(no subject)

[notsogroovy]

There were days when Raven didn't like working in the restaurant for long hours. She enjoyed seeing all the people and occasionally talking to the regulars, but it was when she got to the end of the night that she started having problems. Most days were all right, but then there were the days when it was like she was asleep standing up. Those were the awkward nights when she had to watch herself very carefully for fear that she would be just tired enough to slip.

Tonight was one of those nights and, once her shift was over, she amused herself by talking to Tom, one of her fellow waiters. It kept her awake and thinking and it didn't hurt that he was cute. She'd just talk and flirt with him for the few minutes it would take for Charles to show up and if she slipped him her number, then it wasn't like Charles would ever really know. Unless he happened to pick up.

"Maybe I'd better get yours instead," she told him. The last thing she wanted to do was have Charles looking over her shoulder as she tried to date. She loved him to death, but she could only pine for so long. She reached out to take his number and yanked her hand back when she noticed that the skin underneath her fingernails was blue. She tried to fight the panic. That would only make it worse. She managed to mutter some kind of excuse, but all Tom gave her was a confused and unhappy look. She cursed herself and looked around for Charles, hoping he'd come in the time she'd taken to make an idiot of herself.

"Please be here, please be here."

Comments

[bringyoupeace]

There are so many different ways that this could have gone and somehow this still feels like the worst of all of them. Charles stands there, at a loss of what to say to make her go home with him, so that he knows that she's safe and warm and taken care of, and feeling so much more helpless than he ever remembers feeling in his entire life, which, considering chunks of his childhood, is saying something.

"But I don't want to let you go, Raven," he says, looking and sounding surprised at his own words, at how foreign his voice registers to his own ears, and he might not know what it is that he's doing here, or why he's saying it, but he knows, now, that it is most definitely true. "Can you not see that? I don't want to let you go, Raven, because you are far too important to me. Perhaps I don't care for you in quite the same way that you do for me, but it's not as if I've actually given it much thought. I..."

The pause lingers, and he can feel the tension it leaves, his own suspense building because he still isn't sure of what he's saying or where it's coming from, but he needs to put this right. "This isn't something that I ever would have dreamed you to long for, love, and because of that I never allowed myself to indulge in such thoughts. But that doesn't mean that I - that there isn't..." But he doesn't know how this part of the conversation finishes, or what's driving it, and he frowns, frustrated at the situation and angry at himself.

"You know me better than anyone, Raven, there will never be anyone who could be as close to me as you are, so you must realise how bad I would be for you in such a way. I work far too many hours, locking myself away until you drag me back to reality, and I should perhaps admit that I am so very grateful for those gestures. But I'm selfish, Raven, and so very set in my ways, and you deserve more than that. You are worth so much more than that, than what I could ever possibly offer you. You already share everything that I own, but outside of that I can't offer you anything that you ought to have."

Yet something nags at the back of his mind, something he can't quite put his finger on, and it refuses to stop. What if he were to think about this, to come to terms with the idea - would it make a difference? Maybe. Maybe not. But he knows that she is worth ten times what he is, and that he's already stolen so much of her life by keeping her safe, locking her away from the world in order to protect her, because as much as he believes he has saved her time and time again from the cruelties of the world, he also isn't ignorant to his own actions enough that he could ever justify some of the things that he's done over the years. This, for example, being one of them. He should let her go, really, he should, but he's selfish, he hates the thought of anyone else getting her, no one will ever be good enough, and no one would ever look after her properly without some ill intention behind it.

"Please, let us just go home for tonight. I promise I sharen't speak to you if you need your space, I will go directly to bed and remain there if it means that you will be safe and warm at home where you ought to be."

[notsogroovy]

"Stop it," she says. Her voice is pained. She should go, a part of her even wants to, but she can't help but be caught by his words. There's something he's not saying or something that he's talking around and it's drawing her in again. Hope. He's giving her hope again and he really should stop it because it's confusing. Feeling as if she wants to press up against him and flee for her life both at the same time is utterly confusing and she just wishes she'd make up her mind. She thought she had until he began talking again.

