insurgents | OPEN POST.

[She's going to kill him. She's going to kill him and then someone will probably give her a Nobel for it - because it would be an astronomical feat of biophysics because it's not like he can die anyway, the bastard - and then she'll have to kill them too. Actually, these days, she'd probably be arrested and tried, and that does bring her a little bit of peace in the swirling maelstrom of her emotions when she receives his package during the depths of holiday hell.

Bruce hated Christmas, she remembers. Bad memories or something (she knows it's both). But he was always extra gentle then, withdrawn, but especially careful, and kind. She replaces the papers and objects in their packaging and tucks them into her bag, stops by the office to call in sick, and spends the rest of the day rage baking challah and holiday cookies and not crying into the dough. Halfway through, she pins up his drawing and his letter to her blank refrigerator door, hangs up the ornament, and leaves the lily on the dining table where she won't be tempted to stroke the resin surface with a powdery hand or scream at it.

The little apartment is overrun with plants, some stacking up on the occasional box left over from her move this past summer. She hadn't told him she'd moved out, so it was just as well he'd guessed it. Had he seen it coming? She can't think about that at all. Eventually she has to dig out the email chain she'd never deleted; she types her response like it costs her by the character.]

They're all beautiful. You were right, I've moved too. I'm at [address] now.

I love you and I miss you too. Happy new year. Don't be sad.

Betty

[There's a picture enclosed of the little microscope dangling from the tip of a mother-in-law's tongue.]

[ For what it's worth, he hates Christmas even more when he's alone. At least when he was with her there was always something good about it— if not the gifts, then the food, the decorating of the tree, or even Betty trying to sing along some silly carol playing on the radio. Right now all he gets is silence in his small bedroom, the only decoration a tiny angel with a broken wing that one of the kids offered him as a thank you for helping them.

And even far from home, it still feels like Christmas out on the street. Cheap lights, carols playing on old radios, people getting whatever gifts they can manage to their loved ones. Commercialized holidays work like that, he figures. No matter where he is, people will be celebrating it, one way or another.

Her email is short, but that might just be for the best. It's easier to handle when there's not too much for him to process, and her address alone is already more than enough to take up all the space in his head and make him turn in his bed at night. It feels like an invitation of sorts, or maybe he's just reading too much into it. Is he? God, he doesn't even know anymore. He misses her too much. ]

Thanks for the picture. That doesn't look a lot like a Christmas tree, but it's nice.

Hope you like your new place. I'll be thinking of you come New Year's, when the clock strikes midnight.

Bruce

[She doesn't expect a response and receiving one is like getting hit or getting kissed. Her heart has been broken for~~ever~~ months, it shouldn't be a fresh shock to feel it break again over a handful of words. Is he doing that on purpose? Maybe Leonard was right in every way. Maybe Bruce can't help it any more than she can.

Instead of writing back, she goes out to a party with friends. She drinks more than she should, doesn't write anyone anything ill-advised and honest, and when the clock strikes midnight she thinks of him too and hates herself a little for it. It's a few days before she can pull together something human to say to him, something safer than the stingers behind her eyes or all the barbs behind her teeth.]

I didn't want a tree this year, so, snake plant it is. It's an evergreen, just not a conifer. Good for atmospheric toxins, though. I'm repainting.

Betty

['I thought of you too' - but he knows. He doesn't deserve the monster in her, but she thinks, for him, for them, the rest is just as bad. Better hopelessly inadequate than a poison.]

[ Bruce doesn't really celebrate the New Year's, but then he doesn't really have anyone to celebrate it with. He doesn't even have a dog now —makes it more difficult to move around—, so he just lies in bed alone, hearing the people celebrate outside, the loud cheers letting him know when midnight strikes.

He tries to fall asleep, but apparently his mind's decided to stay awake just so he can think of her through the turn of the year, and he does.

The next morning, he starts packing his things. He doesn't leave, though, he just tucks everything away in his backpack and gets ready to go at a moment's notice. He just doesn't yet know where he's going exactly, he just knows that he has to, and knows that he shouldn't. At least not to where he truly wants to go. ]

That's good. They're nice plants. Low maintenance. Hope your place looks nice when you're done.

