song_tra_bong | (no subject)

Námo, fuming from his encounter with Gorlim in the infirmary, storms out of the bar into the deep night outside. He doesn't see Mary Anne. He's still half-fevered, weak, and heart-sore as he storms to the edge of the lake.

"DAMN YOU!" he screams at no one. "DAMN YOU FOR MAKING IT ALL SO HARD!"

She whirls around when she hears him approach and stares openly.

"Excuse me?"

He whirls to see her.

"Tell me why, Mary Anne?" he says, his eyes not quite sane. "Tell me why, because I know you know. I have felt it boiling in your thoughts when we have talked. Tell me why he had to be Andres. Tell me why he had to not only rape Gorlim, but rape me. Tell me why he is even here!"

Námo gives a choked sound and falls to the ground on his knees.

"Great gods, Mary Anne, tell me why."

Oh God

She shakes her head once, slowly as though the movement pains her--no result from the fight with Martin, but of what she has to say.

Of what she can't say.

"No," she whispers.

"I can't. I wish I could, I'd have told you already if I could."

But it has to be earned. So she promised.

"He has broken him," he mumbles, his face hidden by his hair. "Broken him so. He sent me away. Would not let me touch him. And I grew angry because it was Andres and Gorlim welcomed him into that bed."

His fingers tangle in his hair helplessly.

"Gave himself up to a memory! How can I ever compete with a memory?"

She has no idea who the hell this mysterious Andres is and how he can hurt them all so. And she sure as hell is not about to ask Namo any more than she was Gorlim.

She also has very little idea of what actually happened tonight. Again, she will not ask.

"You shouldn't have to," she murmurs.

"You shouldn't and...I don't think you ever really will. But memories have a lot of power. And sometimes you want to believe."

If something came to her wearing Ramon's face? Called her 'sweetheart,' called her 'friend'? She'd let it tear her apart, so long as it smiled.

He buries his face in his hands.

"I should have to, and yet I do." Now he looks up at her, pleading in his eyes. "Did you know Andres? I did not. But he held Gorlim's heart. Loved him, Mary Anne, before Eilinel arrived. Was his lover. Was his first when he came from that hell my brother created for him. Eventually, Andres left... but Gorlim kept his room. Paid for it. Kept it neat. And he would go in there. I would find him in there."

His eyes shimmer shamefully.

"It hurts to live in the shadow of something like that. And to have Ruin come here, wear Andres' face, make love to Gorlim... It is worse than any beating!"

"I didn't know him..."

wore his face and then he

She covers her mouth with both hands.

wore his face in his bed open arms would you not welcome a lover like that too clever too clever and cruel by far afterwards when the illusion came down--

gaze no more in the bitter glass

"Oh God."

"I looked into Gorlim's mind," he continues, his cheeks damp. "I saw. I saw the kissing and the touching, the soft sighs and the EAGERNESS!"

He turns his head from her.

"There is never that kind of eagerness between us."

This may not be true. Then again, it may be a painful truth.

"Kisses. His kisses are what I adore. It was the first thing he taught me. Held in such a special place. Kisses offered up to the beast that wore an old lover's face."

Oh, his heart ached.

"Why would you look?"

She lowers her hands, oblivious to the fact that they're shaking slightly.

"Why in hell would you look?!"

"Because he would not tell me!"

He glares at her.

"He would not say anything. He just huddled in the corner of that bed, weeping. Would not say anything. Would not look at me. Would not even let me touch him!"

"Well no fucking wonder!"

Namo is the lucky recipient of the 'do you listen to yourself when you talk?' look.

"You think you'd be eager to talk about it, in his place? You think you'd want anyone near you?"

He let her in, but that she does not say.

"He must have panicked when he found out the truth, and do you think having you see that made it any better?!"

He stands.

"You do not know what it is like, Mary Anne. What it feels like in here," he says, pointing to his temple. "To know he has withdrawn from you in every possible way -- physically, verbally, mentally, spiritually. You do not know what loss and loneliness that is."

A step forward.

"Care to find out? Maybe then you would cease judging me so harshly!"

Mary Anne is not exactly comfortable with the idea of anyone else in her head--not after Belial, not after desh-theire.

She's not comfortable with backing down, either.

"Fine."

He doesn't pause.

Hand in her hair.

Contact made it easier with someone new.

A bond made this was is instantaneous. One moment, she was alone in her mind, the next there are three distinct presences. Her own, in the centre, but flanking her mind is now the raging, angry, sorrowful white whirlwind that belongs to the Vala, and the other a raging storm of shame, of intense betrayal and dirtiness, but not reasoning behind it -- hidden from the other two minds.

Kept separate. Intentionally separate.

But below these two thundering presences is the sense that they are apart. Unnaturally apart. Spirits tinged with each other's colours, mental presences reaching with desperate fingers, two lovers with a chasm between them that they do not know how to cross or how to even look at without having what little remains untouched shatter.

He looks into her eyes, his own dark clouds of sapphire rolling and crashing, full of so much pain.

"Do you see, Mary Anne?" The words are not only spoken, but they ring in her head. "Do you see? To be as close as any two can ever be and then walk into that without even the slightest idea? Now... look..."

