Any Other Way

[valerie_vause]

After leaving the bathroom to see that Madeleine had already gone Valerie let out a sigh and left too. It wasn’t until she’d walked three blocks that she realised her feet were instinctively taking her to Brian’s place. The conversation should have happened with him first, but the brunette had asked the questions and she hadn’t been prepared to lie. They were choices both of them had made. Though she wasn’t ashamed of how she felt she understood the importance of sharing it. Not doing so would feel like a lie in and of itself. Whatever Brian thought of her, she hoped it would never be as a liar.

It wasn’t until she reached to knock on his door that she realised her hands were shaking. Societies views were as much a cage to her free will as the Council was to her life. The idea would be more than frowned upon despite the radical changes that had occurred over the past decade and truth be told she was afraid. Afraid of the way he’d look at her like she’d turned into some sort of monster. Afraid that being honest would ruin everything. That she’d lose him before actually having him. Properly having him but then, she feared his intensity too. How could she live up to his expectations? She wasn’t perfect, she wished she was, sometimes, for him. Normal just wasn’t a word that would ever be used to describe her, in any sense of her life.

Valerie knocked on the door before the urge to contemplate how much money she had in the bank sent her fleeing to another country to escape the situation. She didn’t want to hurt him. She wanted more than anything to protect him, but she had to be honest. He deserved that.

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[valerie_vause]

Sacrifice. Valerie actually choked back a burst of laughter that sounded hollow, devoid of feeling. All she did was sacrifice for the sake of others. He had no idea how much. In the moment she thought it counted most to be honest, it still wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough. If she wanted more it wasn’t fair, and if she only wanted him, it wasn’t fair. The blonde couldn’t win. Either way she lost him. Hope was a curious thing. Even in her darkest days she’d clung to it. Nestled it within herself like it was a dying ember that needed to be sheltered. Not once had she lost it.

Tears stopped. Some switch inside clicked to numb her emotions. No, not numb them, override them.

“Look on the bright side Brian, you’ll live a lot longer than me.”

Eighty. She’d be lucky if she made it to twenty three. She’d be delusional to think she’d reach thirty.

“You say that like I’ve felt like this way before but I haven’t. You were the first person I’ve ever opened up too, about everything, I even told a Watcher just so that I could protect you better. You were the first person I ever… I ever…” She shook her head. “That night on the roof, what we did, what I let you do, that was special. That was a huge deal to me. You’re the only person who has been… a part of me, like that. Do you understand? It wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t feel the way I do about you. Which I haven’t felt for anyone else, either.”

The urge to think it over from him was what did it. Extinguished the hope that she’d always carried. Whether he wanted to put it on her shoulders or not she’d told him the truth. It wasn’t a reflex. The fact that she ached so much validated that her feelings were true for him. Misguided desires aside, she had no intention of pursuing anyone. Desires be damned. Evidently they were hell in disguise.

“If we slow down any further... we’d go backwards.” Valerie’s words felt thick as she stood up. Put distance between them because she couldn’t bear him touching her when he didn’t even think she wanted to be with him. Like she’d just clung to him as a safety net. Valerie would rather plummet to the ground. She had exposed herself. Opened up about things that had clearly confused her. Desires were apparently alright for people who slept around and felt nothing for the other person. “I get it, it’s the gentle way to break up with me. I accept that. It’s only fair.” She wasn’t being sarcastic, she was being utterly serious.

Fingers twitched, her chest burned and she had to see the irony that while he was protecting his heart, she’d just handed hers to him and watched it break in half. She felt detached from herself. An outer body experience as it hit her. All this time she’d spent trying to convince herself that she was only in the process of falling for him when clearly she already had. She just hadn’t realised it until now. And she couldn’t say it because it would sound exactly as how he imagined her choosing him had. Some sort of verbal safety net. Well, she’d rather bite off her own tongue than have him think that.

“I can’t…” Valerie took a slow, regretfully stuttered, breath in and held it for a moment. “Do that.” The blonde couldn’t look at him, her head was spinning. “Be around you without being with you. I’ve shared too much of myself… I’d be vulnerable because of that, a constant reminder that you know me like nobody else does. Intimate details of my life…”

Valerie used her shirt to wipe her face. It didn’t matter how it looked. Nothing really mattered. “I’m not saying that to hurt you... or to force you into anything.” She blinked a few times, until her vision was clear, though her cheeks burned and her eyes still stung from earlier. When she spoke again her voice cracked and she hated herself for it. “I’ll always try and protect you but that… Would kill me inside, to act like friends, to pretend I’ve forgotten how I feel, what we’ve done. I couldn’t…”

[brian_campo]

“So… let me make sure I understand,” Brian hedged. He frowned his confusion. “You come here to admit that you wanted someone else, and then you ask me if I’m interested in a threesome. I’m… I try to be decent about it. To get what you’re going through because it can’t be easy on you. I actually suggest you take time out to make sure you really want to be in a monogamous relationship with me… but that’s not good enough. Instead I have to decide right now if we’re still in a relationship or not because otherwise, it’d be too hard. For you. And if I can’t, then you’re not willing to be my friend.”

Brian stood up. He picked up the vodka by the neck of the bottle and let it dangle between his fingers.

“Okay.” He smiled a little brokenly and wiped a hand over his face. “I guess it didn’t occur to you that I might need more than ten minutes to process this. Or maybe it doesn’t matter what I need because what you feel right now is so urgent that you can’t stand to live with it for another minute, well…” He shook his head.

There was nothing left to say. If Valerie wasn’t willing to let these admittedly fluid thoughts she’d had today settle down, there was nothing he could do to change her mind.

He wiped his eye against his shoulder and laughed, a hoarse and humorless sound. “Ah, god, Valerie.” He set the bottle on the floor and walked away from it, in the direction of his bedroom.

The bottle vibrated, cracked, and began to leak its contents on the rug.