Gently Through This Broken Sky (R/K) Fic
Title: Gently Through This Broken Sky
Author: shadow_walker3
Pairing: Kristen Stewart/Robert Pattinson rpf (written in KPOV)
Rating: I believe I’m incapable of writing anything less than R or NC-17, so this is no exception, but I’m incapable of also writing porn without plot (just ask my friends). One day though…I’ll succeed.
Warnings: Other than the above, I can’t really think of any…unless you have a really weak stomach.
Summary: I will preface all summaries by saying that I enjoy injured men. I have since I was about eight years old. I cannot explain, nor do I promote the injuring of men; however, there will be no complaint from me if they are. For some reason, I find them hotter when injured. I believe it to be some sort of Florence Nightingale complex, where the need to then take care of them takes over and…I have no idea - they’re just hotter, ok? So to get to the actual summary, which is longer now than it should be, I finally just asked my friend/beta/lover/wife/hetero-life partner, Kaia what the hell the summary should be and she said: “It’s a story about how a plane crash brings people together (she doesn’t write for Hallmark, I swear), like a bat mitzvah, but less fun - with less dancing and relatives and food and more snow and possible death and crash landings.”
Timeframe: Right after the MTV Movie Awards 2009
Chapter 29 of ? who the hell knows by the time I’m done.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, nor am I profiting in any way besides my torrid fantasies. And I really didn't think I'd ever write anything of this nature again after the last epic I attempted, so...we'll see. LOL
Chapter 29: Break
I had a tendency to watch Rob a lot. Part of it stemmed, I’m sure, from some fear of him hiding injury or pain, and I’m sure, psychologically, it could be said that I had some fear of him not being there with me, of losing him. I mean, I already knew that idea was firmly planted in my subconscious and came out vividly in dreams and nightmares. You can learn a lot about someone when you watch them constantly. Most people are extraordinarily unobservant. They notice nothing or they notice only the huge things. The small things go completely unnoticed, disregarded, ignored. It’s the small things that matter, though.
Rob had exactly fourteen different “annoyed with Kristen” faces. He smiled every time the dryer buzzed, completing its cycle. He’d get adorably confused when a British product had an American counterpart and American name, and normally refused to call it by anything other than the British form. He arranged pickles on his cheeseburgers so that no two pieces touched each other or he picked them all off, depending on his mood. He refused to eat any portion of chicken that he deemed ‘slimy’ or ‘knotty.’ He’d talk endlessly through parts of a movie but be abruptly silent if something caught his attention and then not utter a word the entire rest of the film. He liked dogs, but preferred smaller lap dogs to larger ones. He played piano melodies without a piano if something suddenly inspired him and rarely wrote it down, preferring instead to run his fingers over imaginary keys. He’d probably written a career’s worth of melodies and music, but insisted most of it was ‘just messing around.’ He hated not being able to play the piano or his guitar, but shrugged it off when I brought it up. Which hand he chose to run through his hair was determined by how nervous he was. His vocabulary was extensive. He devoured books like a junkie on speed, but hated the rigorousness of a school environment. He loved to dissect books and their meanings and I secretly thought that he would have made an excellent literature professor, but I didn’t tell him that for fear of jokes about tweed and stuffy, old British guys.
He was annoying and competitive and childish, and unnervingly patient and charmingly odd. He rarely got angry and it never lasted long, but he could throw a tantrum like nobody’s business. He forgave easily and left himself open for more abuse, but rarely complained as it mostly came from my direction. When he did blow, when he did have a moment of completely fed-up, hair-pulling rage, he’d spout off words so fast that I don’t think even he could catch them. He’d rant for as long as it took to get it all out and then he was done, it was over. He never remembered anything remotely important, but could detail the day a Van Morrison album was released and where he was when he bought it. His brow furrowed and panic set in if I asked him something he should know, like our address for example, but the boy could detail the origin and etymology of the word ‘paparazzi’ like the entire world would know something that random and intellectual. For those interested, he’s happy to fill in that the origin of the word is Italian and came from film director Federico Fellini, who while filming the movie La Dolce Vita, likened the photographers that harassed the set to the Sicilian word for an oversize mosquito, papataceo. “Paparazzo suggests to me a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging.” Fellini also drew an image of the character in which he describes, the drawing is of a human-like figure that has no bone structure and instead, looks like a vampirish insectile, implying that paparazzi, like mosquitoes, are also parasites.
