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thejusticelounge2015-01-01 05:10 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2015-01-01 05:10 pm
Entry tags:
isosceles
Roy jumps up and down in place on the corner of Adams and Infantino in Star City, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. The cold spell that had snapped over southern California was unseasonably frigid, and glancing around, Roy could see all the girls who were sporting scarves and boots that were likely seeing the light of day for the first time.
Roy is dressed in a puffy maroon jacket and skully, jeans and his Timberlands, his fingers rubbing the linen on the inside of the pockets before he pulls them out and cups them over his mouth, blowing.
It is 53 degrees Fahrenheit, 12 degrees Celsius.
Mar’i definitely doesn’t find 53 degrees cold, but that’s par for the course at nearly any cooler temperature when she’s fully charged. However, for the sake of blending in, she’s wearing an athletic get-up that can vaguely pass for weather-appropriate when she spots Roy and makes her way across the nearby crosswalk.
Roy grins when he sees her, and gestures immediately at the coffee place on the corner, beginning to walk as soon as Mar’i reaches his side. He leans over and kisses her cheek, before opening the door for her. He takes his place in the queue, nearly out of the door, and looks over at her. “You’re not cold at all, are ya?” He grins, still.
Mar’i shakes her head, straightening out her ponytail with both hands as she looks over the menu. “Have you been here before? Do you know how the pomegranate chai is?”
Roy bobs his head as he scratches at the side of his beard. “Yeah, Lian loves it.. I’m gonna be getting the macha latte, if you wanna share?” They move up in line and he looks over at the pastry case, snickering suddenly. “There’s an elf sugar cookie that looks like Ollie.” He leans in, narrowing his eyes to read, and then rocks back, nodding. “Yup! It’s a Christmas Arrow cookie, made with arrowroot flour.” He makes a face. “They think they’re clever.”
Mar’i examines the cookie herself, snorting lightly. “Nah, I’m good. I’d buy one of these, but that’d be incredibly weird.” She looks at the other offerings, gaze zooming in suddenly on a cinnamon-and-apple strudel.
Roy notices her gaze and when he gets to the register, orders an Ollie-cookie and a strudel before ordering his macha latte, paying with a Queen Consolidated credit card.
Roy picks up the drink and the pastries with a grin, and leads them towards a corner booth, near the bookshelves and games towards the rear exit of the cafe.
"Really?" Mar’i murmurs as Roy takes the Ollie-cookie, following him to the booth with her own drink. She takes a seat facing the window, and drinks the first sip of her drink, not bothering to blow on it first.
Roy doesn’t seem bothered by this at all, and looks over at her as he takes a seat across from her, setting down the strudel in front of her. “How are you?”
Mar’i tears off a chunk of her strudel and pops it into her mouth. “I’m fine. How are you?”
Roy bobs his head, as he tears off a piece of Ollie’s ear. “Good! I re-enrolled in school, I’m heading back into actual classes in January.” He takes the top off his latte, letting the steam work off the liquid.
"That’s good," Mar’i murmurs with a nod, taking another long sip of chai. "That’s really good."
Roy smiles at her, fondly, and reaches out to curl his fingers around the tips of her fingers. His voice gentles, as he looks up at her face, carefully. “..you wanted to talk to me.”
Mar’i bristles the tiniest bit at that, trying to stamp it back down. “I thought we both wanted to talk.”
Roy blinks, sensing her bristling and nods. “Yeah, yeah, I did, sorry, I didn’t wanna—” He pulls his other hand from his latte and scrubs it over his beard. Sheepishly, he leans over and kisses the tips of her fingers. “..I just don’t know where to start.”
Mar’i eats more of her strudel, one hand occupied by Roy’s. “Where did we leave off? That’d be a good place, I think.”
Roy shakes his head, and dourly admits. “I’m not even sure.. I remember trying to tell you how much I missed you.” He frowns a bit. “That I was pretty stupid over the summer.” He steals a piece of strudel, chews, and adds: “..that I love you and want to get the wrought-iron fence you chose installed at the Estate.”
Mar’i scoots her strudel closer to herself to evade future attacks. “Okay,” she says, because she can’t honestly remember where they were supposed to go from here. Instead, she looks out the window. “Then where’s the problem?”
Roy blinks. “I don’t.. I don’t see a problem if you can..” He reaches out for his latte, and takes a sip, before he continues. “If you can forgive me, we just start small, stuff like this, and move back until we’re both feelin’ good about.. settin’ dates and stuff.”
"Setting dates for what?" Mar’i asks, twisting her mouth.
