Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 14:00:05 -0600 From: Karla Schulz Subject: Carrots and Celery Part Three, chapter 24 This one's for Kelly, for introducing hilarity into my life and being cool. Frylock: You flushed the phone bill down the toilet? Master Shake: All the bills Frylock! They're too expensive! --- You wake up in Calgary. You're naked and slowly becoming aware of this fact, and that you can't quite remember why it's so. Then it all comes crashing back. My question that hung in the air until Celery was all I could see or taste or feel because his hands and mouth were everywhere, claiming me and surrendering all at once. The clothes that were torn off with hurried frantic hands, our fingers stopping only to grip each other's hair to pull the other in for frenzied kisses. The complete absence of words. The strangeness of it, how it somehow managed to feel like our first and last time with every gesture and sigh. Collapsing against each other, exhausted although it was still day. Waking up to him now, oddly calm. "How many times does something have to happen before it constitutes a pattern?" Another rhetorical question that only remains so if no one can come up with a satisfactory answer. "And here I was thinking I answered your question so eloquently." He says this as he rolls onto his side against me and threads our fingers together. Having achieved this, he draws them up to his lips and kisses my strangely cold hands. "If not that, at the very least it was a brilliant strategic move in the Great Avoidance Campaign." I'm almost happy, allowing myself briefly to think that because we're currently basking in the afterglow things are okay again. Thus making close physical proximity and gently teasing tones appropriate. Celery apparently is not quite ready to join me in the delusion, drawing away slightly and looking so seriously into my eyes. "I'll never be better off without you. I'll always need you." And somehow, hearing it, everything seems that much worse again. Not exactly the reaction to those words I expected. I sit up, attempting to add a `safe' distance between us. "And yet..." Since we're being all about the reality again, let's all welcome the return of Carrots' feelings of anger and betrayal. "And regardless." He nods in time to these heavily spoken words. "You're a lying bastard." A fact, not an accusation. "Yes." "I should hate you." This point is less certain. "Yes." "I don't though." "That's good to know." Okay, you get one more. "I'm considering pretending to for awhile though. I feel you deserve to grovel." "Absolutely." Enough of this. I sigh and drop the tranquil mask. "Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?" "Wasn't." "You're like, Mr. Double Life -- I mean, what the fuck?" "Lying bastard." "Didn't you care about what learning these truths would do to me?" Desperation in my voice, something he has to answer. "Of course I did," his voice, for the first time, loses its breezy tone. "So how could you do it?" "I believe I mentioned earlier I had no justifications for my actions." "That's it? That's all you're going to say to me? And if I tell you it isn't enough?" "You've already said it was, or at least, that you were still willing to try to work things out." "And you think that gives you a free ticket out of Blameville?" I literally cannot believe I'm hearing this. Living this. "No... I don't know. I just know I can't undo it and I can't explain it and I recognize that any amount of begging for forgiveness isn't going to be remotely effective if you're not already going to be willing to grant that forgiveness. What I mean is, I'll give you time and let me tell you, there WILL be excessive amounts of heartfelt groveling, but I have to know that something will come of it, that at some point you WILL be ready to let things go." I sigh heavily, looking at the recently acquired space between us. Remembering the easy closeness we shared only moments ago. "It was so easy to forget all the ways things are so far from being okay." This mutterance is mostly for my own benefit. "Too easy?" Softly, slowly. "I can forgive you," addressing his earlier comments. "I can even almost recognize that's not even something that you feel you need, depending on how you're feeling about your leaving at this particular moment. But even if you do away with all that, there's still the great giant blinking WHAT NOW sign over our heads and all the ruins of what used to be our eternal and freaky bond at our feet. All the truths we neglected to tell that got us where we are today." "You know all my secrets now. Is it too much?" "I've answered that question -- hoped we both had. It's not that it's too much, it's not that we can't do it, that we give up... it's just going to be so hard. And I have no idea where to begin." "I think it's safe to say it should begin with me groveling." I almost want to laugh. "Yeah." "How do you feel about rhyming?" "You're going