Duzzie
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Title: The Art of Silence
Summary: Komui, Lenalee, and the pain of existence between them.
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The air in the office is stale and empty, but they breathe it in and pretend they're not suffocating.
He studies the mountains of paperwork that never diminish and briefly entertains the thought of actually doing some, because somewhere, sometime, he thinks a very wise person once said, 'better late than never'. But maybe that never happened. It doesn't matter anyway, he thinks, and the thought, once briefly entertained, was gone. His eyes sting and he thinks maybe he wants to cry. It has nothing to do with the paperwork.
At the same time, she's trying to ignore the steady, aching pain of her feet (andheartandbrotherandlife) and even though she's given up entertaining thoughts on a normal, happy life for herself, that doesn't stop her from wondering what his life could have been like. She fills her head with a pretty sister-in-law with small, dainty feet and a nephew with her brother's eyes. She thinks maybe she'll keep bottling up her screams inside and one day they'll erupt from her throat and she'll never stop hearing them echoing throughout her head.
The clock on his wall beats short ticks that fill the room with sound every passing second. It isn't a nervous sound, and they wait in silence, listening to the time pass them by. They sit on two opposite ends of the couch and avoid looking at each others faces, not so much because they lack the right words to say as because they understand each other without the use of words much better.
He fixes his glasses and crosses his legs and grips the end of the armrest tightly.
She hears; You scared me and I love you so much and I don't know what I would have done if you'd died and left me behind because you're all I have left in this world and you mean everything to me and if you ever do something so reckless again I'll…I'll…
She clasps her hands together, a corner of her mouth turning downward and leans into the couch.
He hears; I did it because I love you and I did it because this is our home and I did it because this is who I am, even though I never wanted to be this person and if I'd had the choice you know I would have chosen you and a normal life but they chose for us a long time ago. And; Thank you.
When he reaches out to grasp her hands in his, she knows he's saying; please don't die
and when she doesn't squeeze his hand and doesn't hold him in her arms, but smiles at him, he knows she's saying; I'm sorry.
and then he cradles his head in one hand and cries and holds onto her fiercely with the other, and the seconds on the clock pierce through the stale air and the paper work (filled with the names of people who died and who will die, filled with which child would be taken away from what family and what person failed which assignment and on and on and on and on) and through it all they don't speak, not so much because they can't find the words as much as because they can understand each other so much more without them.