He’d look at me like that sometimes, the furrow and panic, followed with something between curiosity and awe and ask me quietly why I bothered to be with him, as though he really couldn’t understand why I enjoyed being with him. I’d usually just shrug and smile. Sometimes I’d reach over and touch his face or cup his cheek or kiss him quickly. He never pressed for an answer, never got one beyond my non-answering. He’d grin and look bashful and the conversation would be over. I couldn’t really give him an answer beyond that anyway - it was all the little things. How does one explain all those things in one sentence? How does one explain that time apart from him felt empty, cold? How does one explain that without coming across as a complete (lovesick) fool? The kind that’s so sappy and romantic that it bleeds sentiment like syrup oozing over pancakes. How could I explain all the things that made Rob Rob? I couldn’t do that, couldn’t explain it terms that were me. I wasn’t a sweet and syrupy girl. Plus, it’d be embarrassing, and I had the distinct impression that Rob would laugh first and then shift into his over-analytical and pensive self, somehow interpreting that my super-sweet and disgustingly saccharin-diabetic-attack of a love declaration was fake or sarcastic or insulting. That I’d reduced him to nothing more than an image of whom he was. He was weird like that. Paranoia and reading into things that weren’t there, those were classic Rob-isms. Sometimes silence was better. Not telling him what really went through my head was safer for both of us.
He had no such filter. He’d spout whatever decided to grow its own head out of his own warped brain.
His analysis of everything annoyed me, frustrated my straight-forward nature, and my bluntness could hurt him when I didn’t intend it to do so. We were sort of volatile, if you thought about it. Like the fuse and the spark. Fine if not shoved together, explosive if forced.
I also don’t think he wanted me to be the sweet and quietly meek, worship at his feet girlfriend. He didn’t want googly eyes, he valued that I called him on his shit or smacked him when he was blowing something out of proportion. He appreciated me telling him that his current paranoid delusion was complete horseshit. He respected me more that way and I wouldn’t give that up. A relationship without respect is doomed.
I respected that he wouldn’t just agree with me, that he’d press for a reason (unless it was in reference to the quandary and enigma of my feelings for him) when I’d made an assumption without forethought. He forced me to think and reconsider before making a final decision, and I was never nervous around him. I was a bouncing freak if left alone or with others, but the minute he was in my proximity all that drained away, seeped into some calming part of him that absorbed and swallowed up all of my anxiety. He made me feel safe to be around him. That he was the buffer between myself and the world that could be extremely scary and off-putting at times. If he harbored his own fears or nervousness, his only tell was the unstoppable hair fussing, and he never let that stop him from calming me.
So my head was full of all this introspective shit while I watched him from the kitchen doorway. Because the last few days, all those things I knew about Rob were gone. Or not gone, but just…absent. He’d withdrawn further into himself after our sort of awkward sex the other night. We were all right, things were a little off, but we functioned normally, we talked and everything like it was normal, but there was just a different feeling to it. Not enough that I’d consider it a real issue, but like a hiccup in any relationship. He wasn’t as vocal and he spent a lot of time just thinking about things, things he didn’t necessarily share with me. Currently, he was sitting on the couch, a book predictably open in his hand, but he hadn’t turned the page in five minutes, and his eyes kept flicking over to the guitar propped against the wall. He was completely distracted, like the guitar was framed in some beacon of light and he was transfixed. Part of me wanted to just break the silence and tell him to go pick it up, but he wasn’t aware of me standing there, and suggestions about the musical aspects weren’t very well received at the moment. I’m not sure it was all frustration or some fear mixed in as well, that he wouldn’t get the dexterity back or the muscles would never cooperate. His real problem was that he had infinite patience unless it came to himself and then all bets were off. He was unbelievably unforgiving with himself.
