for you, do you understand - but again, she only looks away. "I'll be back in a few, then."
vii
And so it goes. Arthur does not come back for the entire week. Elizaveta visits sporadically. Francis rediscovers the taste of fresh bread with a small bit of butter and honey. He eats a slice for breakfast each morning. That's another whole meal.
He does not go outside. The mornings seem to gain weight and form in the corners. Instead of piling up like dead leaves, they are now more like living things, making a lair. Spiders in webs, foxes in dens. He imagines he can see glowing yellow eyes watching him when it is dark and he tries to sleep.
He feels trapped. But he isn't trapped; this is an exile of his own making. He does not reach out and contact anyone. Gradually, Natalya stops sending him updates of her progress. It makes him glad. He gets jealous. At least she can make progress.
Gradually, Ivan stops calling him to ask how he's doing. Francis only ever gave him monosyllabic replies, anyway.
Gradually, Elizaveta begins to leave him on his own for longer periods of time. The view from the window grows boring.
Small Steps [5/?]mikkary_bonesOctober 7 2011, 01:06:31 UTC
viii
Death is an idle thought rather than an imperative. He thinks about going to sleep at night and never waking up, spending the rest of eternity in a comfortable darkness somewhere beyond the realm of consciousness or dreams.
He thinks of jumping from his window and flying one more time before he hits the pavement. Is it high enough to ensure he will not survive?
(To Francis, dancing was like flying. A leap, a split in the air - they all have fancy names but he does not want to remember those. Instead, he remembers the feeling of muscles coiling, the effort to work against gravity, and the few split seconds where the effort was succeessful. Flying is pure joy.)
In the evening, when he takes the medication the doctor prescribed (two pills for pain, one for an antibiotic), he wonders how many pills he would have to take so he doesn't have to wake up. Does he have enough?
But at the core he is purely lazy, and suicide simply remains a thought. And even when he thinks of death, he imagines the crunch as his body hits the ground, the feeling of breaking. He imagines stomach cramps from the pills, retching, vomiting.
When he cuts his bread he looks at the silver of the knife and the way it gleams differently with every direction he moves it.
Death is an idle thought, but a beautiful one.
ix
Arthur comes back the next week. He's not apologetic, but he takes in Francis's mail and checks the refrigerator to make sure there's enough food. Then he comes to Francis's chair, where Francis is sitting, flipping through a glossy fashion magazine.
"I think we should talk," he says.
Francis looks up. Arthur is the first person that has come to see him in three days. He has not talked in three days.
"Look, Bonnefoy - Francis," Arthur says, and Francis can almost feel the effort it takes for him to drop the distancing surname. He looks around and finally grabs a spindly chair from the corner, dragging it over to seat himself in front of Francis. "I'm, uh, well... is there anything you want to say?"
It's like he's been dropped into some strange, alien world, or at least that's how Francis feels. He does not know what to say or how to interact. "No," he says. When Arthur's brow furrows, he amends his statement: "I don't know."
Re: Small Steps [5/?]fireblazieOctober 7 2011, 01:37:41 UTC
Ooh, you know, I really like this. It's really heartbreaking, and, just, to see this side of Francis - completely broken - it's gorgeously written. I hope you'll continue!
Re: Small Steps [5/?]ikkjevaksenOctober 7 2011, 17:42:35 UTC
I. I'm really speechless. This was everything I expected and so much more. Wow. I love your Francis - I love him so so so. Thank you. Really. Thank you.
Small Steps [5b/?]mikkary_bonesOctober 7 2011, 18:05:14 UTC
(I'm basically copy/pasting from a WIP that is very long. Once I finish it, I'll just post it on my journal and post a link here, but until then... Also, I would have posted more last night, but the comment system was being wonky so I just went to bed.)
"Ah, well." Arthur laces his hands together on his lap, stares at his fingers, stares out the window. "I was just wondering if there was anything... on your mind."
A flash of Francis's old, fiery nature returns and he thinks are you waiting for me to apologize? But it's gone as soon as he notices and instead he says, "No."
Arthur's lips thin. "All right. I just wanted to say, I mean..." He makes an effort to look Francis in the eye. "Look. Elizaveta is doing her best for you - we're all doing are best for you - but you're not responding." He glanced away, twisted his fingers in his lap, swallowed, met Francis's eyes again. "You just sit there, and do you know how hard it is to keep coming back, keep trying, and get the same response? Get nothing?"
Francis is almost surprised. Someone - finally - someone is saying these things to him. Someone is telling him what they are really thinking, someone is giving him the truth that he knows but that no one says.
"You can't keep living like this, Bonne- Francis. You can't keep sitting here like you're some kind of, oh, I don't know, it's like you're dead!"
