[log] as i burn up in your presence and i know now how it feels
It's probably some really fucked up idea of fair play that gets Enfys to Maine; it's not right that Sagramore knows (she stutters to a stop there even in her own mind before clarifying what it is that Sagramore knows now) when Garion doesn't. Telling him--talking with him, she calls it in her head, although traditionally talking at him has been more accurate--won't make it any more fair that Sagramore found out first but it's something.
It's also too little and too late, but she knows that and poor logic has got her this far. She should be in Prague; she should be in Prague indiscreetly picking out new furniture for Fred and pulling a Scooby Doo on that haunted house he mentioned (it'll probably be a routine exorcism if it's anything, and what kind of life does she have that that's routine in any way, shape or form). She could even be in Otago. Better yet, she could be finally looking at a place of her own again.
No, instead, she's in Maine. She starts in Vinalhaven, mostly by accident, and ends up taking the ferry over to the mainland instead of just pinpointing again. It'd be easier to pinpoint, but more importantly it'd be quicker and now that she's this close she's starting to drag her heels. There's a split second of terror when she gets off the boat when she has to think do I remember the address? but she has it on a notecard in her pocket.
She's actually considering picking the lock when a neighbor's cat startles her and she does slam into the door fairly hard but it's likely Garion hears the swearing first.
Garion hears the swearing first. Internally he may start swearing right along with her, because there is nothing if not proof that the universe hates him in that his wife - still, despite her best efforts, apparently - has come back to ... what, exactly, he has to wonder, after she stomped in, handed him divorce papers, and left, for fuck's sake, that's not how you divorce someone, but then they didn't marry like normal people did for very long, either.
"What do you want." If she was expecting him to keep the door closed, he's sorry to disappoint her, but he's pretty sure she expects disappointment from him by now. He jerks the door open and stares at her for a long moment, because he can't believe she's here and slamming herself into his door, of all things, and because he's never really been able not to look at her, when she's this close.
That's probably the part that makes him step back from the door, instead of any sense of welcome, or trust. "Still haven't gotten any better at just saying 'hello', have you?"
"Fuck you, Garion--" she says, and then she blanches, because that's not how this is supposed to go, she didn't come here to figh...no, all right, she's fairly sure this is going to be a fight, but that's not--she bites down on the inside of her cheek and holds up one hand as if to say 'no let's start again'.
She actually looks fairly good, since he's looking so closely, which seems slightly unfair; the latest scars incurred from her stint in Mississippi are all under her clothes and she's spent weeks recovering under the tender care of Timothy and Killian Eddings. When she speaks, though, there's a certain caution about how she opens her mouth--it's not really necessary at this point and tragically has nothing to do with what she's saying, "Um. Apparently not, then."
...eloquent. She brushes past him into the apartment, calling over her shoulder, "That cat outside's a twat, I hope it isn't yours." Excellent, off to a brilliant start. She turns in the doorway to his living room, leaning there like she might as well own the place, and says, "I need--" hm, no, "--want--" she amends, carefully, "--to talk to you. With you." Pause. "No, probably to you...look, you're probably going to shout at me anyway, but can I start talking first?"
"I never owned a cat, it'd just be a second-rate version of you," he says, as he watches her step inside his space and - like it was never any other way - fit inside it like it was waiting for her to claim it.
"--hold on." Garion raises one hand, as if to test the air with his finger. "Oh, good, the world's not going to end. --you really did just ask me for permission to talk." Sarcasm helps blunt some of the harder edges that've developed around Enfys' presence in Garion's life over the years, but in no way dulls the pain that actually drives him to use it, in this particular instance. This is not how he wanted to welcome her into his apartment even if she handed him divorce papers the last time they'd so much as spoken two words to each other, but it's typical for both of them that nothing at all they've planned for and prayed for ever happens once the moment's arrived.