I let him wallow or whatever for three more minutes before I lost patience. I finally walked into the room, startling him, and continued over to the wall, grabbed the guitar and took it over to him. He was looking back at the book, scowling slightly as I stood in front of him, but otherwise ignoring that he’d obviously been caught.
He loved the bitchiness, remember? Which is why I stood there in front of him completely immobile until he gave up and was forced to look at me. His eyes scanned the guitar, reverently and venerably, like it was sacred, special, benevolent, and met my eyes. He looked at me like that sometimes, which is why I didn’t hit him over the head with the fucking guitar. I instead pushed the guitar forward and he moved back like the fucking thing was gonna set him on fire or something.
I huffed and sighed, “Fucking hell, just take the damn guitar and try it.”
“No,” he said quietly, going back to the ‘pretend Kristen is not standing right in front of me’ pose.
I sighed again, more angrily, “Stop being such a fucking pussy and just touch the guitar, Rob. It won’t bite you, and I don’t care what it sounds like. Just take it.”
I thrust it out again and he didn’t flinch away that time. He didn’t take it either, though.
“Take. The. Fucking. Guitar. Rob.”
He looked up at me again and then put the book down and hesitantly took the guitar from me.
And then proceeded to stare at it like he’d never seen one before in his entire life.
I sighed and sat down on the couch next to him, turning to look at him, and he was sitting the exact same way, no movement, face blank. He was going to make this extremely difficult. Pulling fingernails would probably be more preferable. But I refused to let him just not try. It was stupid. How did he expect that it would get better if he didn’t work at it?
I let out a frustrated breath and contemplated just getting up and leaving him there. That worked occasionally with moderate success. And the times the solitude didn’t provoke a positive response, he’d usually come and find me anyway, looking for sympathy or resolution, sometimes both.
I decided against it, though, in this instance, realizing he’d just put the damn thing down again, and steeled myself for a fight or to be completely uncompassionate so he’d just. move. on.
One of those inner dialogues started taking place in my mind before I’d really noticed. And, technically speaking, this was probably an inner dialogue within an inner dialogue as I’d been pretty think-y already. Forcing or pushing wouldn’t help in this situation - that was evident as, thus far, this was not working. So what other options did that leave me? Pleading was pathetic, and I don’t think it would have worked. He was incredibly stubborn just sitting there with the guitar resting against his leg. Good thing I was a stubborn bitch, too. This was too important to him to just stay the way it was.
So, forcing - out. Pleading - out. I could use sex as a weapon, but that seemed counter-productive, and it worked so well the last time, so, sex - out. I’d have to be creative, sighing again as the only other option seemed to be understanding.
Shit.
I pursed my lips while looking at him, annoyed that I was resorting to this. Stupid, stubborn, British jerk. I took a deep breath and then moved behind where he was sitting on the couch. His head turned slightly to the left, tracking my movement, but not turning completely to look at me. I put my legs on either side of him and scooted forward until my chest was pressed against his back. His body was rigid; tense with what-the-fuck-ever he had going on here. A bit of tension melted away when we were in contact, so my plan seemed sound. My hands went around his body and I grabbed the guitar, turning it so he could play it. His back straightened immediately as he realized this wasn’t just physical comfort. He let out a small sigh as I positioned the instrument close to him and then moved his right hand over the strings. He didn’t drop it, so that was something, but I doubted he’d let actual damage or harm come to the guitar. His right wasn’t the problem, though - his left was the fucked up one. The shoulder was healing, but the recovery time in the sling had made the muscles weak and uncooperative despite the wide range of exercises he’d been instructed to do. His arm itself was ok once the bruises had gone away, but the muscle systems ran far and wide so everything seemed to be affected. He’d lose gripping ability occasionally, had some tingling and numbness, but on the whole, it wasn’t bad. Playing a guitar, though, that took precision and dexterity and the finer toning that the muscles had possessed before was lacking, making this agonizingly difficult for him because it’d come so naturally before. It was like relearning and re-teaching, and he had little patience for that.
