emptynight | Do you ever get the fear that your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?

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Current Location: Chicago, IL

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Do you ever get the fear that your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?

They arrived in Chicago an hour before sunset and, surprisingly, it was Thomas who insisted they stop off at a mall. Within an hour or so, he had bought clothes and changed, and come out of a jewelry boutique with a small bag in hand. Prying Alice away from the shoe stores took a little doing, along with a pair of earrings from his bag.

The drive from the mall to Thomas’ apartment building in the expensive part of town didn’t take long, though by the time they got there the last rays of sunlight had faded from the sky. The doorman recognized him immediately and grinned, mentioning something about how good it was to see him again. Thomas swallowed his irritation and nodded back pleasantly, dragging Alice with him up the elevator before either she or the doorman could say anything more. Once inside the elevator, he pulled on his last purchase of the evening, a pair of fine, thin leather gloves.

The first thing Thomas noticed when he unlocked the door to the apartment was the scent of perfume, her perfume, bittersweet and familiar. Stepping inside, his eyes immediately went to the couch, where she sat waiting patiently to all eyes except his. Even without feeling her emotions, he saw the way her gloved fingers tapped against her leg, a tiny nervous gesture he knew as well as he knew his own hand.

Thomas’ laugh was weak as he practically stumbled down the stairs. Justine hadn’t even had time to move by the time he was down the stairs, falling to his knees in front of her, arms wrapped around her waist, clinging to her as if he could pull her into himself.

(Tag Alice!)

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"Oh, thank you! I only considered it a few hundred times so I appreciate the acknowledgment but it's totally unnecessary, yeah? I mean- I got you something (http://pics.livejournal.com/manicpixydream/pic/0001bkb4) too, just you know, not for anything, just." Just for being Justine, really, who could be anywhere in the world and would still be a constant presence in Thomas' mind, and that was worth way more than just the necklace she pulled from her purse, but there were limitations on what even Alice was able to do in short spans of time.

And ok, so she'd been invited, but this was Justine's show and she was for once taking a back seat. It wasn't a bad seat, it just wasn't what she was used to. Hell, Alice wasn't sure she'd ever get used to being nervous. Living without her sight was more complicated than she'd thought.

Thomas was rolling his eyes at the display, and Justine resisted the urge to smack him. He was doing it on purpose and they both knew it. Jerk.

Instead, she hugged Alice as tight as a human could, whispering in the other woman's ear, "Thank you, for bringing him back." So she could fix him.

Pulling away again, Justine took a seat back next to Thomas. "I know you've been driving, so I took lunch off to go shopping for presents for you to take back when you go," she informed him. "I've been watching all day. You've got a lot of grovelling to do. Fortunately, Lacrimosa's kept your things safe so you don't need to buy another wardrobe for yourself when you get back." Justine's gloved hand patted Thomas on the shoulder, as if there was no question he's go back and stay.

Justine's words made Thomas' head snap up in surprise. Despite their conversation yesterday, from his reception, Thomas had thought... Wishful thinking, clearly. "I'm just dropping Alice off," he insisted. "Then I'm coming back here." With you.

Justine's hand slid down his shoulder to grip his, and he stared at their gloved fingers, entwined black and white. "Please, Thomas, don't lie to me," she said softly. "You want to go back. You want to make things right with Drusilla, and Lacrimosa, and Edward. You care too much to leave like this. It's alright. You should go." Left unspoken was the fact that even if he stayed, she wouldn't stay with him, because they had made their plans long ago, and it didn't involve her in this chic and uncomfortable apartment.

He still looked stunned, though the light of comprehension slowly dawned in Thomas' eyes as he looked from Justine to Alice. They'd both wanted him here for this one thing. He shook his head and laughed, a single dry almost bitter chuckle. "You've gotten too good at this."

