So That Happened...

[Star]

Wherever you go, there you are.

Had they made a big circle? It felt like it. He could have been okay. A momentary thing? A one off? But that wasn't what they were talking about. Was it?

Variety? Contrast?

They're euphemisms. In any context, what's really being said is, 'I'm not satisfied'. Whether that's sex, the need to travel, to redecorate a room, to further education, that is what's being said. And really hard to hear from the one person who you feel like that the rest of the world could disappear, as long as you were together.

"I'm, uh, not saying Varyx isn't...," Whatever the alternative was. "And I Hear you. I get it. There's a whole world out there for you, and a half-dozen more Truths to See. I understand."

Laughter on a train in the wind. Eyes closed to hear it. Funny. He'd always liked the idea of showing her all the things she'd missed.

Exploring Truths.

Just never realized that meant half a lifetime of sleeping with other people.

"But what does 'try this' mean? You and Varyx? A one-off? Or. Or are you, uh. Saying that, like. Anyone you're comfortable with and your body wants. That you're going to... need constant contrast. That, that's who you want to be. Or need to be."

He shrugged and stared at their hands. The next words were dull and wooden.

"And what is it, exactly, you want? From me. Now that, you know, I understand."

[Avis]

He didn't understand. Not really. If he really understood then he wouldn't still feel like he was bleeding, like a piece of him had just been flayed off and his sinews left exposed to the burning touch of cruel air. But then again, maybe it wasn't right for her to accuse him of not understanding. With how thready her pulse felt, fluttering inside her chest, and with how taught her stomach felt as it churned with acid, she couldn't say that she felt particularly enlightened in that moment. She couldn't think to say what she wanted. She'd already tried, but clearly it hadn't been enough.

And then there was Varyx, the woman she'd dragged into this, the friend who'd stayed valiantly and offered her Wisdom. But what exactly diid Avis make of that Wisdom? She'd felt like bristling when the other warlock had called the conception of a mind existing alone insane. That was what Avis had used to believe was true, or close to the truth, though she had conceived of it differently at the time: she'd imagined the mind interacting with the world unburdened by flesh, but was that truly plausible? Was even an incorporeal being still without some sort of form? Some sort of pattern?

No. No it wasn't. So perhaps Varyx was right: perhaps it was insane.

Perhaps Avis had never understood.

"Look," she said, a hand rising brush over her face. "When I brought this up I wanted to hear your thoughts about it. About the idea of experiencing other people, together, but your answer has already been pretty clear: no, you don't want to do it together. And you don't want me to do it alone. So...fine. That's fine. That's what I wanted to know."

But, now that she knew it, she knew that their conception of 'We' had been irrevocably changed. His security had been shattered, and hers...hers had turned stifling. The ring on her hand no longer felt light. Even if she'd told him that she would never respond to the word 'wife', apparently that was symbolism that couldn't be escaped.

Not if she still chose to wear it.

"Thank you for staying, and for speaking your mind, Varyx," Avis added then, looking to the other woman. "I'm sure it wasn't fun, but I appreciate it."

[Star]

"No."

Fingers slowly slipped away, parting. Every time she Did That was like being burned with a progressively hotter flame.

"It's not fine. Neither... neither of us are fine right now. And, no, you didn't want to hear my thoughts about 'experiencing other people'."

Fingers wiped at cold sweat forming under the mop. It was too hot-cold. Like he needed to to go somewhere.

"You wanted to ask me about fucking other people." Dull words grew firmer, but less textured; clinical, like the coolness of the space he could feel himself slipping into. Like a bathroom stall. Where he could throw up all the things inside... or... "And you keep... white-washing it. With words like 'conversation' and 'experience' and 'learning'. But the thing is, if that's what you really wanted, you'd have stopped for just one second to ask yourself if there were any other ways to learn what you want to learn... without fucking someone. And I'd bet anything not a single one of those pretty explanations were used when you two... first talked about hooking up. You didn't decide you wanted to have a, a conversation. Or," finger quotes, "'Learn about the body'. You wanted to fuck."

His eyes had drifted to the remains of the meal. Was anyone still eating? Should he clean that up now?

