faderift | Now I'm gonna reap what I sow

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Now I'm gonna reap what I sow

WHO: Maxwell Trevean and Gavin Ashara; Gavin Ashara and Pel Ashara
WHAT: Maxwell and Gavin crush awkwardly, Gavin's ex-fiance wanders in. Dun dun duuuun.
WHEN: Forward dated slightly to just before the Mire signups.
WHERE: Battlements
NOTES: All the sadz. Maybe some language? Will updated if needed.

Walking the battlements, Maxwell was on patrol. Watching the dark night sky and the cold, moonlit horizon for rippling wings or marching shadows. In reality the only he'd seen were shining stars and the occasional animal - foxes and rabbits, kiting across the ground.

Humming to himself, a old Marcher battle hymn, he leaned against the stone and chased a familiar constellation with his eyes.

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The knife slid between his ribs like butter. She'd always known exactly what to say that would hurt the worst.

"Pel, you really don't believe that I could see you like this and just - walk away, do you?" He asked, his voice quiet. Especially when it was his fault. But really, it was always his fault.

"That's why I never let you see me like this. I know you don't really want to stay."

A deep breath in, but it's rougher going out, broken a little by a sudden sob. She shouldn't keep talking. But it's too much. She can't keep gagging this poison down.

"Can you forgive me? Ever?"

He'd been about to reply to the first bit - a statement, that wasn't entirely true. He never sat still - that much he knew well enough to admit. But that didn't mean he wanted to leave. Not right now. Not after he'd--

No. No, he wasn't thinking about that, right now. He was having a hard enough time dealing with the crisis in front of him, to start thinking about anything else.

But when she asked her question a look of honest confusion crossed his face.

"Forgive you?" He asked, his brows knitting. He raised a hand to brush her bangs from her eyes, so that he could better see her face. "Pel, you-- what could you possibly think you've ever needed my forgiveness for?"

"For...whatever it was I did, or didn't do, or was or wasn't, that drove you away." And just like that, something already feels clearer. She can breathe, and in a moment, she'll be able to stop crying. Once this is purged.

Her words have quite the opposite effect on him, however. Gavin's face falls - his heart likewise, a tense sharpness in his throat that mists his eyes.

"Pel, you never... You never - You were perfect. You always were. You didn't do anything."

She shakes her head, knees drawing up against her chest, arms wrapping around like she's a little girl again, taking comfort in becoming smaller. "Not good enough to keep you. Deficient. So you had to look everywhere in the world but me to find something you were missing."

He kneels in front of her, his hands moving to cup her face, to force her to look up at him.

"Creators, how could you think that?" He asked miserably, his voice cracking slightly. "Deficient... Pel, I left because I was a coward." It an admittance that he considers a hundred percent true, and his throat tightens around the words, blinking back the moisture that his building in his eyes. "Because I wasn't worthy, and no matter how hard I tried, I never- I was never going to be good enough. I knew that. The keeper, even, knew that. You were the only one who saw me as anything worthwhile, and I..." He cut off, swallowing, his hands slipping from her face. "... I wasn't. And you were bound find out, eventually, and the longer it took, the worse it would be."

The tears start coming again. He knows how to do it. His hands are warm, oh, how many times since he first left has she wanted him to touch her like this? Tell her these things? But it's never this simple. Her hands catch his, trapping them against her skin.

"You were wrong. All along, you were wrong, because you chose to leave. It wasn't your true self, it was the opposite. It was a mistake because it wasn't your true self. Or maybe it was, but not all of it was. You would never have hurt me. You are a good man."

Deep breaths. Come on.

"And so the problem has to be me. That you're good and I was so wrong for you that the thought of staying with me was terrifying, and I loved you so much. Why are you afraid of me?"

She stops because she's babbling.

It's impossible, then, to keep the tears back. They're silent, at least - that much is a blessing - but it makes it hard to see her, even up close.

Years. Years, he'd been avoiding this conversation, running far away whenever he thought it might come up. There'd been a point to it. If she hated him, if she blamed him, then she wouldn't think to blame herself.

And even in that, apparently, he had failed utterly.

"No..." Was all he could say at first, the word choked in his throat and he had to take a trembling breath as he shook his head.

"Pel... Whatever I am, I'm not a good man." He spoke slowly, each word quavering slightly. "I did hurt you. I hurt you, and I keep- I keep hurting you, because I tried to be what I - what I was supposed to be and I failed. You've never... Pel, you were never anything but wonderful. I know I've given you little cause to believe me. But please. I can't stand... I can't stand the thought that you blame yourself for the - for all the hurt that I caused you. I can't."

