#saaaad

tentatively tagging @caltverkeys because i probably wouldn't have thought about it for so long if they hadn't expressed interest in my initial thoughts. :)

not that i expect ANYONE to actually read all 3k words of this silliness lol.

(*i wouldn't normally post whole fics to tumblr except this one probably wouldn't exist WITHOUT tumblr.)

sooo here ya go

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When you hear the faucet squeak to life and smell his soap beginning to waft down the stairs, you smile because you know it means he's had a good day— or, at the very least, that he hasn't had a bad one, which is sometimes all you really need.

Sometimes.

Saying his name quietly to yourself (you know he can't hear you over the din of the water, but you feel like saying it anyway), you creep up the stairs, heading toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. The door is half-open, and through the noise you think you can detect him muttering something to himself.

His muttering doesn't bother you, though; it never has: Thinking out loud is something he's always done, and anyway, it's actually quite nice to hear his voice— especially when he's been flat-out ignoring you in favour of his own pursuits, which lately he's been doing quite a bit.

For days and days now, your Narrator (actually, he's your husband; however, he just as often insists upon being addressed by his own chosen title) has been holed up in his dark, smoky little office, working on his very own video game: His 'parable' as he likes to call it. He's been building it privately on his computer for as long as you've known him, adding dialogue and settings and characters and concepts at what most people would describe as his leisure.

At first, you were charmed by the strength of his creative drive— however, having been married to him for as many years as you have, you now know first-hand that there isn't actually anything 'leisurely' about the way your husband works on his game.

How long has it been, you think, since he last had a job— real job; a job that actually made him real-life money? How long has it been since the two of you last went out to dinner together...? Or entertained company, or took a trip—?

...You shake your head as you step into the bathroom, banishing both the thoughts and the hard, sticky bitterness clinging to them like old barnacles.

Not right now.

He's already standing under the water when you arrive, hidden safely behind the curtain: A mere silhouette, although over the years you've grown sadly accustomed to him being somewhat of a shadow to you. He spends so much time holed up with his game in that little office of his that sometimes you worry you're going to forget what he even looks like.

His glasses (at least those haven't changed) are resting on the edge of the sink; his pants are balled up on the floor with his socks. His shirt is hooked on the doorknob, its sleeves hanging just low enough to brush up against the worn linoleum tile peeling up from the edges of the floor. Even over the soap, you can smell the sweat on it; see the coffee stains, too. It feels like a long time since you've seen him undressed, and maybe even longer than that since you've seen him without his glasses.

It's embarrassing— you certainly wouldn't admit it out loud— but the god's honest truth is that you can hardly even recall what colour his eyes are anymore.

You bite down on your lip as your stomach ties itself in knots. You've been married to him for longer than you haven't been, but all of a sudden— right here and right now— you feel nervous: Like you're intruding, or crossing a boundary.

...Like you shouldn't even be here.

He's probably busy, you scold yourself. Busy trying not to get soap in his eyes; busy thinking about his game. Busy spending time in his head with Stanley.

'Stanley' isn't real, though, and neither is the game, no matter how much your Narrator seems to wish they were. You don't resent his inclination to retreat into himself so much as you wish you understood it; you knew he was prone to bouts of depression when you married him, and you would never begrudge him his feelings. But to witness him running headlong into a set of digital arms when you've been there for him in real-life all along...

Shh, quit it. Not right now.

No, you think, it isn't the right time to indulge your own misplaced jealously and pent-up bitterness any more than it's the right time to contemplate your husband's chronic lack of employment or unwillingness to join you for dinner. You didn't trail him in here to scold him; you can do that any time. No, you came in here to...

...to...

...wait.

Wait, what did you come in here for, anyway...?

He coughs from behind the shower curtain, maybe to let you know he's detected you; maybe just because he smokes too much. The sharpness of the scent of his soap and the headiness of the humidity in the air are what coax you back to reality; you're still frightened, but before you know it, you're peeling your own clothes off and discarding them to the floor right alongside his anyhow.

Could this be it, you ask yourself—? The thing you came for? Joining your husband (or your 'Narrator', or whoever the hell he thinks he is these days) for a shower is something you haven't done in years. What could possibly be possessing you to do it tonight?

What do you think you're going to gain from it— do you really think it's going to help?

Now less-than-sure of yourself, you almost give up right then: Put on a towel and scurry out of the bathroom; maybe to go and make some tea, or even just pretend to go to bed. But then— then— you think better of retreating, because what does it really matter whether or not it 'helps'? Running away is something he does; something he does, in fact, that you loathe. What kind of message would it send to him, if you went and did the very same thing...?

Whatever precipitated that well-timed cough of his, he already knows you're here: Quite simply, you can feel it. You don't need to ask.