From a spirit of lavender and blues is a broken, unending scream of loss and hurt and lack of understanding and violent jealousy, all born from a well of endless, unconditional, worshipful love that is pure and good and right -- something very few ever felt directed at them. It is the love of a god for one of his children, one of his subjects, one of those he guided and loved, but it is also the love of a man for a man, a heart for a heart, something that transcends all else but adoration and self-sacrifice.

Yet, the tarnished silver spirit that had hidden from the lavender one exudes nothing but a sense of being dirty. Used. Lost. Frightened. The missing of a great love, but also thinking that the love had betrayed him by leaving him behind. Betrayal over and over. As if all he could be was soiled, a traitor who can never bring any good to anything he touched.

"How... can I compete... with a love that remains in his mind... even when I walk out... on him? He left me... and I worried... loved... thought about him..." he says, panting between his words as he doesn't look away from her. "How can I ever have anything... from him... but the pains he... still carries? The pains he... welcomes?"

It's so much.

love and love and love and hurt and pain and left behind worthless broken wrong but loved so loved and hated yes and no open wounds you can't heal this can't fix it just stand with your face to the storm and bend and bend

and break

It's too much.

make it stop make it stop why would you look at him like that so broken and you'd pry at that wound you would just to see what color it might bleed guilty the pair of you loving your hurt you knew you had to know to see to touch no one in their mind my mind right mind would go digging there but you

you went

so listen to the thunder

She clenches her jaw against words, against pain, as tears flow freely. And she continues to meet his gaze.

He looks at her, his own tears falling slowly.

It is so much, Mary Anne. So much to know, so much to love, so much to bear. And if I wanted to pry, I would push farther into your own mind. I would find what you will not share. But I do not pry. I love him. I want to help him. Support, comfort, love...

And because he is under so much stress, still ill, and the bond with her is so new, various memories dance along that silver thread connecting their minds.

love of a brother bearing down on him intoxicated learning the physical from someone who spends himself then walks away the first intimate kiss from his dove beautiful and innocent full of wonder and newness awkward but endearing and full of devotion the endless cold of the Halls spirits and punishment and icy distance with nothing to feel Lee walking away from them so much pain there betrayed used left behind again promises jealousy secrets need and hope walking through the quiet home in Dorthonion walking into the future of that home desolate burned empty a changing of what they were great loss smothering pain afloat without each other needful and painful the scorching heat of the flame you need to keep warm betrayal of all he loved such weariness and need to rest pain and torture shame and taken hurt tormented love lost brothers lost land lost life lost a hell waiting for him a hell six thousand years so long so so long a man's face so much like his own but older wiser full of love and pride songs and stories his Vala part of that great tree of loves his heron his pretty one protect him love him be good be better be--

He steps away from her suddenly, staggering back, the bond broken almost painfully.

"We bleed back and forth. Sometimes... I do not know where he ends and I begin. Other times... it is so painfully clear... the chasm wide and impassable."

I would find what you will not share.

She flinches, mentally and physically at the suggestion, even as she knows he wouldn't follow through.

She watches what he shows her, unable and unwilling to turn away as she remembers scattered moments of her own.

his voice in her ear an elbow in her gut left her wanting she left red hair a curtain of red hair rain and the memory of yellow eyes and NO blue eyes so blue you are wanted he kissed her before he left and he was kissing her too before you NO a hand around her throat but you love him even through the siren song of mist and wraith teeth in her shoulder and blood and claws and blood and you will die here only not yet he loves you still will smile will laugh with you because he doesn't know and it's so much better this way when you hatefear him when you don't know him and it's Roger only blue eyes and before that the door and the jungle and the boys her boys and her boy only her boy his name was Mark and he told you he loved you--

The bond breaks and she gasps for breath, clawing slightly at her hair as if at cobwebs stuck there. The silence in her head is almost as unbearable now as the noise of moments ago. She's too busy readjusting to answer him.

"The silence is deafening," he murmurs. "When I walked into that infirmary, the silence drove me to look."

He looks at the water.

"A woman so sought after may not be able to understand... Gorlim is not the only one who has loved me, but he is the most important, the most treasured..."

"Wouldn't have looked," she manages.

"All that quiet would have told me to steer fucking clear."

She laughs and the sound isn't precisely sane. "Sought after...there's a word for it. Along with 'ignored,' 'hated' and 'betrayer.'"

She lifts her head, eyes regaining a spark of their normal fire. "He so important to you, then what the hell are you doing out here?"

"He told me to go away," he says tiredly. "He told me to leave, and do I did."

Námo was the kind who took everyone at their word. Gorlim told him to go, and Námo went.

Mary Anne is, for better or worse, the exact opposite. You can tell her to go until you're blue in the face; in the end, you'll have to drag her out and she'll claw every inch of the way.

"Do you think he should be alone in there right now?" It's clear from her tone that she doesn't.

"No, but that does not mean he will welcome me."

He wraps his arms around himself.

"Besides, Malcolm gave him something. Gorlim will not notice my absence or my company."

"Just because he won't notice doesn't mean he won't appreciate it."

Pause.

"Doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do."

Námo clenches his jaw.

Then he sighs.

"Right and wrong."

He stares at her for a long time, then turns on his heel and heads toward the bar.

"Right and wrong."

Right and wrong.

She's the last to claim she can always tell the difference.

But she knows he needs to be with Gorlim now.

And she needs to be out here.

The bar is a little to noisy for her at the moment.