He leans against his closed front door. From far away it's easier to look at her and not have it feel like it means anything. He's aware enough of his appearance to know he doesn't look nearly as good as she does right now; Garion's always been alarmingly straightforward, even to himself - especially to himself - and of course it's not served him well to know that there will be no more second chances for this relationship. "Go ahead. I'm listening."
He doesn't expect to have much to say.
Enfys eyes him for a moment or two, head tilted, like she's considering responding to the cat comment and the permission comment and generally just retorting at him. Ultimately she discards any thought of elaborating on why she'd never bought her own dog when Garion knows perfectly well how to sit, stay, and roll over already, because it's likely if she doesn't talk now she never will, and--purely selfishly--she doesn't want to be eaten up by what she didn't say ten years later.
Six years is enough.
Without preamble, then: "Someone's in love with me." When she said this to Fred it came out bitter, now she mainly sounds awkward. "Aside from--" it occurs to her a moment into the sentence that this could arguably be considered 'ammunition' at which point she changes directions, not especially smoothly. "Someone else. Who I don't love. And there's a fucking point so don't interrupt me." Pause. "I was being a horrible screeching cow about him drinking and he said that and then I was a horrible screeching cow about that, instead, because, you know, it's not fair. It's stupid and not fair and fucking bullshit, besides. I have all this advice, Garion, Mum told me 'oh, Enfys, you know you can't own people even if you love them' but I wanted to. I fucking wanted to. And there was this part of you that I couldn't--that I can't--get to or touch or have and I'm sorry, I'm truly, genuinely bloody sorry that I had to punish you for that."
She presses her hand across her eyes, grimacing. "It didn't seem fair this absolutely crazy drunk bastard got to hear all about why I can't be anyone's wife and you not be told. I'm not even being clear. Candice wanted me to talk to you."
"Who couldn't fall in love with you?" he says, harshly, because it's the first comment he has that's coherent, it's not helpful, and it's true. In that order, in fact. He leans against the door harder, and his hand finds its way to the handle of the door as he gropes around for something to hold on to that isn't himself--so he opens the door.
He turns his back on Enfys and steps outside. He can't deal with this, not in a room that looks like it was made for her even if he made it for himself. At least outside there's space to - think about this. "You left because I wasn't enough for you?" he asks, his shoulders tight and hunched, still facing away from her. "That's what you came to tell me?" Excuse him while he shivers with brittle laughter for a moment. "And you're sorry." He won't turn around, even with his hand covering his eyes, his fingers digging into his temple.
"That's fucking crazy, Enfys."
"Fuck you, you sodding martyr--" Enfys, honey. She bites her lip--literally--and tries again, ideally in a calmer tone of voice. "That's not what I said, so no, idiot, it's not what I--" not helping not helping not helping. Third time for luck? "I know perfectly well it's...you were enough! You were plenty! Lots, even, and..." She derails that train of thought before it goes somewhere it can never come back from and kicks his wall, as she is a well-adjusted mature adult. "This is why I don't fucking talk to you," she mutters, usefully.
"Firstly, I did not leave you. I drove you away. There's a difference and it involves you packing your shit."
"You left first," Garion says, because they're both precisely that mature around each other, "anyway." This isn't helping anything, he knows, but - there are differences between talking around it and about it. "You can't drive someone away if you're not sick of them already, Rainbow Brite."
He turns around to look at her - because he has to see her face for this. "So if I've got it all wrong - and I'm male, I always do, after all - why don't you tell me what you're really trying to say." The 'you fucking crazy woman' bit comes across quite clear in his tone, even though he doesn't say it this time. "For once."
"Let's start with how you're deaf and stupid," she fires off at him, immediately, "and you know exactly how I feel about that bloody nickname, don't--" None of which is actually productive and she came here to explain herself, pointless as it may ultimately be. There is a moment where she just stares at him, frustrated. "I wasn't sick of you, I'm trying to say, it was the complete fucking opposite of that. I was stupidly jealous and the worst--the worst fucking...I knew I didn't have anything to--I trust you, of course I do--you wouldn't ever--I didn't--"
She sort of fumbles it, now, tangenting thoughts falling over each other.