I ran my left hand over his back for a minute, made circles over his shoulder before trailing down his arm slowly, massaging gently on my way. I picked up his left hand and spent another few minutes just trying to get his hand to relax, digging my thumb in between his knuckles and then turning his hand over to knead at the muscles in his palm and fingers. When I was finished, I moved his hand then to grip the guitar neck. He was going to resist at first, but I just made my grip, my touch, that much softer. He let me move it then, positioning his fingers on the strings and holding them there with my own fingers, matching the positioning. I shifted to my knees so I could reach over him better and encouraged that he strum the guitar. By ‘encourage’ I mean, of course, I moved his fingers inside my grip and forced him, and voila, magically, music.
“Huh, what d’ya know,” I said quietly, my mouth right by his ear, “a chord.”
He shivered unconsciously but didn’t say anything. I repositioned his fingers on the strings and repeated the ‘encouraged’ strumming. “Wow, a few more and we might just have a song,” I said after that one.
His head shifted infinitesimally and I gathered he wanted to say something sarcastic but knew I wasn’t being mean, just showing him that chords were possible. I’m not a moron, I knew this was difficult. I knew that a chord at a time was probably gigantically annoying, but, “Baby steps,” I said and thought at the same time.
He sighed deeply but didn’t protest, so I let my right hand drop, figuring he’d take the hint with his own. I rested my free hand on his stomach, half hugging him from behind, and planted my chin between his neck and shoulder so I could still see. My left hand stayed over his, picking out individual chords for a while, attempting to get his fingers reused to the motion. I peeked at his face every so often, his features pulled into deep concentration. I wasn’t sure that was a result of the actual ‘music’ making or because he was working that hard to force his fingers to cooperate.
“Let’s try a few chords together,” I suggested quietly. “Something easy, like a scale.”
He nodded and it was slightly awkward, but we managed a major scale without too much fumbling.
I smiled, happy, but that same happiness hadn’t translated to his face. He wasn’t as rigid and tense anymore, but he was far from happy.
“Let’s try a whole melody,” I suggested next. “How about the beginning of Heart of Gold?”
He nodded again and we started. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either for two sets of fingers.
“That was terrible,” he said with a chuckled at the end.
I snorted, “I didn’t think it was half bad for both of us doing it.”
“Mmm.”
“You want to try it yourself?” I asked gently.
“Not really, no.”
“Then you’ll have to put up with terrible,” I retorted.
He sighed resignedly, but nodded, which actually surprised me.
So we sat like that for a while, long enough that I wound up laying my head down, pressing it against his upper back, and just provided the support for his fingers. I closed my eyes at one point; he actually sounded pretty good after awhile.
I picked my head up when he stopped, pressing a kiss into the back of his neck.
“So?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Was it as horrible as you anticipated?”
“Not entirely.”
I snickered, “Good.”
“Thanks,” he said quietly.
I nodded, dropping my hand. His dropped after mine, just cradling the guitar with his right. I picked up his hand again and replaced it over the strings. “I think you should give it one try on your own.”
He groaned, “I don’t.”
“Please? Just once. For me?” I asked, putting all the pathetic-ness I could muster without gagging.
He debated for a second, breathing deeply out in a sigh, but started again, playing for a few minutes. I could tell it was awkward, his fingers slipped a few times or he’d hit the wrong string, but overall, again, not bad considering what we were starting with. He stopped abruptly.
“That was good!” I said excitedly. “Why’d you stop?”
“It hurts my hand,” he said softly.
I pressed another kiss into the back of his neck, hugging him with both hands from behind. “Did it hurt when I was helping?”
“Not as much.”
“Well, maybe you just need a brace or something,” I suggested. “We’ll ask the physical therapist.”
“My fingers don’t listen, either.”
“Well that’s a shocker,” I snorted, “when the rest of you listens so well…”
He smirked.
“It’ll get better, I promise,” I said, squeezing him.
“And if it doesn’t?” he asked, barely audible.
“It will,” I replied quickly, squeezing him tighter.