Alice could have cheered, and it was only decades of practice that kept her from actually doing it. Justine was good, but then she'd seen that look on Thomas' face before when she'd corralled Jasper into some deal he'd been avoiding and realized he was cornered, so it wasn't a total shock. That was just how it worked.

Props on her for doing it without being able to tell the future though, jeez.

"She's not wrong Thomas, I mean- ok we've been riding around for weeks and you know I was first in line to get you gone, but everything's different now and besides, you do wanna go back, I can see it every time I talk about it." When he wasn't scowling or shouting and sometimes even then. And she was not going to bring up Dru. That was definitely Justine's job this time.

Justine's smile turned sad, as if Thomas' words had reminded her, had reminded them both, of just how much they've both changed. "I learned from the best," she answered, squeezing his hand tightly.

"Alice is right, and you know it." She was telling him things he already knew, because she could see it in his eyes, knew it even without laying eyes on Thomas. Still, he needed to hear it from her. Thomas had dropped his eyes to their hands and she caught his chin in her hand, tilting his face up to meet her eyes. "Look at me, Thomas," she said. "I told you yesterday that it's alright. That it's alright to fall in love again."

It hurt. It still hurt. And he would know, but he would know the truth of what she was saying too. "You should go back, because they make you happier than I've seen you in years."

He could feel her hurt, could feel that deep dull ache from Justine. Or maybe it was his own. But mingled with hurt was acceptance and a tentative thread of joy. His hand tightened on Justine's, unable to look away. Her face relaxed, knowing that he was reading her like a book, could read the truth in her emotions and understood with far more depth than mere words could express.

"It shouldn't be this way. You should be the one to get the happy ending, Justine. You deserve it infinitely more than I do."

He was out of excuses. He had been out of excuses from the second Justine picked up her phone. Maybe even before that. He looked from Justine to Alice and back again, the fear that he'd been burying finally on the surface. "I don't know how I can make things right again."

Justine knew, obviously Justine knew and ok that was less of a surprise than it should have been but no one was saying anything out loud, and that was ok. It was Thomas after all, things going unspoken was kind of the deal there. She could think it really hard. Thomas was in love with Dru and h'ed turned it into a massive clusterfuck but it was all going to be fine now because he was going to do something about it. And her stuff with Dru was for another day completely.

"By going back and doing it is how, and you take it from there, yeah? There's no one answer Thomas but there's a lot of little things and you know it's gonna be the little things that come to you later, when you're already back for good, and I'll help." In the places where she could, but again, another day. "The only way you can for sure screw it up is by not going back and trying."

She could almost see it sink in, her words, Alice's. Justine knew Thomas like the back of her hand, and she knew it was time to leave him alone, to let him work through the things he was too afraid to believe. "I brought take-out," she offered with a smile. "From that place you like down by MacAnally's. It's in the fridge."

Justine rose with a nod to Alice, gently disentangling herself again and running a hand through Thomas' hair. "Alice and I will go outside and gossip. Eat something for me, please?"

Thomas nodded, his face stunned and weary while his eyes nearly shone with pride and respect. "You've always been too good to me."

She shook her head again, and offered Alice a hand, leading the other woman through the spotless bedroom and out onto the balcony, where the view was spectacular.

"Just in case you were wondering, I came by after he left to pick up," she remarked, nodding behind them at the bedroom. Justine wrinkled her nose. "If I didn't, I'm sure the place would have turned into its own rain forest by the time he came back."

Edited 2009-10-16 01:31 (UTC)

"Yeah, it doesn't look super lived-in by much of anyone never mind Thomas, you could give him a pair of socks and come back to find a room piled high, it's kind of a bizarre superpower and I know from those, trust me." Alice leaned against the balcony, half-looking at the view and half at Justine.

"I'm not gonna lie, the stuff you haven't seen on TV wasn't great," she said finally, wondering if there was stuff she should for sure say, stuff she should leave out. It was pretty simple though. All she had to do was think of Jasper. "He's been hurting a lot and it was like punching through a bunker to get him to let me help, but you probably already know that, and you probably know it's getting better. Especially after he talked to you."