"And I don't know if that's... so you don't have to feel guilty? So this can all be my fault? Or some kind of Arrow Warrior needs to win an argument thing you got going on? Or maybe you just... Whatever. I don't know." A hand waved at the Firehouse graveyard. "Uh. Anyway. Varyx. You stay. I'll go. You two probably, uh. Have more to talk about."

Walking backward, it felt like falling. Later. He'd clean up the kitchen later.

"And. While you're asking Varyx her opinion on stuff? Why don't you ask her how nothing like this could ever be fine without total honesty. Because you're not being honest about what you want or what you asked. I asked you..."

At least he'd owned his crazy. His insecurity. The things he didn't want to say in front of anyone.

"...What I really... was... I just... "

Didn't know what happened to his girl that never lied.

Sorry to post-jump alias-of-a-girl but Star is Exiting Scene

[Varyx]

Well. Varyx had been about to say that Star was allowed to say no. She'd even prepared her apologetic look to Avis, because she didn't want it to seem like she was somehow "switching sides" in this whole train-wreck. She didn't want it to seem like she'd really taken a side at all. Just spoken her own truth. Which... had just happened to mostly coincide with Avis' up until now. And now, the truth was that Star was allowed to say no. Allowed to refuse this entire thing.

But apparently he didn't need any prodding, because that was the word that rang loudest and clearest before he left was his resounding "No."

The rest, though, the rest felt a little unfair. Because they hadn't used those words, no, but that was because they hadn't needed to, not because they weren't there. How was it more honest to make sure to twist their words into the form he expected rather than what they were?

But he left, and Varyx slumped forward, her arms coming to rest on the counter, her head hanging down so that blonde hair spilled over the laminate top, only barely missing the plates. "Fuck." She knew what she was supposed to say in this situation, according to polite society, but this wasn't polite society. This was Avis, and asking her if she was okay felt monumentally stupid, so Varyx simply stood there in silence until she finally came up with something more honest. "I'm sorry."

Because she was. Because she felt like she'd just had a hand in cracking open the bleeding heart of a relationship where barely 15 minutes ago one of them was offering to make fucking cutesy little meals for the other to pack away in the fridge while he was gone.

[Avis]

"That word you just used," Avis replied, as though there had never been any moment of silence, as though Star had never stormed out, as though they were merely discussing something of mild interest over a lunch. Only the hint of tightness around the corners of eyes, the hint of a squint, and the stillness of her body betrayed how Avis felt. It was as though part of her had turned to stone, and the rest simply had not realized it yet.

Another defense mechanism. One born from an environment where docility was the only acceptable strategy for coping. It didn't matter if you were exploding inside, as long you did it unobtrusively.

At the moment, however, Avis hardly realized she was doing it. Hardly percieved of anything beyond the irrepressible fascination that had sprung up as a bulwark against things too painful to feel.

"It's became a curse word. A verbal talisman we cast out whenever emotions become too powerful to be contained within any other sound. So how can you just fuck. Even if you're mutually masturbating with each others bodies, that's still not just fucking. Then that's all about you about your...ego. "

She lapsed into silence, still staring in the direction Star had disappeared in. Only after some seconds she seemed to realize she hadn't finished her thought, and her head slowly, smoothly rotated so her eyes were fixed on Varyx.

"I mean, am I wrong?"

[Varyx]

At first when Varyx lifted her head, raking fingers through her spill of blonde hair to push it out of her face, she was surprised to find Avis taking this whole thing better than she was. A second thought followed that first, one that slowly realized that maybe she wasn't taking it better at all. Because the stillness was unnatural, and the apparent calmness couldn't have been accurate to what she was feeling. Varyx suspected she might have preferred screaming.

Still, her point was something to latch onto, even if she didn't necessarily agree. "Not wrong about how others might see it, no, but I don't think that's right, either. Words have the meaning we give them. I can choose to give the same word two unrelated meanings in a different context. Not even the same word, really. Just homophones." There was a long pause, and she sighed heavily. "But... I can also see why that might not be fair to others. How some people might ascribe related meanings."

