Post by gothmother on Dec 17, 2020 11:39:37 GMT -5
YOU AND I CAN'T DECIDE
WHICH OF US WAS TAKEN FOR GRANTED
MAKE AMENDS
SOME ARE DESTINED TO BE OUTLIVED
STEP INSIDE
SEE THE DEVIL IN I
TOO MANY TIMES WE’VE LET IT COME TO THIS
YOU REALIZE I'M NOT YOUR DEVIL ANYMORE
Silence.
For some, silence was the finality of life. Whatever had been living before, the second silence arrived, it died in a puddle of unspoken words and promises left utterly broken and destroyed. It was the destroyer of relationships, of families, and of friends. They always said that the silence that enveloped Nagasaki was so profound a destroyer that even the decimation and the wreckage seemed less significant than the sound of silence.
The frigid air was stagnant, accompanying the silence in a twisted, myriad fashion. The cemetery wasn’t exactly the brightest of haunts, particularly for the people who lived there permanently for the entirety of their unlives. It wasn’t as if the living wanted to be there. In fact, it was almost as if there was a need to avert
“I didn’t think you would come.”
Despite her desire to keep herself from crying, she hiccuped in with another sniffle, tears continuing to roll down her face. The silence that he gave her was even more suffocating it seemed than the solemnity that was the cemetery itself. Perhaps she was wrong, but how could she be? She knew him better than most, and would always be able to recognize him in a crowd of people. He was always a few inches taller than the average people around them, and he always wore an irritated expression. Gone were the days in which she’d seen him give her a smile, and now, he wouldn’t even turn around to show her his face.
His blonde hair was different now. He’d done it jokingly once before, but darkness at his roots -- less than a milimeter but visible -- told her he’d decided to keep it that way for some time. Now that she could see him more clearly, she found he was dressed somewhat respectfully for the funeral, a black blazer over a matching black shirt. He wore jeans, but they were tight to his lanky frame and black combat boots, like usual. This wasn’t just a happenstance moment. He didn’t just appear there in the small gathered crowd. He was dressed for this moment appropriately, which meant that despite her wishes, someone had told him about the situation at hand, had opened their mouth and somehow spoke the right words to get him to come out of his own version of Fort Knox and be there at that moment, that day, that exact time.
Dimitri.
Elena knew it was her youngest sibling. He was, after all, the one most likely to get into his feelings and let them overcome him. Not her. She was ice. And absolutely not him. He was fire and rage. That’s how they’d always been. Elena, the one to close herself off to everyone. Dimitri, the one to fix everything. And Finn, the one to burn everything and everyone the moment they pissed him off. She would have words for the youngest member of their family when she returned to her little cottage.
Has it been two years? She asked herself.
He turned his head finally, though it seemed as if it took eons for him to do so. His body pivoted and he moved to face her fully, his hands shoved into his pockets. He didn’t remove his sunglasses -- not initially, but that didn’t make it any easier. He kept further back, as if he wasn’t sure what to do either. Move forward, pull back. Step closer, leave. There was enough options that he could take that it was even more difficult to ascertain what he would do. And what she would do in response, she didn’t know.
In an attempt to keep herself silent, Elena hiccupped once more, but couldn’t keep her tears from falling anymore. They welled up within her eyes and she slammed them shut, allowing them to fall down her cheeks and across the hand covering her mouth. She hated being vulnerable as it was. And she hated it more that she couldn’t keep herself from crying in front of the one person that she didn’t think deserved to see it at all. As much as she wanted him here, she also was left feeling aggravated and irritated.
However, that faded. For a moment, it completely faded. She didn’t see it, with her eyes closed, and she barely even recognized it when he sat down next to her on the bench. For a second, she was surprised, but his arms enclosed her upper torso and he pulled her to him, hugging her tightly to him.
It was odd. The kind of odd that you couldn’t put in words, but at the same time it was a good feeling. For a long moment Elena didn’t say anything, she just embraced in his hug. Even went as far as putting her own arm around him. They would sit like that for a while, probably also because neither of them want to open their mouth. Knowing there were things to say that could get ugly, killing the feelings that might be in the air right now. But Elena wouldn’t be Elena if she ran from such situations. After all they were pretty confrontational.
“I didn’t expect to see you here today. Or at all.” She said, but to be honest her voice wasn't more than a whisper. “I am happy to see you, although you somewhat always catch me ugly crying. Every fucking time.”
Again, he was quiet, but he still set his chin on top of her head, exhaling slightly. “I wouldn’t leave you to the vultures on a day like today, no matter where we are at personally. And honestly? Pretty much my job to get you on the most embarrassing days of your life.”
“Which leads me to my wonderful speech out there. Did you hear what kind of shit I talked about at my mother’s funeral? I hope no one taped that.” She looked up at him with the hint of a smile.
