[FIN] Scars of the Past

[TawnyAngel]

That was decided then, yes? It was a plan, sort of his plan and sort of Abel's plan. A shared plan, made a year in advance. He couldn't quite get his head around that and so he allowed it to slide away without further consideration.

"I talk a lot," Zevran said with a wry smile and drew their linked hands towards himself so that he could kiss Abel's knuckles. "Tell me then. I doubt I will know how to reply but I will listen, and maybe learn something?" He was living in a new world here in Kodo, one that he was perhaps ill equipped to deal with in some ways. If Abel wanted to share things that might change that it... well he doubted it would be good, it would hurt he was sure, but perhaps it was needed.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"You do," Abel agreed with what should've been a smirk but what ended up as a bright, pleased smile instead, "but I like it when you talk, so that's alright." His fingers flexed in Zevran's hands, partially to give one of them a gentle squeeze but mostly so he could enjoy feeling Zev's hands around his. It was an altogether pleasant feeling, one that went straight to his heart. "Alright then, let me see..."

As he trailed off his gaze shifted back to the ceiling as he mulled it over, debating over where to begin. Certainly from the beginning, but the beginning of what? How he'd dealt with his feelings? The whole kidnapping ordeal? Earlier than that? The more he thought about it, the further back he couldn't help but feel he had to go. "Well I guess to give you a better sense of how we all dealt with it - me especially - it's probably best to start at the very beginning." A pause, in which he further gathered his thoughts before continuing, "I think I told you before sometime that we all grew up in a pretty good home. Safe, loving -- we didn't always get everything we wanted, and we all had busy childhoods and were prone to fighting on occasion, but on the whole it was good. Nothing bad ever really happened besides the occasional minor injury from either roughhousing as kids do, or something on the ranch - or a broken bone, if you're Aaron - but that was about it. When we were young, me and Alex never really got along too well. We still didn't after Aaron was born and when he got older it only got worse between the three of us -- but after Amelia was a few years old, for some reason we all kind of paired off. Alex and Aaron got along much better than I had with either of them, and I got along with Amelia. Something about skipping siblings or something, I don't know," he added with a vague gesture of one hand before he settled it back down on top of Zevran's again. "Point was, we were all close, of course, but we each had a sibling we were closer to than the others. For me, that was Amelia." He paused again, and his colorful gaze flicked to his friend curiously. "Does that make sense?"  

[TawnyAngel]

As he listened Zevran gently freed one hand from Abel's but only so that he could drape it around his waist. "It makes sense," he agreed after a brief thoughtful pause. "I did not have siblings but when I was taken to the crows there were other children, we all formed our little alliances and my closest was Taliesen." Many of them had died, all of them who had arrived in the same year as he and Taliesen, and those who made poor connections were more likely to go.... But that was not at all the point Abel was making here. "Go on?"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

...ah. Of course there were. Zevran couldn't and wouldn't have been the first child they'd.. acquired, of course. He should've expected it, he really should have, but the comment caught him off-guard all the same. Rather than worry or fret or get angry over it, he merely inhaled deeply and pulled Zevran's hand to his lips to press a soft kiss on it, then settled both their hands back on the bed, though not before lacing his fingers through Zev's. "That makes sense, and it's probably similar? I wouldn't really know," he added with a rueful smile as he shifted his other arm to drape across his stomach.

He hummed thoughtfully then as he pondered how to continue, his gaze drifting back to the ceiling. "So that's how I grew up; always safe, always loved, nothing bad ever really happened. The day Amelia was kidnapped... We'd all gone to the park for a few hours so she and Aaron could play, even though it was pretty cold out. Usually is around the end of November," he added absently. A pensive, faraway look seeped into his expression, gradually replacing the quiet warmth from before, though a faint wistful smile crept in too. "I still remember it like it was yesterday; I've replayed it in my head so many times I'm pretty sure it's permanently burned into my memory. Amelia was running around in her powder blue coat and matching snow boots - even though there wasn't any snow - and she was still upset at Mom for not letting her wear her favorite shirt. It was dirty because she always wore it, so Mom made her wear just a plain, pale pink sweater that day instead under her coat. Even put pink bows in her hair to match - it was in pigtails that day," he lifted his hand vaguely to gesture before dropping it back down onto his stomach with the same faraway look in his eyes, still staring up at the ceiling as if it was a screen upon which he watched the memory play through for the umpteenth time. "She never did like having her hair in pigtails. I think she was a little grumpy about it that day - either that or not getting to wear her favorite shirt, or both - so she wasn't her usual self. She was always, always the brightest little ray of sunshine, though she shone just a tad less brightly that day."