to make your apologies and pleas for forgiveness rhyme?" "I'm considering it." This time, the urge is slightly stronger. "Don't think I don't know your game." I warn him, but there's a trace of a smile on my voice. Despite this, his face grows serious again. "I'll say it as many times as it takes -- but I hope you already know how sorry I am. How willing I am to do absolutely anything to make it up to you. How much I love you and always will. Contrary to what my behavior of late would indicate, I can't even begin to think about truly building a life in any way separate from you. Certainly not one I'll cherish and derive any true joy from." Because I absolutely refuse to cry (and thus, indicate that I've already been won over), I make a crack instead. "Practiced that one in the mirror did we?" He smiles, "Nope. Made a recording of it, played it back to myself every night as I fell asleep." He's joking, and I have to admit, I'm rather amused. Still, I have my hippo dignity. And also my hippo rage. It keeps me warm. "I need you to make me believe its true Celery." Letting him know he hasn't yet. "I'm going to." He promises, in away that let's me believe it could be true. He brushes his hand against my knee, "Just give me time." I nod slowly. "I know there are things I have to do to. I know there are things we need to repair on both sides." He sighs, nodding as well. "It's a long, important process." My eyes, which had been busy contemplating my hands, snap over to him, as I recognize those words as ones I've heard before. "Trust has to be built back," I continue cautiously, not entirely sure he's saying what I think he is. "On both sides," confirming he is. The final line remains unsaid until Celery comes closer to me again, desperate longing and a muted plea showing through his eyes. I allow him to retrieve my hand. "I know I don't have any right to ask, but I'm doing it anyway." He kisses my cheek, so reverently, so alive with pain. He's looking at me again, his eyes so close they're all I can see. "Can we just skip it?" "We c..." My voice breaks and I shut my eyes. When I open them again he's further away from me, but still so close, and still looking at me so intensely, so desperately hopeful. And I can't say no. Not to him, not about something like this, with him looking at me this way. "It won't work," I say, trying anyway. "We can't just forget about it. Snap our fingers and suddenly it all goes away, doesn't matter anymore." "Maybe not forever, but couldn't we just BE for awhile? Be together? Like we were supposed to? Get back the time we lost?" I can only lock my jaw and hope when I finally dare to open it, a stream of nonsense passing for expletives doesn't pouring out. He reaches over and brushes the jaw I'm clenching so tightly with his thumb. "Just for a few days. I'll show you around, let you see all the parts of my world I didn't know how to tell you about. If you feel like pissing off at the end in a blaze of melodramatic self-pitying glory like I did, that'll be your right." "Revenge is sweet meets Fantasy Camp?" He shrugs. "Something like that, I guess." I look away from him, and see if I can think about it rationally. "Care—" I don't let him finish, "What happens? When the term ends? I have to go back eventually." "We'll just deal with it when the time comes. I just, this is the most we've talked and actually gotten things out in the open since... it's the closest I've felt to you in such a long time. I don't want to lose it yet." "Why do we have to lose it at all?" He shrugs. "Maybe we don't. I don't know. I'd kind of like to find out though." I search his eyes, hoping they'll tell me all his secrets like they used to, but there's nothing there. No hidden agenda or deceit. Just the smallest glimmer of hope. "You really think it'll make things better?" He laughs sadly. "I don't really see how it could make them any worse." I can see why he laughed. It's a pretty funny joke. And it's on both of us. "What about Kyle and Jonas?" My last attempt at logical reasoning. "What about them?" Confused. "They can't be expected to hang around," "They're here?" So much is hiding in those words. Shock, gratitude, fear, hope. "Yeah. Did I forget to mention that?" "Pretty much." "Sorry." "S'alright. You had other things on your mind." "Yeah, about him." Pointedly. Celery shrugs. "When we got here, well, you know most of it. I didn't really speak to anyone, or acknowledge anything. I just sort of zombied my way through my days, except when I was talking or writing to you. As I slowly started to regain a bit of my coherence, I noticed that when teachers spoke to me, they called me John. The first time it happened, my mind was a total blank. I honestly couldn't figure out what the hell they were playing at. Then, after a second, it dawned on me -- like, oh yeah, that's me. Sort of. It was ridiculous, but in that moment, I honestly felt like I was five years old again. Aware of myself only as this