"Stop talking about what I should need or should have. What I should have is exactly the thing that makes me happy. That puts a smile on my face. That makes me feel safe. You don't have to list all of your faults. I probably know them better than you do, but I love you anyway. Or maybe because of them. Because of the way I'll come into the study and find you asleep on your book. Because of the look you give to the women you pick up at the pub. I might hate it, but there are times when I want you to look at me in that way."

She pauses, not exactly sure what to say next.

"Stop sounding like you're...like you're... Brothers let their sisters go. Parents let their children go. If that's what you feel for me, like some kind of little sister or my protector, you should be able to let me go. If you can't," she says, laughing humorlessly, "then maybe it's for the same reason that I can't seem to leave even when I think you're going to break my heart. Even when you already have. I love you, no, I am in love with you, and even if there is the slimmest hope that you might return those feeling I can't leave. I can't just walk away and forget all about you, about this. You're wrong. I don't care about what you own. The one thing you can offer me is something much more precious to me. Love. Not dutiful love, not safe love."

The thoughts in her head are so scrambled that she simply acts on instinct and goes to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She doesn't kiss him, though. She searches his face with eyes that are so vulnerable. She's terrified that he will just stomp on her heart one final time. After a moment, one hand slides down his neck and presses to his chest.

"I want this," she whispers. She looks down at her hand and, when she looks up, her eyes are yellow. It's a sight for him only. "After everything that I should or shouldn't want, should or shouldn't have, this is all I want. All I need." She wants him to kiss her. She's already taken that first step and she desperately wants him to take his, but her eyes are already beginning to well with the tears that will come with his rejection. In her imagination, she can already begin to feel him pull away.

[bringyoupeace]

Charles leaves a lingering silence looming over them, sighing heavily with the sudden overwhelming feeling of being so beyond confused it actually hurts, and he knows that as much as he should make some sort of official decision he isn't in a right place to do that. But if he were to have a little time, to mull everything over, to weigh up the pros and cons on both sides, and to sift through his own thoughts and feelings that he's swallowed down for so long he can no longer tell what's what.

He, at least, owes her that much. To make a choice based on true feelings rather than in the spare of the moment, and especially for lack of anything else. And he really doesn't trust himself to make the right decision. If he says no, if he turns her down, he knows that he's going to lose her and the thought alone is unbearable. But if he rushes in and says that, perhaps, there is a chance, then he's offering her something that might turn out to be false, and being the cause of her pain, like he knows he is right now, is just as unbearable as losing her.

When she moves in, puts her arms around him and invades his personal bubble, Charles doesn't object, doesn't try to shake her off, and not because he feels it would hurt her, but because he has no desire to break the contact. But he also doesn't think he can lean in any closer than a little shuffle step forward, not here and not now, but maybe someday.

Raven's eyes are beautiful, he thinks, something that he's always found stunning enough for the need to pause and admire them, and it's hard not to hold their gaze, so he doesn't try to break it. A part of him suddenly wonders why he gets the way that he does whenever she reveals her true form - the main reason, he knows, is because if anyone were to see and he couldn't force them to forget in time, or the situation were to get out of hand, something very terrible could happen to her and he can't allow that. But he also wonders if it just made him feel better in general not to see her that way, if he was being more than protective and being selfish in keeping her hidden.

He knows that the little girl he found in the kitchen of the mansion that night was someone that he feel instantly in love with, fascination and wonder, and relief not to be the only one who is different. But what if it was more than that? What if, keeping her in this more acceptable form, wasn't merely for her own protection from the outside world, but from Charles himself?

Charles sighs again, softer this time, and finally does lean in. But he doesn't kiss her, he just rests his forehead against hers in an affectionate gesture, perhaps something a little more so than he might usually, and he closes his eyes to bask in it before he speaks.

"This is all very sudden, Raven," he points in a small voice, just audible above the patting of the rain falling to the ground and bouncing off of buildings. "Perhaps I ought to let you go, it would be the decent thing to do, and that alone is enough to prove to you how selfish that I can be. Because I..." He pulls back to look at her, a sad smile pulling feebly at the corners of his mouth, and the sorrow and regret in his eyes. "I can't do it. I know that I should, truly I do, but I can't. But I need time. To think, to make sure that what I decide to act upon is real. It's a lot to ask, all things considering, but can I have that?"