After a few moments and a soft, thoughtful hum, he continued with his story, "I remember she wanted to play with Aaron but he was too busy playing with his friends that also went to the park that day - or trying to be too busy to play with his kid sister, at any rate, like big brothers do at times - so I was playing with her off and on. Alex was off by herself - I'm still surprised she was even there, although she was on her cellphone the whole time, talking to her boyfriend - while Mom and Dad were sitting at one of the picnic tables, chatting with some of the other parents. After a while I got tired of playing with her so much, so I went to go sit with them for a bit while Amelia ran off to go play with some of the other kids." Another pause, another deep, slow inhale - controlled, even, careful - before he went on, "A while later - must've been about half an hour, forty five minutes? - Mom told me to go round up Amelia and Aaron so we could go home. I went and looked, found Aaron, asked him where she was, but he just shrugged because he'd been playing with his own friends. He went back to Mom and Dad and I went around the park again before going back to my parents to tell them I couldn't find her. We all got worried then, especially since some of the parents and their kids had left so the area had thinned out some, and we couldn't see her around anyone else that was still there. We looked and we looked - for a good hour or two, before Mom drove Aaron home so me, Dad and Alex could keep looking on our own - but," he gently slipped his hand from Zevran's so he could lift both up in an airy sort of shrug since he was lying down, "we never found her. She wasn't in the park anymore, and hadn't been for a while even before I started looking. Someone coaxed her over, led her away before we even knew anything was wrong, and by the time we had it was far too late to do anything more than call the police and hope for the best," he finished bitterly, his brows knitting together a bit as a mild frown formed on his face.  

[TawnyAngel]

And that was what happened when you cared about people.

Zevran swallowed, his blood felt suddenly chill in his veins and he knew he should just pull away and leave and never look back, because he knew how this story ended and he couldn't imagine the pain it had caused. Instead of pulling away however he shifted to rest his head on Abel's shoulder and wrapped his arms around him. "I am listening," he said softly and pressed a tender kiss against Abel's collar bone, which was thankfully less prominent now than it once had been.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Zevran's touch pulled him from his memories back to the present in short order. His expression softened as he shifted to wrap one arm around his friend's shoulders and hold him close, while his free hand slid up to curl around one of Zev's arms and gave it a gentle, appreciative squeeze. "I appreciate it," he murmured before turning his head both to kiss Zevran's hair and to take in its scent, to further cement himself in the present where he was safe and warm in his friend's embrace, far away from what had hurt him in the past. "I don't really ever talk about everything that happened in this much detail."

With a soft sigh he laid his head back down on the bed, idly running his thumb across Zev's side as he dove back down into the depths of his memories, though with their prominence it took little effort. "It only got worse after that, because the guy that kidnapped her was - unsurprisingly - an enormous a*****e. Over the next few weeks he started sending us ransom letters so we could pay to get her back, and my parents sent him everything they could - all the money they had, any spare change they could find, anything - anything to get her back home, safe and sound, but..." Another pause, another deep, controlled breath, "We didn't hear from him after that -- not until the trial, anyway. No, after that the next bit of news we got came the week before Christmas, unfortunately from the police, telling us they'd found her - face down in a ditch, of course - and I... We didn't know what to do, what to think, it was just... like some terrible nightmare that slunk out from the shadows of a dream to torment us while we were awake, where we couldn't change anything or do anything about what had happened." He inhaled deeply again to calm the nerves that had begun to fray, though this time the action was perhaps a little less controlled and even than before. "It hit Mom and I the most, I think, but none of us knew what to do, how to handle it, how to deal with it... None of us knew how to cope or how to heal from that. My parents had had experiences with death by then so I think they were a little better equipped to handle it than any of us were. That's when I started smoking - and why - and even though I was only sixteen I started drinking for a while, just... whatever I could get my hands on, but getting drunk only worked for a little while. Smoking helped calm me down but I couldn't just stop whenever I felt like it like I could with drinking, so I just... never stopped," he went on with a vague shrug, a quiet, faint distress manifesting in his features despite his attempts to quell it.