She wasn't sure, honestly, what Avis was getting at. It seemed a strange flip of her attitude from what she'd been saying to Star only moments before. But maybe she was just missing the point. Her gaze met Avis' and she waited to see what the other woman would say.

[Avis]

"Well that's what I don't get," Avis clarified, her voice emanating from some disturbingly calm depth inside her, one that felt separated from, but only by the most fragile of borders. Like a levee that had not yet begun to leak, though it shivered against the fury of the tempest trying to beat its way into the calm.

"If the word 'fuck' doesn't exist without meaning, and only has the meaning we give it, then what meaning was he giving it in place of mine?

"And," Avis added next, staring unblinkingly into Varyx's eyes, "since we're talking about it, if we did have sex, what would that mean to you?"

[Varyx]

Varyx knew that Avis knew she couldn't answer her first question. There wasn't a chance in hell she knew what Star was thinking - certainly not better than Avis did. But it was clear the second question was the actual point. And it was harder to put into words than she expected. It was topic always danced around, by her, by her clients, by her lovers.

"Sex means a lot of things to me. Most often, it's just physical pleasure. It's something I enjoy doing, not so different from any other hobby, if you'd like to think about it that way. I gain more pleasure from it when I do it with people I like." It was strange to tell the truth, because her experiences so often revolved around playing pretend - pretending that she found her partner utterly irresistible, pretending that she was exactly who he wanted her to be. Lies layered in lies. She rarely got to feel the truth of the experience. "With you, though, I think it'd mean learning more about you, and about me. I want to see what you enjoy, what turns you on. It says a lot about a person." Really, it wasn't so different in concept from the conversation innuendos she'd been using earlier. The same way one can learn about someone else by talking to them, one can learn about them by sleeping with them. Or, really, doing anything else with them. Differing activities just means one will learn different things.

[Avis]

Avis nodded, slowly, stiffly, her neck moving as though it were made from rusted metal cables. She understood what Varyx meant. She understood things in the same way. Or, thought she did, in that moment. For Avis never saw what she'd said as innuendo. To her it had been perfectly clear. Innuendo was only a tool for puritanical, shame driven slaves clasped in the irons of their own indulgent lies. That wasn't her.

That wasn't her.

Was it so wrong to want to learn about others in that way? To learn about herself that way?

It was more complicated than that, she knew. For she'd already made meaning with that act, and with every other similar act that meaning would compounded or deepened by that relation between those acts. Compounding eternally, forever altering and transforming with each new iteration...

Avis pushed her plate away and stood up from her chair. Her chest was tight. Her stomach was consumed by acid.

The levee was breaking.

"I need...I need to think about things," she said finally, walking away from the table, and from Varyx.

There was a small clatter as the knife drawer opened.

"And you...You might want to talk to July."

[Varyx]

Varyx watched Avis moving mechanically about the kitchen. Was that a crack in her voice? Were her hands shaking as much as Varyx thought, or was that just her imagination?

That she was rifling through the knife drawer was... concerning. For a moment, Varyx considered speaking up. That she had the inclination at all was surprising, though perhaps less so when taken alongside the fact that she'd stayed for this whole mess in the first place. Still, she knew better than to think it was going to help, and she also knew better than to think Avis needed to be babied like some heart-broken teenager. Whatever she was going to do, that was for her and her alone.

She almost missed the comment about July. Her first instinct wanted to know why. Or at least, why he needed to know more than Arthur, because weren't they both fellow cabalmates? Of course, that's not what she meant. And Varyx, as much as she didn't want to admit it, knew she was right.

"I will." If there was a note of reluctance in her voice, she didn't acknowledge it. Instead, she stood and began to clear up the dishes. She wanted to say something, but, again, there was this trouble with how petty and shallow the usual phrases felt. "I'll be there if you need me." "If you want to talk, you know where to find me."

Instead, she finished placing the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and passed by Avis, just brushing by to go back to her own room, but there was a pause right as she brushed past. The smallest amount of contact - a hand brushing against an arm. An apologetic look. And then she left Avis to her thoughts.

Great scene!