Roy smiles at her, crookedly. “Gettin’ hitched?” His fingers tighten over hers. Roy’s gaze warms, softens as he watches her, the tiny bits missing from the strudel, her hand over the warmed porcelain of the mug.. He moves his fingers further in, linking them with hers.
Mar’i looks at Roy’s hand as it grabs onto hers, paling a little. “We’re still getting married?” she asks, not raising her gaze back to his face. “We screwed up so bad we didn’t speak for a month and we’re still getting married? We can’t even…we can’t even figure out where we screwed up, Roy. We don’t even know where to re-start this conversation from where it was the last time we talked.”
Roy’s smile falters a little bit, but he doesn’t give up. “But we’re here. Sitting together and talking and trying to figure out how to fix this. That’s a good thing.”
Mar’i remains staring at their hands, her own fingers curling in on themselves. “I want to stop tip-toeing around everything. I want to figure out where we fucked up so badly. I want to know what was so insurmountable about what happened in the cafeteria.”
Roy nods. “Then, that’s what we’ll do.” He moves his thumb over the top of her palm, smoothing it over and over the skin there, as he exhales. “We’ll work at it, we’ll stop tiptoeing. We’ll talk about it all.”
Roy blinks, and his thumb stops, as he licks his lips. “..I mean, if you want to, still, yanno?”
Mar’i lifts her gaze carefully. “Do you still want to? Like, genuinely? Not out of a sense of obligation for time spent or anything?”
Roy swallows, his lashes fluttering a for a moment as his Adam’s apple bobs. His fingers tighten over hers. “..you..” His voice is rough, choked, and he licks his lips, scooting forward on the booth chair, staring her down like there is nothing else around them, nothing else in the world. “I haven’t been doing what I should if you think you’re any sort of.. obligation to me, Mar’i,” her name curls on his tongue like ash, melting and drifting over the taste buds, seeping into his blood stream through his salivary glands. “You are not a prison sentence.”
Roy ‘s expression falls, nostrils flaring as he steels himself, doesn’t allow himself to pull back from where he is. “..and I’m sorry if I have ever made you feel that way.”
Mar’i watches Roy’s face as he speaks, her brow furrowed slightly. “Do you still want to?” she repeats. “Is it worth it after all the time we spent apart and all the stuff that got pushed to the side—like your school?”
Roy nods. “Yes, yes, I still want to. It’s worth it. To me.” He states this last part with a bit of trepidation in his tone, searching her face for signs that it’s worth it to her, too. “Is it.. Is it worth it for you?”
Mar’i sits there for a moment, watching the traffic outside. “I haven’t figured that out yet,” she finally admits. “Because I love you, but I just…I can’t go through all of what happened again. And there’s a lot we haven’t talked about yet, things that are a lot bigger than just saying we’ll work it out.” Mar’i doesn’t take her eyes off the window. “If we try this again, we’ll have to take it so slow. Is that even possible for us? And we have to do it knowing that we’re two incredibly fucked up individuals with absolutely terrible communication skills.” She eats the last of her strudel slowly. “I mean, it’s a really, really bad sign that we fought like that and stayed apart for so long if we were planning on getting married.”
Roy nods, but doesn’t say anything for a long while after she speaks, and moves his hand to his drink, curling his fingers around it. After a few minutes, give or take an eternity, he clears his throat, and admits: “I don’t know much about what’s good or bad in relationships, just what works for me.. what doesn’t.” He inhales, sharply. “But if you think it’s that bad, I don’t..” Roy removes his hand from his latte and sets it down on his lap, his other hand still curled around her fingers. “I don’t know what to say to change that.” He swallows. “Just that.. I want to make us work.”
Mar’i brings her eyes back to him sharply. “Did that work for you? Not being with me?”
Roy stares back at her. “No.”
Mar’i continues, “Then it was bad. For both of us.”
Roy licks his lips. “But is it a bad sign?” He tilts his head, looking at her.
Roy elaborates: “Does this mean we’re doomed, in your eyes?”
Mar’i drinks more of her chai. “That we didn’t talk about it, that we let it fester until we were screaming at each other over text messages, then ignoring each other, then puking at the sight of each other, until finally I not-really-died and that made us talk—yeah, that’s a bad sign. What the hell are we gonna do if we run off and get married and have another fight like this?” She pauses, sighing as she rubs her temples. “I mean, I don’t know, Roy. I think it means we have a lot of work ahead of us, and our work ethic when it comes to this stuff is completely untested. But I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I was completely throwing in the towel on us.”
