Being Alive
Shakespeare's Lemonade
Rating: T
Genre: Friendship
Summary: He's running around like a little kid, and something in me has always loved watching it. Because even though he's lost so much, he's able to focus on what he still has. Even though he can't sleep most of the time, and he seems more sad than happy, he still loves life. I guess that comes from dying twice.
A/N: I just watched the entirety of this show in the last two days, and this was inspired by the last scene with David and Susan combined with a lack of sleep. Just a rambling oneshot from Susan's POV. Enjoy.
"Unbeing dead isn't being alive."~E.E. Cummings
It's funny how I have so many good memories with David Creegan. I've only known him a couple of years, but it feels like a lifetime. Maybe it's the fact that we see such terrible things together, and yet he manages to make me smile, even laugh at times which should be completely inappropriate, but with him, they're not.
Oh, he's weird. I can't even begin to describe how weird he is, and sometimes, it makes me genuinely uncomfortable, but I can't imagine my life without him now. And that's even weirder. I've decided just to go with it. He might not know it, but David makes my life better. I wonder if anyone or anything does that for him. He likes me. He's said as much, but I don't know if that really helps. He likes a lot of people.
Today, he's running around like a little kid, and something in me has always loved watching it. We've been up all night, just finished a case, and here he is rolling around in the sunshine like he's never seen it before. Perhaps because even though he's lost so much, he's able to focus on what he still has. I'm not sure what that is. Maybe the fact that the sun rises is enough. Even though he can't sleep most of the time, and he seems more sad than happy, he still loves life. I guess that comes from dying twice.
"David!" I hardly recognize my own voice. I haven't slept in two days, and that could be part of it, but I almost think I sound happy.
He looks up at me from his place lying in the grass, and there's a mix of joy and surprise in his eyes. "You're not going to tell me to stop acting like a child?" It seems less a question and more a shocked statement. Of course he can hear the happiness in my voice.
I can feel myself smiling, and I haven't smiled as much in my whole life as I have since I met David. "Now why would I do that?" I ask, and as if I'm the one with the traumatic brain injury, I flop on the ground next to him, and I'm laughing, and this is scaring me, but I love it.
"I think you need sleep," he says, and he giggles. He does that more than any adult ever should, but then, he has no shame, no need to feel embarrassed.
But then I do it too. I can't stop. I know I'm exhausted, but this is beautiful. I'm remembering that day out by the bay after he died the second time. I'm remembering everything he said about it not being so great "over there." I'm happy because I know he'll never want to go back. He'll stay with me.
Maybe I need him. Maybe when he says I'm beautiful like the night sky and birds in flight, he's the same kind of beautiful to me. He's like the sunrise that's making me squint right now. It's symbolic of life. Of the fact that no matter what evil happens around us, it's still an amazing thing and worth giggling in the grass for no reason sometimes. Or maybe I just really need sleep.
"Come on," he says. He's sitting on his elbows, and there's grass in his hair. He's still smiling. "I'll drive you home. I've got more of a tolerance for sleep deprivation."
I stare at him for a long time, and I can't remember what he just said. "You're very beautiful too," I say.
He just grins and holds out his hand. I couldn't get away with saying shit like that to anyone else, but that's why he's beautiful. He's alive, and only he knows what that really means, but I think I'm starting to learn.