"And then the trial happened just after my birthday, though I think I told you about this part. They found and caught him but he kept acting like it wasn't him even though we all knew it was. Everything fit together too perfectly and he just.. was so smug and knew more than he would've if he was innocent like he claimed to be. We all knew it was him, but that's not how the system works; he got off on a technicality, free to do whatever he liked, and we went back home with the knowledge that the man who stole Amelia away from us was still out there, in all likelihood planning to do the same thing to another family. We just... we all struggled with it - we all did - but I didn't know what to do, I didn't know... anything, I felt so many things it was driving me crazy, and the only things that really did anything to numb the pain were smoking or drinking. Or both," he added with a sigh, then lifted one hand to gesture vaguely in the air, "But you know what happened after that; he was planning to do the same thing so I got rid of him so he wouldn't be able to - I didn't want anyone else to go through what I'd gone through, what my family had gone through - and I thought that would help me feel better about the whole thing, and it did a little, but not... as much as I'd thought it would. Not that I ever regretted what I did, of course, but I just... I don't know. I missed her, I wanted to go back in time and change things, to fix things so it never happened, but that was impossible. Thinking that way didn't really help either, but when s**t like that happens it's hard to really think logically about things. Or rationally I guess -- whichever," he finished with a shrug, then sighed and flopped his arm back down over his abdomen. He'd just said a lot of words; he needed a moment to just.. not talk, to let his throat, his lungs - his heart - rest, and he figured Zevran might need a moment to digest everything too, so it probably worked out.  

[TawnyAngel]

s**t. ********. How could he understand what Abel was saying? He had never loved anyone so how could he comprehend the pain of losing someone you did love and in such a terrible manner?

He felt as though his heart was ripping out of his chest but there was nothing he could do other than to hold Abel tighter and kiss his skin again, and though he knew it was not a lot he did so because it was all he had to offer.

There was no point in believing in justice in the world, they both knew that but this must be when Abel had first discovered it and then he had solved it as best he could. Thinking of what that man had and might have have done to the little child Abel's sister had been was sickening and yet not so strange, for there was no justice and those with power in any society were mainly free to indulge themselves as they pleased. What had the 'technicality' been? Had it been 'more money'? 'Better lawyers'? 'Blackmail'? So many possibilities, a thick stinking pot of them like slowly festering and congealing blood.

"I... I cannot comprehend how that must have felt," Zevran said after a silence which to him at least felt weighted down with lead and chains. The man hadn't even bothered to hide the body, he had known he would get away with it. "Drink, other drugs... they do help, or seem to. That at least I understand." He had never found anything to stick with other than alcohol but it was not for a lack of experimenting. Supposedly it had been for fun but had it, truly? Go out and drink to celebrate a victory and do this or that, and all for celebration and not to take the mind away from what it had involved.

But that was not even a little important right now, all that was important to him was Abel and he held him tighter to tell him that in action as he did not have the words to do so. "Do you want to tell me what happened next?"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

All of the hugs, the kisses, the affection Zevran showed him warmed his heart and despite the subject matter he couldn't help the faint smile that formed because of it. He gave his friend a tight squeeze in return and once more kissed his fine blond hair - several times, even, each one gentle and lingering - before he relaxed against the bed and rubbed his hand over the other man's arm fondly. "Sure," he said agreeably. He'd already come so far, so it made sense to continue and see it through.

