A last-minute job that's been rattling away for ever so long and finally decided to sneak out. It's still not quite all I thought I'd be, but I thought I'd give it a shot, anyway. :-)
Title: The Right Words
Pairing: It’s in there- but which? :-D
Summary: A contemplation from a POV.
Word Count: 798
Rating: U- not even a bad word.
Disclaimer: Mighty Boosh, its characters and situations belong heart, mind and soul to Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett. And I love them for it- this is from that love, and nothing sinister is implied or expected herein.
To tell the truth, you always have the right words for him. Even when they are wrong, your words are right, because they come from you. When you argue, when you chatter, when you say something awful that makes him smile or laugh; your words, and they ring true from long familiarity. And they touch him, at just the right angle.
An angle apart, a degree of separation, necessary fundamental to the space of two. Between two bodies is a silence that speaks and a force that attracts. Gravity holds us down to earth, and the greater pull, like the crazy press of a fairground ride, holds us in tighter. Even when you both spin off, the return is inevitable as day to night. Even in the dark you could find your way back, and you know he would to. You wouldn’t say anything as the kettle boiled, but that is welcome enough; sitting side by side on the sofa, seeing in the dawn with steaming mugs and bleary eyes.
Nothing is darker than being alone; worse of all, alone in a crowd, even just a crowd of four. When they laugh and you cannot follow. When they talk of an idea you cannot countenance, or when you speak with enthusiasm of something they find alien. It shouldn’t work, it should never have lasted so long; what have you to do with them, or he with you? The teasing, the snipes; oh, how a person can change; charge up or shrink down. But still you remain; still so does he. Maybe you’re both touched in the head.
Gently, gently, moving closer; even if one of you doesn’t like it, or says so, anyway, because even he needs to have his ‘thing’, needs to have his ‘cool.’ Kind hands are warm, though, even when they are cold. Smooth or rough, large or small- so easy to do it and always has been; a touch, a stroke, a smoothing-down; rubbing a back, holding an arm. There’s a lot of warmth even now. Without that closeness that isn’t close, without that expected concern that isn't worried, the wheels wouldn’t so much fall off this thing, as simply not be there.
Eventually it might not work, it might not pan out. Leaving behind, moving on; is it as terrifying to him as to you? Oh, god, it makes you cold in the night. Where has that warmth gone now? The duvet of Destiny has slithered onto the floor of Fate, leaving the legs of Life exposed. Tap on his door? Ask him? Find out in the dark what he feels, these three ay-em jitters? It’s safer in the dark; more honest in the dark, when you cannot see his face.
Nose and eyes and chin and mouth. That’s all, just nose and eyes and chin and mouth, but somehow the view is never old. Leaning on a broom, making the tea, under a nana wig, on a distant planet, crimping, at the counter. His profile on journeys in the van; outlined in the square of the window, the lanes flashing by; the blurred scenery contrasting the details. Look but don’t touch; touch but don’t mean it- play a fine game on a narrow ledge of uncertainty. What is it you’ve got? What could life ever have done to prepare you for this?
Trigonometry. You were surprisingly good at that at school. Maybe it was the clean symmetry of lines, the elegant shapes of the angles. In those places of pattern and order in beauty in an ambiguous world- it’s like that uncertainty never went away. Hang on- could the principles apply here? Here and now? What would it say about ships that pass in the night, yes and no, hope and sadness, fight and forgiveness? Are you the encompassing angle or is your arm the line that bisects the point and wraps around him, safe in the base of the degree? Two directions, similar, but different… you found it, in the old text book that’s been gently fossilising on your wardrobe. A simple enough sentence. It’s strangely prescient and a little bit lonely. “Meeting at a point without intersecting.” Maybe you’ll tell him tonight what you found; the poetry of that phrase. He’ll most likely laugh over you and trigonometry- think it was way too clever for you- and the talk will become general. But you would have mentioned it. You would have grasped that snake-like trunk, those flapping ears, that ropey tail and columnar leg, and shown you knew the whole beastie for what it was, without scaring him or making him think you’re weird, because you tried.
Because maybe he can hear it trumpeting, too. It’s a start, anyway. To tell the truth, you always have the right words for him.