And as Arthur speaks, Francis feels, finally, Francis feels the first stirrings of anger. Of life. How dare he - how dare they speak like this to him.
"I don't know how long it's been since you've had a decent meal, since you've gone outside. You're just wallowing in this injury and Francis, it isn't even that bad, it isn't -"
"How dare you!" Francis snaps, surprising both Arthur and himself, the words that he has long been thinking now springing to his lips. "I am dead. This, this injury, you don't understand! I cannot dance." He leans forward and glared at Arthur. "Dancing is my life - was my life - and now it is gone, and you have the gall to tell me that I am making too much of a little injury." He snarls and clenches his fist, and then, without even thinking, stands up, balancing himself on his cast and his one good foot with an instinct born of years of training. "You do not know what it is to have your life taken away from you! I might as well be dead! I might as well kill myself! I might as well starve myself to death! There is nothing left for me."
When he paused to take a breath, he looks down at Arthur, who has not moved and is looking up at him with the strangest expression. If Francis didn't know better (if he didn't want to know better, anyway) he would think it was almost proud.
"Get out of my house," Francis snarls, but that is too much for his injured leg, and he has to fall back into his chair. "Get out," he adds, and covers his eyes with his hand because oh, this is absolutely humiliating. He has been broken and now Arthur has seen him this way, seen the extent of his hurt and his injury.
He hears rather than sees Arthur stand up. There's a moment when he doesn't hear anything at all, and then he feels the pressure of a hand on his shoulder. He barely has time to stiffen and pull away before it's gone. "I'm sorry, Francis," Arthur says.
Moments later, Francis hears his front door open, close, lock. Arthur is gone.
Small Steps [6/?]mikkary_bonesOctober 7 2011, 18:05:47 UTC
x
It's selfish, but Francis makes a catalog of everyone who would miss him if he died. He thinks Ivan would miss him, even though the big Russian man is undoubtedly the new danseur noble of the company. He thinks Natalya, Ivan's sister and the grand ballerina, will miss him as well.
Marguerite and Marie, of course, would miss him; they are like his little sisters.
The audiences might miss him for a few weeks, but Francis is sure that Ivan's grand style will win them over in no time, and so he does not put them on the list.
Elizaveta will miss him greatly, he imagines; Roderich, less so, but he will still mourn.
His old high school friends, Gilbert and Antonio, will miss him, even though he has not seen them in a few years, being so busy with ballet.
Gilbert's little brother Ludwig will probably not miss him, because he likes things orderly and predictable.
Arthur... Francis wonders if Arthur will miss him. Probably not, so that's eight people on the list.
Eight people will miss him.
xi
Elizaveta comes back the next day to take Francis to a doctor's appointment about which he had forgotten. When he stands up, she gives him a hug before handing him his crutches.
It's the first time in a long time that someone has touched him like that, and even though he does not want to, Francis leans into her embrace and closes his eyes. Here, he can pretend that he is safe and whole and loved again.
"Are you a mother yet?" Francis asks in the car. He was nervous stepping outside and feels much better sitting down under a roof, where he is protected from the open sky. "Because I think you would be a very good one."
Elizaveta is surprised at the question and also, Francis imagines, surprised that he is asking such questions in the first place. "No!" she says, and blushes.
"I think you should fix that," Francis replies, with a shadow of his old, insouciant smile. Her blush deepens.
At the doctor's office, they x-ray his foot. Doctor Honda is pleased by how it is healing. It has been a month since the injury and the corrective surgery. "Can you see those cracks, there, in the talus and the calcaneus?" he asks, pointing out whispery lines on the x-ray. "That's where your bones are healing."
Francis feels faintly sick. They give him more medication, though it's not as strong. The risk of infection is lower, now. They leave his cast on. Dr. Honda tells him to wiggle his toes; he doesn't try very hard.
Then Elizaveta takes the doctor aside. Francis listens and only catches bits of their murmured conversation: depression, an unhealthy outlook, understandable, psychiatrist.
"I don't need therapy," Francis says as the car pulls to a stop in front of his apartment. "I refuse to see a therapist."
"I never said you should," Elizaveta says, but she looks sad as she helps him out of the car and back into his flat.
The next day Elizaveta comes to him. They have been friends since they met at a party; she was tipsy and Francis was flirtatious; he kissed her and she hit him over the head. Their relationship improved after that; she is probably Francis's closest friend outside the ballet company.
"Arthur called me last night," she says after letting herself in. Francis wonders whether he does not bother to lock the door or everyone just happens to have a spare key. "He talked about you."
Francis closes his book - a courtesy for Eliza. "Oh?" he asks. It is easier, with Elizaveta, to get words past the weight on his chest. She does not bring all the mornings with her.