"It felt..." His brow furrowed as he stared up at the ceiling again, a thoughtful frown on his face as he tried to figure out how to phrase the whirlwind in his mind at the time, the emotional rollercoaster he'd been forced to ride for the better part of two years. ...two years was beginning to seem like a recurring, unfortunate period of time. "It's hard to describe, honestly. I was feeling so many things - hatred, rage, anger, sadness, confusion, hopelessness, to name a few - just... all at once. Sometimes a few were more prominent than the others, but they all took turns. I remember just.. being so angry about it, it felt so unfair. Everything about it felt unfair; that it happened to her of all people, that it happened at all, that it happened to our family, that he got to walk free, that no one was even going to do anything about the whole thing, that all anyone ever said were empty condolences they didn't even really mean... It all made me just.. so angry," he reiterated with a weary sigh, reaching a hand up to rub at his face a bit before he plopped it back down over Zevran's arm. "I didn't know how to deal with it, like I said - smoking and drinking were what I stuck with, at first, then just smoking - and since I didn't know what else to do because that didn't really help, I just tried to push it away, to bury it so deep that it'd hopefully stop hurting so much. It didn't really help that much but I pretended it did because I was just.. at a loss for what else to do. It was kind of bad, actually," the blond admitted with a hollow, vaguely shamefaced smile devoid of any warmth, "because I was so angry about it, I'd get angry if I thought about it, if I saw anything that reminded me of it, if anyone mentioned it... But that was how I dealt with it as a lost sixteen-, seventeen-year-old, and actually for a few months after I turned eighteen, too. I just kept trying to keep it buried but it festered and ate away at me, but the worst part of that was it was negatively affecting my family -- all that anger, it wasn't good for me or for them, I... I'm sure I yelled at them more than any of them deserved at the time, for things that they didn't deserve to be yelled at over, but I just didn't want to think about it. I think I was jealous, too, and just as angry - if not moreso - when they seemed to cope with it better than I could. I suppose I thought of it like.. like they didn't care as much, maybe, or that I just couldn't get deal with it like they could. I barely finished school, I remember being angry when Alex moved out - like she was running away from it or some such nonsense," he said with a snort.

After a brief pause for breath and to gather his thoughts he continued, "But then one day," one hand lifted in an airy gesture, "Mom got sick of it. She sat me down and made me feel guilty as s**t for what I'd been putting everyone else through - rightly so, too - and as much as I hated it at the time, she made me sit and talk about it. Talk the whole thing out so she could figure out why it always made me so angry, what about it hurt me so bad, until she dug deep enough to find out what it was. I... always felt guilty about it. I always blamed myself for it -- the whole thing. If I hadn't have stopped playing with her, if I'd have kept an eye on her, if I'd at least followed along when she ran off with the other kids, if I'd have done something different - anything, anything at all - then she'd still be here, still be alive. I'd been blaming myself for it since the day she disappeared and I just... never stopped for two years," he sighed, gesturing vaguely with one hand without really lifting it from its spot draped over his chest. "To be honest I still do, but she had a long talk with me about it when we finally figured it out. A long, long talk; it sucked, I yelled at her at one point, I cried, she held me and we talked more... I hated it - every minute of it - but I didn't realize at the time how badly I'd needed it. It took time, but I started feeling better after that. Not right away, of course, but it helped. It's been a good.. eight?" His expression turned thoughtful for a moment. "I think eight years since then, and even though it still hurts, it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did back then." Another pause, another sigh, though this time he shifted his head to press another fond, gentle kiss to his friend's hair. "I think that's about it. There's some stuff I probably forgot though; like I said, I don't generally go into so much detail about it."  

[TawnyAngel]

How could he reply to all of that? Abel was trusting him with so much, he had to say something but his mind was completely blank. He wanted to help but maybe there was nothing left to help, it was a scar that was as healed as it could be... and all he could give would be empty condolences anyway wouldn't they? He couldn't empathise, he had little of that as he had always thought was best. He had laughed at people who were kind and now here he was with Abel who was so kind that it hurt and he never wanted that to change.

"It was unfair," Zevran said eventually, slowly as though he was just working it all out. "It should not have happened to any of you. Life is not fair but... you can be hurt be the unfairness?" A little girl, and he had blamed himself, and Alyssa had then threatened his nieces. Although perhaps it was not too relevant at the moment Zevran pondered briefly that if he ever had children Abel would probably be a very paranoid parent but a kind one too, a loving one.

