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neil

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It's easier to stay out of everyone's way than you'd think. You just call in sick as far as the building crew goes, you hunt a lot, you keep to your hut and yell at anyone who comes too close. He's barely even seen Eostre, though at some point he guesses he'll at least have to explain himself to her, if to no one else.

If Hobbes hasn't already told her.

It's early evening, and he has a fire going in the little circle of stones close to the hut, and he's sharpening his knife because it's helping him to not think. Not thinking is pretty much the other thing he does these days. He'd told himself that it wasn't a breakup, that it was a step back to get some distance, to allow himself to think more clearly about the problem, but thinking about the problem is exactly what he's not doing, because part of him is sure--so sure--that if he does think about it he'll have to face the fact that it's a problem without a solution.

He and Eostre work because there's no real demands, and not even that many expectations. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe he really can't handle anything more than that. Maybe he was an idiot to ever think that he could, and Hobbes is the collateral damage.

He'd always liked to think he had better aim than that.

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I draw back with a gasp, reality literally crashing back down on my head, and I'm left blinking up at him like an idiot, mussed and swollen-lipped and my hand still shoved up the back of his shirt. Great.

After the moment of confusion, there's a quick flash of anger -- You started it, you fucking asshole. You started it! -- but it's there and gone before I can even get any words out.

"Fuck," I hiss, pulling away from him and scrubbing my hands over my face. Hiding behind them. Fuck. That doesn't even begin to cover it.

"No, wait--" Christ, can't do anything without putting his foot in it. He reaches out again, somewhere between trying to pull him back in and just touch him, make it clear that the problem hadn't been with him.

"It's... fuck, look, it's my fault. It's not you." He's about a foot away from laughing, because sometimes that's all there is to do. If this is another thing ruined he might just go into the fucking jungle and come back in a year or so.

"I promised him." He pulls the tags out of his shirt and holds them up on his thumb, like they explain something. "I promised him and I have to keep it."

Hands dropping away, I look at him, being careful to wipe everything from my face before he can see it. I reach out, lifting the tags, thumb brushing over the engraving. It's sweet... it's more than that, and I'm an asshole. I like Hobbes, and... oh, fuck, Eostre. Oh, fuck, suddenly I feel sorta sick.

The tags slip from my fingers, and I shift away, breathing out a sigh and looking just 'bout anywhere but him. "I should go."

Fuck. "Don't," he says, sounding pleading and actually not hating himself for it. "Look, you just... just leave like this and that's one more thing that's fucked, and I really, really don't think I can take that right now, okay?" His teeth are set, every muscle is set, and he's wishing to God that his life had a rewind button.

"This isn't your fault. I swear to God, it isn't." The God he's not even sure he believes in, as of the last time they'd talked.

"Shut up," I say with a rough cough of laughter, shaking my head and managing a wavering smile, "Just shut up. Nothing's fucked." Maybe I say it just so I'll believe it, but already I feel a rush of relief. He sounds genuinely worried -- almost scared, and maybe it's stupid but I'm surprised.

"God doesn't give a fuck, remember?"

"Right," he says, and he almost laughs again, raking a hand back through his hair. Nothing's fucked? That's a load of bullshit if he ever heard it, but if just this isn't, then he thinks maybe that could be a start.

"Look, I... I wanted that. I started it, I wanted it, I think I wanted to take it all the way, but we're both so fucked up right now. Even if Hobbes had nothing to do with it, it just..." He shakes his head, and his hand finds Neil's arm again. "It doesn't feel right."

"Oh my God, Mike, shut the fuck up," I say, giving him a look that's right on the edge of outright horror, "Don't fucking tell me that, Jesus Christ."

So finally he does laugh, in spite of himself, because there's something so absurd about the look on Neil's face compared to where they were about five minutes ago. Everything feels like it's nosediving into the surreal.

"So what's your problem?" he asks, still laughing. "You gonna tell me you had your hand up the back of my shirt for no reason? Were you looking for something?"

Edited 2008-06-02 15:30 (UTC)

"What's my problem? Screw Hobbes, Eostre'd fucking skin me alive, that's what," I say, shoving hard at his shoulder, somewhere between angry and hysterical laughter. What the fucking fuck?

"So I won't tell her," he says, the laughter finally starting to die. He hadn't actually thought about that side of it... but yeah, that might be a little fucking awkward. "You think she'd be pleased with me? 'S not just your skin I'm worried about here."

"Right, look after your own ass," I mutter, shoving at him again, almost teasing. Almost.

"You don't want things to be weird, don't fucking give me that if things were different bullshit, okay? Just... don't."

Edited 2008-06-02 16:00 (UTC)

But it's not bullshit, he thinks, but he doesn't say it. Because Neil's right. This thing has happened and it's here, in whatever capacity, but it's probably a lot better all around if it gets ignored. Things aren't different. They are what they are.

He nods. "Okay. I don't want them to be weird." He smiles crookedly. "They're fucking weird enough already."