"Francis..." she says, looking at him and sighing. Francis sees all the words on the tip of her tongue - you never go out, you need some fresh air, you're not smiling, you're taking too much medication, this isn't healthy, you can't live this way, why can't you get over it? - but then she glances away. "He's coming over as a favor, and I think you could use the company..." because you are too helpless to go out on your own.
"Ah," Francis says. He can see what she isn't saying. Maybe she's not even thinking it consciously, but it's there, the pity, the incomprehension, the impatience.
Elizaveta bites her lip. "Would you like to go shopping with me?" she asks. "I want to get you some things to fill up your refrigerator."
Francis glances outside. The clouds are high and cover the sky. "No thank you," he said. He doesn't know the last time he went outside.
"Any, any requests, then?" Elizaveta asks. He looks back at her; she is twisting her car keys in her hands. She doesn't know how to interact with him, Francis realizes. None of them do.
"Fresh bread, maybe," Francis said. He has not had that in a long time. "You can take my card. It's on the mail table." His arms seem stuck to the armrests of his chair; he makes a weak gesture with his hand toward the small table by the door.
"Right," Elizaveta says. Francis can see the words again, lining up in her brain and at the front of her mouth - this isn't healthy, you need to get outside, I can't keep doing this for you, do you understand - but again, she only looks away. "I'll be back in a few, then."
vii
And so it goes. Arthur does not come back for the entire week. Elizaveta visits sporadically. Francis rediscovers the taste of fresh bread with a small bit of butter and honey. He eats a slice for breakfast each morning. That's another whole meal.
He does not go outside. The mornings seem to gain weight and form in the corners. Instead of piling up like dead leaves, they are now more like living things, making a lair. Spiders in webs, foxes in dens. He imagines he can see glowing yellow eyes watching him when it is dark and he tries to sleep.
He feels trapped. But he isn't trapped; this is an exile of his own making. He does not reach out and contact anyone. Gradually, Natalya stops sending him updates of her progress. It makes him glad. He gets jealous. At least she can make progress.
Gradually, Ivan stops calling him to ask how he's doing. Francis only ever gave him monosyllabic replies, anyway.
Gradually, Elizaveta begins to leave him on his own for longer periods of time. The view from the window grows boring.
Francis thinks of ending his life.
Reply
Death is an idle thought rather than an imperative. He thinks about going to sleep at night and never waking up, spending the rest of eternity in a comfortable darkness somewhere beyond the realm of consciousness or dreams.
He thinks of jumping from his window and flying one more time before he hits the pavement. Is it high enough to ensure he will not survive?
(To Francis, dancing was like flying. A leap, a split in the air - they all have fancy names but he does not want to remember those. Instead, he remembers the feeling of muscles coiling, the effort to work against gravity, and the few split seconds where the effort was succeessful. Flying is pure joy.)
In the evening, when he takes the medication the doctor prescribed (two pills for pain, one for an antibiotic), he wonders how many pills he would have to take so he doesn't have to wake up. Does he have enough?
But at the core he is purely lazy, and suicide simply remains a thought. And even when he thinks of death, he imagines the crunch as his body hits the ground, the feeling of breaking. He imagines stomach cramps from the pills, retching, vomiting.
When he cuts his bread he looks at the silver of the knife and the way it gleams differently with every direction he moves it.
Death is an idle thought, but a beautiful one.
ix
Arthur comes back the next week. He's not apologetic, but he takes in Francis's mail and checks the refrigerator to make sure there's enough food. Then he comes to Francis's chair, where Francis is sitting, flipping through a glossy fashion magazine.
"I think we should talk," he says.
Francis looks up. Arthur is the first person that has come to see him in three days. He has not talked in three days.
"Look, Bonnefoy - Francis," Arthur says, and Francis can almost feel the effort it takes for him to drop the distancing surname. He looks around and finally grabs a spindly chair from the corner, dragging it over to seat himself in front of Francis. "I'm, uh, well... is there anything you want to say?"
It's like he's been dropped into some strange, alien world, or at least that's how Francis feels. He does not know what to say or how to interact. "No," he says. When Arthur's brow furrows, he amends his statement: "I don't know."
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"Ah, well." Arthur laces his hands together on his lap, stares at his fingers, stares out the window. "I was just wondering if there was anything... on your mind."
A flash of Francis's old, fiery nature returns and he thinks are you waiting for me to apologize? But it's gone as soon as he notices and instead he says, "No."
Arthur's lips thin. "All right. I just wanted to say, I mean..." He makes an effort to look Francis in the eye. "Look. Elizaveta is doing her best for you - we're all doing are best for you - but you're not responding." He glanced away, twisted his fingers in his lap, swallowed, met Francis's eyes again. "You just sit there, and do you know how hard it is to keep coming back, keep trying, and get the same response? Get nothing?"
