they can take this heart away, they can take this flesh and blood

[pylades_drunk]

[for neil and, potentially, marcus; dated to a few days after Neil leaves - flexible]

Grantaire is drunk.

That was the intention, and that is the effect, though it might be a less expensive endeavor than it would have been had he never stopped drinking in the first place. There's a promise to the liquor, one he knows well: the pain won't matter as much, and if it does, well, eventually tonight won't remain and maybe he can just -- just sleep --

He'd gone to McCormick's to do the damage. Whether that was sick irony, pettiness or the fact that it, despite some renovations, for all intents and purposes still looks quite a bit like the Winchester -- enough to conjure the bitter ghosts of a different sort of loss, and comfort too, in a way -- he isn't even sure himself. (He'd jokingly declared, "If my surname is McCormick, do I drink for free?" and of course, they'd looked at him like they'd heard that one before. A bartender joked he didn't sound like a McCormick, and he'd said somberly "Well, a man I love gave me his name, but he left," and he'd gotten a shot poured on the spot and a "Shit, man." And a few moments later, a "We don't actually have a McCormick, either." He knows. He hasn't been in McCormick's since knowing Neil, because he knows.)

He picked up another bottle somewhere after leaving, and he's wandered his way down roads he knows and those he has only driven in the passenger seat of Neil's car.

"This is the priest's house," Grantaire says, conversationally; it's far from a shout, but it isn't meant to be unheard, if anyone were listening. "No --" he corrects himself, "The ex-priest. The exorcist. You must know the ways of hell, Father. This is Hell. And all the devils are here," he adds, and takes a drink, with a snort.

"You must know, then," he adds, a little more directly to the silent windows and siding, "that the coldest circle is reserved for those who betray. But for all that ice, that's cold comfort, when betrayal is its own torment? What do you think, husband," he calls up, and he is speaking to be heard now. "When you swore yourself until death, did you keep in mind you were promising yourself to two dead men? Did you note the date when you walked out, were you counting down the days, or did it just feel right to shoot two dissidents through the goddamn heart on 6th June?"

His bottle is empty now and he flings it at the concrete, smashing it against the foundation of the house. It feels good. It's easier to be furious than to gasp against the emptiness in his chest. It's easier to pretend his eyes only sting in anger.

"Neil McCormick, come down here and speak to me like a man instead of fleeing love like a thief in the night! My murderers had more courage to look into my eyes. You told me to be honest with you, angry? Here I am. You didn't have the decency then to do the same, look at me now and tell me it was all a lie to my face."

Comments

[myfavoritedream]

"Christing fuck," I muttered to myself, clambering out of bed, groggy and half asleep. Throwing a t-shirt on over my boxers, I hurried out of the spare room, meeting Marcus in the hall, Dan's wary gaze meeting mine from further in their bedroom.

"I got it," I said, holding up a hand before either of them could offer to intervene, flinching at the sound of glass breaking against the side of the house. Floorboards creaked behind me, and I said, again, impatient, "I fucking got it."

Bursting out of the front door, I shut it quietly behind me, careful not to let out the cat, even though I knew he was smart enough not to wander off -- and not really a cat, anyway.

"You're a real fucking poet when you're drunk," I said, teeth clenched, stomach churning, sour with grief and guilt. "You wanna keep it down? They don't deserve to be fucking harassed. Throwing shit at their house? Jesus, Grantaire."

[pylades_drunk]

As soon as Neil comes, half-dressed and bursting out of the front door, Grantaire knows he's made a critical mistake. Perhaps he does want to hear that it was all a lie from Neil, but seeing him destroys half the imagined conversations he's prepared in his mind.

"I wasn't trying to hit the --house," he protests, more quietly, as though that's the important part. He is a little bitter at Marcus, true, that Neil gets to run away to the man that presided over their wedding -- all those jokes about having an excommunicated priest one of the grooms slept with tasting just a little more bitter and less funny -- but it's not his fault, either, it's not really what he cares about right now.

He tries to form words and just shoves his palms against his eyes before looking back at him. "Do you remember, that time you --shoved me against the stairs and told me you'd kill me if I hurt Edgar?" He laughs, unfunny and hurt and raw. "What do I do with that, Neil?"

[myfavoritedream]

"If you're here to kill me, man, you should've fucking planned it for a place with less witnesses," I said, leaning against the porch rail and scrubbing both hands tiredly across my face.

