Tears of Leyden (34 page)

He wraps me against him and buries his face against me, murmuring all the while promises of how he wouldn’t let them hurt me and how I was here now and here forever in his heart no matter what.

I love it and want it, even would continue to cry for his comforts; but I don’t want it if it won’t last, don’t want it if he won’t stay alive, if he chooses to become an experiment or hanging dead man. I burst into him and feel myself useless as I try to regain composure and try to reach out to find a better hold on him, but constantly fail to do both.

I feel him scoop me up and soon I am in his lap, his back and head against the headboard and pillows, and mine against his chest. He lets me lie against him, violently shaking as more shameful sobs exhaust my body. He does not try to stop me. He listens, letting me deliver the heavy burden I had been carrying into his awareness and letting me avoid further contact until I am ready. I gulp for air and end up letting out an embarrassing wail as I choke into him again. I forget it as he lowers his face into my neck.

I unwind in his arms and let him secure me as I become too limp to stay upright. I feel his shaky sigh hint my ear and I sob with some relief at his indication of pain as well. He swallows hard and I choke on my breath as more tears stream down and into his skin and shirt, and I can’t help but wonder if he felt the cold drops soaking through his clothes.

I feel the small beat of his pulse in his neck and try to calm myself with its lulling rhythm. I feel that my heart beats are faint, and listening to mine I cannot to his. I hush a moment as I listen for the unaccompanied thump but I am diverted by the lone thud of two. I listen to the solid unison of our hearts and whimper as mine flakes a little off course. I curl closer hoping to aid the connection and I feel the duet start up again.

I shake a little with a quiet sob and try to stop it. I feel his breathing light against my skin. I listen to it and feel my chest move easily following his inhale and exhale, weaker, but still harmonized. He dips his head a bit and ventures into the crook of my neck where he hovers softly. I shift with another sob and the move makes me shift to hide in the small indentation of his throat, where the pit at the bottom fits my nose perfectly. We are silent a few moments, until I feel the light brush of his hand up my back. My hand itches to follow his movement and I realize the truth of human nature and replication. A tear sneaks past my lashes and I feel my eyes begin to water again.

I think silently of his words and of our lives so different yet so similar in many ways. He had lost his family when he was only seventeen and I mine. His memory was blackened by the flames which burned his dreams and mine were watered down by his endless waves of calm constantly soothing the memory.

I wonder if I had calmed his past for him as he has me and wonder what my memory will be like when he is gone. I push away the thought and turn instead to other things.

I think over what he told me of his sister and of his family estate in Spain and how his vader had shown up for his moeder with money and nothing more to persuade the match to her parents. Soon he left her a widow and she never talked of him to the children.

He found his vader’s scripture when he was fifteen, and since his moeder was a strict Catholic woman, he knew it was nothing of hers. He hid the religious pages in his room, and learnt the religion as he learnt things of his vader through his notes. On Sundays, when he could, he went instead to the Protestant church and would be chastised later for being out and about with friends during prayer hours.

I try to imagine what he must have been like when he was so young, already trying to make out the world for what it was. I try to think of what I had been like when I was…
thirteen would it be?
Yes, we were about two years apart. I open my eyes and seeing his throat I reclose them and inch nearer.

“I hadn’t known him…”
I think over the way he had described how his vader was a mystery, and remember how when my own vader left us I had seen his ghost lingering in every doorway.

I briefly become eased, reconsidering how his moeder was remarried to another gentleman of good Spanish descent, raising her rank higher, but not entirely her children’s. He had explained to me, that his moeder’s will was tied to his vader’s and that together they had agreed that Nadeje was to inherit their house and wealth. He planned to share it with his sister after their moeder died and to marry her well, but then she died too. He was left sickened and couldn’t seem to think straight about anything but religion.

His step vader was still alive and took over most of the house while the death of Nadeje’s sister still haunted him. He was described as a kind man, but Nadeje affirmed he was still worried that kindness wasn’t everything.

I agree.

When he was offered the position of becoming a soldier, he took it with fear that he would be turned out of his house by his step-vader and with mixed grief and anger. After he had joined he received no letters, and he knew that his choice had been wise when he finally heard news of his step vader’s remarriage to another woman, whom Nadeje decided quickly he never wanted to meet. After all these changes, he established that marriage was not the option he desired, and had pledged himself to find ways to help people who were lost or hurt. The only place he could quickly do this was the army without becoming one with the church (as he didn’t want to become).

I lightly rub my face to his shirt and he seems soothed. I think over what would have happened if his choices had turned to the church instead of the war, and how if it had we wouldn’t be here now. It is hard to imagine, but less hard than to think of losing him.

“I love you,” it is soft but loud after the quiet moments.

It makes me feel pain yet joy. I feel my throat clogging up again. “Nade,” I croak gently.

He reliably nuzzles me and I let the tears rise, knowing he would rather me to express than suppress it. “Hmm…” he hums to me gently, questioning my response.

I hesitate to answer him as I fear to fall to pieces again, but I make out the words somehow. “There must be a way.”

I am momentarily frightened that he had not heard it, but he indicates that he has. “If there was I would be following it.”

I feel the tears leak. “I can’t let you go without…”

He pacifies me a moment with a brush of his face to my ear. “You do not need me. You need me and I will not rest in peace. Do not need me.”

It is soft, but it burns my inner flesh. “I can’t love you if I can’t need you.”