"I hated that it was someone else. I met her, you know--not Sandra, Ce'Nedra. I hated that it wasn't me and I hated that there was this...part that I couldn't be part of and I was so angry with you about it and it was ridiculous and I am fucking sorry because that was not your fault. Not that you're not a stupid deaf bastard. I really hate that I like her, which is stupid, because we're--this."
After a moment, she adds, quieter, "I know I napalmed the bridges, I wanted to be honest. For once, you arsehole."
"For once," he repeats, almost apologetically, then, "--hold on, what?"
Enfys makes an educated guess about what part of that stuck. "Ce'Nedra," she says again, helpfully, mostly because when he looks like a stunned ox he's easier to deal with. "I might've assaulted her husband a little."
"What?" At least it's not an angry bear. (That would be Barry, one of his coworkers, actually.) "I - you're speaking English, but I don't understand these words," he says, because if he can focus on being witty and acerbic he doesn't have to think about how whatever ground they were both standing on in this conversation just completely fell out from under him. "You've made friends? With Sandra? --Sandra's not married." He'd have heard about that, if she were. "What the hell are you talking about, Enfys?"
Enfys cocks her head to one side--it's always slightly odd when she does that, frankly, the particular way she looks--and then shrugs eloquently. "Just--forget it, no, I don't mean Sandra, Sandra can go fuck herself." Thank you for that, in case we weren't entirely certain of your opinion on that specific matter. "It's a long story and you're just going to look...at me exactly like that."
She exhales, pressing her palm against the wall and then leaning a bit like she's debating whether to start moving again. "I don't think I have anything left to explain. Probably."
Garion is, indeed, making that face he makes when he wonders whether his (soon-to-be-ex-)wife might legitimately be insane, and whether he wants to take some steps regarding that fact, at all. But the "soon-to-be-ex-wife" parenthetical part of that thought process catches him up short like a punch to his face (it's never the gut with Enfys, she always goes for the places that leave obvious wounds), and he shakes his head, stepping back with a sharp breath. "It doesn't matter, anyway," he says, mostly to himself. "You left me--" he pauses, okay, fine-- "shoved me away because I made a friend that wasn't already yours, and now - what. Why are you apologizing now?"
He should be grateful she's apologized at all. He should be, but he doesn't want to settle back and let this end that easily. Letting her go without even putting up a fight, like he's always done in the past, wouldn't solve anything - not that he's sure there's much of anything left to solve.
But it makes the frustration go away, a little. (Hitting something always has. It's one of the few things he and Enfys will never disagree on. Sadly.)
Likewise the familiar expression of Enfys about to punch him is drifting over her face again--she doesn't, but he can probably tell she really wants to. "No. Jesus Christ. Your stupid--the dreams, you idiot--"
He'd never, she's always known, seen That Sort Of Thing in the same way that she has. Garion is a practical and straightforward kind of a man and Enfys...is not, even aside from her extracurriculars (to say the least). "I don't know how to explain it in a way that will make any fucking sense to you, apparently, and now that I have to try I don't know if I have the energy to," she says, almost thoughtfully, mostly kind of bitter. "I had this odd idea that it was important. Is why."
"Important--my dreams?--you--" Garion's mouth fumbles for some osrt of connective tissue with which to link the words that currently threaten to spill from his mouth in a tangled, dischordant mess. "My dreams are--" He closes his eyes and turns away, because it's a little - easier to not speak this way. The dreams have always been with him, but - it's never mattered to him to find out if they really meant anything. They had so little connection to his everyday life, even though it's been ... odd, working alongside people like Barry, dealing with Sandra, when it feels like thanks to the dreams he's known them his whole life, almost - but he had to forcefully tell himself to ignore that and pretend none of it mattered, to be able to get through more than a week of life after meeting them. The alternative, thinking about the implications of it - that would have been maddening. He needed the simplicity to get through the days and nights.
And now, like she always had done, Enfys was standing in his doorway (metaphorically) and tearing that simplicity away. Didn't she understand he needed that - for himself?