Roy clarifies. “I wasn’t puking because of you, I ate some bad alien food, I never clarified that.” He nods, nearly bobbing up and down in his chair as she continues to talk. “Yeah! I know. I know. But I mean.. It’s worth trying—” His fingers tighten over hers, tightly. Nearly too-tight. “Isn’t it?”
Mar’i takes a slow breath. “The end goal has to be us growing and becoming healthy, together and apart. Not us getting married. Is that okay with you?”
Roy blinks. “Well, that’s what I mean about us going slow.. Until we feel.. good.. about it?” He blinks again, repeating himself. He shakes his head, and nods, squeezing her hand. “Yeah, that’s perfect, Mar’i.”
Roy states, suddenly. “We don’t even have to get married, as long as you’re still in my life.”
Roy peers at her, carefully. “..you know that, right?”
Roy leans forward again, and kisses the tips of her fingers. “..bein’ without you was torture.”
Mar’i finishes the dregs of her drink, laying it down on the tabletop. “Okay then, let’s try.”
Roy grins at her, lifting his hand intertwined with hers so he can kiss the tip of every finger. “Okay!”
Mar’i watches him quietly, before she says, “Two years in a row now we’ve been fighting on your birthday.”
Roy scowls. “I never liked it anyway,” he says, cheekily, and then leans over the table, nearly knocking over his drink, to kiss her on her cheek.
Roy adds, eyebrows arching. “Third time’s the charm?”
Mar’i shrugs lightly as she moves the drink out of the way to keep it from spilling everywhere. “Who knows.”
Roy tilts his head to one side, looking at her, as his brow furrows a touch. He pulses his grip over her fingers. “..everything okay?”
Mar’i raises an eyebrow at him.
Roy continues. “I mean, we’re agreeing we’re gonna try and be better and you don’t seem..” He takes a breath, and exhales. “You don’t seem happy about that.”
Mar’i “I’m…” Mar’i frowns softly, “…just wary, I guess. We’ve got a lot ahead of us if we want things—the good things—to be like they were.”
Roy can’t help the frown that settles on his own face. He doesn’t comment on this, but nods, and lifts his hand to his drink, taking a sip of the macho.
Roy can’t help the frown that settles on his own face. He doesn’t comment on this, but nods, and lifts his hand to his drink, taking a sip of the macha.
Mar’i watches him. “What do you want to say? We’d better get in the habit of saying things honestly now.”
Roy looks up at her. “I don’t know if I should apologize again or not.”
Mar’i shakes her head. “Nah.”
Roy looks down at his drink, taking another sip, and nods, his head bobbing. “Okay.” He looks up at her. “Do you think I have more to work on than you do?”
Mar’i evens out her facial expression, regarding him for a moment. “Yeah,” she answers finally, and honestly. “The shit about gay people and being perceived as gay has got to go, on top of the communication stuff we both need to work on.”
Roy blinks, having not expected her to lay it out like that. Unconsciously, he glances to the side, as if checking to see who might have heard her. He doesn’t pull back, but nods, meeting her gaze.
Mar’i follows his gaze to the rest of the uninterested, unhearing coffeehouse. “If there’s something like that for you—something that is a deal breaker this time around, then let me know.”
Roy looks back at her, suddenly. “That’s a deal breaker for you?”
Mar’i nods. “I was hoping it would end on its own, if I just let you do you. But that approach didn’t work, just like it didn’t work with waiting for you to start the conversation about what Ollie and I talked about. And if something like that is bad enough to cause such a terrible fight between the two of us when we say we love and respect each other, then it is a deal breaker for me.”
Roy listens, waiting a respectable amount to time before he asks. “Are you expecting me to be okay with people calling me that?”
Mar’i pulls her hand away to cross her arms over her chest. “You shouldn’t ever be ‘okay’ with someone assuming they know your sexual identity. But not because it’s an insult, because there’s nothing wrong with liking men if you’re a man.”
Roy supplies, gently. “..in your opinion, Mar’i.” He looks up at her. “I can work on keeping my mouth shut when it comes to this, I just..” Roy looks at where she’s removed her hand. “Okay.”
"You’d been doing a good job keeping your mouth shut about the topic when it came to me anyway, which is why I didn’t realize how bad it was until everything blew up. And I don’t know if that’s because you knew I don’t approve or what." Mar’i glances back out the window. "I want you to feel like you can talk through things with me, while also knowing that that’s not an open pass to throw around ‘faggot’ like it’s ever going to be appropriate."
Roy reaches back out, holding his hand out, palm up, as he nods. “I want that, too,” he states. “And I know it’s not appropriate, I do. I just..” He swallows. “If I don’t ever agree with you, is that it?” His fingers twitch, curl a bit on themselves.