Bruce

[ Short emails don't really make it any of this easier to deal with, but at least there are less words for him to be thinking about. ]

[Oh my god, Bruce, you could at least have gone outside and looked sad until someone took you in and fed you or something. Someone was probably dying for the chance.

She's not sure what they're doing now; their conversations have never been this stunted or fraught and it all feels... delicate. She doesn't know where the boundaries are anymore, and she tries to assume every letter will be the last. Her next email is just:]

I don't mind a little maintenance.

[and six low-res before-and-in-progress pictures of some rooms (living, dining-kitchen, bathroom) that were previously white and are now on their way to being pastels or slightly different shades of white. The decorating is a little sparse, but there's definitely the beginnings of a jungle happening underfoot.

God, she's going a little mad again. Some of her students are starting to complain that she's getting them all fat, and students never complain about free food.]

[ He's fine! He's fine. He doesn't want random people feeding him or taking him in anyway. Even if he didn't think he's better off by himself, he still wouldn't have wanted to spend that time with complete strangers. So, alone it is.

The pictures are nice. He's not really sure where they're going with these emails, like they're just distant acquaintances sharing random details about their lives— not that Bruce is sharing much of anything at this point, he's just reading and seeing what she shares herself. It's weird and delicate and feels like something could just crack if he says the wrong thing. If he says more than just the bare minimum, the cordial answer. ]

That's a lot of plants. Trying to recreate the setting for the JP movies? Minus dinosaurs, I hope.

[That's a little too familiar, but he's broken out of that space before. And they wouldn't be strangers for long if he would exchanged names, exchanged stories. It's a good thing this is all in the exposition text, Betty's mad enough as it is.]

What can I say, the strays come to me. Find me a tissue sample and I'll see what I can cook up.

I'm kidding. I don't think there's space.

[She shouldn't have to clarify. She doesn't know how to talk to him at all, and that's disturbing. It's email, so there's no point in signing off anyway. This feels much more casual, which is apparently what they're trying this time. Like they're starting over: same course, new landmines. But she coaxed him out once, and she'll do it again if he'll just keep replying. Please, please don't go again.]

[ Yeah well, Bruce is actively avoiding any remotely serious topics because last time they went down that path, it ended up with an abrupt stop being put to their emails. And as much as it hurts to see her unread messages on his inbox every so often, it hurts even more to not hear from her at all.

Of course it also has him taking really bad decisions. Like the decision to go all the way up to Mexico, and then... then, just sit there. Like the border to the United States is some kind of threshold he can't cross. ]

God. You're a menace. Someone needs to stop you before you turn into John Hammond II.

But joking aside, the place is looking great. Nice colors.

[There has to be a way to navigate these things so they aren't always about pain. Although if they haven't found a way by now, maybe there really isn't one. Maybe this will be it for the rest of their lives. (Or just hers.)

She tries out a bunch of evening courses just so she's never sitting at home waiting for a reply that might not come. She's done this part before, living suspended; it's not that hard the second time around.]

Thanks, I might try some re-tiling too. I'll send you how everything looks at the end when I get there. Unless everyone gets eaten by dinosaurs. You never know.

[ Bruce is kind of used to pain, at this point. It hurts when he talks to her, it hurts when he doesn't. It hurts when he's not with her; it doesn't hurt as much when they're together, true, but he still feels guilty and selfish, like his presence alone is just hindering her, and he's just making her life more complicated.

Not to mention that he's not safe; he will never be safe. But that's not something he ever says out loud, because he knows she wouldn't agree with it. ]

If you do end up having a dinosaur problem, let me know. I'm pretty sure I could help with that. But preferably, stay away from prehistorical DNA, please.

[Wow, does this mean that all she has to do to get her self-sacrificing idiot ex and his feminist discourse alter-ego back into her life is get attacked by dinosaurs? Because she's pretty sure she can make this happen. Maybe not on her own, but it's a wild world they live in. She could start by moving to New York. (But then she'd be surrounded by New Yorkers.)]

I'll keep my DNA meddling strictly to contemporary organisms.