He didn’t move, just allowed me to hug the shit out of him, my forehead pressed into his back.
When I loosened my grip, he turned slightly and smiled at me softly.
“How does it hurt when it happens,” I asked.
“It’s a lot of things,” he said, looking off out the window as I watched him flex his fingers into a fist and release it a few times.
“What kind of things? How does it hurt?”
He looked back down at his hand, brow furrowing, “Mostly it just always feels tight, like the muscles won’t give at all, like they’re locked. And after awhile that gets really uncomfortable, and then it starts to ache and pinch.” He paused, “My arm feels pretty good most of the time. It’s just not very strong.”
“Well you’re working on that with the therapist, right? Getting the strength back?”
He nodded.
“And have you asked him about your hand?”
He nodded again.
“And?”
“And he feeds me the same shit. That it’ll take time and work and that I should just wait.”
I smirked, “Uh huh.”
He shifted slightly. He was getting angry. My response bothered him, I could tell. The shift might not have meant anything to anyone else, but I knew the shift was subtle for ‘getting pissed off.’ He didn’t say anything, was trying to keep himself from letting it take over.
I recalled Ethan pulling me aside the other day after his session and asking if Rob ever got angry at home. And when I was forced to really think about it, he didn’t really. He tended to avoid things that made him angry or frustrated when he was around me. My best guess was because he didn’t want to take anything out on me, but Ethan was concerned he was bottling up a lot of shit, only letting small parts out during therapy because it was what he considered a better outlet. Only problem was he felt bad taking it out on them, too, so he’d button it up again and shove it down. This was a perfect example of what the therapist was talking about. He avoided certain aspects of the recovery, no matter how detrimental it was to himself, because it was easier on everyone else. Problem was that wasn’t serving him very well. All that time spent reigning in shit and keeping himself in check - this was the result.
“Hey,” I started, “maybe it’s just time you gave yourself a break,” was a far as I got.
He was suddenly gone from the couch, gone from the room. I sat there for a second, in shock, because he was never the type to walk away. He’d hash shit out and argue for days. I got up and followed his path, finding him pacing his way across the expanse of the den.
“What was that?” I asked, getting kind of pissed myself. I was the one trying to help here. I was the one being patient and just trying to understand. Walking away - so not cool.
He stopped a minute and looked at me, and SHIT, he looked pissed. His shoulders were about up to his ears in tension, his body was similarly taut, and his hands kept flexing in and out of those fists like he wanted to shove one of them into something. And for the love of all that was holy - please pick the right one if you’re gonna hit something - we don’t need the other one fucked up more!
“Just…get away from me for a while, ok?” it was less a question and more an order, and very low and tense.
He should have known by now though that I didn’t respond well to orders. “No, I think you should explain what the hell walking away from me is going to solve when I was only trying to help.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and seemed to be attempting to regulate his breathing.
“Rob?!”
“Kristen,” he said, voice even lower and thick with, fuck, if I didn’t know better, I’d say rage. He looked up at me when he continued, eyes blazing and, I’ll admit it, he was kind of scaring me, “Just leave me alone right now. You need to leave me alone.”
Now, I could have handled this two ways. One, I could have just walked away. Left him to his anger and whatever, but that really wasn’t going to resolve anything. We’d just wind up back here the next time he was extremely frustrated. And that didn’t get me any answers. They might come later, but…hey, I was impatient and I wanted to know what the fuck was wrong with him. Two, I could push him. Press him for answers, explanation. He could react then with answers or yelling or whatever. I probably should have picked option one, but honestly, maybe I wanted a reaction. I wanted him to just let it out, let go, to stop being so fucking leveled and controlled and worrying about what everyone else was going to feel. He could live with or without a lot, but living without the option to create, play, enjoy music the way he did before was out of the question. I wanted him to acknowledge that. I wanted him to acknowledge that the anger over it was normal, was ok. Maybe that’s what I’d been doing all along.
So I said, “No, Rob. You fucking tell me what’s going on. None of this cryptic shit anymore - I’m tired of that. I’m done with you just avoiding -” was as far as I got.