Everything he says is making her wonder if she was crazy the whole time. By his definition, the person she loved never really existed. If he never existed, how could he hurt her so much?

"Were you unhappy?" She wants to just suck everything back in so he can feel better about this, but there's no putting the genie back in this bottle. This, whatever it is, has to complete itself. "Were you pretending?"

"Not with you," He whispered quietly, his thumbs rubbing on her cheeks. His own were damp. "I -- You didn't make me unhappy, Pel. And I wasn't -- I wasn't pretending. I cared for you, I- I loved you, so much. I wanted to be the person that was worthy of you more than I wanted to be anything else in world. But I..." He drew in a breath, let it out, shaking, his whole body trembling like the wind through the leaves.

"I couldn't do it, Pel. I wasn't - I wasn't him, I wasn't it, and the harder I tried the worse it..." He trailed off, his hands sinking with weight as his head did, held up only because they were clasped by hers. He was better off dead, was the end result. To the clan, at least. Better dead, than whatever he was otherwise.

"Don't... don't let me be a cause for your tears, Pel. They aren't worth it."

"I think they are."

A deep, shaky breath. In, out. Red-eyed, she looks at him.

"You didn't tell me. I thought...if you can forget about me so easily, so quickly, if...if every moment you were away hurt me so much but you still didn't come back, I mustn't be very lovable."

He didn't meet her eyes, his gaze fixated on his own lap.

"What was there to tell?" He asked, quietly. "What could I have possibly said that would have..." He trailed off, unable even to figure out how to word that. Would have made it better? Would have made it easier to understand?

"It was meant to be... kinder. To let you move on, without... without me having to beg your pity, or your forgiveness, when I deserved neither. And I don't ask for them now. I just can't bear the idea that I'm still hurting you."

She's silent for a moment, eyes on the ground. She has a headache. She can barely think.

"Do you want something hot to drink? We could move this somewhere where there's no horse shit lying about." This conversation isn't ending any time soon.

"No. No I... don't want anything," He said, pulling his hands away. He can hear the intention in her voice - her need to talk it out, to see it through to its conclusion. But the panicked flight it already fighting in his chest, the immediate and desperate need to run, just so that he doesn't have to talk about this any more. Just so he didn't have to think about it. The same desperate need for flight that had kept him running for a decade.

But where would he even run to? This was the end of the line, and his past had trailed him here and he couldn't escape it.

"I think I'd rather just-- get some air," He said, his throat growing dry as he stood. The words making his chest feel hollow, the sudden memory, unbidden, of running away while he left Maxwell standing on the battlements. Probably still there, staring into the dark. The panic pushed against his throat, a taste of bile at the back of his tongue. He was an idiot. He just hated how much he was a cruel one.

A weary huff. Typical.

"Gavin. Tell me the running doesn't exhaust you. The...fear, the effort it takes not to resolve this. Wouldn't it be better if we could stop torturing ourselves with this and move on with our lives? Wouldn't that be easier? Just sit down for once, talk it through, forgive each other, and we can finally stop carrying it around? That's what you keep dooming us to every time you run away, and I don't know how you can stand it."

His fingers flexed, then clenched, then flexed again - an entirely nervous motion that at least kept his feet still.

That's what you keep dooming us to.

"Alright." A quiet word. "I'll try."

She'd never understood the running, and she wouldn't. But he owed her this, at least. An effort. For all the pain he'd caused.

She stands, and reaches hesitantly to brush her fingers across his cheek, driving away tears, when it occurs to her that she just emotionally blackmailed him. She just made it so he would feel like an even shittier person unless he did what she wanted. No wonder he always leaves her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers thickly. "You can go, if that's what you want. It won't change anything if you do."

He looks up finally, unable to quite keep the surprise from his expression - and then a hesitation, as if he was being put to a test. But once he realises that she means it he lets out a long breath.

"I promise I... I won't run away this time, Pel. We'll... we'll talk it out, later." He couldn't, right now, not with so much guilt hanging over him. Not with horrible actions still left unsettled. "Just give me- give me a little time. There's something I think I had better do."

Exhausted eyes slide shut. She nods half-heartedly and turns away to go. She doesn't know where. He's going to bolt again and she would sort of like do preempt him there, so she's not standing there watching him leave again.

He can't help but feel like he's failing her, again - doomed if he does and doomed if he does't - so he just watches her go.

"Sorry, Pel," He whispers quietly to himself, once she's gone, and he's alone, standing in the stables, no better a person then when he'd arrived there.

He raised a hand to his eyes, brushing the last of the tears away. They were still red, but that would have to do.

One day he'd manage not to hurt the people he cared about most.

But today just wasn't it.

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Now I'm gonna reap what I sow

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