Actually I'm not doing so much DNA these days. I'm not even in the labs much. I got roped into organizing one of the core lectures this semester so it's been mostly herding undergraduates.

[ Pretty much, yes. Actually all she had to do was say she was in danger for whatever reason and he would be there. Funny how easy it would be to get him to come back when he seemingly tries so very hard to stay away.

But please, not with actual dinosaurs. Or any other kinds of monsters. ]

That's nice. So you're Professor Ross now? Has a fancy ring to it. I hope you haven't terrified any of the poor undergraduates yet.

[She knows it. When she'd screamed, when she'd fallen out of the sky, the sonic canons and the Abomination had crumpled and become like nothing. And when the General had loaded them into the helicopter side-by-side - she remembers that too. Bruce will be whatever he needs to to protect her, and that's why she's careful now, that's why she can't ask him directly.

He had run out into the rain, but when she'd caught him, he'd come. She's a pitcher plant, a gravity well, a trap constructed out of sentiment and shared history but she just wants to be his home. No monsters. No dinosaurs. Just her and a small vegetation infestation if his feet ever lead him back on their own.]

Excuse you. My ratings are exemplary. I would be deeply offended by your accusation if half the reviews weren't exclusively about food. Exam scores go out soon, so that should shake things up.

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=#######

[There aren't any pictures on the site, and indeed, more than half the written reviews exclusively discuss pastries and the other half at least mentions them. This is what happens when you teach a lecture instead of a lab and also stress bake constantly.]

[ Bruce probably doesn't see it. Or maybe he does, and maybe that's why he had to put so much distance between himself and Betty. Maybe that's why even after moving to New York he still hadn't gone to see her, hadn't even gotten in touch. He feels like a coward for that sometimes, but back then it took an unbelievable amount of effort to be so close and do nothing at all about it.

He doesn't know how that pull is working from so far away, when he's even more broken now, more lost. But there's a gravitational pull to his heart that he can't explain, and his body just seems to be following along. It's not so much that his feet that are taking him closer to her, but more that they've stopped trying to resist the tugging at his chest, so strong it almost aches.

He's taking pictures on his way along the road now. At times he almost considers sending some of them to her, but she would know immediately, she would be able to tell he's in the country now, and he doesn't want her to just yet. Better she doesn't built her hopes and expectations too high, just in case he chickens out at the last minute. ]

That only makes me think you either bribed them with food, or scared them into leaving you good reviews.

I mean, I'm just kidding I swear! You're great. I'm sure you're a lovely teacher. I'd also give you a perfect review if you kept feeding me.

[Spring is less lonely than autumn. The campus is unthawing, which sounds like it should be beautiful but mostly means that the paths are full of mud and slush, that it rains too much and still snows sometimes, that no one leaves their homes with the correct number of layers on.

Everyone's lighter anyway.

Spring break is far enough away that torrent of projects and assignments that usually accompanies it are only just beginning to gather momentum, and Betty lives close enough these days to hear them out late in the evening practicing for their clubs and chatting with their friends. It's like the extra bit of sun lights up everything, and she drinks it in as much as anyone else. She could live like this, maybe, like the world isn't waiting to end, like she isn't waiting for... anything. Living suspended until she forgets what it's like to live any other way. Even the emails. It could be okay.]

I'm not a frightening woman! I'm very nice! You're lucky this virtual, pal. That's a perilous line you're walking.

But yes, I'd say I'm sufficient and they're mostly good kids, so I don't think I'd mind doing this again. Grading is terrible, though. Next time I want a TA.

You claim not to be frightening, then pretty much threaten me on your next sentence. Very convincing. Absolutely not frightening at all.

That's good. I'm sure you grade their work fairly. You were always really good at reviewing my work, I remember.

[ It gets a little chillier the farther up north he goes. He doesn't have a lot of really warm clothes, but the Spring brings along some sun and he finds that it's only at the end of the day, when it starts to get dark, or early in the morning, when there's barely even any light out, that he needs a few extra layers, and he buys a thick sweater and a jacket on the way for that reason exactly.