I wanted to go to him. To comfort him. To tell him I was sorry. That I didn't mean it. That I didn't want to hurt him. But however true that might've been, it wouldn't have been fair.

None of this was fucking fair.

"What are you doin' here, Grantaire? You know nothing you're gonna get outta me right now is gonna make any of this better."

[pylades_drunk]

He laughs, because it's funny and because he sort of wishes he could punch Neil right now, but it's so far from possible as to be laughable. "Christ, I wish I could hate you," he says instead and hates how broken he sounds and how much he loves him, even standing there looking tired and pitying.

"I don't know," he says and runs a hand through his hair. "I want to know what we did. I want to know why you didn't tell us. You -- you said before, you were trying to hurt me, that you wanted to hear me be angry with you, is that -- you couldn't push us away hard enough, we were all too all right being broken? I just -- putain de merde, Neil. It's not going to be better. I don't want it to feel better."

"I told you you'd get tired of me," he says after a long moment, with a broken little laugh, and leans on the porch rail from the other side. The movement makes the world spin, but it feels a little like it should be spinning. It's just more physical.

"It could be different, we could be different. You could come home, we don't--" He shuts up, then, because it's not fair, and it's not even attractive, begging someone who doesn't want what he has to offer.

[myfavoritedream]

"I told you I needed fucking space, that I needed to get my head clear, and you're out here, drunk, telling me that I'm worse than the fucking coward that killed you, or whatever, but— oh, things could be different?"

I scoffed, throwing my hands up between us, surrender and disbelief, both.

"You didn't fucking do anything, R. You didn't. You didn't miss any red fucking flags, and I wasn't lying to you. I love you, but I feel fucking suffocated, and I fucking shouldn't. That's not a good fucking way to be, man. It's not fucking fair, not to me, and not to you."

[pylades_drunk]

"Then that is a thing we did," Grantaire snaps back, even as Neil is completely right that he's the one sounding foolish, over reacting. Could he have waited this out, like Neil is implying, left him be for a few weeks and it would have been fine, if only he wasn't such a failure, so quick to react, so destructive? Is it him who's ruining this, as they speak? The thought stabs like a knife; it feels bitterly unfair of Neil to suggest at the same time.

"You told us you needed space for you don't know how long, no warning, no asking, no discussion. Just you and all your things in a pack, one night, as though that's better. You've been gone for days, 'haven't bothered you except to make sure you're safe, get nothing, and all you can say is that you love me but it's not fair? We could have changed things, we could have loosened them, back then when -- when we could have changed things. Before it got to -- this." He includes himself in that gesture. "If this is what's best, if I'd been a better, more patient man. If you took whatever time, and say, say you decided to come back -- Neil." His tone is all pain. "How do we ever get to know you'd stay, after four years and now--?" Tears are streaming down his cheeks and he hates it.

"You're right," R mutters. "You're right. I love you; to think you felt that way, it's like being punched. I can't bear that we might have made you feel that way. But just -- don't, don't tell me this is better for us." Grantaire shoves himself back off the railing and stumbles, skidding backwards and falling, landing hard on the asphalt. Of course. Of course he isn't just a fool but he has to look like one.

[myfavoritedream]

"It's a thing you're doing, right fucking now, and you're not even going to remember it tomorrow," I pointed out, a desperate stage whisper, trying to at least give Marcus and Dan a little peace. Fuck, Dan probably knew exactly what was going on, but I couldn't find it in me to care.

"It's not better! It's not fucking better, R. I didn't fucking plan this, okay? I didn't. I don't fucking have the answers that you want!"

Whatever else I might've said was cut short, when he stumbled back, his ass hitting the pavement hard. "Fuck," I said, rushing towards him and dropping into a crouch at his side. "You need to go home, man. You need to let me drive you, or... call you a car. You can't stay out here like this."

[pylades_drunk]

The knowledge, more than the actual pain, of falling backwards is what shudders through Grantaire first, the ache of his hips afterwards a dull thing that promises nothing good tomorrow, but not much right now. "Don't touch me," he says, petty and knowing it, flinching one shoulder back, but he sort of wants Neil more than anything else, too, so it's a largely unsuccessful effort with himself, and he doesn't protest any further, just puts his head in his hands, trying very hard not to cry, his shoulders hitching for just a moment. "I'm fine," he says finally. "I'm fine, I'll --" He shoves one hand over his face, focusing on how to best get up. "I should go home," he agrees. "I'm sorry. I'm -- so sorry."