Mar’i stares at Roy, eerily even-kilter. “You mean, if you decide that it’s worth hating every person in your life who likes the opposite gender, including our potential children, then yes, that would be it. There’s a big difference between agreeing with, though, and accepting.”
Roy sits back, licking his lips. “I don’t.. I don’t hate Ollie,” he says, naming the only person he has ever really gone off on, the only person he thinks Mar’i can be talking about.
Mar’i “No, you just hate a huge part of his identity that he has had to cultivate over time,” Mar’i replies, tapping her toe against the table leg. “You hate him being with Bruce the same way other people hate seeing a black, Native and a fat Asian alien together.”
Roy blinks, and looks down at his hand, without her fingers, and pulls his hand back, nodding. His drink has been pretty much forgotten at this point, Ollie’s elf cookie only missing an ear, but he has no interest in finishing it. “Yeah,” he states, nodding as he links both hands behind the back of his head. “..Yeah. I got shit to work on.”
Roy looks up at her. “Do me a favor?”
Mar’i pauses in her tapping. “Hmm?”
Roy doesn’t look away, keeping eye contact as he lowers his hands and flattens them against the smooth tabletop. “If I stop being worth it, just tell me, and I’ll remember that I said we’d try.” He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Okay?”
Mar’i nods and unfolds her arms to pat his knuckles softly with one hand. “Okay. You do the same for me.”
Roy shakes his head. “You’ve never once not been worth it.” He looks up at her. “That’s the truth. I said this was worth it, and it is.”
Roy remains steadfast in his gaze. “You’re worth it.”
"That’s why I’m saying if I stop being worth it. I’m just saying your own words back to you."
Roy ‘s smile is sad, turned down at the corners, his voice soft. “..Yeah, but I’m the one who’s sure about this being worth it.”
"You haven’t always been sure," Mar’i replies simply. "You didn’t think it was worth it when you knew Ollie and I had a conversation about something serious, but didn’t know what. You weren’t sure until you thought I was dead."
Roy states. “I never meant to stay away that long. It was worth it. I just didn’t know what he’d said. I didn’t know what he could have told you that would make you look so stricken.”
Roy adds on. “I never once asked you to take off the ring. To get rid of it.”
Mar’i ‘s foot starts tapping again. “If it had been worth it to you, you wouldn’t have run off without knowing in the first place, Roy.” She stares at him, almost blankly. “Again with the ring thing? Am I going to have to seriously explain myself again?”
Roy arches his eyebrows. “I’ve never been able to know why people stopped loving me, Mar’i,” his voice trembles, but it doesn’t snap. “I’ve never been given the why-fors, I’ve just had to.. figure it out afterwards. I didn’t want to know what Ollie had said, I didn’t want to understand what it was, and then when I did, why the hell would you want to be with someone who that could be true about?” It’s obvious that this is how he thinks of it, of that situation, itself. He exhales. “And you don’t have to explain anything, but I’ve never /said/ this wasn’t worth it. Or that I wasn’t sure.” He looks over at her. “Not as plainly as you have.”
“I didn’t stop loving you, or else I would’ve trashed the fucking ring without giving you a say and not spent a goddamn month crying and drinking myself into a frenzy because you didn’t want to have anything to do with me during a, frankly, terrible period of my life!” Mar’i’s foot taps faster. “This is the kind of shit that makes me wonder if it’s worth it! That you’d project whatever the fuck is going on in your head onto me, despite knowing me, knowing how I am and how I feel about things and about you and the things that bother you, despite me telling you repeatedly that what happened in the cafeteria didn’t have a goddamn thing with being disgusted or angry with you!” She has to stop her foot before it breaks the table leg completely. “Sometimes actions speak louder than words, Roy, no matter how cliche that is.”
Roy shakes his head. “I was just—” He bites his lip. “I’m sorry. You’re right, okay? There are a lot of things that I need to work on, and not projecting onto you, the people around me, is one of them.” He moves his hands around his cooling drink. Nodding again, he looks up at her. “I’m sorry, and I’m going to learn to do better.”
"Okay," Mar’i replies, leaning back in her chair. "I’m going to work on some stuff too." She watches people passing by outside, many of them walking faster to avoid the cool wind. "I feel like you’re disappointed with this conversation. Are you?"
Roy shakes his head. “I’m disappointed with myself..” He smiles. “But I’m gonna do my best to make sure my actions speak louder than any fool thing I could say, from now on, okay?”
Mar’i nods and spins her cup idly on the table. “Okay. Me too. That’ll be good.”
