A/N: For prompt #13 - Tag. Some of this story turned out to be true. o.o;

Duality

“How long has it been?” she asks, absently kicking her feet against the rock face, hands knotted in her lap. You’re just glad her eyes are searching the sky, not your face. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for so long.”

“Mm.” Neither a yes nor a no; certainly not a proper answer. But you have no answers when she talks about this anyway—your function is only a matter of presence, and listening. Somehow she manages to convince you that that is enough. “Are you still waiting?”

Her hands smooth out nonexistent wrinkles in her skirt; she leans a little over the edge, so she can see into the ravine, as though the stone had something to contribute to the discussion. And she smiles when you put out a hand to steady her, seemingly without thought.

It’s a while before she finally replies.

“…It’s very strange,” she says at last, so softly you have to lean in close—and you don’t like doing that because at this proximity you feel her breathing and suddenly the air becomes sickly warm, but she never gives you a choice. “Sometimes I think I’m still waiting.”

“And other times?”

She shrugs a little. “It’s like I’m just here to watch the clouds.”

“Mm.” Neither a yes nor a no. Your hand hasn’t moved from her arm, but no one seems to have any objections.

Then she shifts ever so slightly, so her fingers are curled around yours, and it’s scary how they fit together without a hitch. “Sometimes I also think…”

You wait, pretending you’re not hanging on to every little thing she says.

“Sometimes I also think…” She bites her lip, searching for the right meaning—and you know better than anyone how difficult it must be, because the space between you is like a door straight into the mind, and when you’re with her like this you end up losing the words nearly all the time. “If you didn’t stay with me, here… No, that’s not it.”

“I’m listening,” you assure her, though your gaze is fixed on the jagged line where the cliffs rear up to meet the sky. You hope she doesn’t notice how you can never look into her eyes.

A long silence. You think you might know well enough what she’s trying to tell you, but it would be so much easier to just let her say it. When it counts, maybe you’ll be able to answer all her questions honestly.

“…Is this,” she lifts your joined hands a little, lets them drop again, “strange to you at all?”

“It is,” you tell her, “and yet it isn’t.”

She sighs. “Yes, exactly. And that’s what’s strange, right? That it isn’t?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“…So, sometimes I also think… sometimes I almost forget I’m waiting. Almost. I don’t really understand it. I’ve tried, though, it’s just very confusing to think about these things. Things like feelings. I can barely figure out what to call them—”

And here you give her fingers a light squeeze, cradling her hand between both of your own, as though it were made of glass. Sometimes you think you don’t treat anything as gently as you treat her hands—but then again, you’ve had a lot of practice handling fragile things.

“It’s okay. I don’t know what to call this either.”

--

He’s sitting at the kitchen table, reading the letter. He’s been there a long time; he must have read it over at least thrice. While this isn’t necessarily a smart thing to do, it’s getting dark, and you don’t want him going blind—so you take a candle from the mantle, light it with a match, and go to sit beside him.

“You’ll hurt your eyes if you keep reading in the dark.”

He looks up, you see his eyes sliding into focus—they fix themselves on your face for exactly a second before he turns away.

“You’re an angel.”

The words warm you inside briefly before they’re gone. Then there’s nothing to do but sit without speaking while he reads again—he must know at least half the words by heart now—and you wait.

But even waiting becomes very, very difficult after a while. You hope he won’t mind when you decide to break the silence.

“…Is it good news?”

“Mm.” Neither a yes nor a no. “I don’t really know. I might have been expecting it.”

You smile at this. “Have you been waiting too?”

“Me?” He looks up, averts his gaze again. You can’t help finding it kind of funny that he can never properly look you in the eye—so it seems he’s human after all. “Maybe. I think I was. I don’t know if I’m as good at it as you are, though.”

“…I’m not even that good, actually,” you say, after a while. Your hands open and close, open and close, looking for something to do. It’s one of your worse nervous habits. “Especially lately. I’ve gotten very bad at it.”

He folds up the letter and stows it in his back pocket. And because he detests every single one of your nervous habits, he covers both your hands with his own. (You can’t help thinking that nobody treats your hands the way he does. He’s always so gentle with them.)

“Really?” He sighs when you nod. “Oh well. It’s okay. I’ve always been bad at it. But then again, it’s never really mattered before.”

“…Is it starting to matter?”

“It might,” he murmurs, watching the candle, watching the floor, watching anything but you, really. Sometimes you wish he’d look at you—but most of the time you don’t mind that he never does, because he’d probably be able to read everything in your face, and then you’d be in trouble. “I don’t really know. I don’t think about these things, usually—I never know what to call them.”

That almost makes you laugh. You tend to lose the words, both of you—and maybe it bothers him to find out that he doesn’t always need them.

“Do you need to call them something? You’re only talking to me, anyway.”

“I know I don’t have to, because it’s just you—but don’t you find it just a little strange that we never say anything?”

“We never have to, I guess.” You bite your lip. Suddenly you’re not sure this is okay—you wish things would be normal again, but then you realize you barely know what normal is. You wonder if he does. “But I don’t know. I’m not like this with anyone else.”

“…Neither am I. Does it bother you?”

“A lot of the time I end up forgetting, but sometimes I worry. When I remember.”

But even waiting becomes very, very difficult after a while, with only cliff faces, and letters in back pockets.