To say he exploded is sort of like saying the Hindenburg had a little fire, that the ocean was a little wet, and hell was just a sauna. We’re talking the Rob-equivalent of the atom bomb here.
The desk lamp, the floor lamp, the chair, the coffee table, the fucking wall, most of the random knick-knack crap, the entire set of small glass tumblers, and one unfortunate book all perished the Robsplosion. He screamed and yelled and swore and threw lots of shit. Glass and plaster and pieces of splintered wood littered the floor, and there was Rob, smack dab in the middle of the tornado of chaos.
This was Rob cracking. This was the breaking point. The fissures had weakened the whole to the point of open wounds, gaping, ugly, bleeding wounds - ones that couldn’t be mended with medicine, couldn’t be placated with words.
This was Rob breaking along with all the material shit that was littered on the floor. Pieces of him mixed in with the rubble, letting himself just come apart.
I’m not sure why he ordered me away then. If he didn’t want me to see it, it was rather pointless - I mean, even if I would have walked away and he decided to go all apeshit-commando on the furniture, I would have ran into the room to see what the fuck was going on. The only feasible scenario to this not occurring would have been if he’d somehow managed to keep the rage from boiling over, but then again, nothing would have been solved.
So, I watched the path of destruction with only enough interest to make sure he wouldn’t actually injure himself, knowing this was probably positive in the grand scheme of things - just as long as this was a one-time destructive phase and he didn’t make this a habit. I liked most of the shit in the house and I didn’t want to have it all replaced - plus there were more positive ways to release the anger than destroying shit. Or he could destroy shit in a controlled environment. Whatever. I was just inner-dialoguing to pass the time until he was done.
The book was the final destructive act, the last hurrah. I’m guessing most of this was mindless - just whatever was in his path - like a true tornado, he wasn’t picking particular things to destroy, it was just whatever was handy, near. The book happened to be the thing his hand landed on, and it was making a nice dent in the wall the next second. It was more a decorative book than an actual one we read, but books were books. They were sacred. Books did not get defiled by us. So watching the binding snap, the dull thud as the cover hit the floor while all the pages flew into the air like feathers, made him stop. He straightened, the rage melted off his face, he swallowed and watched the book’s lost pages flutter like gigantic rectangular feathers to join the carnage on the floor. It was one of those visible facial-shift moments, like you could actually see his mind process and react, the cogs all shifted into their proper place.
He swallowed again reflexively and seemed to take stock of the massive amount of debris scattered around him. I was still by the door, my arms crossed and my legs hitched similarly while I leaned against the doorframe. He flicked a sideways glance at me and I said nothing. I don’t think my face held any particular emotion at the moment. Originally, I’m sure shock was there, disbelief, but it morphed into others, resignation, relief that he was finally just getting it over with, amusement (which I would not be admitting to), and lastly, before I made my face expressionless, I had an intense wave of sadness, that he seemed to be uncomfortable with showing me an emotion this deep that wasn’t necessarily positive. I wasn’t deluded into thinking that he told me everything all the time, but I thought we were pretty honest with each other. I was more honest with him than I’d ever been with anyone else, ever. I suspected it had less to do with me, though, and more to do with some warped opinion of himself or trying to ‘spare’ me, or…ugh. Whatever.
I tried not to smirk as he brought his hand up to his hair and shuffled through it, realizing it was useless because it was shorter, but that not stopping him from doing it about a gazillion times. He had no idea what the fuck to do now. No idea how I was going to react, what I was going to say.
I pushed off from the doorframe and stepped a few feet into the room, looking around.
He watched me, his bottom lip being chewed to pieces by his teeth. The hand never left his hair. He was scared.
I stepped into the room more, avoiding the pieces of mangled everything on the floor, and stopped in front of him, still not meeting his eyes. I was far enough away that I think he was under the impression I was going to yell. I took one step closer and he actually leaned away, flinching slightly. What he was expecting, I don’t know, a slap? A punch maybe? I didn’t care about any of the stuff; I just wanted him to be ok. I reached for his hand instead and he looked at it strangely, confused as usual.
