writers_muses Topic 21.6 - Anxiety / RP - Ynez Returns

[on_holy_ground]

ooc: Follows this and this.

Things had been okay between them at first, or at least it had seemed that way on the outside.

They had arrived back in Rome a few days before Christmas and had immediately immersed themselves in the various festivities. Darius had taken Ynez to the Christmas markets that unfolded in the squares, and had been delighted with her reaction to all the various stalls and foods that had been offered. They had gone to the Papal Midnight Mass at the Vatican, and had marveled at the life size nativity scene. On Christmas morning, they had returned and listened to the Pope reading his Christmas message in the piazza in front of St. Peter’s at noon. In the week before the New Year, they had taken in La Vedova Allegra at The Teatro Dell'Opera, and had done some more shopping at the markets. She never could seem to get enough of them.

On the evening of the 31st, known as the night of San Silvestre, they had moved among the various restaurants of the city, sampling a little bit here and there of the traditional Italian meals. It had been fun, and they had discussed the various foods and the ways that they were prepared and could be altered to suit their own tastes. Afterwards, they had gone to the Piazza del Quirinale and had enjoyed an evening of classical music before cheering in the new year. The following week had been spent visiting the open museums and listening to the classical and symphonic music in the various squares of the historic center. It had been a whirlwind of activity really, but it had kept their mind off of the problems they had been having before they left New York.

Afterwards though, the awkwardness that had been a part of their lives since Darius’ talk with Loki at the wake had returned. They had tiptoed around each other, much as they had just before Ynez had run off the last time. Neither of them had brought up the things that were at the root of their problem, and Darius wasn’t sure how to go about fixing them. In the end, he decided that it would be best if he gave her some space for a little while, not realizing that doing so had only made her think he was rejecting her. So when Ynez had told him she would be going to London on some business and to visit a friend, he had thought it was a good idea. Even though she hadn’t given him a return date, she had promised that she would return, and that had been enough for him. Even when she didn’t call him, he didn’t let it bother him to much, figuring that she had simply gotten caught up in what she was doing. He thought he maybe should have insisted on her leaving him some contact information at least, but then realized that it had really been none of his concern.

However, when he received a call from the airport saying that her luggage had returned without her, he started to get worried. He was sure there was a reasonable explanation, and so had simply had Antonio pick it up and bring it back to the villa. When Ynez didn’t return on a later flight, his worry increased, and he started to wonder if something had happened to her. After a few days with no word, his worry turned to fear.

Comments

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

ooc: bendy-timed ahead a couple of days

Ynez comes creeping back to Rome, feeling a hundred years older than when she left. The binge ended almost as suddenly as it began, when her body simply couldn't take any more. It took nearly two days to feel well enough to travel, even though Rome is only a short hop from Madrid. An early morning flight is barely tolerable. She tells herself she'll sleep all afternoon.

She feels very competent when she remembers to check in for her lost luggage at the airport in Rome, then very stupid to find that it's already been picked up. A cab takes her back to the villa without any fanfare and then leaves her on the huge front veranda to carry her own luggage inside.

Serves her right.

It probably wouldn't be so difficult if she had actually been able to eat something. She starts dragging her things inside to stack by the front door.

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

Darius was spending the afternoon reading in the library, trying to take his mind off of the fact that Ynez had still not contacted him. He wasn't able to concentrate on the text as much as he would have liked, and had in fact now read the same passage at least three times. Sighing softly, he decides to get a cup of tea in order to try and calm his nerves. Tea has a way of doing that when nothing else seems to work.

As he waits for the teapot to boil, he looks out the kitchen window and notices a cab driving away. Leaving the pot on the stove, he makes his way to the entry just in time to see Ynez bringing in a bag. With a soft sigh of relief that she is indeed all right, he walks over to her and offers a hand.

"Let me take that for you."

The relief at her return far outweighs the questions he has at the moment.

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

That's it? No "Hello," no "I missed you?"

Let me take that for you?!

That's a bellhop, not a lover, not even a close friend. Ynez is suddenly blind with rage at the way Loki cheated them out of the life they had started to build together.

"No thanks. I've got it," she tells him, with every bit of ungraciousness she's got in her heart. The walls of mirrors in the villa's entryway mock her isolation as she turns her back on him and starts hauling the suitcase down the hall towards her room, just to show him that, in fact, she does have it.

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

Darius blinks at the tone of her voice as she starts down the hall to her room. He is not certain what it was that he did wrong when all he wanted to do was to help. He made no mention of the fact that she had been gone for several days without so much as a phone call to let him know that her plane had arrived safely in London, or that her luggage had returned a few days ago without her. He just wants to help, and somehow he is wrong yet again.

As a matter of fact, he is quite literally scratching his head as he follows her to her room.

