thinking about this au again from Lucienâs perspective. How when pride is the only thing you have left that it makes it hard to bend when it seems like the world is being ripped out from beneath your feet yet again. How, for no matter how many times Lucien braces for the worstâit keeps happening.
His childhood was one hit after the other. Teen years no better, and when heâs older he finally makes it. Makes it like no one from Shadycreek makes it. Heâs married. He has a job. A homeâ
And then the cracks start to show. Because in the end, Caleb and heâs relationship doesnât break down for nothing. This isnât some story that casts Lucien as the antagonist and Caleb as the victim of his moods. No, their messy ass divorce has one villain and its lack of communication. And both of them are at fault, they are, but I donât want people to forget that Caleb, in this, played a role.
He got comfortable. Comfortable in a way many people who settle into long term relationships get comfortable. Less date nights. More time working. Less time spent romancing his partnerâafter all, they are married. Doesnât that mean enough?
Lucien did not get comfortable. Lucien never had the luxury of comfortable.
No. Lucien had to bitch and nag at Caleb for dates and time togetherâ hours Caleb spent at the university working just seemed more important than his husband, and Lucien didnât want to have to beg. To plead for his husband to pay attention to him. He didnât want to have to become some mockery of suburbiaâ Licking at his husbandâs hands for scraps of attention. When, instead, it is something that should be freely given. Not held hostage.
To Caleb, Lucien had always been more temperamental. Nights of emotional outbursts lately, more rage than anything, had left Caleb weary of his moods. It was easier to claim he was still at work when he took a detour to visit Beau or discuss latest developments with Essek about their joint research. Their heads tipped over their respective books and papers as that giddy spark teased his fingertips. Lit once more, but not by his husbandâs presence.
Caleb started to lie. Because it was easier. Because what does one little white lie really do here or there? Lucienâs photography job gave him odd hours at timesâwhat was wrong with using those hours to get a little more research in? A little more time with friends? With Essek. It was above board. Caleb wasnât cheating or stepping out of their relationship. He just had a friend who he could talk shop withâ One he could confide in and enjoy time with.
On some level, Caleb, after the divorce when Mollymauk is in the hospital and needs him, does he start to understand that what he had with Essek was an emotional affair. One that, sitting there as Essek looks at him and says You're seeing him again? With dissatisfaction so heavy Caleb felt choked. It hits him then. Caleb had helped push Lucien away. He had chosen not to talk to his husbandâ To deflect and find comfort in his friend.
He was the one to put Essek in an unfair position. An unkind situation, and Caleb was still doing so on many levels.
[On Essek: Caleb told him all and now expects him to not be protective? How is this reasonable?]
(and Caleb sits there and has to come to terms that Lucienâs insistence of knowing where he was, who he was with, was he cheating? Had nothing to do with projection as the rest of the Nein grumbled about and more to do with the fact his husband thought he was loosing Caleb, and he had been right.
Nights spent screaming at one another over infidelity and Lucien, in the end, had been right.)
And Lucien loved Caleb so much when they were together. The best thing in his life he used to say, sappy when he slow danced with Caleb in the kitchen. How many nights did Lucien get home to stand in his kitchen, the calendar on the fridge chock full of pencil marks denoting all the time Caleb felt more important to spend elsewhere than with him?
How many times was he left in that kitchen alone?
How many times was he second place in his own marriage?
How many times did he stand there feeling unloved?
In the end, their marriage failed because both of them couldnât do the hard thing: Talk to one another. Really talk. Instead of deflecting. Finding emotional fulfillment in others instead of repairing the gap. Growing resentment because saying âI need you to look at me. To listen to meâ felt too much like begging.
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