I eliminated the confusion and the waiting by just grabbing the hand he was too baffled by to actually extend. “Do you feel better?” I asked quietly as I pulled on his hand and we navigated around the pieces and into the hallway.
“Uhm…” he started, still completely confused. He was exceptionally cute when both guilty and confused at the same time. “…I…dunno. Maybe.”
The hand was back to making anxious, worried treks through his too-short hair.
I led him back to the couch and forced him to sit when he just stood there like he wasn’t supposed to or something. I sat sideways, facing him, watching his face as he fiddled with his fingers and was edgy and jumpy. I had my head propped on my bent elbow to start, but I couldn’t resist touching him when he was so fucking jittery and upset. He looked kind of pale, but I wasn’t sure that was in response to overexertion or he was so uneasy he was fucking himself up. Either way, he didn’t need to be, so I reached out and traced his jaw with my finger, moving my head to rest on his shoulder.
He let out a deep sigh, “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry,” I responded back.
He was quiet for a minute, “I’m still sorry. I shouldn’t have blown up like that. It was stupid, and I really…Jesus, I really fucked up the room.”
“Good,” I said.
He processed that for another few seconds, “I’m really…what? Aren’t you mad at me?”
“No,” I said quickly, shaking my head against his shoulder. “I’m not mad at all.” I paused, “Unless you hurt yourself. Then I’ll be a little upset with you.”
He was quiet, so I gathered that meant he’d done something that aggravated an injury. I hoped he didn’t have new ones - we really didn’t need new ones.
“What hurts?” I asked.
He shrugged, “Muscles mostly.”
“Mostly?”
He nodded, “I’m fine.”
“Uh huh,” I said quickly, dismissing it, “So…”
He shifted slightly, tension mounting again as he braced for whatever I was going to say. I’m not sure why he thought I’d be mad if I just got done saying I wasn’t, but whatever. “I take it you’re a little…upset,” I said instead.
He moved and turned his body slightly to look at me, my head automatically leaving his shoulder to look at him. His eyebrows were up and I gathered I kept surprising him by the continuous look of shock that kept falling over his features.
“I’m a little confused,” I continued.
I wasn’t helping the shock at all, or his own confusion by what I was saying, so I just pressed on. “I’m confused because I tell you everything. I don’t hold back. If I’m happy, you know it. If I’m pissed off, you definitely know it. We’re always honest with each other, so…why exactly did you think you that you couldn’t tell me you’ve been mad?”
His shocked face morphed to guilt and then to something else, recognition maybe.
“I’m not,” he said quietly.
I snorted, “Rob, please. Clearly, you are - if the other room-”
“No,” he stopped me, “I’m not really. I mean, I’m happy we survived, I’m happy that we’re together, I’m happy you love me. I don’t really have anything to be angry about.”
I thought a moment, “So…the fact that you’ve been an immobile, pained, compromised, couch-lying invalid isn’t a reason?”
“I wouldn’t call myself an invalid,” he said quietly, bashfully, defensively, while picking at his jeans.
I smirked, “I didn’t mean it in a negative way.”
He nodded, “I know.”
I ran my hand up his arm to his shoulder and cupped his neck, my thumb tracing along his jaw line. “Can I tell you what I think?”
He nodded, no hesitation, meeting my eyes.
“I think that you’ve somehow learned over the last month or so to turn shit off. Which isn’t like you - you may not be as erratic as I can be, but you’re expressive and passionate and you argue with me, and now you’re, like, constantly controlled. I think part of it has been the pain - that you’ve learned to channel that because you have to, just get through the day, but you’re doing the same thing with all this negative energy. All the fear and frustration, all the anger that you think has no source or reason. You don’t really even need the reasons to be angry, Rob. You can just be angry, that’s legal, but you do have reasons, very valid reasons. You have every right to be upset because you’ve been so limited lately. And I think you want to spare me or something, but by doing that, you’re only pushing me away. You’re not being honest with me.”
He looked away from my face somewhere in the middle, listening but not wanting to see me say it or something. He looked back at me at the end, his gaze intense, his eyes troubled, murky.