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

Ynez deliberately ignores him as she totes her suitcase along the hallway. She grinds her teeth slightly when she passes the door to his room, closed now to her, both literally and figuratively. She's already asking herself why she came back and doesn't like the feeling that she has nowhere else to go.

With a grunt, she hefts the bag onto her bed, then turns to brush past him on the way to get another. When she packed to leave last time, she took everything here that belonged to her, and she had accumulated quite a bit by then.

At least now she has her drum back. She won't let herself think about the way it ended up here in Rome in the first place. It might make her cry.

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

At a loss as to what he should do at the moment, Darius simply stays put, standing just to the left of the door in her room. He feels the need to help her, but if he does then she may get more upset because she has made it quite clear that she does not desire his help. Yet, if he does not help her, then she may get upset that he didn't do anything at all.

Women, he has discovered, are rather frustrating creatures.

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

Ynez marches back down the hallway, working herself into a royal snit as she goes. There's a hint of a sound from the direction of the kitchen -- could it be a whistling teapot? -- but she dismisses it. Her ears are sort of messed up from flying and she's taken enough aspirin to make them ring anyway.

She hauls the second bag to her room and pushes it through the doorway. There are two more bags, plus the crate with her drum, and she's more tired than she wants to admit. Thoroughly irritated, she kicks her suitcase over, then moves it across the room with a series of cranky little kick-shoves. While the suitcase ends up where she wants it, this method also makes her knees hurt. There's a perverse pleasure in all of this for her. She almost isn't paying attention to Darius now.

Almost.

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

Watching her as she starts to kick the suitcase across the room, Darius decides that he is not about to continue to watch her potentially harm herself over this issue, whatever the issue happens to be at the moment. He will deal with her anger if that means she will no longer be hurting herself over something that seems rather senseless to him.

Without a word, he leaves her room and goes back to the entryway in order to pick up one of her bags bring it back.

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

Of course, Ynez doesn't know when he leaves that he's leaving to get her bags. She just knows that he leaves without a word. She gives her suitcase an extra-hard kick.

"Ow!"

Her lower lips quivers childishly and she kicks the suitcase again. The hell with this. She isn't going to wear anything that's in the bags she just brought in. They're her summer clothes. She needs the things that are in the bag that came back before she did.

How did it get back here anyway?

Once she gets it open and starts rooting around in it, she decides she doesn't care, after all. She doesn't care about anything. Burn it all anyway. Darius didn't miss her when she was gone. He doesn't care that she's back. What's the point anyway?

By now, big, fat, self-pitying tears are rolling down her cheeks.

It sort of makes her want a drink, but she doesn't feel well enough for one.

Life is so unfair.

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

Walking back in with the last two bags, he sets them on the floor just inside the door. He's pretty sure that the bags must weigh almost as much as he does himself when put together, but he only wants to make one trip and so manages to lug them both. However, he is rather glad that it was a relatively short trip.

When he looks up, he can't help put to notice the tears that are rolling down Ynez's cheek and his confusion over what he had done wrong instantly turns to concern for her.

"Ynez, what is wrong? Are you hurt? Did something happen?"

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

The surprise and relief that she feels when he comes back in the room transforms so quickly that she nearly feels lightheaded. With a wordless sound of frustrated anger -- one of those near-screams that starts somewhere in the chest, then gets trapped in the back of her head -- she only just manages to keep from throwing a bottle of shampoo at him.

"How can you ask me that!? How can you!?"

She starts to sob. He just doesn't understand and he's never going to understand and he doesn't want to understand.

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

More confused now than ever, Darius hesitates a moment before moving towards her. Despite her reaction, he is still concerned for her and is not about to let her anger stop him from making sure that she is not injured. He may not understand what has happened, but he knows that her health and well being is more important to him than keeping clear of her wrath.

"I am worried, that is how I can ask such a question. I have been worried since your bags returned without you. No, actually, I have been somewhat concerned ever since your departure, given that I have heard nothing from you since then until the moment just a few minutes ago when you walked through the door."

This is said with concern, and it is a statement of simple fact. At least it is to Darius.

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

"Oh, stop it! Just stop!" She wants to believe him, wants to believe that he cares, but it hurts too much. In his own way, that detached, aloof way that he's developed, he probably has been worried. It isn't what she wants from him.

She wraps her arms around herself -- the only hug she's likely to get anytime soon -- and turns her back on him, sobbing.

"Stop."

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

For him there is nothing aloof about his feelings. He has not changed from the man she had first met. He has simply changed from the man that she finally allowed herself to love.

Aware that this is likely the problem, and yet unsure what to do about it at the moment, he sighs softly. "What is it that you would like me to stop, Ynez?"

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

"Stop acting like that! Stop pretending I don't disgust you!"

