Prompt #22, I hate myself.
Title: been biting my tongue all week
Rating: PG13/R
Word count: ~1350
Spoilers: none
Prompt: #22, I hate myself.
Notes: table // about my journal
She can’t count how many times this has happened now (well, yes, she can), but they’ve never said a word to each other.
Because if they’re silent, it isn’t really happening. If there are no words on record, they might not be accountable. They could both be sleepwalking.
No words, no proof.
--
He always keeps his eyes closed. She knows, because hers are always open.
It’s silly, because what does she expect? But it stings a little bit that he can’t even look at her, that whatever this is, it’s that shameful for him. And it is, it’s silly, because fuck it, this is the most immoral thing she’s ever done. It’s definitely the most immoral he’s ever done. But, but it doesn’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel wrong. It doesn’t feel right, either; it just is what it is. Why does it have to be classified as right or wrong? Why does it make her feel judged, even though it’s their secret? Why is their initial condition silence?
There are no answers to these questions, not that she can find, anyway, and they sharpen instead of dull in the moment she climaxes, every time. She’s going to have a hell of a set of intimacy issues after this.
Don’t, don’t say it, don’t say she already does. She knows.
--
He can’t think about it. He just can’t think about it. He thinks about other things; the company, George Michael, the headache of the rotating attorneys.
He picks up his phone to call that girl, some woman he met, a business luncheon or something.
The seventh button he presses is end.
--
She bites her lip hard when she comes because she knows-don’t ask her how, but she knows-that the day she lets his name escape is the day this stops.
She doesn’t want it to stop.
This is a thought she never lets herself fully form.
She gets back to her room and slides under the sheet, and there is blood in her mouth. She swallows.
--
He can’t stand it when he wants her during daylight. What they have is of the dark and the almost-imaginary, of sleep-dulled senses and cloaking shadows.
Ignoring it would be the ideal solution, if he could.
He can’t.
So it’s a locked bathroom door and his fist, and even this necessitates closed eyes. If he looks around the room the claustrophobia sets in, and he certainly can’t look at himself. One flash of his moving hand in his peripheral vision nauseates and excites him at the same time, and the combination is something along the lines of what he imagines vertigo feels like.
--
They don’t even rush. He takes her in his arms and she clasps her hands behind his back and they languish in it.
Acting like they have all the time in the world is a good way to forget that they should really have no time, not for this. Rough encounters would only serve to bring out the illicitness, and so their luxuriating is not a sign of comfort, but just one more piece of pretense.
She thinks that there’s never anything natural between them anymore, and she tries to remember if there ever was before abandoning the train of thought. It’s far too melodramatic for her, and if there is one thing Lindsay Bluth is not?
Well, maybe it’s not melodramatic.
--
“I hate myself,” he tells her.
Over breakfast, with no preface and no follow-up, and he leaves the room.
--
Open your eyes, she wants to say to him, so badly, the words are bulging at the corners of her mouth.
Open your eyes.
She is horrified to find that she is about to cry. She closes her eyes.
When he opens his eyes to look at her for the first time, when a vague wisp of thought in the shape of a question makes him wonder if she is braver than he is, her lids are down.
He was wrong, he thinks. Neither one of them is brave.
He closes his eyes again, barely acknowledging his disappointment, and she opens hers to find nothing has changed.
No reason for tears.
--
“It doesn’t help when you say things like that,” she tells him. It’s a full twenty four hours later, and they both know it’s the same conversation. Or rather, it’s just become a conversation. It’s her turn to leave the room, but she has half a cup of coffee left, so he shrugs on his jacket and she hears him slam the car door.
--
She doesn’t hate him and she doesn’t hate herself. She thinks it through carefully in the shower, and she isn’t sure whether she’s surprised or disappointed or relieved or angry about her conclusion. She might be a little of each.
--
“Maybe this isn’t…” she starts.
“Yes, it is.”
She was going to say either so bad or really happening, whichever she decided sounded less dreadfully false. His response applies to both and she wonders if he knows that.
--
She eats a vanilla pudding cup that’s probably years old; it recalls the days of packing bag lunches for Maeby and she found it in a tote bag she hasn’t used in ages.
“Lindsay. What are you doing? Don’t eat that.”