Going by bus is tiring and it takes a while, but he doesn't have enough money for a car, and he's not about to steal one. He's also not going to get on a plane. So, hopping from one bus to the next, hitchhiking where he can manage to get someone willing to drive him a little farther up north, sleeping in dingy little motels by the side of the road, finally, eventually, he makes it there.

And then, he... stalls. He tracks down her address first, easy enough. Goes to the college where she works now. He's definitely in full creepy stalker ex mode at this point, but he doesn't really care.

He's absolutely delaying approaching her at all because he's a coward, and he has no idea how to. Now that he's so close, the distance between them feels like a gaping abyss, and how is he even supposed to cross that? ]

I am just saying that I have a small army of well-fed young adults at my beck and call and you should watch your step. And keep telling me how good at grading I am because I just held my office hours and I could use the testimonials.

[Betty's days are packed. She's looser now with the passage of time, more accustomed to the reality where Leonard is an absence and Bruce is a few lines of text at irregular intervals, also an absence. There are fewer challahs, more fruit cakes, because she doesn't need to punch things quite as much anymore and then she just fills the new void with sugar. She patrons the student-run shows and tries a Latin dance class and wears sandals through the icy mud because open-toed shoes are a revelation.

Even to someone who knows her, it could look a lot like happiness. If her walls are still half-painted and most of her effects buried under greenery, that just means things are in progress, that there's still some place to go. She desperately needs to believe that, because the truth is... The truth is she's not present for most of it. Sometimes she's eighteen years old again and her feelings aren't real. Sometimes, a stray thought will send her spiraling down a pit of helplessness, and this isn't her first rodeo, she's worked through these episodes before, but they come when she's in company and when she's alone, and the truth is that emotional hijacking is the least of it. When she can feel anything at all, it isn't happiness.

But she can still work, teach, nurture, bake, dance, and pack her days to the brim with sugar.]

Edited 2016-03-22 07:02 (UTC)

[ The last email goes unanswered. He reads it, he smiles a little, but he offers nothing as a reply. She shouldn't find it weird; he sometimes takes days or even weeks to get back to her, so it's no different this time. At least to her, it isn't. To him, those three days that follow are more complicated than all the months he spent hopping around from place to place, never settling down.

He spends hours in the room he rented in the outskirts of the city, when he goes out his feet always end up taking him to her work. He sees her once— his heart all but leaps from his chest, and the urge to rush to her and the instinct to turn around and run war inside him, and he ends up doing nothing at all.

He doesn't think he can do it. But her gravity is still tugging at his heart, and his feet follow, drag behind, defeated in a battle of wills that, in the end, was no battle at all. The moment he stepped into the city where Betty is, he knew it was a lost battle, trying to keep his distance.

It's a little later in the day, close to dinner time. A nice neighbor opens the front door of the building for him, and he steps inside, makes his way to her door. He stands there for a good while, backpack slung over a shoulder, his hair a long curly mess, his beard short but there nonetheless (he should've shaved, at the very least; anyway), worn jeans and a plaid shirt underneath a warm coat. There's still that urge to flee, to just leave and leave her to keep living her life, but his hand works of its own accord, reaching for the doorbell and ringing; the sound echoing loudly in his head.

Maybe she's not home, the thought crosses his mind. For the flicker of a second he thinks that might just be for the best, until he realizes that if she's not home, if he leaves now, he probably won't come back. He won't try again. ]

Edited (spotted a typo a million hours later) 2016-03-23 01:19 (UTC)

[It's not the safest, but since the building itself is always locked, Betty hasn't been making a habit of checking the front door before she opens it for whichever neighbor is stopping by this time. From the hallway, there's the sound of pounding feet approaching, and then the door swings open with a sudden crack.

And there's a moment where she doesn't know him, where she only sees a strange man at her door, a strange middle-aged white civilian man she wasn't expecting and her still in only her bathrobe and pajamas. But some part of her must be faster than the rest because before she can really react to any of that, she's already dragging him inside, glancing anxiously up and down the deserted hallway as she all but slams the door shut behind them and shakily engages all four locks. And by the time she's doing that, the rest of her has caught up.]

Bruce. Oh, god, Bruce. It's you! I thought you were in South America! Are you okay? Are you in trouble?