Because she does disgust him on some level. It's obvious to her and has been ever since the night after the funeral.

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

Taken aback by her words, the surprise is evident on his face. He honestly had no idea that she believed that he felt that way about her. Things had been different of course, but he had thought she understood at least partially the confusion he was in. He had obviously been wrong.

"What are you talking about? You do not now, nor have you ever, disgusted me. I have nothing but love and respect for you now, as always."

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

"Stop it!" She turns on him with a shriek. "That's not true and you know it! Don't say those words!"

They cut worse than any pain she's known since Carlos died.

"You can't even stand to touch me anymore! You don't love me!"

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

He doesn't step back, but it is only because of centuries of practice in dealing with people and their varied emotions. However her anger is so intense, that he is almost surprised that it doesn't knock him back by her sheer force of will.

"I am trying to come to terms with what I am and the love that I feel for you, Ynez. I am sorry that I am not the man that you fell in love with, but I am trying to overcome almost seven hundred years of being alone, and it is not easy for me. It takes time."

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

"So we're just supposed to ignore everything we had for the past six months? Pretend it didn't happen?!"

Overwhelmed now by her rage and grief, she screams at him, wanting only to hurt him the way she's hurting.

"At least the man you were would reach out and touch me! I could kiss him without him acting like I'd contaminated him! What am I supposed to think of that, that I was good enough for him, but not for you!? He and I belonged together, right! Because all I am is a stupid, murdering whore!"

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

Her anger hurts him, but it is not in the way that she likely thinks. Instead, it is the fact that her anger is hurting herself that causes him to hurt.

"I cannot tell you what to think, Ynez. I cannot even begin to understand what it is that you are going through in this moment, just as you cannot begin to understand what it is that I am going through. All that I can tell you is that I am trying, and that I do not now and have never believed that you were any of those things."

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

His cool, measured reply enrages her further. To her, it's a sign of his complete disengagement and lack of caring. He may say he loves her, but she doubts that thoroughly now.

"Get out! Get out of here! I don't want to see you! You LIAR!"

And because he doesn't instantly vanish from the room, she turns and flees into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

"I should never have come back! Never! I don't belong here!"

On the tip of her tongue, some other words, the sort she thinks are unforgiveable. She stops them, but only just barely, and that because she's crying hard enough to make herself sick. SHe doesn't belong anywhere, that's the problem.

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

It is becoming increasingly obvious to him that there is simply nothing he can say at the moment that will not make her angrier than she already is at the moment. Every time he opens his mouth she gets more and more upset. The thing that puzzles him is that once she had respected him for who he was, and now she hated it for the same thing. He simply did not understand why she could not see that he was as confused and upset by this as she was herself.

"I will leave you to your thoughts then, as there seems to be nothing else I can do at the moment without upsetting you further."

He sighs sadly, wishing he knew what to do or say, but it seems that there is nothing. "I will be in the kitchen, should you wish to continue the conversation."

With one last look at the bathroom door, he turns and leaves the room, heading for the kitchen and the tea kettle that was still singing.

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

Hours pass before Ynez emerges from her room. If there were any way to teleport out of there into somebody else's life, she'd sell her soul to know.

As it is, in the end she gets hungry. The banal demands of the body make it impossible to be much more than an animal, ever.

She limps down the hall to the kitchen in her pajamas and robe, scrubbed clean -- raw even -- in a bath that didn't make her feel any more pure than before. Her cane disappeared somewhere, maybe before she went to London, maybe after. Walking always hurts now, but she welcomes that pain.

It's what she deserves. She's convinced of that. She should never have forgotten that Darius is a priest, first, last and always.

[on-holy-ground.livejournal.com]

Darius is sitting in the small sunroom that is just off the kitchen, sipping tea. It's his third pot of the day, which is a sure sign that he is upset. He is at a complete loss as to what he should do, despite his years of experience helping others in difficult situations. It always was, when it was happening to you.

Sighing softly, he suddenly glances up as he hears the sound of Ynez moving down the hall. For reasons he cannot begin to understand, he finds that he is suddenly more nervous than he can ever remember being in his life.

[ynez-castillo.livejournal.com]

The first thing she does is open a bottle of wine to let it breathe. Then she begins a search for food. There's no telling what's likely to be there, and at any other time she'd laugh to herself at the uncertainty. Did Darius remember to go to the market? Did he bring anything home besides mushrooms and olives? At least there's no surprise sink full of dirty dishes. If nothing else, Darius is fastidious in the kitchen. Well, to be fair, he's much more than that, but she doesn't want to let herself think about that right now.

There are mushrooms, of course. And olives. And some cheese and bread and eggs. This she can work with. She begins to assemble ingredients to fix herself a small meal.

Ynez doesn't see him where he's sitting. She has no idea that he's there.