Roy reaches his hand out again, setting it palm up on the table in front of her. He doesn’t look at her, and instead, looks out the window at the holiday foot traffic.
Mar’i hesitates a moment before she slips her hand into Roy’s, silently.
Roy is dressed in a puffy maroon jacket and skully, jeans and his Timberlands, his fingers rubbing the linen on the inside of the pockets before he pulls them out and cups them over his mouth, blowing.
It is 53 degrees Fahrenheit, 12 degrees Celsius.
Mar’i definitely doesn’t find 53 degrees cold, but that’s par for the course at nearly any cooler temperature when she’s fully charged. However, for the sake of blending in, she’s wearing an athletic get-up that can vaguely pass for weather-appropriate when she spots Roy and makes her way across the nearby crosswalk.
Roy grins when he sees her, and gestures immediately at the coffee place on the corner, beginning to walk as soon as Mar’i reaches his side. He leans over and kisses her cheek, before opening the door for her. He takes his place in the queue, nearly out of the door, and looks over at her. “You’re not cold at all, are ya?” He grins, still.
Mar’i shakes her head, straightening out her ponytail with both hands as she looks over the menu. “Have you been here before? Do you know how the pomegranate chai is?”
Roy bobs his head as he scratches at the side of his beard. “Yeah, Lian loves it.. I’m gonna be getting the macha latte, if you wanna share?” They move up in line and he looks over at the pastry case, snickering suddenly. “There’s an elf sugar cookie that looks like Ollie.” He leans in, narrowing his eyes to read, and then rocks back, nodding. “Yup! It’s a Christmas Arrow cookie, made with arrowroot flour.” He makes a face. “They think they’re clever.”
Mar’i examines the cookie herself, snorting lightly. “Nah, I’m good. I’d buy one of these, but that’d be incredibly weird.” She looks at the other offerings, gaze zooming in suddenly on a cinnamon-and-apple strudel.
Roy notices her gaze and when he gets to the register, orders an Ollie-cookie and a strudel before ordering his macha latte, paying with a Queen Consolidated credit card.
Roy picks up the drink and the pastries with a grin, and leads them towards a corner booth, near the bookshelves and games towards the rear exit of the cafe.
"Really?" Mar’i murmurs as Roy takes the Ollie-cookie, following him to the booth with her own drink. She takes a seat facing the window, and drinks the first sip of her drink, not bothering to blow on it first.
Roy doesn’t seem bothered by this at all, and looks over at her as he takes a seat across from her, setting down the strudel in front of her. “How are you?”
Mar’i tears off a chunk of her strudel and pops it into her mouth. “I’m fine. How are you?”
Roy bobs his head, as he tears off a piece of Ollie’s ear. “Good! I re-enrolled in school, I’m heading back into actual classes in January.” He takes the top off his latte, letting the steam work off the liquid.
"That’s good," Mar’i murmurs with a nod, taking another long sip of chai. "That’s really good."
Roy smiles at her, fondly, and reaches out to curl his fingers around the tips of her fingers. His voice gentles, as he looks up at her face, carefully. “..you wanted to talk to me.”
Mar’i bristles the tiniest bit at that, trying to stamp it back down. “I thought we both wanted to talk.”
Roy blinks, sensing her bristling and nods. “Yeah, yeah, I did, sorry, I didn’t wanna—” He pulls his other hand from his latte and scrubs it over his beard. Sheepishly, he leans over and kisses the tips of her fingers. “..I just don’t know where to start.”
Mar’i eats more of her strudel, one hand occupied by Roy’s. “Where did we leave off? That’d be a good place, I think.”
Roy shakes his head, and dourly admits. “I’m not even sure.. I remember trying to tell you how much I missed you.” He frowns a bit. “That I was pretty stupid over the summer.” He steals a piece of strudel, chews, and adds: “..that I love you and want to get the wrought-iron fence you chose installed at the Estate.”
Mar’i scoots her strudel closer to herself to evade future attacks. “Okay,” she says, because she can’t honestly remember where they were supposed to go from here. Instead, she looks out the window. “Then where’s the problem?”
Roy blinks. “I don’t.. I don’t see a problem if you can..” He reaches out for his latte, and takes a sip, before he continues. “If you can forgive me, we just start small, stuff like this, and move back until we’re both feelin’ good about.. settin’ dates and stuff.”
"Setting dates for what?" Mar’i asks, twisting her mouth.
Roy smiles at her, crookedly. “Gettin’ hitched?” His fingers tighten over hers. Roy’s gaze warms, softens as he watches her, the tiny bits missing from the strudel, her hand over the warmed porcelain of the mug.. He moves his fingers further in, linking them with hers.