[Bruce is always in trouble, it's a pretty good bet. Her hands flutter over him, ineffectively searching for injuries, more effectively convincing her that he's real and really there, really him. When she's inexpertly ascertained that nothing is broken, she throws herself into his arms like giving in to free fall.]

(ooc: i have never seen you make an edit before)

[ Nothing in Bruce knows what to do when she opens that door; his heart winds up into a pace that almost seems beyond his control, his mind runs with a thousand thoughts at once and yet none at all, his body kind of freezes where it is, and his mouth doesn't seem to work. Lips part but no words come out, and all he manages in the end is a smile, weak and tired, almost distant, like he's not even sure this is real.

She seems to have a better presence of mind than he does, even if it's only by a little. He lets out a huff of surprise when he's dragged into the house, barely managing not to stumble over his own two feet, his backpack falling off his shoulder as he finally regains his balance. ]

I was in South America. [ Past tense. Evidently. He watches her frantically lock the doors, his smile turning both amused and almost nostalgic when she starts checking for injuries or just for that tangible presence of solid matter at her fingertips. He ducks his head a little, tries to look at her. ] I'm not in trouble, I'm—

[ Words are cut short when she flings herself at him, his brain lagging for the second it takes him to return the embrace, his backpack dropped to the floor so he can wrap his arms tightly around her. Somewhere at the back of his mind he was laughing at the part of him that thought he could have ever made this reunion a casual thing. There's literally nothing casual about them, there never will be, and years apart come to prove just that. Right now, she feels just the same in his arms. Same warmth, same feeling, same scent— save for the added smell of some strange plant, a trace of paint too. But mostly, it feels like home, and he could drown in that. He is. ]

I'm alright. I'm fine. Betty... [ Her name leaves him like a quiet prayer, the immeasurable relief of being away from himself for lifetimes, only to come back and find the part of himself he thought long lost. He closes his eyes, lets himself bury his head into the curve of her neck, and it feels like home. ] It's alright.

( ooc: mostly because I rarely ever spot mistakes or typos that bother me. but when I did, I had to. )

[She can't feel her face, so there's no way to tell if she's crying, and there's a dull thud by their feet, and he looks terrible, he looked so upset to see her. He looks really really bad and she just needs to keep him here for a while, at least until the chill from the outdoors bleeds out of him and into her apartment and into her bones through four layers of material and until his arms finally come up and he's holding her too and they're crushed together like this. And then her arms are malfunctioning, she can't actually let him go ever again, so they're all just going to have to get used to living this way with no arms and four legs and her chin digging into his shoulder and his beard scratching softly against her neck.]

You're always in trouble, Bruce. [And, okay, with the way her voice sounds, she's definitely crying. She can't do that now, she needs to take care of this, she needs to get things sorted and then she can start hyperventilating. This is really not a good time for it.] No one's... No one's coming after you? You're safe? I have [to take a moment to accept that I'm just going to be disgustingly liquid on you ~~or let go~~ so you're just going to have to deal with it too] a bag. Some stuff. A c-car. We can get out of here.

[ He could learn to live like this. It's better than the alternative, when the alternative is not being here at all, when it means being someplace where he can't see her smile, smell her hair or hear her voice— even when it sounds sad and broken and carries the sobs and the tears she's crying, like now.

He shakes his head, doesn't let go of her but leans his head back still, turns it just enough that he can press his lips to her temple, then tries to look at her face. She's crying and he doesn't like that, but that's not even what hurts the most. What hurts the most is what she says next.

It's not what he wants to hear. It hurts like a stab to the chest, twenty seconds into this meeting and she's already talking about escape routes, about fleeing plans, about just dropping her whole life to run wherever she has to with him, just so he can be safe. (He can never be safe.) This isn't why he came here, and God, maybe this is the reason why he shouldn't have come in the first place. He still smiles but it's impossible not to see the misery behind it, the ache, his breath hitching and his voice wavering when he barely manages to stop himself from crying too. ]

I'm fine, Betty. No one's coming for me. It's just me. It's just— you think I'd have come here if I had to run? You know I wouldn't do that to you.

