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doublethepainThe thing about having an eidetic memory is that try as he might, Spencer can't make himself forget. He doesn't need to look in a mirror to know that he's a complete mess between the blackening eye and the stitches at this temple and the finger-shaped bruises on his neck. He flexes his fingers on his right hand as he glances down at the cast on his left, the one the doctors had insisted on putting on him because three broken fingers apparently need more support than just a splint. His ankles and wrists are still bandaged because they're raw from trying to wriggle his way out of the zipties Mark had bound him with and he's about ready to rip his own hair out because every time he feels it brush against his neck, he remembers the way Mark had used it to his advantage, taking care to be nothing less than rough.
It's only been a few days since Joel had found him in the lighthouse but Spencer almost feels like years must have passed. He'd refused overnight treatment at the hospital--against medical advisement--and locked himself in his house because it's the only place he can go. He hasn't been in his library since he'd gotten home, though a glance inside has told him that someone--not someone, Joel, there's nobody else who could have--has cleared the floor of the glass and blood that had been left after Mark had come for him. He flinches as he remembers the sound of the glass shattering against the side of his head, remembers the sting of the whiskey spilling onto the cuts and the way Mark had grabbed his hair to assist in dragging a half-conscious Spencer out to his car.
He's supposed to be taking it easy, has already been banned from coming to work for however long the doctor had recommended, though Spencer knows he'll likely be back long before that just for the sake of his own sanity. Sitting here at home has done him little to no good, not when he'd been abducted right downstairs, in one of the few places he's ever felt truly safe. It makes his good eye water with the threat of tears at the thought of how long it might take to feel that way again.
He knows there must be talk of what happened; it's a small town and gossip travels at lightning speed and besides that, he's had people ringing the doorbell and leaving things on his doorstep and leaving messages on his phone almost non-stop. It's nice to know there are still people that care, he supposes, but one very notable person hasn't tried to check on him at all. Joel hasn't come around or called or texted and Spencer feels like such a fool. Joel's the one person he'd be willing to let in the door but he realizes now that he should have known better than to think that Joel would want to even be near him after what Spencer had put him through with Mark.
He needs a distraction, he decides, a reason to get out of the house. What's more, he needs to get rid of this hair. Nearly everything seems to be a reminder of what had happened at the moment but at least he can fix the hair. He grabs one of Dane's old baseball caps and shrugs on a jacket, mindful of his injured hand, before walking out the door and heading straight toward the barber shop. The whole cut takes less than an hour and though the bruises on his face are more pronounced now without the frame of his longer locks, Spencer already feels a bit lighter. One less thing to remind him of Mark's assault.
He shoves his good hand in his pocket as he leaves the shop, unsure of where to go or what to do next.
[OOC: You can find Spencer anywhere you'd like. Roaming around town, grabbing a coffee, back at his house, anywhere. Dude needs a friend.]
It's only been a few days since Joel had found him in the lighthouse but Spencer almost feels like years must have passed. He'd refused overnight treatment at the hospital--against medical advisement--and locked himself in his house because it's the only place he can go. He hasn't been in his library since he'd gotten home, though a glance inside has told him that someone--not someone, Joel, there's nobody else who could have--has cleared the floor of the glass and blood that had been left after Mark had come for him. He flinches as he remembers the sound of the glass shattering against the side of his head, remembers the sting of the whiskey spilling onto the cuts and the way Mark had grabbed his hair to assist in dragging a half-conscious Spencer out to his car.
He's supposed to be taking it easy, has already been banned from coming to work for however long the doctor had recommended, though Spencer knows he'll likely be back long before that just for the sake of his own sanity. Sitting here at home has done him little to no good, not when he'd been abducted right downstairs, in one of the few places he's ever felt truly safe. It makes his good eye water with the threat of tears at the thought of how long it might take to feel that way again.
He knows there must be talk of what happened; it's a small town and gossip travels at lightning speed and besides that, he's had people ringing the doorbell and leaving things on his doorstep and leaving messages on his phone almost non-stop. It's nice to know there are still people that care, he supposes, but one very notable person hasn't tried to check on him at all. Joel hasn't come around or called or texted and Spencer feels like such a fool. Joel's the one person he'd be willing to let in the door but he realizes now that he should have known better than to think that Joel would want to even be near him after what Spencer had put him through with Mark.
He needs a distraction, he decides, a reason to get out of the house. What's more, he needs to get rid of this hair. Nearly everything seems to be a reminder of what had happened at the moment but at least he can fix the hair. He grabs one of Dane's old baseball caps and shrugs on a jacket, mindful of his injured hand, before walking out the door and heading straight toward the barber shop. The whole cut takes less than an hour and though the bruises on his face are more pronounced now without the frame of his longer locks, Spencer already feels a bit lighter. One less thing to remind him of Mark's assault.
He shoves his good hand in his pocket as he leaves the shop, unsure of where to go or what to do next.
[OOC: You can find Spencer anywhere you'd like. Roaming around town, grabbing a coffee, back at his house, anywhere. Dude needs a friend.]
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Date: 2014-06-18 09:39 am (UTC)He makes sure to keep his eyes on Joel's face as the other man works to get his jeans off, and he has to stretch his neck to get Joel to meet his eyes once the job is done. "I'm going to do the same," he says, and it's more difficult to undo his pants while lying stretched on his side than he'd anticipated but he manages to do it eventually and kicks them to the floor as soon as they're at his ankles. He expects to feel too exposed, like he should cover right back up, but even though he's decided that it's somehow gotten hotter in the room, he's still as comfortable as needs to be.
He tries his best to let himself relax, dropping his head down to rest on Joel's chest but still tilting it up so he can still see Joel's face, not willing to part with either the touch or the line of sight. Being close like this makes it easier to remember that Mark isn't lurking somewhere downstairs, waiting for Spencer to simply turn around in exchange for breaking a glass against the side of his head. He closes his good idea, absently trailing his fingers over Joel's collarbone, and mournfully regretting that he can't have more while his other hand is in a cast. It doesn't even matter what kind of more it is, he just wants to be touching Joel; he wants to be enveloped in Joel's arms; he wants to be reminded that he's important to someone.
"You make me feel safe." He hadn't really meant to say it out loud but he can't take it back now, not that even wants to. "I know that it's-- that what happened was complicated, and I don't have to be able to read auras to understand that you felt guilty for it but now that we're here, let me tell you again that you shouldn't blame yourself. If it wasn't for you, I don't know that I would have made it out of there at all." He takes Joel's good hand, laces their fingers together and holds it against his own chest. His heart rate is picking up because he can't imagine finding it in himself to say something like this to anyone under normal circumstances but then again, nothing between them has felt normal. It's all been unprecedented, there's literally no comparison, and Spencer kind of likes it that way.
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Date: 2014-06-18 07:05 pm (UTC)It's not so easy to stop blaming himself, not even when Spencer tells him not to, but Joel promises himself that he's going to try. For ten years he's dwelled on that night on the cliff, wondering what he could have done to prevent it, how he could have resisted Amy or broken up with her or done anything just to keep it from happening and it's taken him ten years to realize he can't change the past and no amount of wishing or blaming himself will ever bring her back. It's taken him ten years to reconcile the part he had in her death and he doesn't want it to take another ten years to move past what happened in the lighthouse. Instead of sinking into himself, hiding in his guilt, Joel makes a silent promise that he's going to try this time, and he knows he's only bothering because of Spencer. For the first time he has someone in his life who might be able to convince him he's not entirely to blame.
That Spencer says he feels safe goes a long way toward that. It's the one thing Joel has dedicated his magic to and if he's managed it, even with just one person, then maybe he's done something worthwhile with his life.
"I'm glad," he says, brushing his lips over Spencer's forehead, his hair, any bit of him that he can reach in this position. "It's all I want." He's done everything he can to protect Spencer since the day they've met except be completely honest with him and that's where his guilt still lies. He can start now, though, he can change that and he lets out a soft sigh, because although he doesn't think the story will change anything they've begun here, it's still not an easy one to tell. Spencer doesn't blame him, but the story doesn't make him look good no matter how he tries to tell it and he won't change things, he won't leave parts of it out if Spencer wants to hear it at all. "Do you... I know Mark said things to you before I got there. About what happened with his sister. Do you want me to tell you?"
He's already trying to work out where to begin. It's not a complicated story and no matter how much malice Mark injected into his telling of it, Joel is sure it's likely not far off from the truth. There are only so many ways to tell a story when someone dies at the end and he doesn't want to tell it to make himself look bad, but he does want to be honest about everything that happened if Spencer wants to know.
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Date: 2014-06-18 11:51 pm (UTC)"Post-traumatic stress disorder affects nearly 5.2 million adult Americans, 3.6% annually, that's 9,791,999 per year, 815,999 per month, 188,307 per week, 26,827 per day, 1,117 per hour, 18 per minute, 0 per second."
It's with a sharp intake of breath that he realizes he's muttering all of this out loud, like he's so prone to do but this isn't the sort of thing he wants to be rambling with Joel by his side, in his bed. He swallows hard, shifting onto his back and staring up at the ceiling for a moment. It's too early to tell if PTSD is what he actually has, he thinks, it's only been a few days since the incident; but the thought of it frighens him, having to deal with re-living his trauma for longer than what may be deemed an appropriate time frame and being unable to escape the anxiety that overwhelms him when he thinks on it too long, even in moments like this when he'd been so content being in Joel's arms.
"I'm sorry." He squeezes his eyes shut, ignoring the pain it causes him in the tender area surrounding his bruised eye, and he can see himself saying the same thing to Joel in the lighthouse. He shakes his head, burying his face in the crook of Joel's shoulder. "I'm sorry. Please, I..." He trails off because he doesn't know what he's pleading for, but he takes a steadying breath before he continues. "Tell me what happened, I want to know." More than that, he just wants to hear Joel's voice.
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Date: 2014-06-19 01:21 am (UTC)It's an impossible wish, he knows that, but that doesn't stop him from thinking it.
"Hey, it's okay," he says softly when Spencer rolls toward him again and presses his face against his shoulder. He untangles their hands, lifting his again, stroking it gently over Spencer's hair. He pulls away a little, pressing kisses to his forehead, his eyebrow, the eyelid of his good eye, anywhere he can reach that isn't bruised. "Don't be sorry. You never have to be sorry."
He's wondering now if he should tell Spencer at all, but he thinks he needs to, he thinks it's the sort of thing that needs to be out in the open and sooner is probably better. Spencer has said he wants to know and Joel hesitates, but only for a moment. His keeps his arm around Spencer, keeps him close, strokes his knuckles against Spencer's cheek as he tries to think about how to start the story. There's no good way, really, no matter how long he thinks. "I met Amy when we were seventeen and... I didn't have a lot of friends, but she liked me for some reason. Her brother hated me from the start, I've never been sure why, but I didn't care at the time. We'd been dating for about four months when... Jesus, I thought I was in love with her. I guess I was. She seemed like she was getting bored of me, but I knew she liked doing things that could get her into trouble. She always wanted me to sneak out, do things that were dangerous with her and I didn't want to and I could feel her getting ready to move on." He shrugs, looking embarrassed. "So I told her I was witch. I thought maybe it would impress her." And it had, though not in the way he'd wanted it to.
"She asked about darker and darker things. She did a lot of her own research and discovered things I'd never even heard of, probably because my parents were smart enough to keep it away from me." He pauses, chewing his lower lip, looking up at the ceiling to avoid having to look at Spencer. He feels like there must be disappointment in his expression, like he must think Joel so foolish. "I didn't stop her. I never told her no. It was the one thing I could show her that I knew no other guy in Shediac would be able to. She found a spell or... a way to summon something dark. I still don't know what it was, a demon or just a presence. Something that couldn't get through to our world until we invited it and it just... it took her. Right off the cliff and into the ocean. You know, for... for a long time I thought it was going to come back for me eventually. That I might be walking near the ocean and it would just rise up and just- it would take me."
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Date: 2014-06-20 11:39 am (UTC)He takes in a deep breath before slowly letting it out as he lets Joel's voice bring him back to a more manageable mental place, as awful as the subject matter is. He glances up to find Joel avoiding his gaze so he pushes himself up into a sitting position, forcing their eyes to meet. "I can tell you the same thing over and over," he says, voice still shaky as he recovers from his episode of panic. "I can tell you it's not your fault. You were young and in love, and I can't pretend that I know what that's like but if back then you were anything like you are now, I'm not willing to believe for a second that you had anything less than good intentions. You lost sight of things because you loved somebody. You aren't the first, you won't be the last."
He reaches out to cup Joel's cheek before leaning in for a soft kiss, letting his lips linger for a moment before lowering his voice to a near whisper. "You saved my life. You came for me when nobody else would have. Do you even know what that--" He furrows his brow, willing the tears that are welling in his eyes not to fall but he's overwhelmed with so many emotions that he simply isn't used to. He wants to make Joel smile, wants to erase the pain from Joel's life and would even be willing to take it on himself if that's what it would take but that scares him. What he feels for Joel has become so strong in such a short period of time and it's only been reinforced by what had happened. Spencer's nervous, worried that he'll come off as overbearing and far too much to deal with but he keeps telling himself he needs to give Joel more credit than that.
They can protect each other, he decides. Regardless of what the situation is, Spencer a silent promise in this moment to do whatever he can to keep Joel from feeling the way he'd felt after Amy ever again. Joel deserves to smile, has done nothing but his best to keep Spencer out of harm's way since they'd met, and Spencer only hopes that he can one day at least begin to return the favor.
"I owe you so much," he continues with a short laugh. He imagines Joel would disagree, Spencer would certainly do the same if their positions were switched; but he doesn't mind owing Joel, it reminds him that there's at least one person in this world he can count on. He hopes, in fact, that he'll never find a reason to stop owing Joel.
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Date: 2014-06-20 05:14 pm (UTC)"Of course I came for you," he breathes, afraid to speak any louder, afraid to disrupt this moment. "When I was there, when I was... I would have killed him if not for you. That's why I've kept to myself, that's why I haven't made friends, why I've never let myself get close to anyone. He hurt you and I would have killed him, but all you had to do was tell me not to." He shakes his head a little, his hand coming up to brush his fingers over the hand Spencer has against his cheek. His shoulders lift in a shrug, because he truly doesn't know how to explain just how significant that is. How startled he was to discover that all Spencer had to do was ask him to stop.
He lets out a deep breath, then presses up slightly to kiss Spencer again, his eyes closed. Having told him the story doesn't necessarily feel better, but it feels right. It's the right thing to have done. It's the one thing he's kept from everyone since it happened, even his sister, and now Spencer knows and he's still here. Joel has no idea how to tell him how much that means, so he only tries for a smile, then moves his hand to Spencer's face, his thumb brushing his cheek.
"I owe you, too," he says and it's the simple truth. He could have disappeared that night, he thinks, he could have found something dark and he could have run with it. But he hadn't and he knows there's only one reason he's still here to have this conversation at all. "It's... it's big. That you could pull me back so easily."
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Date: 2014-06-21 04:30 am (UTC)His bottom lip quivers, not from panic or anxiety or thoughts of what had happened, but becomes he's suddenly so overwhelmed by these feelings nobody has ever made him feel before. He takes Joel's uninjured hand in his own, bringing it to rest over his chest so Joel can feel his heartbeat. "It's steady," he says, and it's true. His mind isn't racing a mile a minute anymore, his heart isn't pounding; he's focused on the man beside him in his bed. "You're the first person in a long time who's been able to make me feel like-- like maybe things are going to be okay. You do this for me. And if I can do it for you, I'm happy to be given the chance."
It's been about a month. Their first kisses, the kind that aren't kickstarted by fear or pain, have only just happened tonight, but Spencer simply can't deny the connection between them. It's been growing stronger since that evening i the library, though Spencer couldn't have imagined then that anything would have come of it. A distant friendship, at best, is what he would have expected because he's never been good at anything else. He's fallen into this so easily, though, as if they've been at this or so much longer and he doesn't want it to end.
He closes his eyes at the feel of Joel's thumb against his cheek and smiles softly. "Don't leave," he says, echoing what he'd told Joel on Friday night. It's said for a better reason this time, though, and Spencer shifts so he can lie down on his back again, nuzzling his cheek against Joel's chest. "You still owe me more of The Once and Future King."
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Date: 2014-06-21 03:28 pm (UTC)He doesn't have to be asked to not leave, he realizes. The moment Spencer says it, Joel knows he'll only leave when Spencer tells him to, that if he never asks him to go anywhere, he'll be right here. There's the store to run and his cat to care for, but he can do both those things and always come back here and he has to close his eyes for a moment, smiling up at the ceiling as he tries to remember more of the story. He'd memorized most of the first chapter as a kid, wanting his sister to enjoy it as much as he did, and he thinks he can pull up most of it in his memory now. He thinks he can do a lot of things for Spencer.
"Where did I stop?" he asks, trying to remember the ambulance ride, though he doesn't particularly want to. He tips his head to the side, his lips brushing over Spencer's hair as he speaks. "Somewhere around ... The governess had red hair and some mysterious wound from which she derived a lot of prestige by showing it to all the women of the castle, behind closed doors. It was believed to be where she sat down, and to have been caused by sitting on some armour at a picnic by mistake. Eventually she offered to show it to Sir Ector, who was Kay's father, had hysterics and was sent away. They found out afterwards that she had been in a lunatic hospital for three years." He doesn't know how far he'll get before Spencer falls asleep, but he's perfectly content to lie here all night reciting the parts of the book he can remember.