Chapter Text
You have a bad habit of giving her the wrong things at the wrong time. A knife instead of a kiss. A head-but instead of conversation. A kiss on the pavement instead of....also a conversation. Maybe there is a lesson to be learnt there.
She’s not great at it either but lately it seems to be your wrong choices that derail things so you sort of feel that you should accept your role in it.
Acknowledging that is all very well and good but it doesn’t help situations like this where you feel another misstep is ahead of you, just can’t see exactly where.
And dear god she’s annoying. Sitting there munching through her weird plate of cured meats. Literally just cured meats. Yesterday it was just cheese and now it’s just meats. Why is this a thing? Part of you wants to abandon this existential crisis you’re in the middle of and just ask; what is it with you and weird breakfast choices?
But perhaps that’s just a cop out. Perhaps getting diverted by the weird meat plate is the misstep.
But yes, how annoying of her to sit there with her weird unnecessary meat plate like nothing out of the ordinary is happening. All whilst you feel ready to burst through your skin with every feeling that you have the words to identity simmering inside you just below the surface.
But she’s just....just sitting there....reading a french news paper. She speaks German, why not get an Austrian paper?
The more you dig yourself into this woman the more you’re sure you’ll never climb out. You’ve never been so fascinated by anything in your life. You’d like to dismiss it as nothing more than infatuation but that’s not right. That doesn’t cover it. Not even close.
Yes alright, there is an element of infatuation. Come on, she’s fucking gorgeous. And the sex? Seriously. So who wouldn’t be a little infatuated? But it doesn’t cover it at all.
Yeah yeah, the death and the darkness drew you in but you’re here now and what you want to know is why the single category of food breakfasts? Why the french newspaper?
You could spent the rest of your life just digging through her mind and it would never be enough.
You love her. Like ‘in love with her’ type love. You can’t even say when that became something real and tangible but it’s here now clawing at your throat and she’s reading a fucking french newspaper and eating assorted cured meats like it’s nothing.
It’s unbearable.
“You are the most annoying person I’ve ever known.”
She looks up from the paper, a little startled before shifting her eyes back and forth, raising her eye brows and pointing to herself as if to say, “who me?”
Yes you, you insufferably confident wonderful asshole.
You don’t say that. You aren’t entirely sure what to follow up with but probably not that. Even you can see the misstep there.
“Ok. That didn’t come out right. I just meant that I feel...and you’re so....I don’t know.”
This is ridiculous you are an adult you should be able to have a grown up conversation about feelings.
“Why are you reading a french news paper?”
She tilts her head considering you before answering.
“I like the way the words sound in my mind.”
“You think in french?”
“Sometimes. But if I’m reading french I’ll hear it in french in my head. Do you think in English or Korean?”
“English unless I’m talking to my mother. When do you think in French? Apart from when you’re reading it I mean.”
“Same as you, when I’m speaking it. Sometimes during sex”
You lean forward and lower your voice.
“Were you thinking in French last night?”
She laughs, leans forward and stages whispers in that way she does to tease you.
“No. You spoke English to me, so that’s the language which stuck. But you’ve only had me for one night, who knows what you’ll make me speak next time.”
She sits back and returns to normal volume. “Would you like it? If I spoke in french I mean?”
“Yes.” You answer embarrassingly quickly.
She half smiles.
“Would you speak to me in Korean?”
You laugh. “The language I reserve only for speaking to my mother?”
She shrugs but smiles. “You don’t think we could make it sexy?”
“I think you could make anything sexy. I just don’t know if I want to be reminded of that when I’m telling my mother about the next thing for her to be disappointed about.”
There’s something on her face. Something you don’t understand. The old impulse to dig and dig and dig takes hold. You need to know everything. You open your mouth to ask but she interrupts you.
“Something happened. With my family. I want to tell you but not now. We’re having a nice breakfast and we just had some really good sex and now I just want to spend a nice day with you. Without that.”