Goosebumps pepper your skin as your throat seems to close in on itself; without meaning to, necessarily, you start taking steps: First one; then two, and three, and then finally (it feels like it takes a lot longer than it does), you're standing at the edge of the bathtub with your hand on the curtain, trying not to breathe too fast.

Perhaps in spite of yourself, you shoot a quick glance back in the direction of the mirror, just to make sure you're still smiling. If you're here because you love him, you reason, then shouldn't you greet him as though you're happy to see him?

Next, you pull back the curtain, letting out a hot puff of steam; after that, you lift a foot, stepping high over the lip of the tub and into the shower. He isn't facing you, but the source of the water instead; he also isn't washing his hair or his face, or anything else, for that matter. He isn't moving or talking, and he certainly isn't singing to himself the way he used to when you first got married. Really, all he seems to be doing is standing there: Stiffly, beneath the water, like a pillar of something soluble— something that wishes it would melt.

You place a hand on his shoulder from behind, and his back tenses beneath your touch. Your smile fades before he's even had a chance to see it; your breath catches, and already you're terrified you've made an awful mistake.

"I'm sorry," you start...

But then, he turns around.

Nearly choking on your own words, you stop as quickly as you started: Again, it's been practically forever since you last law his eyes.

They're green.

A beautiful, sparkling emerald green; as bright and brilliant as ever, almost as if in direct and deliberate defiance of all the things that so often seem to conspire to take him away from you. They're so lovely (and so lovely on him) that you're ashamed to have so flagrantly forgotten them. Then again, you think, maybe you were meant to forget them: Maybe he wanted you to.

"Don't be sorry," he says. "I'm almost finished."

Calm and cordial (entirely too cordial, actually) his spoken words come near-devoid of any particular intonation— betraying very little of the pain or confusion swirling about behind those pretty eyes of his. It's been like that for a long time; again, you sorely miss the sound of his voice, but he just doesn't seem to have it in him to use it the way he once did.

Not unless he's narrating for Stanley, anyway.

"I wasn't waiting for you to be finished," you tell him— trying as best you can to tamp down both your long-standing bitterness and your hope, lest either of them get the better of you.

His eyes dart to the side, as if he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't try to hide himself from you, and hasn't since you joined him; however, you know that's less because he's comfortable and more because he simply doesn't give a shit— about the way he looks; about the way you feel about him. The Narrator hardly seems to care about anything anymore.

Shut up. You're here because you love him anyway, remember?

"...You aren't?" he asks, voice creaking like an old door as he places a single hand on the slick tile wall beside him and keeps on refusing to look up at you.

"I'm not," you promise... tentatively reaching back out toward him, only to stop just short of actually touching his chest.

"Then why are you—"

"I just wanted to—"

"Just wanted to what?"

Clearly off to a less-than-stellar start, you bite your lip again. "...Let's not interrupt each other," you suggest, as gently as you can. Your hand is still hanging there between the two of you, resting in the air like a spectre. His body is shielding it from the water, and therefore the rest of you, too. You shiver— cold, now, in spite of the steam.

"...I'm sorry," he says, only barely audible over the insistent pattering of the water. Venturing to lift his head, he looks first at your hand; then, eventually, up at your face.

If nothing else, you suppose, his apology is at least sincere.

"You don't need to be sorry," you tell him... and (for now, anyway) it's the truth.

"...I wasn't lying when I said I was nearly finished," he mutters, shoulders shifting as though he's about to try and move past you. In desperation (desperation you hope to god he can't sense), you let that floating hand of yours finally make its landing: A gentle one, in the very centre of his chest, warm little rivulets of water flowing over and around it.

"Wait," you plead... pressing the tips of your fingers insistently into his skin.

"What for?" he asks back, having apparently grown uncomfortable enough with your presence that it's actually beginning to annoy him. You try not to let your heart sink; how many of your fights with him have started out precisely this way—?

"...Do you remember our first apartment?" you ask him, irreverent and hopeful and still not to be deterred. "The one with the leaky toilet and the irritable landlord?"

He sighs, pursing his lips. "...I do remember," he admits, if reluctantly. "He was always complaining about—"

"The water bill!" you blurt out— unable to resist finishing for him as an entirely unintentional grin flashes across your face.

Apparently unmoved, your Narrator shifts his weight from leg to leg. "I thought we were going to quit interrupting each other," he huffs... averting his gaze yet again, this time in favour of staring intently down at the water swirling around his own feet and down into the drain.

You hate admitting it, even to yourself, but you miss when he used to stare at you.

"...I'm sorry," you say, kicking yourself internally because you should have known better than to get excited.

"Anyway," he goes on tersely, "we haven't needed to share showers to save water for years— and so unless you're here to deliver some sort of unfavourable news with regard to our financial situation, I quite frankly don't see any reason for you to have joined me."