“I don’t mean to push you away. And I didn’t think I wasn’t being honest,” he said quietly.
I nodded, “Ok, but can you see where I’m coming from?”
“Of course,” he said, nodding in agreement.
“I’m not accusing you of anything, Rob, I’m just telling you what I think, what I see happening. And I don’t want you to think you have to do this shit alone. If I’m wrong, tell me.”
He thought awhile, and I let him, not pushing, just watching the side of his face and the thoughts as they registered and combined. I liked watching him do this - it was rather fascinating. I knew shit about actual brain function, but figuratively speaking, he was one of those people that I could always almost see the actual process of it happening, the cogs slipping into place, the gears shifting as he worked something out. Just another one the things that I enjoyed about him.
He sighed finally, “I think you’re right.”
I leaned over and kissed his cheek, “I love a man who agrees with me.”
He chuckled and shrugged, “Well, I aim to please.”
I sighed, “Yeah, and I’m sure that’s one reason why this has been building.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said faintly, grabbing my hand and holding it between his larger two, his fingers caressing mine, the pads of his fingers tracing circles around my knuckles.
I squeezed his hand, “I know you don’t. I don’t want to hurt you either, but I don’t want you to hurt yourself in the process of trying not to hurt me. So we’ve got to find a balance.”
He nodded, “Ok.” He paused a minute and then asked, “Does this mean I can be an asshole and then just explain that I’m having an angry moment?”
I snorted, “Sure.”
He smiled, looking at me, “You’re really not mad?”
I laughed at him, “No, baby, I’m not mad. I’m actually really glad you did it.”
He was having a hard time accepting that. That I really didn’t give a shit that he’d just trashed the equivalent of an entire room. “You lasted, like, an exceptionally long time, way more than the average person, but everyone has a breaking point. You have an extremely high tolerance for annoyance.”
He snorted.
“No, I’m serious - most people would have done this a long time ago. And that’s probably why yours now was so…inclusive. You’ve needed to let it out for a really long time, Rob.”
He was pensive but he didn’t say anything.
“So, I’m not mad that shit got broken as long as it helped you. And that you don’t make it a thing - the destruction, that is.”
He chuckled, “I don’t think so, no.”
“Good, cause I like the shit out here, so I’d have a problem with it if you trashed it.”
He smirked, “Noted.”
I got up from the couch, keeping his hand locked in mine, and started pulling, “C’mon, let’s take a shower and you can tell me all about all the shit you fucked up while tossing all that furniture around.”
He got up slowly, but pulled my hand back, “I should really clean that room up first.”
I shook my head, “Leave it, we’ll clean it up later or I’ll call someone to come and clean it up.”
We had to pass it on the way to the bathroom and he stopped again, tugging on my hand, “Kristen, really, I’m the one that fucked it all up, I should clean it up.”
I turned around and grabbed both of his hands, pulling him to me and putting my hands around his waist, “And I said no. Not now, Rob. Now, you need a shower and a nap before you keel over. Once all the adrenaline and the endorphins are gone, Rob, you’re gonna crash, I can tell.”
He didn’t resist then when I tugged him again, knowing I was totally right. He looked more tired already. The shower was less about him needing to be cleaned and more about the two of us just cleansing, if that made any sense. It was about washing away the anxiety and any of the lingering anger and just getting back to the normal us. So it was more just us standing under the spray and touching, caressing, kissing, and the occasional actual washing of an errant body part. The heat was good for him, good for his muscles, but it made him about as pliable as Silly Putty. When we got out of the shower, he was close to just dropping and passing out and it was only sheer persistence that allowed me to actually get him dry and get a pair of boxers on him. He was asleep before I even got him reclined on the couch again and he didn’t move or acknowledge my presence when I tossed a blanket over him.
A/N: Thanks to the usuals. You know who you are.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7a Chapter 7b Chapter 8 Chapter 9a Chapter 9b Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17a Chapter 17b Chapter 18a Chapter 18b Chapter 19a Chapter 19b Chapter 19c Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30