Mar’i looks at Roy’s hand as it grabs onto hers, paling a little. “We’re still getting married?” she asks, not raising her gaze back to his face. “We screwed up so bad we didn’t speak for a month and we’re still getting married? We can’t even…we can’t even figure out where we screwed up, Roy. We don’t even know where to re-start this conversation from where it was the last time we talked.”
Roy’s smile falters a little bit, but he doesn’t give up. “But we’re here. Sitting together and talking and trying to figure out how to fix this. That’s a good thing.”
Mar’i remains staring at their hands, her own fingers curling in on themselves. “I want to stop tip-toeing around everything. I want to figure out where we fucked up so badly. I want to know what was so insurmountable about what happened in the cafeteria.”
Roy nods. “Then, that’s what we’ll do.” He moves his thumb over the top of her palm, smoothing it over and over the skin there, as he exhales. “We’ll work at it, we’ll stop tiptoeing. We’ll talk about it all.”
Roy blinks, and his thumb stops, as he licks his lips. “..I mean, if you want to, still, yanno?”
Mar’i lifts her gaze carefully. “Do you still want to? Like, genuinely? Not out of a sense of obligation for time spent or anything?”
Roy swallows, his lashes fluttering a for a moment as his Adam’s apple bobs. His fingers tighten over hers. “..you..” His voice is rough, choked, and he licks his lips, scooting forward on the booth chair, staring her down like there is nothing else around them, nothing else in the world. “I haven’t been doing what I should if you think you’re any sort of.. obligation to me, Mar’i,” her name curls on his tongue like ash, melting and drifting over the taste buds, seeping into his blood stream through his salivary glands. “You are not a prison sentence.”
Roy ‘s expression falls, nostrils flaring as he steels himself, doesn’t allow himself to pull back from where he is. “..and I’m sorry if I have ever made you feel that way.”
Mar’i watches Roy’s face as he speaks, her brow furrowed slightly. “Do you still want to?” she repeats. “Is it worth it after all the time we spent apart and all the stuff that got pushed to the side—like your school?”
Roy nods. “Yes, yes, I still want to. It’s worth it. To me.” He states this last part with a bit of trepidation in his tone, searching her face for signs that it’s worth it to her, too. “Is it.. Is it worth it for you?”
Mar’i sits there for a moment, watching the traffic outside. “I haven’t figured that out yet,” she finally admits. “Because I love you, but I just…I can’t go through all of what happened again. And there’s a lot we haven’t talked about yet, things that are a lot bigger than just saying we’ll work it out.” Mar’i doesn’t take her eyes off the window. “If we try this again, we’ll have to take it so slow. Is that even possible for us? And we have to do it knowing that we’re two incredibly fucked up individuals with absolutely terrible communication skills.” She eats the last of her strudel slowly. “I mean, it’s a really, really bad sign that we fought like that and stayed apart for so long if we were planning on getting married.”
Roy nods, but doesn’t say anything for a long while after she speaks, and moves his hand to his drink, curling his fingers around it. After a few minutes, give or take an eternity, he clears his throat, and admits: “I don’t know much about what’s good or bad in relationships, just what works for me.. what doesn’t.” He inhales, sharply. “But if you think it’s that bad, I don’t..” Roy removes his hand from his latte and sets it down on his lap, his other hand still curled around her fingers. “I don’t know what to say to change that.” He swallows. “Just that.. I want to make us work.”
Mar’i brings her eyes back to him sharply. “Did that work for you? Not being with me?”
Roy stares back at her. “No.”
Mar’i continues, “Then it was bad. For both of us.”
Roy licks his lips. “But is it a bad sign?” He tilts his head, looking at her.
Roy elaborates: “Does this mean we’re doomed, in your eyes?”
Mar’i drinks more of her chai. “That we didn’t talk about it, that we let it fester until we were screaming at each other over text messages, then ignoring each other, then puking at the sight of each other, until finally I not-really-died and that made us talk—yeah, that’s a bad sign. What the hell are we gonna do if we run off and get married and have another fight like this?” She pauses, sighing as she rubs her temples. “I mean, I don’t know, Roy. I think it means we have a lot of work ahead of us, and our work ethic when it comes to this stuff is completely untested. But I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I was completely throwing in the towel on us.”
Roy clarifies. “I wasn’t puking because of you, I ate some bad alien food, I never clarified that.” He nods, nearly bobbing up and down in his chair as she continues to talk. “Yeah! I know. I know. But I mean.. It’s worth trying—” His fingers tighten over hers, tightly. Nearly too-tight. “Isn’t it?”