Of course you wouldn't. Of course you wouldn't c- c- [come back, but she's hiccuping now, hollow and sharp.

'Why are you even here, Bruce?' but she can't ask it, can't even get the words to come together and couldn't stand to hear whatever he'd have to say if she could. All the fears and emotions she could tidy out of text are seizing up her diaphragm in pulses and waves, boiling up through her and carrying her with them because he's here and she has no defenses. There's nothing in her to protect him from herself. She's hurting him and she can't stop, can only hang onto him more tightly and wail.

You know how this whole situation could have been avoided? If you'd written ahead. Left some sort of note. Sent those photographs. There's no processing anything approaching the idea that Bruce might be here for her and to stay when she's spent months and months, years and years, reminding herself how that can never be again, sleeping beside the truth that he'd be a planet away for the rest of her natural life, and then his unnatural one.

He'd run from her in Harlem. He'd avoided her when he'd resurfaced in New York. After she'd reached him again, he moved without warning, written, then stopped, then started but never really gave himself to her again. That he's safe - she can take that. Whether or not she believes him, she can at least swallow it, what it means:

She doesn't need to act. They can stay like this for a while. And there is no other option because she won't let him escape while she's still caught up in this storm.]

Edited 2016-03-23 20:43 (UTC)

[ It's fine. She's crying now, she's heaving loudly with every choked breath, and that in itself makes Bruce's eyes well up with tears, but it's fine because he can hear her cry, he can feel her shake and sob against him, and that's the tangible proof he needs that she's here, and he's here, and he's alive again. Sure, he still feels like an ass for making her cry like this, but he's setting that self-appointed guilt trip aside for just a moment now.

He should have written ahead, let her know, even just a quick email. But he also couldn't. He spent the last few weeks hesitating, going back and forth on his decision, and even to the very last second before she opened that door, he was still debating on whether he should be there, or if he should just turn around and leave again. And that, he thinks, would have been even worse. Telling her he'd be there one moment, giving up and breaking her again the next— and he's hurt Betty so much already, he just couldn't bear doing that again. He'd kill himself; even though technically, he can't.

There's not much he can say right now. 'I'm sorry' doesn't quite cover it, and even if it did, when he opens his mouth all that comes out is a quiet little sob, tears rolling down his cheeks when he blinks his eyes. Every sob she lets out digs into him like a sharp knife, the hot blade searing his insides, but at least he cries quietly, a soft sound that drowns in the midst of hers, and could go by unnoticed if not by the way he shakes a little, and his chest rises and falls in odd spasms. ]

It's okay. [ No it's not, or it is but it doesn't entirely feel like it, not yet. He pulls away a little more, moves a hand to her face in a futile attempt to wipe the tears from her cheeks, his expression a strange mix of pained and overjoyed. ] I'm not going. I don't need to go. We don't— we're fine here. God, Betty... I've missed you so much.

[Looking at him is really hard. His face is still the face she knows so well. He looks sad and happy - he looks torn - the way she (remembers) usually pictures him. He's so much like how she usually pictures him, so deceptively familiar and perfect and strange that it skips past comforting and goes right back to distressing. It's a projection of who he was over the person he's become, this new Bruce. And he's crying. Bruce never cries (she doesn't know that/that isn't true), and it's wrong, it's probably her fault, and it makes looking at him even harder.

Nothing could stop her looking, even if it is through a blur of leftover tears that missed the memo about how she's cried herself out already and they should stop at any time. Her face is blotchy and red where he touches it, and she scrubs at it more roughly than him, blows snot into the sleeve of her bathrobe. Her voice jerks when she speaks, interrupted by sniffs and soggy hiccups.]

Stay for the night. The weekend. The week. Just stay. [Get it together, Ross. Oh, god, he's in her house.] Don't leave again. Promise me. I know you can't promise me that, but promise me anyway. That you're staying. I can't- I can't- [Shuddering breath.]

I won't.

[She could and she would, and by now they both know it, but she's a little more solid for having said it. Not solid enough give him an additional inch of personal space, but solid enough to believe that she could. If he needed her to.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject