paradisalost | You gotta help me out; it's all a blur last night...

Who:

gwaine
What: ~~The castle is a troll.~~ So, there was a loss, and Julia and Gwaine totally thought they were together, right? Here is the aftermath.
When: Backdated to the morning of the end of the Friends loss
Where: Awkwardville. Population: 2.
Rating: I'll just call it PG-13 or something

For all intents and purposes, this was a completely normal morning.

As Julia quietly stirred awake, there was nothing to suggest that anything might be amiss. In fact, it hit her that she was quite comfortable in this bed this morning. Warm and comfortable. Maybe she wasn't ordinarily the type to make a habit out of sleeping in, but what would another twenty minutes hurt, just this once? It wasn't like she had any pressing engagements to get to that she knew of.

She shifted slightly, and was about to doze right back off, when.... she felt something at that moment. Something that was distinctly not bedsheets, that her still half-asleep brain wasn't fully processing at the moment yet somehow knew shouldn't be there. Was that... someone's arm?

She froze.

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Gwaine, for his part, was still enjoying the last moments of peaceful slumber. This was easily the most restful night's sleep he had had in months and he'd like to make the most of it. He shifted onto his back, exhaling a gentle sigh.

Maybe she was imagining things. It was early, after all, and her brain still wasn't functioning to full capacity. No reason to get irrational and totally jump to conclusions, right?

But then she heard something. A sigh next to her, which only provided more dedinitive evidence that something didn't quite add up. But she would know, wouldn't she...? Pnly one way to find out. With a quiet sigh of her own, she rolled over. And--

... Oh hell.

Gwaine frowned slightly in his sleep. Turning onto his side, his hand found Julia. He lingered somewhere between actual sleep and an alert state. He mumbled something incomprehensible.

In that moment, the onset of awareness had slowly begun, and once it had, it didn't lead to anything good. She suddenly remembered everything, in painstaking detail. The situation of the past week. Breaking up and reconciling. That embarrassing letter that had somehow gotten out onto the journals. How they'd ended up here....

This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.

She jerked away and sat bold upright as the ramifications of this began to hit her.

The sudden movement finally roused him from sleep. His eyes opened and was half-sitting up and blindly reaching for where his sword should have been. He stopped when he saw the woman in bed with him.

"Julia? Why are you here? Why am I in this bed? Wh—oh. Ohh. Oh, this place."

He sat up and scrubbed at his face with his palms. He pointedly not looked at Julia to give her some semblance of privacy to do whatever she needed to.

Everything just... froze. The memories that had rushed back to her at a million miles an hour suddenly screeched to a halt. The flight response that had prompted that jerky movement away shut down.

Maybe it was a last-ditch defense mechanism. If she wasn't thinking at all, then she could spare herself from the latest inevitable direction her thoughts would take her. That this whole thing was almost like deja vu, but with a sick twist. That being in this place only confirmed, only exaggerated what she already knew. No matter what she did, she was doomed to repeat herself, over and over and over--

"You remember," was what she said when she finally found her voice again. It wasn't quite a question, nor was it quite a statement. Somewhere in between. She still hadn't moved.

He lowers his hand enough to peer at her.

"Yes."

He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. This is...it's the castle. The castle did this. He loved Julia. But it was not real. Just one more thing to string him around. He is furious, but angrier still that she had to be included in this farce.

"I—" What does he say? I'm sorry? It hardly fixes the situation. The castle is an asshole? That's a given. He may have come to love her without magical intervention? He can't even admit that to himself. He falls silent, rubbing the base of his palms into his eyes.

In a way, coming to Paradisa might have been her chance at a fresh start. A chance to let go of the ghosts of the past that constantly followed her around and haunted her every waking thought, even still. To break free of that toxic cycle of betrayal and avoidance, of lies and secrets, that had chronicled almost her entire life. To make things right this time.

But she blew it. Again.

No matter what, she only seemed to drag other people down with her. She'd dragged Spike, the one person she never wanted to hurt, into the most spectacular mess imaginable (and disappeared from his life for three years without so much as even a goodbye, much less an explanation), only to turn right around and do it again. She'd even dragged Vicious with her when all she'd wanted was a high, something to take her out of her mundane, going-through-the-motions existence and feel alive, even for half a second. And now she'd dragged Gwaine.

What the hell did that make her?

Someone who didn't deserve to break free of the traps she set for herself without thinking time and time again, that's what. The worst kind of person. No, she felt she deserved every last bit of what she got. The sting, the constant dull ache in her chest wouldn't even begin to be enough to make up for it.

It's a long time before she even registers that he'd said anything. So long one might wonder if she'd even heard him at all. But there's evidence to the contrary when a barely audible, almost broken half-whisper ventures into the silence once again.

"It wasn't your fault."

Edited 2011-12-30 17:09 (UTC)

The softness of it is what makes him finally turn to face her. He has little to go on to gauge her mood. He knows she is upset, but he cannot read her easily. She is not like him. He tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, and damn what anyone thinks. He has not had much need to mask his mood. Nevertheless, he needs to make her understand that she is blameless in this. She can hate him and never wish to see him and he will respect that; he cannot stand that too quiet voice.

"It's not yours either. Julia—" Using the sheet, he covers himself as well as he is able so he can stand. "This was not your fault. If you need to blame someone, blame me. You—we were separated when this began. I pushed for it. I should not have. I should have respected the decision you made before. I apologize for my actions, though they were not my own. They were unseemly."

She can't take the scrutiny. It feels like it's practically burning a hole into her, worsening the intensity of the jumbled mess going through her mind that much more, creating something she couldn't put a name to if she tried. When it comes down to it, she doesn't know what to think. She doesn't know what to feel.

There's only one thing about this whole situation that's certain. No matter how hard he tries, there's nothing he can do to convince her that this wasn't her fault. She's damned to her core, beyond repair. As time goes on, she only seems to get clearer and clearer confirmation of that.

She turns just slightly, so that her back is to him (her last-ditch attempt at making something about this easier for herself). Maybe she'd been trying to make some attempt at following suit and standing up as well, but that's as far as she gets for the moment.

"You don't have to apologize." When she finally responds, she's still speaking in simple sentences, in only half-responses. Her voice may be even quieter this time. She's barely holding it together, and that also only seems to be getting clearer and clearer.

You gotta help me out; it's all a blur last night...

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