What about me? - 1. Can you see me?

“What about me?” He looked directly at the man before him. “What about what I want?” His fists clenched, nails digging into his palm. He felt them dig, felt the points of pressure. Tried to relax, but it didn’t work.

Silence.

Silence filled the room and that was enough of an answer. He turned away. Felt a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t.” He shrugged the hand off. “Just don’t.” He turned back. And stepped backwards, closer to the wall, trapping himself. Like he wasn’t already trapped. “Don’t.” He breathed out, trying to exhale the anger, the frustrations. “Not unless you care for me.” The word ‘me’ came out stronger than he meant. “Not unless you can see me. Not my past, not my title. Not what I have done, what I will do, what I have to do. Don’t say anything unless you can see me.”

Silence. More silence.

“I see you.”

He closed his eyes. Wanting to believe the words. Needing to believe them. He let hands pull him closer, let them guide his body closer until he was touching. Only then did he realise how much he was shaking. He sighed, pushed the air out of his lungs, as if that would let the emotions go. At least he tried.

He let himself be held, let hands rub over his back, like a beast being soothed, calmed by touch. Let himself be guided across the room.

~~~

Something woke him. Maybe nothing, maybe the sounds of the keep. Maybe the silence within his room. In the darkness he knew he shared his bed, remembered the lovemaking, the sex. Remembered the whispered words that meant nothing. Not really. Because that’s all they were - words, meant to soothe him, to pass over the crisis. To fix the problem. To keep him here.

‘I see you.’ Lies.

He shifted from under the arm that lay across his chest. Sat on the bed’s edge, bare feet on worn carpet, bedclothes crumpled across his lap. Chest exposed to the cool night’s air, not stinging cold, even though the room’s fire only smouldered.

‘I see you.’ Lies he couldn’t live with any more. Nor the constant arguments, the constant demands of his time and energies. The forever questions of ‘what shall we do?’ and all eyes turning to him. As if he was the only one with a brain to think, with the knowledge to draw upon.

‘I see you.’

He took a breath, closed his eyes. “No. You don’t see me. Only what you want me to be.”

“What?” The voice was sleep-laden. Still sexy.

He stood, causing the bedclothes to pull off and fall to the floor. “Come with me.” Two steps and he was at the drawers, pulling them open and finding clothes. Trewses that he hadn’t worn since … since all this started. A shirt, soft and warm from too many washings, discoloured and not fit for anything but a polishing rag. A jerkin slightly stiff because it had stayed hidden under clothes more fit for his station now. Boots that had seen better days but didn’t pinch his toes, or cause blisters. That he could feel the ground when he walked, a connection to the earth long lost. “If you see me, leave with me.”

Eyes looked at him now, no longer sleepy. A little panicked. “What?”

“If you mean what you say. Leave with me. Now.” He watched the eyes widen, the mouth open and shut a few times. Turned back to find his bag, the leather one with the strap that had been replaced maybe twenty times, with marks and discolourations, each one he could recall when and how.

“Of course, I’ll come.”

He found it, under a pile of discarded clothes – discarded because someone deemed them ‘not suitable, Sire.’ Discarded meant that he could not wear them. Discarded was supposed to mean burnt, buried, no longer in his possession, but his past had been frugal by necessity and it was a hard habit to break no matter what his current status was now.

“Now?”

It wasn’t a question. Not really. Not when he already knew the answer. He’d heard the ‘afterwards’. Or was it ‘later’? It definitely wasn’t ‘now’.

So he left. Didn’t even bother looking at the bed and the occupant who was supposed to know him, care for him. See him.

~~~

Maybe he should have grabbed a cloak, but all he thought about was leaving. Now, looking over the terrain as dawn pulled up over the hills the cold bit into his skin. A slight breeze tugged at his hair, pulling it over his face. Just to his left water fowl glided over the lake, occasionally bobbing under to gather whatever classed as a meal for them. Maybe he should have grabbed some food too.

But he had his blade, and still knew how to use it.

He pulled it from its sheath at his waist. Balanced it on one finger, at that sweet spot where it see-sawed ever so slightly. The edge so sharp that it seemed to cut the wind. The haft of ivory, worn to fit his hand, the carving at the end decorative, but with a purpose – identity as much as balance.

Hisblade by virtue of his station.

His blade only by virtue of his station.

He closed his eyes. Still saw the valley beyond the lake, with the river that flowed soft in winter, a torrent in spring with the snow melt, warm and welcoming in summer, though it always held danger. The river he spent his childhood by, learnt lessons long forgotten, except for one.

Not everything goes the way you want them to. He snorted at that lesson. Actually nothing does. Nothing goes the way you want it too, because there is a current of unseen forces, hidden dangers. Concealed but always there.

To be dealt with. To overcome. Or to conform to the flow.

“I see you.”

He stood, turning as he did so. Smiled. “I know.”

“I see you, but I also see who you are to others.”

He let himself be pulled against the strong chest, relaxed this time. “I know.” He lay his head into the warmth. “Maybe I don’t like what you see.” He sighed. “Maybe I don’t want to like it.”

“I know.”

They stood there, breeze still tugging at his hair, trying to fill him with coldness, but warmth surrounded him.

“I’ll leave with you.”

“After.” He pulled away and looked into the eyes that stared back, still wide, still a little panicked. “After. It has to be after.” With that declaration he grasped the hand he wanted to be holding him and, turning back towards his fate, pulled. After. It would always be after. If there was going to be an ‘after’.