He lifts away a bit and urges me up with him. His eyes are not scarce of gentility and they still hold the calm I admire so much, but they are sincere. “The more you need the less you can let yourself be free,” he whispers. “You can love me,” he leans closer and his eyes pierce mine. “You can feel a need for me…but anyone cannot
need
anyone to survive…if you need, it makes you vulnerable and dependent…it makes you attached so that when the time comes, you cannot let go.”

I for once do not wish to listen to his moralities, and feeling only more needful I look down and away.

He gently moves his hands up to my hair, and cupping my neck urges me to look up at him. “I only say it because I do not wish to see you vulnerable to life. You are meant to play a part of it and figure it out…to contribute to it…not to be lost in it.”

It is soft and meaningful, full of the want to open my eyes to better things. I read his expression a moment and then glance to his lips waiting for them to move. They do not and I look up to find him exploring me as well. I swallow and ignore the tears as they prickle my vision and his face goes blurry. He uncertainly puts pressure around my neck towards him and I close my eyes and duck my head close. He cordially pulls me in and tucks me below his head.

I reach into his stomach with my hands wanting to grab to something and hold on, but all I can wrap my fingers around is his shirt, which is an insubstantial object. I bare my hands into fists and let them slide down to his lap as they become useless. The tears cooling my hot cheeks do not help me to feel strong and that my need for him is not allowed I feel briefly very lost and untied. I let my tears stream again and do not try to stop them now.

“I can’t let you die,” it is weak and broken and my voice feels sick in my throat.

He bows around me a little more and I feel less alone. “Death is only a long sleep, one where the same person is let to be free from every bond. It is natural and would take place all the same…I cannot let you make it harder on yourself.”

Or you
. I feel his words make sense to me now. The more I tie him here with needs and my own weakness, the more he will have a harder time leaving if he did…go away. I try hard not to let out any more words of pain, but as I do it just makes me feel adapt to keeling over with sobs.

“Nadeje,” I whisper it, only wanting him to hear the word.

He cloaks me against him softer now, with less of a solid tense hold.

I feel more tears leak. “I love you,” it is weak.

He gently presses his hand to my back. “I know it,” it is soft and caring, assuring me.

It does not assure me that I won’t be alone though. More tears fall. “A lo-ot.”

He is solid and warm and just right for me to let out tears on. “It gives me joy to hear it.”

I feel my throat opening up from its tightness as my chest tightens instead. “I cannot stop loving you,” it is half a breath, half a trembling sob.

He presses his hands firmly to me. “Lyra.”

“I can’t let you go,” it bubbles up my throat and I break down.

His voice is soft against my neck. “Beloved.”

I burst against him. “I can’t let t-them take y-you…” I am shaking violently and can’t stop it.

“Leifde…”

“I can’t let you leave…p-please….don‘t let them take you away…I can’t do it…I can’t let you die w-without m-me…Nadeje…I can’t let you go…I can’t….I loved you…I l-love you…I won’t l-let you be hurt…I can’t…I can’t…”

“Shhh…Lyra…”

“I want you alive,” I sob. My hands crib around his neck and I press closer. “I wanted you…I want you…want to be yours…wanted…n-no-o-o...”

He turns his face into my hair and nuzzles my ear. “You are mine…always…”

I hide against him, not wanting his morals and principles and beliefs…just wanting
him
. “N-no!” I snap.

He follows me and presses his face to my ear.

“I want to be with you always,” it is frailer.

He brings me closer. “Dearest…”

I burrow in and don’t want to ever come out. Not until I know he will stay with me for the rest of my life. “
Nade
,” it is pleading.

He cuddles me to him and lightly earths into my neck. “You must breathe…”

I ignore him and sob into his chest, rocking against him. “No-o…”

He pulls me tightly against him. “Shh…calm down…calm down, you are only hurting yourself.”

I quiver against him feeling weaker than I had realized while I was sobbing, and the tiredness in my body tells me I have used up a lot of energy for worthless weeping. I resent it.

“N-no!” I sob, starting up again.

He hushes me.

I feel the rawness of my throat and breathe a moment, regaining my energy. I feel my head sink into him and my body grows limper.

He waits a few moments before moving me further. He kisses my ear. “Are you at ease?”

I tremble and shiver at the same time and he feels it with protective disposition.

He turns his head to mine and presses me to relax. “Let it go…” he soothes. “Let it all out to me if you have to.”

I sob once into him and he waits for me to finish.

“There,” it is right to my ear, and the sound is like a warm vibration of music to my toppled mind. “It is here that I can think without worrying for you.”

I cringe at the mention of my troubling him and he feels it and gathers me closer.

“I wished for you to cry to me,” he murmurs. “Do not regret it.”

I swallow hard and choke back the sob waiting in my throat.

He leans his face to my neck and waits a few silent seconds, giving me time. He inquires after me. “Better?”

I clench my hand into a fist even though it is weak. “No-o!”

He is undaunted by it. “I suspected you to answer as such.”

I push closer and resent him at the same time. “No-o…no, no, no…Nade…”

He is softer. “Shh...”

I swallow. “I don’t want you to be n-near me unless I can b-be with you.” It is a sob and I stop it there, unable to go further without hurting us both more.

He is silent for a few beats. “You are referencing companionship again, Leifde?”

I am nervous of his words yet happy for his understanding. “I want to be named under your Sir name…not my vader’s.”

It is silent at least twice the amount of time than the last.

“Lyra?”

I feel small and my voice is strange. “Gilch…” it is almost a whisper. “Marital.”

He is gentle. “You wanted me.”

I whisper it. “Yes.”

There is a moment of quiet and then, he undertones someone of great knowledge once more. This time I willingly listen. “It is disallowed…nevertheless vows only hold so much.”