Now I'm gonna reap what I sow

[dreadinquisitor]

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.

Comments

[slipshot]

"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."

[mythalenaste]

"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."

[slipshot]

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."

[mythalenaste]

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.

[slipshot]

"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.

[mythalenaste]

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."

[slipshot]

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.

[mythalenaste]

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."

[slipshot]

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."

[mythalenaste]

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.

[slipshot]

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.