[notsogroovy]

"Don't you understand?" she whispers. "I want you to be seflish. Tom wasn't what I was looking for as my happily ever after. He was what I was looking for as second best. The runner up to something I could never have." She thinks she understands what is about to happen. He'll have his time and then, somehow, he'll find a way to talk himself out of having what he wants. Or maybe it isn't even something he wants. Maybe it's just something she's talking him into at least trying. In one situation, it'll be his fault and in the other hers, but either result ends up the same.

Her own eyes are equally sad when she looks at him. "Then let me go for my walk. I'll be safe. You know that despite all of your worrying, I can protect myself if I have to. I can blend in anywhere I go. You need your time to think and I need mine. I'll be back in an hour or two, you have my word. I just need time." She needs time to come to terms with what is about to happen.

After all, if he wants this as much as she does, or at all, wouldn't he have kissed her by now?

"Just say 'yes, dear' and open your arms and by the time I've come back, you'll have had your think and then we can have that talk that you wanted back home." More likely, he'll try to let her down easily and she'll go up to her bedroom and slam the door behind her before he can get very far into her speech. He says he doesn't want to let her go and she believes him, but she's not convinced that it's for the reasons he's implying.

[bringyoupeace]

The idea of allowing Raven to wandering the streets alone with the night falling quickly down around them makes him fret over her safety. But the truth is that he knows that she can take care of herself should the need arise, and a part of him hates that, because it's one less thing that she perhaps feels the need to depend upon him for.

So he nods, the hesitancy of it giving away how unsure he is to let her go at least for this, but he doubts that there's anything he can say or do right now that would keep her from going.

"This is obviously something that you have put much thought into," he says with an edge of understanding, "And I very much doubt that I can prevent you from going. But promise me that you'll be careful?" He doesn't just mean for her safety as he would anyone else, though, and it's obviously playing on his mind, the constant reminder that she isn't like every other girl, that life is harder for her because of her mutation. "Please, love, I realise that you're upset, but promise that you sharen't be off doing anything that might draw attention to yourself."

[notsogroovy]

"I'll be fine, Charles," Raven promised as she began stepping away. She wasn't planning on going to the wrong side of town. She wasn't even planning on seeing anybody. She meant what she'd said. She needed a walk. The farther away she got, though, the more her chest hurt. It was like some kind of tether between the two of them was being pulled to the snapping point. She kept looking back at him until she was forced to turn out of sight and, when she did, she pressed her back against the wall and let out a shaky breath.

She couldn't believe what she'd just done. She'd told Charles about her feelings. She'd told him that she was in love with him and he'd...what had he done? She stlil wasn't sure whether he was postponing the inevitable or really meant that he was interested. She rubbed at her chest to try to ease the ache and began walking again. No. Surely he was just trying to keep her safe.

She was out like that for two or three hours. Each time she began heading back to her flat with Charles, doubt and panic crept in and she headed in the other direction. She wasn't sure she was ready for a confrontation with him. Once had been enough for one night and even then, nothing had really been resolved. She didn't feel any better. If anything, she felt a little worse for wear. And now he knew and even if she'd wanted to, things would never be the same again.

Finally, she decided to just go inside. He was probably well asleep and she couldn't stop herself from yawning every other minute. She needed some sleep, too. And in the morning...in the morning maybe she could pretend this had just been a bad dream.

She slipped her key into the lock and turned the door handle quietly. If he was asleep, she wasn't going to wake him up for anything.

[bringyoupeace]

Charles spent the remainder of the walk home with his hands buried deep into the pockets of his trousers and his head hanging low. He felt several things, most of which he tried not to focus too much on, but the shame and guilt weren't as easy to ebb out.

Once he entered their flat, Charles had skipped dinner and made himself a hot chocolate after peeling away the rain-soaked layers and climbing into some warm pyjamas. It helped, a little, but as he warmed up his brain worked faster through the events, thinking seriously and in depth about what is the best thing to do and what is the right thing.

Eventually, Charles couldn't stand it any more, pacing around the flat and wondering whether or not Raven was okay, switching back and forth between concern and sifting through pros and cons, and still he came to no real conclusion. So he crawled into bed where he tossed and turned restlessly until he finally wore himself out and fell into a fitful slumber.