“Recorded every second of it. You know me. Blackmail in the future.”
“I knew it. But that’s okay. I am glad you are here, even though I am not sure how to handle it. Or maybe don’t deserve it. And you can stop me at any moment before I turn all old lady like.”
He was quiet again, looking upwards a bit as he softly rubbed her arm where he held her. She waited for a couple of seconds, and her smile faded just slightly. As much as her brother’s hug was helpful in this moment, she couldn’t help but feel that he might retreat back into the frightened, lone wolf posture that he’d so easily gotten into so many times over. He was good at blaming her when he was mad and threatened, and for a second, she thought he might be going back to that moment.
“You’re fine.” He said, finally. “It’s not like we’re not both two people with a penchant for using a lot of words when it’s not necessary. Twenty minute segments in front of the crowd was our thing, you know.”
She sniffle-chuckled for a second, recalling their days when they both worked in the same company. It was very much like now, when Dimitri and Elena worked in the American-based company. He’d been happy to see her, and they were able to work together. But it wasn’t the same as Elena and Finn. They knew each other well enough that they could predict the movements they would use in the ring, finish each other’s sentences, and able to pretty much predict what the other was going to do at home. But that was because of their close relationship from the age of fourteen, running the streets of London, getting into trouble, causing chaos whenever. And when she was hurt? Finn burned down the lives of whomever hurt her, sometimes in the literal sense.
“I do remember that,” she affirmed. “Though it’s been some time.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to wrestle again.” Finn admitted. For once, strangely, it was as if he was trying to keep away from the topic of what brought on their two year silence. And that wasn’t like him, at all. “Still in physical therapy, so I can’t even get into the ring. So it’s probably going to be longer.”
She looked at him intensively, her eyes finally tried. Without asking for permission she took off those damn sunglasses he wore. Elena remained in his hug but sat up a little bit, as if something just got to her mind. Something she couldn’t hold in very long.
“Never say Never, Finn. But as much as I would like to avoid certain things, we have done way too often. When things got uncomfortable, we moved on to another subject. But we are not teenagers anymore. So for once, in the backyard of a cemetery, let’s talk about certain things. Shall we?”
Finn’s ice blue eyes glanced elsewhere. On the trees, on the gravestones, on everything as if he was still trying to avoid the conversation he knew was going to happen. However, he couldn’t keep it from not happening, and he knew that everything was going to spill out anyway. He sat back on the bench for a moment, not quite letting go of his sister. He couldn’t do that. “Fine. There’s a lot to say, I’m sure. But I guess it makes sense to…” he struggled with the word -- another rarity, “...to do it now.”
“Okay, and I don’t know if I will find all the words, but I will try my best. I will tell you how I felt, how I feel which is rare and we both know it.” She took a deep breath. “Everything changed when we joined WWH, some things for better but mostly for worse. It is the place where we both started to change. We weren’t Finn and Elena anymore. We were constantly put on the spot and dealt with it in very different ways. All in all, the place poisoned us.”
She took another small break, trying to not look at him.
“You became a lot more angry when we were there, and I wasn't there for you. I should have called you out for it, instead I saw you caught in a wave of anger- and spread it on social media. Sure we kept going after that, but this was the moment for me. I became stoic and cold. So I am apologizing for that, Finn. Then the whole Aaron thing, I tried to like her. But to me she was always just a snake and to a degree I was jealous. Like she took my spot in your life, which is another time I must apologize. It was silly. But I think the worst thing that happened for me was knowing your father, the man I hated with you all our lives, was my father too. And the fact that he didn’t give a damn about me. He despised me. And for whatever reason that put something between us too. So yeah, a lot of things happened. And I should have handled it different, but my biggest mistake was giving up on you. On us. And the fact we are family.”
Again, the silence. She kept her eyes off of him still, at least for a few pregnant seconds, until curiosity overwhelmed her. She allowed her eyes to slide upward and she caught him staring off, directly in front of him. He was processing, and she knew it. There was a small indent that rose upon his brow as his eyebrows furrowed in a bit.
She hesitated before opening her mouth to try to get him to talk. Part of her, though, still wondered if he was going to go the same route he’d always done. Angry, discouraged, threatening. She realized that it’d been enough time that Finn could have devolved even more, and the fact that he was sitting there, hugging her in the middle of a cemetery, could have been as much a snake move as Aaron was.
“I owe you an apology too, Elena.”
That, in all of it’s six words, was not expected. He would have once just flayed into her if he felt threatened. She lifted an eyebrow, and found that he’d turned his head downward to look at her. He didn’t look away. Not this time.