Francis is almost surprised. Someone - finally - someone is saying these things to him. Someone is telling him what they are really thinking, someone is giving him the truth that he knows but that no one says.
"You can't keep living like this, Bonne- Francis. You can't keep sitting here like you're some kind of, oh, I don't know, it's like you're dead!"
And as Arthur speaks, Francis feels, finally, Francis feels the first stirrings of anger. Of life. How dare he - how dare they speak like this to him.
"I don't know how long it's been since you've had a decent meal, since you've gone outside. You're just wallowing in this injury and Francis, it isn't even that bad, it isn't -"
"How dare you!" Francis snaps, surprising both Arthur and himself, the words that he has long been thinking now springing to his lips. "I am dead. This, this injury, you don't understand! I cannot dance." He leans forward and glared at Arthur. "Dancing is my life - was my life - and now it is gone, and you have the gall to tell me that I am making too much of a little injury." He snarls and clenches his fist, and then, without even thinking, stands up, balancing himself on his cast and his one good foot with an instinct born of years of training. "You do not know what it is to have your life taken away from you! I might as well be dead! I might as well kill myself! I might as well starve myself to death! There is nothing left for me."
When he paused to take a breath, he looks down at Arthur, who has not moved and is looking up at him with the strangest expression. If Francis didn't know better (if he didn't want to know better, anyway) he would think it was almost proud.
"Get out of my house," Francis snarls, but that is too much for his injured leg, and he has to fall back into his chair. "Get out," he adds, and covers his eyes with his hand because oh, this is absolutely humiliating. He has been broken and now Arthur has seen him this way, seen the extent of his hurt and his injury.
He hears rather than sees Arthur stand up. There's a moment when he doesn't hear anything at all, and then he feels the pressure of a hand on his shoulder. He barely has time to stiffen and pull away before it's gone. "I'm sorry, Francis," Arthur says.
Moments later, Francis hears his front door open, close, lock. Arthur is gone.
Reply
It's selfish, but Francis makes a catalog of everyone who would miss him if he died. He thinks Ivan would miss him, even though the big Russian man is undoubtedly the new danseur noble of the company. He thinks Natalya, Ivan's sister and the grand ballerina, will miss him as well.
Marguerite and Marie, of course, would miss him; they are like his little sisters.
The audiences might miss him for a few weeks, but Francis is sure that Ivan's grand style will win them over in no time, and so he does not put them on the list.
Elizaveta will miss him greatly, he imagines; Roderich, less so, but he will still mourn.
His old high school friends, Gilbert and Antonio, will miss him, even though he has not seen them in a few years, being so busy with ballet.
Gilbert's little brother Ludwig will probably not miss him, because he likes things orderly and predictable.
Arthur... Francis wonders if Arthur will miss him. Probably not, so that's eight people on the list.
Eight people will miss him.
xi
Elizaveta comes back the next day to take Francis to a doctor's appointment about which he had forgotten. When he stands up, she gives him a hug before handing him his crutches.
It's the first time in a long time that someone has touched him like that, and even though he does not want to, Francis leans into her embrace and closes his eyes. Here, he can pretend that he is safe and whole and loved again.
"Are you a mother yet?" Francis asks in the car. He was nervous stepping outside and feels much better sitting down under a roof, where he is protected from the open sky. "Because I think you would be a very good one."
Elizaveta is surprised at the question and also, Francis imagines, surprised that he is asking such questions in the first place. "No!" she says, and blushes.
"I think you should fix that," Francis replies, with a shadow of his old, insouciant smile. Her blush deepens.
At the doctor's office, they x-ray his foot. Doctor Honda is pleased by how it is healing. It has been a month since the injury and the corrective surgery. "Can you see those cracks, there, in the talus and the calcaneus?" he asks, pointing out whispery lines on the x-ray. "That's where your bones are healing."
Francis feels faintly sick. They give him more medication, though it's not as strong. The risk of infection is lower, now. They leave his cast on. Dr. Honda tells him to wiggle his toes; he doesn't try very hard.
Then Elizaveta takes the doctor aside. Francis listens and only catches bits of their murmured conversation: depression, an unhealthy outlook, understandable, psychiatrist.
"I don't need therapy," Francis says as the car pulls to a stop in front of his apartment. "I refuse to see a therapist."
"I never said you should," Elizaveta says, but she looks sad as she helps him out of the car and back into his flat.
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I meant to have this up like, months ago, yep, but got stuck on the ending so at least I can use it here. (Should be done soon?? /crosses fingers)
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