He's not sure he can quite make it clear what he's sorry for, because it's not just being here, it's everything. Doing too much. Not doing enough. Not being strong enough to not be this.

[myfavoritedream]

Jolting back, I kept my hands up between us, hovering close in case he couldn't manage to sit up. I thought of my mother, then. Of the nights she drank herself to unconsciousness, the nights she pretended to be fine when she wasn't. The vodka and OJ she hid in a plastic cup, like I was too fucking stupid to know what it was.

Fingers curling against my palms, I squeezed my eyes shut, reminding myself to breathe.

"Did you fucking walk here?" I asked, phone in my hand. "Where's Edgar, does he know where you are?"

It felt unfair to mention him at all, let alone pass any sort of judgement about R leaving him to his own devices, when I'd done the same, but they needed each other. The idea that I'd maybe fucked that up, too, hit me harder than any of the rest of it.

[pylades_drunk]

Neil shuts his eyes in a way that, even intoxicated, Grantaire can tell is pained, or anxious, or perhaps angry, but differently -- not all right, and he just feels tired and grieving and guilty for all that he is, all that this is. He tents his knees and leans forward, bracing himself on his knees for a moment.

"Yes," he says, but that's too many questions. "Walked. Cars didn't exist for 23 years of my life," he points out, wryly, and hauls himself to his feet, although he finally gives in and grabs for Neil's hand to get himself properly upright the last few inches. Even if they're -- if they're nothing, anymore, if whatever they were is put aside for a while, even if he has to remind himself of that and pull his hand away. "I can walk home," he argues, though this time it's softly.

"He -- ah. He doesn't know I'm," he sketches Marcus's house generally with one hand. "Here, but he knows I went out. I don't know where he -- if he's home or not." It's not a good truth, but it is the truth. Edgar's not prone to saying before he takes off, the last day or two. Or coming home at any reliable time. Grantaire won't be enough of a hypocrite to argue with him on it, not yet. He understands. The bed is like a farce, too empty to sleep in and too full of memories to leave, if you let yourself lie in it awake. Better to be on the edge of oblivion before resorting to that.

[myfavoritedream]

I almost offered to drive him, again, but bit my tongue. It seemed like getting into an enclosed space with him would've have been a good idea, for either of us. His hand was in mine only briefly, but my heart felt lodge in my throat in the aftermath.

"You walk, you're gonna end up passed out in a fucking ditch," I said, pulling out my phone and opening up the ride share app. There was somebody claiming to be ten minutes away.

[pylades_drunk]

"Christ, stop caring, it just hurts," Grantaire snaps, and immediately regrets it, rubbing his face with both hands and pushing them through his hair. He feels a little as though he's going to be sick. Not in the inevitable way of spinning drunkenness, but the off-kilter nausea of having a part of oneself viscerally ripped away. Of perhaps having finished the job himself, just by being here. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't --" He sighs.

Grantaire raises his head and looks up at Neil for a long pained moment, shoving his hands in his pockets. There are a hundred things he could say and none of them, not the most hurt or the most rational, make any goddamn difference. "I should find Edgar, anyway," is what he ends up on, and rubs his neck.

[myfavoritedream]

"Fuck you, then, man," I snapped back, teeth clenched and taking a step back from him. He apologized and I shrugged. We could both pass apologies back and forth until we fucking collapsed, and it wouldn't make much of a difference.

"Just wait for the fucking car," I said to him, gesturing for the empty seat on the porch. Without another word, I slipped back inside, moving carefully through the house and into the kitchen.

I came back a few minutes later, setting a bottle of water down for him, within reach.

[pylades_drunk]

That little flare of anger in the wake of Neil snapping back is better than feeling purely apologetic. It's cleaner and purer, that burn of indignation: like fighting or gin. It's that that brought him here, mostly, but it doesn't last right now like it didn't then, and Grantaire sits down heavily, just tired and alone.

He has no fucking clue where Edgar is or if he'll be back home tonight. He's already replaying his words in his head, regretting what he'd said, regretting a million things he hasn't done or has, wondering what it would take to wake up another person entirely. It feels like a very long time in his head and he startles when Neil comes back out; he hadn't expected him to.