She turns her eyes to him and he looks away first, and he’s muttering something about why does he even try and personal responsibility and she really hates that her perception of the world has become so much of a cliché that she can tell he isn’t really talking about her eating habits. She wonders if she’s doomed.
She could die from eating expired food, or she could be in a freak accident and leave loose ends galore behind her, or Michael might stab her in a frenzy of self-loathing.
Probably what will happen is nothing. The movie moments only come when you’re not thinking about them.
--
“These things don’t happen to normal people.” Not normal people don’t do this. A brief flash of irony: Michael taking personal responsibility out of the equation. Or maybe he’s just being accurate.
“News flash, Michael.” She stage-whispers for effect. “We’re not normal.”
He really wants to walk out. Being in the same room with her is making him feel closed-in, and he knows he’ll start to fidget soon. But even he has finally had enough of talking to her in one-sentence increments. Still-
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about this.” A token effort, by any count.
“We’ve found something that works for us.”
“No, god.”
“Do you want to stop?”
He had really wanted to never have to answer that question.
--
She expects they’ll go on, simply because there is no way not to without a conversation, and they can’t seem to get through one of those.
So they’ll go on until something stops them. Maybe he’ll meet someone.
Maybe they’ll be caught.
She could give him a way out, easy. She just can’t figure out whether he wants it.
--
It used to be that he could separate. That aside from those tortured escapes to the bathroom, he could still talk to her like a regular person.
It’s become harder for him.
He doesn’t look her in the eye anymore.
He doesn’t realize how tense he is until Buster tries to rub his shoulders one day, and he lets out what could only be described as a roar of pain. Just beyond the reaches of his vision, he can sense more than see Lindsay’s concern.
--
They’re at the end, and she doesn’t know if he knows it but she does. It’s the first time that something involving both of them has been in her hands.
Might as well make the most of it, and the thought isn’t bitter, really, it’s not.
She knows he’ll open his eyes, and so she closes hers. For him. She takes a deep breath.
Her heels slide back and forth over a few inches of his back as he rocks a little faster, a little harder, and she releases her lip and lets it out: Oh. Michael.
It’s over.
Rating: PG13/R
Word count: ~1350
Spoilers: none
Prompt: #22, I hate myself.
Notes: table // about my journal
She can’t count how many times this has happened now (well, yes, she can), but they’ve never said a word to each other.
Because if they’re silent, it isn’t really happening. If there are no words on record, they might not be accountable. They could both be sleepwalking.
No words, no proof.
--
He always keeps his eyes closed. She knows, because hers are always open.
It’s silly, because what does she expect? But it stings a little bit that he can’t even look at her, that whatever this is, it’s that shameful for him. And it is, it’s silly, because fuck it, this is the most immoral thing she’s ever done. It’s definitely the most immoral he’s ever done. But, but it doesn’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel wrong. It doesn’t feel right, either; it just is what it is. Why does it have to be classified as right or wrong? Why does it make her feel judged, even though it’s their secret? Why is their initial condition silence?
There are no answers to these questions, not that she can find, anyway, and they sharpen instead of dull in the moment she climaxes, every time. She’s going to have a hell of a set of intimacy issues after this.
Don’t, don’t say it, don’t say she already does. She knows.
--
He can’t think about it. He just can’t think about it. He thinks about other things; the company, George Michael, the headache of the rotating attorneys.
He picks up his phone to call that girl, some woman he met, a business luncheon or something.
The seventh button he presses is end.
--
She bites her lip hard when she comes because she knows-don’t ask her how, but she knows-that the day she lets his name escape is the day this stops.
She doesn’t want it to stop.
This is a thought she never lets herself fully form.
She gets back to her room and slides under the sheet, and there is blood in her mouth. She swallows.
--
He can’t stand it when he wants her during daylight. What they have is of the dark and the almost-imaginary, of sleep-dulled senses and cloaking shadows.
Ignoring it would be the ideal solution, if he could.
He can’t.
So it’s a locked bathroom door and his fist, and even this necessitates closed eyes. If he looks around the room the claustrophobia sets in, and he certainly can’t look at himself. One flash of his moving hand in his peripheral vision nauseates and excites him at the same time, and the combination is something along the lines of what he imagines vertigo feels like.