"Yeah, no shit," snort, rolling my eyes and then scrubbing at them with the heels of my hands, "Jesus... Goddammit, you are such a fucking asshole." I'm trying to hold back a burst of laughter, shoulders shaking with it, letting out a frustrated groan and dropping my hands away.

I'm not mad at him. It's not all his fault, and I'd be an asshole to blame him. It's actually a hell of a lot more like normal to think of him as a bastard. Resets the balance of the universe and all.

"So I've been told," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose like his head is hurting. Though, really, something somewhere has changed, and he feels... not better. Still pretty awful. But at least he knows something for sure now.

Maybe it's just the circumstances, and maybe it's just that it's Neil. But maybe not. Maybe this is... well, fuck, a sign. He drops his hand and grins weakly.

"So maybe you could've picked a better day to say hey to the neighbors, yeah?"

"Think I should put up that privacy fence after all?" I say, lips crooking in a faint smile. There's something... an ache, almost like disappointment settling in my chest, but I ignore it. Might've been for the best, but that doesn't make it any less like rejection. A hell of a lot of bad timing and bad decisions.

That's my whole fucking life, lately.

"Only if I can throw my trash over it." He returns the smile, and he can sense the darker shade in it, and he feels bad about it. But what the fuck else is there to do? There's just too much wrong here, and even if they both manage to get past this okay, he's still added to it.

"Seriously, though, uh... I am glad you came by." His smile tightens just a bit. "Helps to be reminded I'm not the only fucker in the world."

"I end up with fuckin'... boar carcasses in my back yard, I'm gonna be really fuckin' pissed," I smirk. I turn back to the fire, quiet for a long time. Just thinking. Or maybe, not thinking at all.

"You should talk to him... Even if you don't know what to say."

"I know," he says, rubbing his eyes again. Maybe it's the smoke making them sting now and then like this. "Fuck, I know. And at some point people are gonna have to know about me and him, too. I just..." The corner of his mouth quirks, wry. "I'm not in a hurry."

"Yeah, give yourself more time to do stupid shit," I say, lips quirking wryly. "My experience, doesn't take long for folks to figure shit out. Once they do, whole damn island'll know in a couple days." I'm not saying it to freak him out or whatever. It's just the way things work.

"I know," he says again, and groans softly. "Worst fucking place to keep a secret I ever found." And he laughs at that, a fast, bitter bark of a sound. "And If I can't keep one..."

God, there are times when even irony isn't comforting.

"Nothin' else to do here but get all up in everybody else's shit," I snort, shaking my head. I've talked about my fuckin' feelings more in the last two years than in my whole fucking life. More people that've wormed their way in. Less need to keep everything hidden.

But there's still plenty I keep to myself.

"That's how this whole thing started," he says quietly. "Mostly, anyway. There's things I don't tell him, and he... he expects that to be different by now. And who knows, maybe he has a right to." He's still not sure about that. There's things he doesn't tell Hobbes, sure. There's things he doesn't tell anyone. Things he has buried so deep that he's not even sure how to start talking about them anymore. Things he's never spoken of aloud.

Is it fair to expect him to reverse that pattern in a year? What the hell, maybe it is.

"He said he feels like sometimes he doesn't even know me."

It'd be damn near impossible to ignore that not five minutes ago we were attached at the mouth. There's something... a low hum of tension settled down in my limbs, hands in my lap, shoulders hunched, but I make a brave go of being the friend. Lending an ear. Whatever the fuck. That was the whole point of all this anyway, right?

All of it sounds too damn familiar. Fights that Logan and I had, over and over. We don't talk anymore. Bullshit. Or maybe not.

I watch him, letting him talk, and I got no fucking idea whether Hobbes knows him at all. I've never even really seen them together. I wouldn't know. But what I can guess, about Mike, about all of this, explains a whole fucking lot. "What are you afraid of?"

"I dunno," he says, still quiet, sort of half looking at Neil and half not. It's a little hard to look directly at him anymore. There's things he doesn't need to be feeling right now. "Maybe nothing. Maybe it's not even about being afraid." He smiles, sad and a little absent, and for a flash of a second he thinks about how different from Hobbes Neil had felt in his arms, and how that difference hadn't been pleasurable like he would expect it to be.

"Maybe I just don't know how anymore." Because sex has always been easier than talking.

"'s what happens. You start lettin' people in, getting close, you gotta... relearn how to do all this shit," I say quietly. Or maybe learn for the first time. I say it in this simple, abstract sorta way, but it's coming from experience. It still feels like years of my life are missing. All this time, and I missed out on all the rules.

"I pushed Logan too hard, you know? Wanted things to be perfect, wanted him to tell me everything... this perfect fuckin' picket-fence life that I think I dreamed up when I was eight and then forgot that I even wanted. It doesn't work like that, you know? Hobbes... he'll figure out you can't give him everything, all at once. But you gotta give him somethin', you know?"