You almost wish you'd gone ahead and interrupted him again. Nonetheless, you curl your toes hard into the ceramic beneath your feet; having come this far, you aren't giving up on him.

Not yet.

Not tonight.

"If I told you that I just wanted to join you," you start, "then would that be a good enough reason?" Gazing down at your own hand as it rests on his chest, it dawns on you that you don't exactly have a whole lot of room to criticize his reluctance to make eye contact.

Looking up, you catch his gaze and hold it— maybe for as long as you've held it in years.

It isn't easy, but it's worth the effort... isn't it?

Already flush from the steam, you can't quite tell whether his cheeks have gone red, or whether he's merely grown too warm. "I— w-well, I suppose it would be," he spits out, "but... but, well, I... I..."

Mindful of his having chided you for it earlier, you refrain from cutting in, giving him a moment to try and finish. Only when it becomes evident that he isn't going to finish do you dare to prompt him.

"You what?" you ask— emphatically, yes, but also kindly; more curious, now, than impatient.

Your thumb begins to stroke gently at a damp tuft of hair on his chest. It's familiar, but in a way that feels distant, too: Like something you're remembering from a whole other life.

He focuses his gaze somewhere behind you, then: Past the shower curtain, in the direction of the bathroom door. He could very well be thinking about pushing right past you and bolting though it; in fact, it's more likely than not that he is— but if he's thinking about running, he must also be thinking about not running in equal measure, because (it'll seem almost miraculous, when you look back on it later), he doesn't so much as move a muscle.

He does cough again— maybe just clearing his throat.

You don't stop stroking that little wet tuft on his chest.

"I... well, I suppose I thought you didn't want to," he reveals, as earnestly as it feels like he's revealed anything to you in years.

For a moment, you feel newly ashamed... but then, of course, you feel frustrated: He thinks you're the one who didn't want to be with him—?!

You're aren't the one who spends every waking moment holed up in an office with their pixilated boyfriend.

...No, you remind yourself: Now isn't the time to bring up Stanley.

"Of course I want to!" you tell him back, and once more, it's the truth: Again, you didn't join him in the shower to berate him; you joined him because you love him— you always have, and even through everything, you've never stopped. You don't think you ever will. "We're still married, aren't we?" you ask, as your feet shift forward and a nervous, playful little lilt infiltrates your tone.

He blushes. There's no question about it this time, steam or no steam. He's always been prone to it, and (for better or worse) you've always loved making him turn red.

"I— I... w-well—"

As careful as ever, you close the remainder of the distance between the two of you— snaking a trembling arm around his waist in the process. His back seems to straighten out, but he doesn't try to pull away; you look into his eyes, and (maybe because he doesn't have anywhere else to look), he stares back into yours.

You don't say anything to him, but you do smile: Not bold enough to expect, perhaps... but certainly brave enough to hope.

He pauses, drawing a breath.

"...Y-yes," he finally manages. "Yes— yes, of course we're still married; it's just that— th-that—"

In lieu of interrupting him with words, you take yet another chance... this time by tilting your head (once again, in a way you haven't done in years), and shutting him up with a kiss.

It always used to work before.

You close your eyes, partly because you're scared; but also partly because of the fine spray misting out from behind him. The water pelting his back trickles over and around your hand; he breaths in, lungs expanding against your body in a way you never quite realized until just this moment how very much you missed.

...Maybe he misses it too, because the next thing you know, he's kissing you back.

He's really, actually kissing you back.

It's been so long since he last put his arms around you that you almost flinch when he does. He tastes, as always, like his favourite cigarettes; his lips are exactly as warm as you remember them. More grateful than ever to be surrounded by water, your eyes fill with tears; you know you shouldn't cry, but your body doesn't seem to care.

The pipes, old and lime-encrusted, whine from above you. Droplets tap-tap-tap against the plastic shower curtain; the drain gurgles from under your feet; and— somehow, suddenly— you're quite positive that you can hear the far-off droning of someone's car alarm, blaring faintly from outside.

Your Narrator himself, however, doesn't make a sound. He doesn't move, either... except to part his lips, and pull you even closer to him.

...Maybe, you think sadly to yourself, he really does need 'Stanley' as much as he seems to believe he does. Maybe he's depressed; maybe he's angry— maybe he's been touched by something he hasn't yet gathered the courage to reveal to you, and it's eating him up from the inside-out. You still don't know, any more than you know how to pull him out of his head and back into real life.

Right here, though— right here, in this very moment, steeping together like human tea in the warm, fragrant steam— your Narrator seems just as content to need you as he does to need his office, or his computer, or his best digital friend.

A kiss in the shower might not seem like a lot to some people, no... but to you it's something: A lot of something, in what often feels like a sad and lonesome sea of even more nothing.

It may not be able to singularly mend everything that's wrong with him (or with your marriage, or with you yourself), no: But tonight, it feels like enough.