--
They don’t even rush. He takes her in his arms and she clasps her hands behind his back and they languish in it.
Acting like they have all the time in the world is a good way to forget that they should really have no time, not for this. Rough encounters would only serve to bring out the illicitness, and so their luxuriating is not a sign of comfort, but just one more piece of pretense.
She thinks that there’s never anything natural between them anymore, and she tries to remember if there ever was before abandoning the train of thought. It’s far too melodramatic for her, and if there is one thing Lindsay Bluth is not?
Well, maybe it’s not melodramatic.
--
“I hate myself,” he tells her.
Over breakfast, with no preface and no follow-up, and he leaves the room.
--
Open your eyes, she wants to say to him, so badly, the words are bulging at the corners of her mouth.
Open your eyes.
She is horrified to find that she is about to cry. She closes her eyes.
When he opens his eyes to look at her for the first time, when a vague wisp of thought in the shape of a question makes him wonder if she is braver than he is, her lids are down.
He was wrong, he thinks. Neither one of them is brave.
He closes his eyes again, barely acknowledging his disappointment, and she opens hers to find nothing has changed.
No reason for tears.
--
“It doesn’t help when you say things like that,” she tells him. It’s a full twenty four hours later, and they both know it’s the same conversation. Or rather, it’s just become a conversation. It’s her turn to leave the room, but she has half a cup of coffee left, so he shrugs on his jacket and she hears him slam the car door.
--
She doesn’t hate him and she doesn’t hate herself. She thinks it through carefully in the shower, and she isn’t sure whether she’s surprised or disappointed or relieved or angry about her conclusion. She might be a little of each.
--
“Maybe this isn’t…” she starts.
“Yes, it is.”
She was going to say either so bad or really happening, whichever she decided sounded less dreadfully false. His response applies to both and she wonders if he knows that.
--
She eats a vanilla pudding cup that’s probably years old; it recalls the days of packing bag lunches for Maeby and she found it in a tote bag she hasn’t used in ages.
“Lindsay. What are you doing? Don’t eat that.”
She turns her eyes to him and he looks away first, and he’s muttering something about why does he even try and personal responsibility and she really hates that her perception of the world has become so much of a cliché that she can tell he isn’t really talking about her eating habits. She wonders if she’s doomed.
She could die from eating expired food, or she could be in a freak accident and leave loose ends galore behind her, or Michael might stab her in a frenzy of self-loathing.
Probably what will happen is nothing. The movie moments only come when you’re not thinking about them.
--
“These things don’t happen to normal people.” Not normal people don’t do this. A brief flash of irony: Michael taking personal responsibility out of the equation. Or maybe he’s just being accurate.
“News flash, Michael.” She stage-whispers for effect. “We’re not normal.”
He really wants to walk out. Being in the same room with her is making him feel closed-in, and he knows he’ll start to fidget soon. But even he has finally had enough of talking to her in one-sentence increments. Still-
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about this.” A token effort, by any count.
“We’ve found something that works for us.”
“No, god.”
“Do you want to stop?”
He had really wanted to never have to answer that question.
--
She expects they’ll go on, simply because there is no way not to without a conversation, and they can’t seem to get through one of those.
So they’ll go on until something stops them. Maybe he’ll meet someone.
Maybe they’ll be caught.
She could give him a way out, easy. She just can’t figure out whether he wants it.
--
It used to be that he could separate. That aside from those tortured escapes to the bathroom, he could still talk to her like a regular person.
It’s become harder for him.
He doesn’t look her in the eye anymore.
He doesn’t realize how tense he is until Buster tries to rub his shoulders one day, and he lets out what could only be described as a roar of pain. Just beyond the reaches of his vision, he can sense more than see Lindsay’s concern.
--
They’re at the end, and she doesn’t know if he knows it but she does. It’s the first time that something involving both of them has been in her hands.
Might as well make the most of it, and the thought isn’t bitter, really, it’s not.
She knows he’ll open his eyes, and so she closes hers. For him. She takes a deep breath.
Her heels slide back and forth over a few inches of his back as he rocks a little faster, a little harder, and she releases her lip and lets it out: Oh. Michael.
It’s over.