Map of the Problematique
By rhapsodisiac.
Rated R for language.
Map of the Problematique
By rhapsodisiac.
No one thinks they are to blame.
Why can't we see
That when we bleed we bleed the same?
I can't get it right
Since I met you.
-- Muse, Map of the Problematique
If you said that we argue, Zell and I, you would be wrong. That might have been a suitable definition a few years ago, though only barely, as it was so one-sided. A shortlived bout of entertainment for the agressor at the expense of his victim, and that would be all. But we don't argue anymore.
We war.
It grew when one would think it should have faded. He and I can spend hours pushing buttons. I should have known that after all the time I spent with each of his, he would manage to pick up on a few of mine. He searches for more ways to wear me down, and I gradually toughen him up.
Minutes at a time have become hours, and hours may soon become days. The scales are nearly balanced, and when they get there, we may forget how to tire. We bicker. I can admit that it comes down to affection, most of the time. The trouble doesn't start until one of us forgets to laugh.
It took a long time for Squall to get sick of it, and it was sobering when he left without a word or a look for either of us, probably down to the training centre to untie the tendons our voices had knotted into balls of wire. Ususally, I would have stopped him, held him, not in a comforting way, but in a controlling way, just for the sake of feeling his ass flex beneath my hands because as cliche as it is, it's fucking hot when he's angry. I would have asked him if I had made him feel that way, asked him to tell me how, demanding, not soothing, and he would melt. He wouldn't say a word, but he would soften. Exactly what I want.
I didn't, that time. Not when I'd pissed him off accidentally. I don't do anything accidentally. The sentence Zell had been in the middle of cut off when the door opened, and he stared at it for a long time after it closed. When I left for the bedroom, I tried to remember how that sentence had started. I couldn't.
That's why it works. It's a separate mode, energy that feels good spent spewing spiraled rebuttals until one of us, usually Zell, gets lost and has to start over. He sits still, deathly still but tense in an unnerving rigor-mortis way, as he tries to control his volume, but it's never long before he gesticulates and yells. Crystal drops soak his upper lip, his forehead. He takes giant gulps of air between his sentences and then he's taking them after almost every word, until he finally loses the ability scream over me. His fingertips make dents in the armrest of the sofa. Liquid rage soaks his collar and sides, and I don't find that the same has happened to me until I've begun stripping for the shower.
We never remember what we say. We don't discuss it until we're in the thick again, and it comes back faster than enunciation can carry it. I could mouthe his words right along with him for all the times he's used them to tear the air to shreds, a hundred thousand owed reprisals and owed apologies that will never be paid, because then we wouldn't be able to do this anymore. Because we would forget they had been paid and bring them up again, anyway.
Over and over again, and every time, I find that my voice gains a little more volume than it had before. And sometimes, his softens. Sometimes, he fucking chuckles at me. That's when I start yelling back. We could be reciting a script, but we're not acting. We feel it, the rage, the cumpulsion to tear out another's hearts, and then do it with words instead.
The first time Squall came back, we kept our peace for a month. That peace ended more loudly than any other, and Squall didn't return until the next evening. I haven't asked him where he goes. I don't want to know. He's catching on to us, thankfully; sometimes he's gone before I see Zell shaking, before I even know my tone has switched.
One might think we would fuck afterwards, that we would be anxious to sate the tremors of a dying adrenaline rush with calculated rhythm, especailly when Squall leaves both of us with no one else to turn to. But we don't, because we've just had something that doesn't compare.
I take one side of the bed, Zell takes the other, miles of silent space between our backs as we wait to fall asleep. He does so quickly -- I exhaust him, naturally -- and it feels like years before I follow. If I don't wake up to find Squall between us, I feel short heavy breaths on the back of my neck and a languid arm draped over my hip. It's the only time I don't throw Zell off, and I can tell he knows I won't, even in his sleep, because those are the only mornings he comes near.
It doesn't take long for his mouth to start moving and it's quiet, thank Hyne, because he's using it on me. Then we fuck.
And it's always slow, always attentive and careful. I've become tired of combat, by that point. I want to rest. I watch him, listen to him. I don't tell him what to do. When he moans my name, his voice is still hoarse, and when I try to drown it out, I sound the same. I don't know what he's thinking, those mornings, but I sure as shit hope he's not trying to apologize. That would ruin the whole thing.
Then we share a shower, and he makes breakfast, and the silence quits being awkward. If he makes my tea, I feed him his meal bite by bite before I start on my own.
I need to let the filter erode once in a while, and I could never let it go so far with anyone else. Even Squall, I have to be careful with. Although he can parry the jabs of a blade with ease, he'll put his back to words quite quickly. That's how he wins. It's how he'll always win. And if I didn't have another target, I'd probably forget to stop swinging.
As for Zell, I don't know what he needs. All I know is that he doesn't walk away.