Mar’i takes a slow breath. “The end goal has to be us growing and becoming healthy, together and apart. Not us getting married. Is that okay with you?”
Roy blinks. “Well, that’s what I mean about us going slow.. Until we feel.. good.. about it?” He blinks again, repeating himself. He shakes his head, and nods, squeezing her hand. “Yeah, that’s perfect, Mar’i.”
Roy states, suddenly. “We don’t even have to get married, as long as you’re still in my life.”
Roy peers at her, carefully. “..you know that, right?”
Roy leans forward again, and kisses the tips of her fingers. “..bein’ without you was torture.”
Mar’i finishes the dregs of her drink, laying it down on the tabletop. “Okay then, let’s try.”
Roy grins at her, lifting his hand intertwined with hers so he can kiss the tip of every finger. “Okay!”
Mar’i watches him quietly, before she says, “Two years in a row now we’ve been fighting on your birthday.”
Roy scowls. “I never liked it anyway,” he says, cheekily, and then leans over the table, nearly knocking over his drink, to kiss her on her cheek.
Roy adds, eyebrows arching. “Third time’s the charm?”
Mar’i shrugs lightly as she moves the drink out of the way to keep it from spilling everywhere. “Who knows.”
Roy tilts his head to one side, looking at her, as his brow furrows a touch. He pulses his grip over her fingers. “..everything okay?”
Mar’i raises an eyebrow at him.
Roy continues. “I mean, we’re agreeing we’re gonna try and be better and you don’t seem..” He takes a breath, and exhales. “You don’t seem happy about that.”
Mar’i “I’m…” Mar’i frowns softly, “…just wary, I guess. We’ve got a lot ahead of us if we want things—the good things—to be like they were.”
Roy can’t help the frown that settles on his own face. He doesn’t comment on this, but nods, and lifts his hand to his drink, taking a sip of the macho.
Roy can’t help the frown that settles on his own face. He doesn’t comment on this, but nods, and lifts his hand to his drink, taking a sip of the macha.
Mar’i watches him. “What do you want to say? We’d better get in the habit of saying things honestly now.”
Roy looks up at her. “I don’t know if I should apologize again or not.”
Mar’i shakes her head. “Nah.”
Roy looks down at his drink, taking another sip, and nods, his head bobbing. “Okay.” He looks up at her. “Do you think I have more to work on than you do?”
Mar’i evens out her facial expression, regarding him for a moment. “Yeah,” she answers finally, and honestly. “The shit about gay people and being perceived as gay has got to go, on top of the communication stuff we both need to work on.”
Roy blinks, having not expected her to lay it out like that. Unconsciously, he glances to the side, as if checking to see who might have heard her. He doesn’t pull back, but nods, meeting her gaze.
Mar’i follows his gaze to the rest of the uninterested, unhearing coffeehouse. “If there’s something like that for you—something that is a deal breaker this time around, then let me know.”
Roy looks back at her, suddenly. “That’s a deal breaker for you?”
Mar’i nods. “I was hoping it would end on its own, if I just let you do you. But that approach didn’t work, just like it didn’t work with waiting for you to start the conversation about what Ollie and I talked about. And if something like that is bad enough to cause such a terrible fight between the two of us when we say we love and respect each other, then it is a deal breaker for me.”
Roy listens, waiting a respectable amount to time before he asks. “Are you expecting me to be okay with people calling me that?”
Mar’i pulls her hand away to cross her arms over her chest. “You shouldn’t ever be ‘okay’ with someone assuming they know your sexual identity. But not because it’s an insult, because there’s nothing wrong with liking men if you’re a man.”
Roy supplies, gently. “..in your opinion, Mar’i.” He looks up at her. “I can work on keeping my mouth shut when it comes to this, I just..” Roy looks at where she’s removed her hand. “Okay.”
"You’d been doing a good job keeping your mouth shut about the topic when it came to me anyway, which is why I didn’t realize how bad it was until everything blew up. And I don’t know if that’s because you knew I don’t approve or what." Mar’i glances back out the window. "I want you to feel like you can talk through things with me, while also knowing that that’s not an open pass to throw around ‘faggot’ like it’s ever going to be appropriate."
Roy reaches back out, holding his hand out, palm up, as he nods. “I want that, too,” he states. “And I know it’s not appropriate, I do. I just..” He swallows. “If I don’t ever agree with you, is that it?” His fingers twitch, curl a bit on themselves.
Mar’i stares at Roy, eerily even-kilter. “You mean, if you decide that it’s worth hating every person in your life who likes the opposite gender, including our potential children, then yes, that would be it. There’s a big difference between agreeing with, though, and accepting.”
