fandomhigh | Library [Sunday, April 13]

Adah didn't even need to look at the Eel to perceive that frown, and that wasn't helping. "That's right," she said, lifting her chin a little more. "If anything, I figured that if you got worried about the fact that I seemed to have disappeared for a few days, and no one save for Karal knew why, then at least we'd be even over the whole...angel statue thing."

She still hadn't gotten over how upset she'd gotten then, how worried she been, and she didn't think it was too much to ask to perhaps privately sort of want someone to someday worry that much about her. Not that she expected it, of course.

"Wow," Lee said and leaned back against his chair. "You were trying to pay me back for the statue thing?"

Adah shifted her eyes steadily to the Eel, fighting against the pulls of guilt that were making her crooked body shift slightly. There wasn't anything wrong with it; she couldn't help it. She never actually wanted anyone to care enough about her to be worried, and she'd never had anyone care about her enough for that. It was all foreign territory, really. Nor had she ever worried about someone like that before.

"A bit," she said quietly, "yes."

"All right," he said, keeping his face neutral. "And what were you expecting me to do?"

"The same thing I did then," Adah responded lightly. "Worry, wonder if I was all right..."

She bit a corner of her lip.

"Hate me for making you worry and wonder when you found out that I'd been fine the whole damn time, but be too relieved to see me that it wouldn't matter."

"Hmm." He rubbed a hand across his eyes and fell quiet for a moment. "The only difference here was that there was nothing going on the island, nothing for me to go on. So, I wouldn't have known if you were gone or hurt or you'd just decided to leave. You had an idea, at least."

"Well," Adah muttered contritely, "I didn't expect it to exactly reach the same heightened level. I just...wondered if maybe just...something would be there. That's all..."

The defensiveness was starting to grow stronger inside of her, and it wasn't helped by how difficult he was to read at the moment. "Maybe it was just stupid anyway," she quickly added, lightly shaking her head. It was, it really, really was. "It doesn't matter anyway; the leaving was a necessity, anyway. All this was just an afterthought."

"There is something here," he said, leaning forward and fixing her with a glare. "There is something here and if you don't think that I wouldn't worry or that I don't think about you or anything like that, then you haven't been paying attention the last several months. I love you. And maybe it's my fault for not saying it besides during that stupid song. But, I do. And I would worry if something happened to you or you left without saying goodbye. Stop doubting me."

And, for a moment, all Adah could do was stare at the Eel, eyes wide and face drained of color with her breath all thight in her chest. There it was, hanging right there in front of her, and wasn't that what she wanted?

"I have to doubt you," she finally said. "It's the only defense I have against getting hurt, Lee. I've never loved anyone before you, because all love ever did for anyone I've known was hurt them, ruin them, tear them apart. You can't trust other people, you just can't; I can't trust that you're not just going to hurt me. Even if you did, it could be something you couldn't even help. But, despite that, I still trust you more than I've trusted anyone in my life, and it terrifies me. I can't trust people; I can't afford it..."

Adah realized she was starting to shake, and tried to shake her head to get rid of the feeling. This was not the place to start having a physical breakdown to correspond with the emotional one, but, so help her, they had to go and be directly correlated.

"And I've never loved anyone before you but I know it's not all bad," he said quietly. "I don't know if understand how hard it is to know you doubt me. Or doubt how I feel about you. I'm not smart, I know that. Do you think I'm going to hurt you? Are you expecting it?"

Edited 2008-04-13 22:53 (UTC)

"I am," Adah responded, wincing slightly, words dry and sticking in her throat. "You don't understand; trusting...anyone..." She shook her head lightly, another wince. "It's complicated, Lee; I...we can talk about it, but not, not here. I don't need to have a goddamn breakdown in the middle of a library, and I still have work. I just..."

She trailed off, choosing to fight off the tenseness that the conversation was causing over bothering with words.

"So, every time you come see me, you're prepared to get hurt?" he asked, trying not to sound stung but not succeeding completely. "You're expecting me to hurt you. I don't...frak. You still have work, right."

"It's nothing personal," Adah muttered, part of her tension sharpening with an urge to get irritated over him deducing it like that. "Every time I wake up, I'm prepared to get hurt. It's just something you get into the habit of when you have to deal with the sorts of things I do."

"And all these months, all this time we've spent together, all the things you know about me, you still expect me to hurt you?" he asked quietly.

"Lee, stop it," Adah said, wincing again, wishing she could move, but her feet seemed rooted; even if she could locate their mobility, all she had was an embarrassing, self-depreciating limp. She frowned, forehead lined with distress as she felt her shoulder creeping up toward her ear, against her control, against any effort to keep it held down. Her body, taking a leap forward into a panic, before her brain had gotten there, as she tried to prevent her brain from getting there. "It's complicated; if you even knew..."

"Don't tell me to stop it," he said sharply, quietly. "How do you think you would feel if the one person you care most about in this world just told you that she expected you to hurt her? That she was waiting for it."

"I imagi--" Adah swallowed hard, pressing her lips together, biting down hard on the lower one as she tried to continue. "I...imagine it wouldn't feel too dissimilar to what I feel right now." Her voice was just as quiet, but not as sharp, though she wished it could be. "For someone acting so offended at the idea of hurting me, you certainly seem intent on doing just that..."

"How do you expect me to react?" he asked, softening his voice. "How am I supposed to react to finding out you're expecting me to hurt you? That you doubt me? I really don't know what you expect me to do here."

"I didn't expect you to do anything," Adah said a little desperately, "because I didn't expect for you find out. Lee, I know it probably doesn't mean much to you right now, but just the fact that I trust you as much as I do is just...I've never trusted anyone before. Anyone. Can you even...can you even grasp what that's like, to never trust anyone and then, inexplicably, illogically, suddenly, start taking that kind of step?"

"No, I can't grasp that," he admitted. "I can't because I've trusted people. But, Adah, you don't need to test me and trick me and pay me back for things just because you want to prove yourself right. I'm really not a science experiment and I don't want to be tested like that."

"I don't like being wrong, Lee," Adah muttered quietly, head ducking a bit, "on even the smallest of issues. But, with this...." She sucked in a deep, shaky breath, "no matter what, I'm wrong about something, neither of them small issues in the slightest. At least this way I thought I could have a bit of control over one matter or another..."

"Your way might have given you control but your way also makes me feel like a giant ass," he told her. "And I know you didn't want me to find out but I did and it makes me feel like an ass. Because you expected me to forget or not care or whatever. And I didn't expect that."

The next breath that Adah drew in was even sharper; she was surprised, actually, that the skin of her lips hadn't broken from how hard her teeth cut into it from holding back the sudden urge for tears. But she never cried, or barely ever. In her memory, only once, and crying over this in comparison to that was ridiculous, so she wasn't going to let it happen.

"I'm used to being forgotten, Lee. I'm used to people not caring, or trying to forget me. You're an anomaly. You're certainly not an ass; it isn't your fault that you had the poor luck of having a cynical, untrusting bastard somehow falling in love with you, despite that she pretty much doesn't even believe in love..."

He took a breath and dropped his eyes, staring at the desk for a moment while he tried to get his thoughts together.

"You're not a bastard," was the first thing that he said. "Cynical and untrusting, yes, but you're not a bastard. It's very hard for me to know that you think I'm going to just end up hurting you. And that you're waiting for me to do that. It's really hard to know that."

"I can't help it," Adah said, words catching in her tight throat again so that it came out as barely a drawl of a whisper. "I'm sorry..."

Library [Sunday, April 13]

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