“We all handle things the way we think is best in that moment. I think that’s fine, if you can defend it and explain it. I know I haven’t been the easiest to be around in the past few years, and I think, honestly, that the stress of everything surrounding us forced me to be a pain in the fucking ass for no reason. I’m moody. I’m shitty. I mean, I’ve always been that--”
“No. Not really.” She shook her head. “Your default is sarcasm, but the shitty thing wasn’t prominent until that company.”
He removed his arms from around her and leaned forward on the bench, placing his elbows on his knees and hanging his hands between them. “I felt abandoned. I’m not proud of it, Elena. I’m not. But if we’re being truthful with each other right now, then I’m hoping I can say this without getting kicked in the teeth. Our lives have been intertwined since we were fourteen, and we’ve had some points and times where we lost contact, but it didn’t seem to matter when we were around one another again. Until it did.”
He looked down at the ground, his right leg bouncing up and down. She’d only seen that action once, and that was after the fire. Anxiety. Finn was never anxious. And yet, here he was, more anxious than she’d seen him in a long time.
“If you felt replaced, then you should know that I did too. It’s stupid now, especially since we’ve discovered the whole blood thing, but I constantly felt like I was going to have to fight to keep you around me. Riddle. Mercer -- who, by the way, that little secret I know,” he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Eventually, the one thing we had that others didn’t was the wrestling thing. We worked well, and we were at the top. No, we didn’t deal with the stress well, neither of us. But when you moved on without me, I just...I stopped. I stopped giving a shit. I stopped fighting to be in your life and Izzy’s life and that...and that’s on me. I closed you, I closed everyone out of my life. You became ice, but I became nothing. I let it happen. It’s just as much as my fault as it is yours.”
Elena kept her silence for a little longer but then reached out, resting her hand on his knee. She was not taking long to find his hand, putting it tightly in hers. And for the first time realised how cold it really was, but it didn’t matter.
“What if no one is at fault? What if this was necessary to grow up? All our life we thought only you and me existed. We didn’t allow anyone else in and we didn’t need anyone else either. But that is the thing, we still don’t need anyone- but we want people in our lives. I never wished you any harm, not once. And often enough I was close to call you- but the more time passed, the more i lost my nerves.” She nudged him in the ribs. “Izzy always missed you. And as much as I love Dimitri, it’s not the same between us. I think what I always needed in my life was the feeling of being needed. And even though he needed me when he was a kid- he left that behind a long time ago. I think he keeps me around because an old folks home is too expensive.”
Finn snorted, returning the grip on her hand. “Please. You know he has one for both of us ready to go.”
She laughed too, giving him a smile. “Can you imagine? Yelling at everyone because you don’t like your pudding cup. Aaron will shake her head. Mark will give you a thousand reasons why it was a better cup to begin with.”
He shook his head, chuckling. “You do realize that family has been the thing that keeps me going, right? You and Dimitri and Izzy. He calls every once and awhile, and I trudge my ass down there to help him out when I can, but I...you guys are the only people I’ve got. The only people I would actually bust down the door of a burning building for. Or show up at a cemetery in the beginning of December when you haven’t heard from me for two years.”
“You’re slightly wrong there though. You still got Isabella too. And I think you got my husband who probably knew this was going to happen. And you got Hannah, who is slightly odd- and kinda like you, just more odd. But thing is this, I wasn't right kind of sad when Margaret died. I was just nothing. Then you appear and everyone bubbles out of me. What does that tell you?”
He was ready to give an answer, but she was quicker.
“Some things in life never change. We grow up and we fall out but we never leave. I don’t wanna feel angry at each other anymore. We will still fight and you will still embarrass me drunk under the Christmas tree, but that's the good times. Right?”
“Hey, I resent the insinuation that all I do is drink.”
Elena cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrow. “There isn’t an insinuation when I know, Finn.”
He sputtered. “How?”
“Friends.” She nudged him again. “Who are your friends too, if you’d let them in. There are a lot of people in this life, and I think...we can be open enough to realize that even if you don’t always want them there, their presence helps. And don’t lie too -- you go down there to help Dimitri so you can see where your leg is at so you can get back in the ring. You just had too many people on a stupid social media website talk shit and got in your head. You’ll have the opportunity eventually, and I know you. You’ll take it if that means kicking someone in the skull.”
He smiled slightly, looking back down at the ground. “Right. Right...but I do want to touch on something too. You’re not the only one who resents the fuck that calls himself our father. Piece of shit.”
“Does he know she died? No wait, even if- he wouldn’t care right?”
“Probably not. Doubt he even knows anything outside of the pub. It’s not like I talk to him either.”
“It’s not like it matters to be honest.” She took his hand even tighter before getting up from the bench, but kept holding on to him. “You know what will happen next?”
Finn looked at her somewhat puzzled but curious too. She dragged him on his feet, pulling him towards the exit.
“We go and drink. Something we are really good at. What do you say?”
He snickered, and nodded. “All right. Sounds like a plan.”