little boy who didn't have anyone. I remembered of course, that I stopped being that boy a long time ago, but in that moment, it just seemed to fit. In Winnipeg, with you, I was loved, I had a family and friends... and that's Celery. John never had those things, so it made perfect sense to become John again when I lost them." At the flash in my eyes h e amends, "Felt like I had lost them." He shakes his head, sighing. "But I didn't PLAN it Care. It wasn't like I introduced myself to people that way," he sighs again. "Not at first. It just caught on. By the time I was starting to speak to people, everyone had heard some teacher call me John at least once and it was so much easier to just let it slide, that way nobody asked me questions and I didn't have to explain. It was the perfect way to keep everyone at arms length." "You keep Saul at arms length? I can't help but notice you're living in his house," I have to pause to work some of the disgust out of my system before continuing, "That he wears your clothes." Celery flinches, but meets my eyes. "He's my friend. The best one I've got here. Everything I've told you about him is true. He's a Science Fiction geek and all around genius. He's very recently 15 and he's an only child. I used to think he was a lot like me, shy, slightly too interested in math, but then I got to know him a little better. Really he's extremely confident in himself and not shy at all, just quiet. In the time I've known him he's grown 6 inches and he's only starting to rebuild his dress shirt and cardigans wardrobe. They're too big for him but I force him to wear my clothes because it's the only way I can attempt to help out around here. I pretend to accidentally buy stuff too small and give him that too, but can't very often, cause if I try he won't let me get away with it. He loves to snowboard for completely non-trendy reasons. Because of the new clothes and growth spurt and everything, lately he's starting to be considered a `cool geek', which he doesn't like, so randomly he does extremely geeky things like giving people the Vulcan `live long and prosper' sign or having an argument with someone about math." "And he calls you John." Celery sighs heavily, and nods. "And he calls me John." "He knows though, that that's not all you are. When I asked for you at the door you'd have thought I was asking him to sacrifice his first born." There's an almost smile on his face, and he nods. "He knows. Right around the time I first blocked a punch meant for him, he started chipping away at the lovely walls I'd built up around myself. And he's persistent and yes, much smarter than me. Some of it I told him, some he just figured out on his own. The tattoo is less than subtle." "I've never really been a fan of subtly." "I know." "'The guys'?" Thinking, let's finish this. Let's get it all out there. "Denny, Jake and Kory. Jake's a girl, by the way. They're friends from work. Sometimes we went snowboarding together in the winter and now that it's warm enough, on days we have off we all go skating. Not always the whole crew, but as many as can." "Saul said something about filming?" "Yeah, he's really awesome at it. Doesn't do any skating himself, but he enjoys the challenge of capturing it well on camera. He usually comes with us when we go. He's a total phenome at it." "Is there anything he can't do?" That right there, is some quality bitterness. You don't hear bitterness like that everyday, I'm telling you. "Well he hasn't yet managed to transfigure himself into you so I'll feel anything more for him than friendship." There's a touch of almost every inflection you could imagine in it. Promise, anger, pleading, firmness, mocking. "You understand that I hate him anyway right?" Let him just see what I do to him if he says no. "Only too well." "You didn't tell me any of it. How horrible things were, the ways they were starting to be really great. There's this huge part of your life you just glossed over." "And that's in no way what you did." "It's exactly what I did!" I sigh. "I didn't mean to sound all judgy, I was just, you know... stating my awe at our ability to miss-communicate ourselves into yet new heights of fucked-uped-ness." "Lately it has become our forte." He acknowledges. "Yay us, we kill relationships the best." "Go us." Being in bed with him suddenly feels much too close, too dangerous. "I love you I forgive you but I don't... TRUST you. Not the way I used to and I hate that means things'll never be the same." "We don't really have to skip it -- the trust being built back part. I know that has to happen." "Do you happen to also know how that'll be able to happen?" My tone is actually hopeful. He shakes his head somewhat ruefully. "No, sorry." "I think it's a time thing." I say with a sigh. "You do things -- WE do things -- that'll just slowly show each other we... that we still..." "That forever still means forever?" "Yeah." "It does Carrots," He vows. "It always will."