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The Complete Fic Directory
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- So Good To See You
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- Summertime Feeling - S Club 7
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- That Night In Amsterdam/Do You Love Me? [Part Two]
- This
- Three Sets Of Three
- Twenty-Nine (And A Half)
- Under A Colourless Sky [Colourless]
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- What Did You Say This Time?
- What Will The Papers Say? [Purple]
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So Good To See You
It was so good to see you again. I thought I’d seen you enough, but in that moment I knew enough wasn’t enough after all. Because I’d missed you. I noticed your absence every day, whether I’d admitted it or not. I’d missed your ability to translate me – even though your interpretations of my thoughts were often rude, sometimes crude, and always far more rough around the edges than I intended. I didn’t mind though. I let you get away with it. Because I knew that, even if no one else did, you understood. You and me didn’t use words that much. You taught me to be wordless, sometimes anyway. It was good to be wordless again. Well, we were talking. But it was the things behind the talk we were listening to, you and me both know that. Like the way the fabric of your jacket stretched taught across your shoulders. And how somewhere in the embrace my fingers brushed against your back. You’ve always been a sturdier structure than me. My fingers touched you lightly whilst your arms dug into my ribs. Your eyes briefly scanned my face.
And now we’re in the back of this taxi. And neither one of us knows why. I can’t remember what I said or how you replied. We weren’t drunk, just lost to the world. Time briefly forgot to trouble us and we were happy to forget to care. You reminded me that I was the one who ran away. For all the right reasons, perhaps. You didn’t concede that and I didn’t argue it, but we both acknowledged it. You more reluctantly than me. It doesn’t change the fact I ran away. I disappeared as fast as I could. Largely because I wanted to disappear. I pointed out to you that I tried to stay. I’d stayed a little while. I hadn’t been close but I’d been near enough. The only reason I held off disappearing was you. I didn’t need to remind you. You’d always felt a little guilty about that. That’s why you eventually let me run. The first postcard I sent you, you ripped it up before you’d even read it.
Whilst I was busy trying to be nobody, you were busy trying to rebuild yourself into somebody. You tried to remember what you loved before you met me. I knew what I had loved before you and my problem was I never wanted to let that go. Our shared history – written into the way we turn our heads, brush our fingers, close our eyes – was pushed out in favour of the history that had gone before. The history that had been cut short by meeting each other. We played out the ‘What if’ as if we actually cared, as if we actually thought the alternative was better. We pretended, with a certain youthful stupidity, that neither one of us was responsible for the person the other had become.
You are briefly illuminated by the amber of a streetlamp. The shadows of raindrops flit across your face and I can see sleepless nights there. Sleepless nights from when I was gone? I don’t know. I am a part of you and you are a part of me. That will never change. My absence became part of you too though. And your anger became a part of me. We have been jarred by years of silence – a different sort of silence to that which we’re sitting in now. Now it is the old sort of silence. The familiar sort of silence. I can hear so much more in this silence than I could in that bar.
From this silence I can work out that you’re hurting, that you don’t want to say goodbye again. I don’t want that either. I have to go though. The going was planned before I saw you again. The going wasn’t designed to hurt you. I only realised it would when I felt your arms wrap around me. I realised you’ve been holding onto me. Your arms made no difference, you had already been there. Your embrace was imprinted on me, and not just because it’s so firm. You know that I know that. And you know it’s true and you take comfort in it. But I know comfort isn’t enough.
You got bitter when I went. At first anyway. You muttered under your breath on the phone, when I remembered to phone. And you wouldn’t touch me when I came back, my stays were too brief for that. You punished me. But at least you started reading my letters. You understood, even though you didn’t want to. You saw it making me better. You liked that I was getting more sleep.
By the time I came back you were the one who was gone. But I didn’t begrudge you that. And I knew you were happy. You know how long my list of fears is, you know how many new things I can come up with to scare myself in the space of an hour. My own mind is my worst enemy. Fearing I will destroy you is something that has never gone away. I’m convinced I’m a mess. I’m convinced I’ll destroy people through my lack of any concrete talent. Through my endless capacity to find words to say. And through my ineptitude at sleep. My worst habit is to lash out at the ones who try and help me. In my head I do it to protect them from me. I think it only hurts them more but for some reason I never stop. So when I saw you – from a distance, you didn’t know I was watching – just after I’d got back, so happy, so relaxed and content in what you were doing, so free of any anger at my absence, I was relieved. I didn’t want to feel as though I had given you the same sense of loss I had given myself by putting distance between us. I fought with myself to stand back and not interfere. I called you and watched as you spoke to me on the phone. We talked, it was nice. But I told myself it was just a talk. I told myself we were done with being tangled up in each other.