Ok. God. Ok, not ok. You want to know. You want to know everything. You want to know this ominously dangled story. You want to know why the cured meats. You want to know if she’s always the little spoon. If she’s ever had the opportunity to be any spoon before last night.
“I love you.”
Oh. Oh fuck. That wasn’t the way you meant to tell her.
“Shit. Sorry. I didn’t meant it like that.”
She looks confused and crushed and fuck fucks safe fuck. Why are you always doing this wrong.
“Yes. Sorry. I did mean it like that. I do love you. I just meant to say, that I want to know everything. I don’t care about your family, or I do care but whatever it is I still love you. I just....do. So, I hope that’s ok.”
She’s quiet and her eyes are watery and she blinks it away.
“What I am allowed to say to this?”
“Whatever you want I guess?”
“I wasn’t ...I wasnt allowed to say it before.”
Fuck. This was the misstep. Telling her this without talking about the other. She needed a conversation not an awkward and mistimed declaration of love. Well it’s a lesson you both could have benefited from.
“Fuck. I’m sorry I did this wrong. It just came out. I was thinking it and it just came out.”
She nods but says nothing.
Come on. Be a grown up.
“It was a shitty thing to say to you. What I said in Rome, regardless of what happened...after. I’m sorry.”
She looks away.
“I was upset and angry and scared and I needed someone to blame and I’m really sorry.”
There’s a tear on her cheek which she pushes away angrily. You reach out to take her hand when she lowers it and the dampness burns your skin. She lets you knit your fingers around hers.
“I didn’t...” She stops and takes a breath. “I didn’t do things right in Rome and I’m sorry about that. But I did...I do...love you...but it’s the same love now as it was then. I haven’t grown a soul or whatever bullshit people say. I might not want the dark like I used to but I’m still not...right. I’m not all one thing or the other. But if you didn’t want me then, I don’t understand why you would now.”
You fucked this up worse than imagined.
“I did want you then, and I do now. I was scared. I’m really sorry.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“We can just pretend I didn’t bring it up?”
She looks crushed again. Why can’t you get one thing right on this fucking ridiculous trip that you absolutely did not need to come on.
“Is that what you want?”
“Yes? No? I don’t know. I just don’t want you to be upset.”
“Say it if you mean it, if you don’t then ....just this is fine. We’ve had a nice night, we’ll have a nice day and that is fine. That’s enough.”
It’s not enough though, is it. There’s an ever present layer of sadness around her, it’s been there since you saw her at the tea dance. You wonder how much of it is because of you.
The thought of it makes your chest ache.
You don’t want this. Even when you couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time because of the pain in your shoulder, when you told yourself over and over than you hated her, even then you doubt you could have stomached this.
You want her silly and teasing and light and sparking with childlike enthusiasm. You want her dark and seductive. You want her annoying and flippant. You want anything except this quiet self loathing.
“I do love you. Ok? Whatever you have to say back is yours until you want to give it. I’ll try not to be a dick next time.”
She nods, and swipes at another tear.
“You were a dick.”
“I know.”
“But I did shoot you, so I probably lost the moral high ground on that.”
You laugh.
“Probably. I’m still sorry though.”
“Yeah, me too.”
It’s the first time she’s apologised for it. You still aren’t sure where you stand on that but there are probably better times to discuss it. Look at you, picking your moment. This is growth.
She seems a bit lost for what to do now, so she pick up some ham and eats it like a feral dog. Weirdo.
If not your terribly timed declaration of love, you wonder what exactly she needs in this moment. You think of the last few days, of all the missteps and your shitty attempts at communication.
She wants to be known. To be seen for what she is outside the death and bodies in her wake. Well it’s not like that’s a hardship. You want to soak up every detail.
You’ve never been very good at giving her what she needs in the right moment.
Better late than never you suppose.
“So, architecture?”
She blinks and then nods, her mouth still occupied with the ham.
“Me too.”