"And...." He was hesitant to go on to what he had been going to say, he felt as though he would be making the conversation about him again and as though he did that too often. Selfish and weak. "...And the talking did help? Just about how you felt, not what happened?" He didn't know if he could do either in detail, even if he could about that one incident one thing fed in to another and he couldn't contemplate that. It had all seemed so normal at the time, he had known other people's lives were different but for him it had been normal.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

If only Abel had known Zevran's thoughts he would've assured him that he didn't need to say anything - it was a heavy topic and he'd said a lot so he'd have understood if he couldn't think of anything to say - but he remained entirely unaware.

"I agree with all of that," he said as he shifted to plant another kiss atop his friend's head and gave him another affectionate squeeze, "but the fact of the matter is it did happen, it hurt all parties involved, but time has the tendency to heal things that don't want to heal. Time and talking about it," he amended after a moment.

And Zevran had asked the question - or a similar enough one, anyway - that he'd hoped he'd ask. While he'd wanted to share the story with his friend regardless, he may or may not have had the ulterior motive of giving an example of how talking about a wound could help heal it. As he'd hoped, it sounded like it had the effect he hoped it would.

Not that he'd admit to such a thing, of course.

"Talking did help," he affirmed, then pressed another kiss to Zevran's hair, "but they're kind of... mmh, they're both two different but equally important factors. What happened to me happened to my mother, so I never needed to explain anything to her - she already knew everything about it - so we focused mostly on how it made me feel. She did poke around anyway though and ask how specific things that had happened had made me feel, so I did have to talk about the details of what happened, but mostly in regards to how I felt about them because, like I said, she already knew what had happened. If she didn't know much if anything about what happened then I would've had to explain it." And then he rolled onto his side, pulled the other man into a tight hug and pressed a number of brief, affectionate kisses over his hair and forehead, a warm smile on his face. While it had been almost completely healed for years now, for some reason it felt good to talk about the subject he normally kept silent on. It left him feeling a little lighter than he had before, for reasons he couldn't quite put his finger on. "Like I said though, I hated every minute of that talk, I hated it for a while after, but once I started feeling better I appreciated it. Mom had the patience of a saint to deal with me when I must've been a hellion, and I'm glad she did. Talking about things that hurt you is always, always difficult, especially if it's something really terrible, but when or if you're ever ready to talk about it - or anything, really - you know I'll be here to listen," he said as he pressed another kiss to his friend's hair. Then he added with a somewhat playful smile, "Always -- even if that's a little extreme."  

[TawnyAngel]

He did not like the sound of poking around, not even slightly, but the offer of listening was welcome. He didn't actually feel better about the things he had shared with Abel previously but it was- he wasn't quite sure, it was good that he'd said it? That somebody else knew, and cared? But there were some things... if he shared them would Abel hate him? He hadn't turned against him yet but killing people you didn't know because you had no choice was quite different to being complicit in the death of someone you did know. He could make all the excuses he wanted, he had still placed his loyalty to the crows above his loyalty to Rinna. They could have fled together if he had been then who he was now, or even who he had been a few months after her death. Guilt, he understood very well how that could gnaw away at your soul but if he told Abel and he hated him....

Zevran snuggled closer against Abel and closed his eyes. "Are you quite sure? Not everything paints me in a very flattering light." Perhaps some things were better unsaid no matter what Abel professed. Really, what could Abel say if he told him; it wasn't your fault? But it had been, he could have stopped it from happening. If he believed in fate and karma he might have thought everything that had been done to him before that day had been in payment for his inaction, for how he'd laughed at her. As it was however he did not hold such superstitions, s**t happened whether you were good or bad; if he hadn't already believed so Abel was proof of that.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Abel wrapped his arms a little tighter around his friend and kissed the top of his head again. Was he quite sure? It was difficult to know how he'd feel about something when he didn't even know what that something was. In the course of Zevran's work he'd almost assuredly killed someone - perhaps a lot of someones - and while such crimes had always been unquestionably damning without exception before, now it... felt different. It was different. While Zevran's hand had probably been the one used to end the lives of others, it was probably only because he'd been ordered or told to do so. He'd been playing the hand he'd been dealt his whole life - which sounded like one of the worst hands a person could get - and continued to try to struggle through the game of life with it until he realized he could maybe get something better, get somewhere better. Maybe not all of the things he'd done weren't his fault, or weren't because he'd been told to do so, and while those might bother him more than the rest....