I am fractured and you are worn. But, as rough as our edges may be, they have always fitted together. We let more years pass with us ignoring that truth. I met someone who reminded me of you and pretended for a while that they made me feel safe the way you did. You acted as though you had no urge to protect me from myself, you pretended you thought Replacement You was doing a good enough job. You pretended to think Replacement You was good enough for me, that you didn’t think I deserved to be able to breathe at night. Replacement You couldn’t handle all the worrying though, I was so broken that I breathless one night and I could only come to you. When you had finally gotten me to sleep, you went and packed Replacement You’s bags. You never told me what you’d done. But I knew.
For a while you played house with Not Me. Not Me was so unlike me I wondered if you had finally gotten free of our shared past. I thought maybe you had succeeded in forgetting. Or I thought that, at the very least, one of us had finally come to realise we are simply too different to fit into each other’s lives. But Not Me couldn’t put up with your rubbish. Couldn’t take your sense of humour right or accept that a normal job would kill you or think for one moment that some silences need to be left. And worst of all Not Me didn’t need you. Not Me slept all the way through the night without fretting and Not Me had never once looked fragile enough to break. I am, by my very make-up, fragile enough to break. My bones are too close to my skin, you say. You said it today too. When we sat down. When the embrace broke and we were falling into step with each other all over again. Like we always do. I was too busy thinking how good it was to see you. And it was so good to see you. I think that’s probably how we ended up here.
Falling back into us all over again is something I vowed not to do. From our bright grins as we first met up to our straight-lipped silence now, the determination not to let myself give in to the emotion of shared history has been running through every action I have made. I never intended to let us get into this taxi. Even as I felt your hand on the small of my back, pushing me gently into the taxi’s backseat, I swore to myself we were just saving some money. He’ll drop me off then he’ll carry on to yours. With you still in the back. Because I feel just about ready to break right now and I don’t want you to see it.
I turn my head. I shouldn’t have because, though the action is slight, it has your attention immediately. I hope you won’t notice if I hold my breath. A futile hope because you know me better than to miss that hitch in my throat, you’ve heard it too many times. A tear slides down my cheek and its path is traced by your eyes. Silence and stillness stretch out in the darkness of the taxi as the driver turns down an unfamiliar street. Your eyes watch me a moment or two longer than I expect. Then your hand slowly moves across the expanse of darkness that is lying between us. Wordlessly you take my hand in your own. You thumb moves, once and once only, across the back of my hand and I don’t meet your eyes. You squeeze my hand tightly then turn away again. And I know what you’re telling me because I know you better than I should.
You’re begging me. And you know how much you’re asking of me. And something inside of me is breaking. But still neither one of us says a word. Our hands are still joined in the darkness. Your plea is in that single action. You say you’re always there if I fall – I know, you always have been. You say if I call to you then you will come – even when I don’t call, you usually appear. Don’t fight me Jay. That’s your real plea. Don’t fight my hands when they hold onto you. You’ve never understood why I do that. In many ways you don’t understand me. But there’s more ways that you do. I feel so guilty for tying you down with that.
Another tear is, somehow, allowed to escape. You tense a little in the stillness. You want to know the things you don’t know. Why are you always fighting? What is it you are striving for? What is it that you feel you don’t deserve? Your frown asks me all these questions but I think you know, deep down. I think you know I don’t want to break you. You realise that the problem is with us, that in my head I can think of a million reasons to run. Why are you still looking everywhere for love? Still searching everywhere but in my hand, in this stillness, in this taxi? As if I’m not enough, as if I’m not right. Oh but Howard you are so much better than enough (you always have been) and that frightens me. I don’t want to destroy it. But I think I will. I close my eyes and you feel me sway. Your hand tugs on mine and I’m forced to look up at your face. I can just make out the light of your eyes – a pained silver – in the shadows.