Neil sets down a bottle of water and Grantaire manages a small wry smile. "You don't have to be kind to me, you know," he says, but his tone is soft, and when he screws off the top, he finds he's thirstier than he thought.

[myfavoritedream]

"Yeah, well, I'm not fucking heartless," I muttered, leaning there in the doorway, with my arms folded.

I felt like I should've told him I was sorry, but I didn't know where to start. Sorry for the last year, sorry for the time before it, sorry for walking out, sorry for making promises that I'd wanted to keep... God, I'd wanted to keep them, I still wanted to keep them, but I just... couldn't. Sorry for all of it.

But sorry didn't mean shit. So, I kept my mouth shut.

[pushbackthedarkness]

He'd still been awake when it had started, sitting in the living room with his sketchbook on his knees, smoothing out lines of charcoal, brushing away dark shadows. The movement outside in the yard catches his eye immediately and he's alert, on edge, letting Trass growl beside him until he realizes this isn't an intruder.

Marcus knows Grantaire is hurting, he understands, but all the same, it's a difficult thing to have him outside, drunk, smashing glass against the house and shouting at the windows.

"Let's hope you didn't get any of that glass in Dan's garden," he comments mildly as he opens the front door and steps outside into the warm night. The exterior lights are on, a yellow glow awash across the yard, and he glances at the garden, but only briefly. It's Neil he's concerned about right now, and Dan, but not because of the garden. "This isn't the right way to go about this."

[pylades_drunk]

Grantaire hadn't meant, entirely, to have the bottle hit the house. It'd felt good, cathartic, but Marcus walking outside, calmly commenting on it makes him feel a sense of shame that borders on boyish. Because he's a priest, or was? Because he's not shouting at him? Whatever it is, Grantaire sort of goes to try to pick up the larger pieces, uselessly, as though that's going to make up for monologuing at Marcus' windows at far too late at night.

It's a sad, stupid attempt, and he gives up after getting a few larger pieces and a few cuts for his trouble.

"I know," he says, quiet and ashamed, and looks up at Marcus, trying desperately to look a little less about to cry than he is and failing, his eyes shiny.

"Is there a right way to go about all this? I don't -- I don't fucking know." This is the longest relationship he's ever been in, ever, this is the relationship that made him not just want to be a better man but made him work to be one, felt like he could believe in something. Right now he isn't sure any of that was true.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Stop," Marcus says, even as Grantaire does. "You'll only cut yourself."

At the question, Marcus looks up briefly, not toward God, just in thought, and then shakes his head. If there's an answer for that, he doesn't know it and he's hardly going to pretend he's some sort of expert on the matter. The only relationships he's ever had have ended either due to his own cowardice or the whims of this city. Maybe that's why Neil had come to him. With Mouse, Marcus had been the one to leave, after all.

"I don't know that there is," he answers. "Likely there isn't, but some ways are more wrong than others."

He doesn't even mean coming here, necessarily. He wishes, with a painfully heavy heart, that Grantaire hadn't turned to drinking.

[pylades_drunk]

Grantaire doesn't really care about cutting himself, right now; anything the glass could do to him feels laughably superficial compared to what he feels. But he just has two hands cupped full of glass after his attempt to help, littler shards still sparkling and probably more treacherous on the pavement. That feels as though it's a metaphor for something.

Instead, he looks around for a place to put them, stepping just away to where a trash can sits out waiting to be emptied tomorrow or the next day to dump his hands clean as Marcus looks at him. Pitying, or compassionate, or both. He wishes he wouldn't. He wishes he were angrier.

"I know," he says, and rubs his hands on his thighs. He already knows. "I know. I -- I'm sorry, Marcus," he says, and he is. For failing after three fucking years; for being here waking people up. For whatever he did that was too much for Neil to bear. "I'm sorry."

"I don't -- know what to do," he admits, looking at him openly.

[pushbackthedarkness]

It makes Marcus think a little of Sam. Of what might have been had he not been so afraid, had Sam not disappeared. Nate had been bothered by their relationship and Marcus had used that as an excuse to run, to put distance between himself and Nate's brother when in reality it had been his own fear and hesitance that had prevented them from being anything more.

Sam had asked him once what to do. Marcus hadn't had an answer.

"There may not be anything you can do," he says. "For yourself or for Neil. It may just be what it is, which I know is a terribly unhelpful response, but..." He trails off and shrugs slightly. "It may also be the truth."