Roy sits back, licking his lips. “I don’t.. I don’t hate Ollie,” he says, naming the only person he has ever really gone off on, the only person he thinks Mar’i can be talking about.
Mar’i “No, you just hate a huge part of his identity that he has had to cultivate over time,” Mar’i replies, tapping her toe against the table leg. “You hate him being with Bruce the same way other people hate seeing a black, Native and a fat Asian alien together.”
Roy blinks, and looks down at his hand, without her fingers, and pulls his hand back, nodding. His drink has been pretty much forgotten at this point, Ollie’s elf cookie only missing an ear, but he has no interest in finishing it. “Yeah,” he states, nodding as he links both hands behind the back of his head. “..Yeah. I got shit to work on.”
Roy looks up at her. “Do me a favor?”
Mar’i pauses in her tapping. “Hmm?”
Roy doesn’t look away, keeping eye contact as he lowers his hands and flattens them against the smooth tabletop. “If I stop being worth it, just tell me, and I’ll remember that I said we’d try.” He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Okay?”
Mar’i nods and unfolds her arms to pat his knuckles softly with one hand. “Okay. You do the same for me.”
Roy shakes his head. “You’ve never once not been worth it.” He looks up at her. “That’s the truth. I said this was worth it, and it is.”
Roy remains steadfast in his gaze. “You’re worth it.”
"That’s why I’m saying if I stop being worth it. I’m just saying your own words back to you."
Roy ‘s smile is sad, turned down at the corners, his voice soft. “..Yeah, but I’m the one who’s sure about this being worth it.”
"You haven’t always been sure," Mar’i replies simply. "You didn’t think it was worth it when you knew Ollie and I had a conversation about something serious, but didn’t know what. You weren’t sure until you thought I was dead."
Roy states. “I never meant to stay away that long. It was worth it. I just didn’t know what he’d said. I didn’t know what he could have told you that would make you look so stricken.”
Roy adds on. “I never once asked you to take off the ring. To get rid of it.”
Mar’i ‘s foot starts tapping again. “If it had been worth it to you, you wouldn’t have run off without knowing in the first place, Roy.” She stares at him, almost blankly. “Again with the ring thing? Am I going to have to seriously explain myself again?”
Roy arches his eyebrows. “I’ve never been able to know why people stopped loving me, Mar’i,” his voice trembles, but it doesn’t snap. “I’ve never been given the why-fors, I’ve just had to.. figure it out afterwards. I didn’t want to know what Ollie had said, I didn’t want to understand what it was, and then when I did, why the hell would you want to be with someone who that could be true about?” It’s obvious that this is how he thinks of it, of that situation, itself. He exhales. “And you don’t have to explain anything, but I’ve never /said/ this wasn’t worth it. Or that I wasn’t sure.” He looks over at her. “Not as plainly as you have.”
“I didn’t stop loving you, or else I would’ve trashed the fucking ring without giving you a say and not spent a goddamn month crying and drinking myself into a frenzy because you didn’t want to have anything to do with me during a, frankly, terrible period of my life!” Mar’i’s foot taps faster. “This is the kind of shit that makes me wonder if it’s worth it! That you’d project whatever the fuck is going on in your head onto me, despite knowing me, knowing how I am and how I feel about things and about you and the things that bother you, despite me telling you repeatedly that what happened in the cafeteria didn’t have a goddamn thing with being disgusted or angry with you!” She has to stop her foot before it breaks the table leg completely. “Sometimes actions speak louder than words, Roy, no matter how cliche that is.”
Roy shakes his head. “I was just—” He bites his lip. “I’m sorry. You’re right, okay? There are a lot of things that I need to work on, and not projecting onto you, the people around me, is one of them.” He moves his hands around his cooling drink. Nodding again, he looks up at her. “I’m sorry, and I’m going to learn to do better.”
"Okay," Mar’i replies, leaning back in her chair. "I’m going to work on some stuff too." She watches people passing by outside, many of them walking faster to avoid the cool wind. "I feel like you’re disappointed with this conversation. Are you?"
Roy shakes his head. “I’m disappointed with myself..” He smiles. “But I’m gonna do my best to make sure my actions speak louder than any fool thing I could say, from now on, okay?”
Mar’i nods and spins her cup idly on the table. “Okay. Me too. That’ll be good.”
Roy reaches his hand out again, setting it palm up on the table in front of her. He doesn’t look at her, and instead, looks out the window at the holiday foot traffic.
Mar’i hesitates a moment before she slips her hand into Roy’s, silently.