"I don't fucking understand anything you're telling me," he says, in a tone of voice that says he does, understand, quite clearly, and wishes he could pretend otherwise. "I never--" He grits his teeth. "I've never thought of her that way, god damn everything--! Why me?"
He's full aware that last remark is asking for it, in more than one sense. He doesn't care.
"I know!" She doesn't mean to shout, but it happens anyway. "I know," she repeats, modulating her tone. "I know and it didn't...I know." She keeps repeating it, almost like some kind of bizarre confession, and it's not really helping anything. "You wouldn't. I never fucking thought you would, which was desperately unfair, I hated it and there wasn't anything to hate, really. It was just every single thing about me--" Oh, no, that's a place Enfys will never be ready to go: marvel as she pedals backs like a pro. "Because. I don't know. Fuck."
"Just--fuck!" Garion doesn't swear as often as Enfys does, but she's corrupted his principles more than a little bit and the conversation so far more than justifies using as much profanity as he can manage--and it helps to say something on the exhale when punching your own door, as Garion very obviously just did. "Ow. Every single thing about you?" Because Garion is neither unobservant nor obliged at this moment in time to spare Enfys any of the sympathy he has for her in spades, most of the time, and because a comment like that, from his point of view, makes no sense at all.
To be fair, Enfys swears more around Garion than she does anyone else these days, and that's mostly allowing for the fact they spend extraordinarily little time speaking to one another. She bites her lip again, which if she's not careful is probably going to result in bleeding before they're done talking. "I owe you an apology," she says, precise and a little cool, "but I don't owe you that, you can drop it right now."
"You don't just start blaming yourself for everything in earshot without people noticing, Enfys," Garion says, heedless of how often he's done that himself in the past, and fixes her with a glare that is at least well-meant though not as polite as it probably should be for something he's saying out of sympathy. He cuts it out abruptly and leans against the wall instead. "Never mind. Nothing about our relationship ever makes any sense, why try forcing it to now?"
"I was blaming you," Enfys says, sharply - but it's still not, genuinely not, a conversation she wants to have (now or ever). So she evens her tone out and continues, in her moderately offensively pleasant usual way, "Right. Right, never mind that. I...think I've done about enough, really, so..." Fumbling for words is not how she usually finds herself, but fight or flight is a little more familiar - or a lot. "I should probably let you get back to ... your ... grand life of whatever it is you do here now, exactly." Yes, that's exactly the way to end this on a friendly note, Enfys.
She winces very slightly.
"When has that ever stopped you before?" Garion says, harsh and quiet, in between the pauses while Enfys finds the (wrong) right words to say. "At least this life is stable." The words come out bitten back, clipped. His eyes are probably harder than they need to be, but if this wasn't going to devolve into a fight it would have ended long ago. "I suppose I'll have to hear about your hospitalization after it's over with the next time, too." Apparently he's not ready to let go just yet after all.
"Right," Enfys says brightly, "the architecture. Building things that'll stand up nice and strong. Not that you've got any underlying issues of your own, right? Of course. Let's just all focus on what a fuck up Enfys is, because god knows I did everything wrong ever while I was your wife." ...well, if he wanted a fight, apparently she is more than happy to poke him in the metaphorical eyeballs. Except- "No, look, fuck this-"
"Yes, fuck this," he says, with falsely vicious cheer. "Just go, Enfys. I'll see you - or not - later. But you've said what you had to say, haven't you?" He smiles a thin smile and crosses to his door, opening it and resting with his hand on the knob. "I know a lot more about putting something together that'll hold up under strain these days. You'll take care of yourself. And I'll see you or not." He turns on his feet and walks inside, quickly. "--bye, Enfys," he adds, sounding almost uncertain of whether that's what he really wants to add, and shuts the door on her.
Enfys stares at the closed door for about half a minute, and then - without really thinking about whether or not he has neighbors that might catch sight of this, when she really should - presses the button on her pinpoint, disappearing.