I
t isn't surprising, that she waits on him. Michael is a man with well-meaning claws, but claws nonetheless. Michael is a man with a shovel who digs and digs and digs until all the bones are laid bare and all the ghosts are breathing again. Michael is a man who vanishes, often without a trace, always with someone waiting.This is what it is like to love him, in any capacity: always waiting, on hills and beached and mountains-- only Michael never comes back.
She laughs, and Michael laughs with her. "Miss Elena," he says, teasing, "I can barely hold my own head up with it, let alone someone else." Something about it rings too true for his liking, and then the feeling floats down to his stomach and settles like it was never there at all.
He watches her drink, and drink, and Michael wonders just who she is. When Elena picks up the second glass and tips it back alongside him he is starting to wonder if she might actually be him, a part stripped away from the whole. Whatever beautiful and soft and caring parts he had must be with her, now. He cannot think where else they might have gone.
Michael dances with quiet concentration and a straight face. He moves easily but not gracefully, bowing and stepping in a smooth but not particularly beautiful way. By the time the music has ended and the space is filled with laughter and applause. He puffs slowly, like he is trying to hide his ribs heaving, or the sound of his breath. Michael tries not to notice that it leaves his lungs screaming for oxygen. Michael tries not to notice most things.
He especially tries not to notice Elena, next to him, full of breathless laughter and the last few dregs of her drink. He offers to take it as she asks an increasingly familiar question: have you ever been in love?
Isra last asked him this. Michael had said, yes, and that was all. He had not known, then. He had not really known anything.
"Of course," he says, surprised at the enthusiasm. It was not intentional. Of course, of course, of course. Michael has loved more often than he hasn't. All he knows how to do is love, and love, and love, to his ever-growing detriment. Michael loves when he should. Michael loves when he shouldn't. Michael throws himself on the pike of his heart and stares up at the stars from his back.
Michael loves Moira. "I love Moira." he says, even as he's scrambling not to. The words just fall out of him and Michael is trapped inside, watching in happen. It's like being in hell, saying things. He is so used to leaving all things unsaid. "and you shouldn't be sorry for it. It is one of the few things that matter, anymore."
He looks at her. Somewhere there is music but it's faded into the background, just a blur of sound to match the blur of lights. "Why are you sorry for it?"
I am soft again.
There is water and it surrounds me.
There is feeling and I can feel it.
There is water and it surrounds me.
There is feeling and I can feel it.
@