I’m not sure which one of us moved. I’m not sure who closed the gap between us or when the taxi stopped. All I know is your hand didn’t leave mine. Not even as you paid the driver. It was you who guided me out onto the pavement. Stood with me on the corner. Slowly, silently, I wrap my arms around your neck and close my eyes against your steadiness. You hold me tightly. I can’t fight you. I can try but it never lasts. This is me breaking in your arms. This is me asking you to help fix me. You swallow and hold me even tighter because you know it’s the only time I ever truly feel safe. You have wanted this for so long. You have to ask though, you have to know, before you fix me, how long I will be in your arms this time. Where will you go next? Where will you run to after tonight? When?
But Howard, you have to know I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you where I will hide or for how long. I can barely even tell you why. But it was so good to see you again. And I promise I’m trying to stay.
And now we’re in the back of this taxi. And neither one of us knows why. I can’t remember what I said or how you replied. We weren’t drunk, just lost to the world. Time briefly forgot to trouble us and we were happy to forget to care. You reminded me that I was the one who ran away. For all the right reasons, perhaps. You didn’t concede that and I didn’t argue it, but we both acknowledged it. You more reluctantly than me. It doesn’t change the fact I ran away. I disappeared as fast as I could. Largely because I wanted to disappear. I pointed out to you that I tried to stay. I’d stayed a little while. I hadn’t been close but I’d been near enough. The only reason I held off disappearing was you. I didn’t need to remind you. You’d always felt a little guilty about that. That’s why you eventually let me run. The first postcard I sent you, you ripped it up before you’d even read it.
Whilst I was busy trying to be nobody, you were busy trying to rebuild yourself into somebody. You tried to remember what you loved before you met me. I knew what I had loved before you and my problem was I never wanted to let that go. Our shared history – written into the way we turn our heads, brush our fingers, close our eyes – was pushed out in favour of the history that had gone before. The history that had been cut short by meeting each other. We played out the ‘What if’ as if we actually cared, as if we actually thought the alternative was better. We pretended, with a certain youthful stupidity, that neither one of us was responsible for the person the other had become.
You are briefly illuminated by the amber of a streetlamp. The shadows of raindrops flit across your face and I can see sleepless nights there. Sleepless nights from when I was gone? I don’t know. I am a part of you and you are a part of me. That will never change. My absence became part of you too though. And your anger became a part of me. We have been jarred by years of silence – a different sort of silence to that which we’re sitting in now. Now it is the old sort of silence. The familiar sort of silence. I can hear so much more in this silence than I could in that bar.
From this silence I can work out that you’re hurting, that you don’t want to say goodbye again. I don’t want that either. I have to go though. The going was planned before I saw you again. The going wasn’t designed to hurt you. I only realised it would when I felt your arms wrap around me. I realised you’ve been holding onto me. Your arms made no difference, you had already been there. Your embrace was imprinted on me, and not just because it’s so firm. You know that I know that. And you know it’s true and you take comfort in it. But I know comfort isn’t enough.
You got bitter when I went. At first anyway. You muttered under your breath on the phone, when I remembered to phone. And you wouldn’t touch me when I came back, my stays were too brief for that. You punished me. But at least you started reading my letters. You understood, even though you didn’t want to. You saw it making me better. You liked that I was getting more sleep.
By the time I came back you were the one who was gone. But I didn’t begrudge you that. And I knew you were happy. You know how long my list of fears is, you know how many new things I can come up with to scare myself in the space of an hour. My own mind is my worst enemy. Fearing I will destroy you is something that has never gone away. I’m convinced I’m a mess. I’m convinced I’ll destroy people through my lack of any concrete talent. Through my endless capacity to find words to say. And through my ineptitude at sleep. My worst habit is to lash out at the ones who try and help me. In my head I do it to protect them from me. I think it only hurts them more but for some reason I never stop. So when I saw you – from a distance, you didn’t know I was watching – just after I’d got back, so happy, so relaxed and content in what you were doing, so free of any anger at my absence, I was relieved. I didn’t want to feel as though I had given you the same sense of loss I had given myself by putting distance between us. I fought with myself to stand back and not interfere. I called you and watched as you spoke to me on the phone. We talked, it was nice. But I told myself it was just a talk. I told myself we were done with being tangled up in each other.