Justine's smile was sad as she listened to Alice. She pulled the thin sticks out of her hair and let the long white fall of it down, letting the wind carry it out of her face. "It took a long time for him to let me help. Years. And even then I had to figure out how his mind works," she said, staring out into the night. "The fact that you got him here at all without having to resort to tying him to the back of the bike says a lot."

She fell silent, thinking, staring at her gloved hands. Thomas wouldn't like her talking about him like this, laying him open, but someone needed to take care of him. Someone who cared, and Alice was here, while the others weren't. Her words were soft but came easily, betraying the amount of time she'd thought about them. "He thinks he needs the pain, to remind him that he loves people. And maybe he does. Maybe that pain keeps him from becoming like his family."

Justine laughed a little, sad and quiet. "And he won't ever talk about it, about being in love. About caring for people. Because he thinks it's a weakness. It hurts him and has been used against him too many times. I hope you won't blame him for feeling that way."

Alice had a lot of opinions and most of the time people heard them loud and clear, or at least they thought they did. There was plenty she kept to herself. Even Edward didn't get all of it poking through her head, just 'cause there was so much, and she knew where to hide things. And she knew she came off as the perkiest cheerleader, but she was as she had pointed out a hundred and frigging nine, and there was stuff she knew.

"I guess you know I'm married right, like it's pretty common knowledge. And Jasper's kind of the same way, only older and I wanna say wiser without sounding like a jerk. There's pain he's gotta keep cause it reminds him of where he went wrong, and pain he can't get rid of cause it just is, so you know, that part I get, believe it or not. Thomas wouldn't." She smiled just as sadly, secret shared between the two of them.

"I'm never gonna blame him for the stuff he carries around, even the stuff he thinks he needs that he doesn't, I won't. Blame isn't gonna help, you see that pretty quick with more than just Jasper. There's layers there though Justine, there are, he can still chip away at them, I mean if he couldn't I would've had to hogtie him and I didn't. There's still stuff he can have." Like a certain amount of happiness he was bound and determined to deny himself.

She really wanted to hug this woman and give her everything that she should have too, way more than she usually wanted to do with just about everyone. Justine deserved that. Alice just didn't have anything to give her other than what she knew, and what she'd do for Thomas.

"He's happier when he's with them."

Happier, but older and wiser. Different from the Thomas she had known and fallen in love with, but still the same. "He'll understand someday, that it doesn't make us any less." There were things Justine thought about, things that she wouldn't say, because they would hurt Thomas far more than they would help. But she had hopes. She hoped that, along with Harry, Drusilla and Lacrimosa and Edward would keep Thomas grounded and happy, that they would keep him cared for and loved even after she became little more than a memory and a name on a headstone.

But that was something you didn't say to someone you just met, not even if she was a psychic. "He's got time to learn. He's only thirty-eight, after all." Only. Compared to someone who was at least a century. That made her laugh a little.

Justine turned away from the view and hugged Alice, arms wrapping tight against the petite woman. "Thank you." When she pulled away, her eyes were teary again, and Justine pulled a glove off to wipe her eyes. No need to leave traces for Thomas to see. "Is there anything I can do, to make it easier for you to deal with that giant walking pile of stubborn?"

The only thing Alice could think of was to ask Justine to come with them so they could figure out a way around this burning crap cause what would that take, a few months tops? But relentlessly optimistic and painfully naive were different things, which maybe Thomas would get if he was around her long enough.

"I think you've done enough, more than, but you know you could slip in the whole buy Alice shoes thing if it comes up in conversation," she grinned, hugging Justine as hard as you hugged a human without breaking them. "He just needed to hear it from you which, you know, understandable. And listen, don't worry, I'm gonna look out for him, he's kind of grown on me and you know, I'm pretty tough believe it or not."

((Desquish on the balcony))

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Do you ever get the fear that your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?

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