"I... think I'm sure, yeah," he said at length, hint of uncertainty tinging his voice. A moment later those traces vanished, he pressed another kiss to his friend's head and he said more certainly, "Yes, I'm sure. I've been assuming your past has been... rather colorful, shall we say, in that regard. I'm guessing a lot of it you didn't have much choice in but maybe some things you did, but... Well," he hesitated again as he tried to think of how to phrase his thoughts, "good people do bad things sometimes for different reasons, and it doesn't necessarily make them a bad person even if they do bad things. While I'm sure some things don't paint you in a flattering light, like you said, at this point it won't change my opinion of you -- how I feel about you."

Was it okay...? It probably was, he knew enough by now that he'd probably guessed enough himself. "I'm sure you've guessed at least some of it by now but I'm not completely innocent or blameless myself; I've done things that don't paint me in a very flattering light at all."  

[TawnyAngel]

Zevran made a soft noise of agreement and squeezed Abel tightly for a few moments. "Yes," he kissed the nearest available portion of Abel gently, "I had guessed that you had done some... colourful things, as you say." It had been a rather hefty folder that Abel had destroyed, how many things had been hidden in it and how did Abel feel about what he had done? Did he forgive himself, good people doing bad things? He hoped so. "Ah, and you know... if you ever wanted to speak of any of that you could," Zevran continued after a few moments. "These unflattering, colourful things are perhaps not things you would wish to talk through with your mother?" He was quite certain of that.

"And thank you I ah... Yes. I am not sure if I wish to speak of anything right now, I am not even sure how I feel about a lot of it so talking about that would be difficult no?" Zevran chuckled, and now at least there was an edge of humour to the noise even though it was rather dark. "I have feelings, but I have no idea what they are," he elaborated. This was perhaps truer than he had intended it to be, or rather it applied to more than one thing. Abel was different, he kept thinking that but when he tried to think much beyond that his mind seemed to somehow slip away from it.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

His skin tingled where Zevran kissed it and he gave his friend another affectionate squeeze, though he couldn't help the dry chuckle that escaped at the thought. "Heh, no, I don't plan on ever talking to her about any of that." But then he grew more thoughtful, more pensive. It was true that he'd always planned to take as much of it to his grave as he could, early though it would probably be and truthfully almost had been on a few occasions, but... "Maybe," he said at length, his tones slow and thoughtful, "maybe sometime? I'm.. not sure if I want to talk about them at all but... maybe. Sometime. If it's with you." He placed another kiss on the shorter blond's fine hair. No, he'd never planned to let any of his secrets out but they'd gotten out regardless to at least a few people, and Zevran had hints of them and he... had gone through similar things. If he ever breathed a word of it to anyone, he couldn't imagine doing so to anyone besides Zev.

"That's good, because you definitely don't have to talk about it right now," he said easily, tightening his embrace for a moment or two before relaxing it again. He loved just lying there holding his friend in his arms, sharing things that were almost assuredly shared with so few others... It was comforting and felt good to do so, he... There was a lot of trust there. "You have plenty of time to think about your feelings and figure them out, because I know damn well how hard it can be to try and sift through them to figure out exactly what you're feeling and why."  

[TawnyAngel]

Zevran sighed softly and gave Abel another squeeze in exchange for the hair kisses. "Whatever you wish is fine by me, I will not press for anything you would rather not share." They didn't have to tell one another everything but some things... some things would be good for both of them or at least so he was beginning to suspect, perhaps the saying 'a burden shared was a burden halved' applied here.

"I suppose I do have time," Zevran agreed with another kiss to Abel's skin. "It is a strange feeling, that I might have a fairly long future ahead of me.... Though to be quite frank I am not sure where to start figuring them out, I am not used to thinking about that sort of thing." But he had time, perhaps he could get his mind around some of it and pick out which parts he wanted to discuss? Not all of it, Abel said he could tell him anything but he didn't want to upset him too badly. No, some of it was better worked out in the privacy of his own head even if Abel was right and that meant it didn't heal as it could.