I am fractured and you are worn. But, as rough as our edges may be, they have always fitted together. We let more years pass with us ignoring that truth. I met someone who reminded me of you and pretended for a while that they made me feel safe the way you did. You acted as though you had no urge to protect me from myself, you pretended you thought Replacement You was doing a good enough job. You pretended to think Replacement You was good enough for me, that you didn’t think I deserved to be able to breathe at night. Replacement You couldn’t handle all the worrying though, I was so broken that I breathless one night and I could only come to you. When you had finally gotten me to sleep, you went and packed Replacement You’s bags. You never told me what you’d done. But I knew.
For a while you played house with Not Me. Not Me was so unlike me I wondered if you had finally gotten free of our shared past. I thought maybe you had succeeded in forgetting. Or I thought that, at the very least, one of us had finally come to realise we are simply too different to fit into each other’s lives. But Not Me couldn’t put up with your rubbish. Couldn’t take your sense of humour right or accept that a normal job would kill you or think for one moment that some silences need to be left. And worst of all Not Me didn’t need you. Not Me slept all the way through the night without fretting and Not Me had never once looked fragile enough to break. I am, by my very make-up, fragile enough to break. My bones are too close to my skin, you say. You said it today too. When we sat down. When the embrace broke and we were falling into step with each other all over again. Like we always do. I was too busy thinking how good it was to see you. And it was so good to see you. I think that’s probably how we ended up here.
Falling back into us all over again is something I vowed not to do. From our bright grins as we first met up to our straight-lipped silence now, the determination not to let myself give in to the emotion of shared history has been running through every action I have made. I never intended to let us get into this taxi. Even as I felt your hand on the small of my back, pushing me gently into the taxi’s backseat, I swore to myself we were just saving some money. He’ll drop me off then he’ll carry on to yours. With you still in the back. Because I feel just about ready to break right now and I don’t want you to see it.
I turn my head. I shouldn’t have because, though the action is slight, it has your attention immediately. I hope you won’t notice if I hold my breath. A futile hope because you know me better than to miss that hitch in my throat, you’ve heard it too many times. A tear slides down my cheek and its path is traced by your eyes. Silence and stillness stretch out in the darkness of the taxi as the driver turns down an unfamiliar street. Your eyes watch me a moment or two longer than I expect. Then your hand slowly moves across the expanse of darkness that is lying between us. Wordlessly you take my hand in your own. You thumb moves, once and once only, across the back of my hand and I don’t meet your eyes. You squeeze my hand tightly then turn away again. And I know what you’re telling me because I know you better than I should.
You’re begging me. And you know how much you’re asking of me. And something inside of me is breaking. But still neither one of us says a word. Our hands are still joined in the darkness. Your plea is in that single action. You say you’re always there if I fall – I know, you always have been. You say if I call to you then you will come – even when I don’t call, you usually appear. Don’t fight me Jay. That’s your real plea. Don’t fight my hands when they hold onto you. You’ve never understood why I do that. In many ways you don’t understand me. But there’s more ways that you do. I feel so guilty for tying you down with that.
Another tear is, somehow, allowed to escape. You tense a little in the stillness. You want to know the things you don’t know. Why are you always fighting? What is it you are striving for? What is it that you feel you don’t deserve? Your frown asks me all these questions but I think you know, deep down. I think you know I don’t want to break you. You realise that the problem is with us, that in my head I can think of a million reasons to run. Why are you still looking everywhere for love? Still searching everywhere but in my hand, in this stillness, in this taxi? As if I’m not enough, as if I’m not right. Oh but Howard you are so much better than enough (you always have been) and that frightens me. I don’t want to destroy it. But I think I will. I close my eyes and you feel me sway. Your hand tugs on mine and I’m forced to look up at your face. I can just make out the light of your eyes – a pained silver – in the shadows.
I’m not sure which one of us moved. I’m not sure who closed the gap between us or when the taxi stopped. All I know is your hand didn’t leave mine. Not even as you paid the driver. It was you who guided me out onto the pavement. Stood with me on the corner. Slowly, silently, I wrap my arms around your neck and close my eyes against your steadiness. You hold me tightly. I can’t fight you. I can try but it never lasts. This is me breaking in your arms. This is me asking you to help fix me. You swallow and hold me even tighter because you know it’s the only time I ever truly feel safe. You have wanted this for so long. You have to ask though, you have to know, before you fix me, how long I will be in your arms this time. Where will you go next? Where will you run to after tonight? When?
But Howard, you have to know I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you where I will hide or for how long. I can barely even tell you why. But it was so good to see you again. And I promise I’m trying to stay.