[Author's Note/Disclaimer: Well, look at this: a new oneshot! The sad thing is, this is my attempt at fluff. So, I guess that should explain some of my other stories. If this is me trying for fluff, you can see why things turn out the way they do when I'm not trying for fluff. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! If you have any advice for me in terms of how to increase the fluff quotient, I'd love to hear it. (Please, people of the Internet! Help a sister out!) Even if you don't want to do any advising, please let me know what you think! Thanks for reading! I don't own RENT or any part of it, and I gladly give full credit for all of it to His Royal Highness, Mr. Jonathan Larson.]
Facades
There are so many things about her that no one knows. They all think she's showing them the person she really is, but she's not. I would know. I alone would know. The difference in what she shows the world and what she shows me is simple: vulnerability.
It's so many things: the way she tenses at my touch before relaxing into it; the way her voice trembles when she tells me she loves me; the way she opens herself up, lets go, and relaxes for fleeting moments before closing herself off again; the way she shyly mumbles a question about her appearance; the way she lets me and only me see her cry.
I always imagine that it would do her some good to show the world just a hint of that vulnerability: it might make people realize that, despite the pretense, she's not made of stone. It all goes to show how impressive her law training really is. It taught her how to very convincingly disguise, ignore, or deny emotion. The problem is that it's carried over into her everyday life.
I'll never forget the first weeknight I spent with her. That night, she finally and unintentionally showed me something no one had ever seen before. She showed me the way she cries herself to sleep. I've found out through a series of very delicately timed and phrased questions that that is the secret to her made-of-stone façade: she sets these rules for herself, the main one being that she only displays emotion when she's alone.
And I think that's why she sometimes hates me. I'm not bothered by the fact that she does; everyone knows it's the truth, and it's just another part of the strange reality of the mismatched couple we clearly are. I think she sometimes hates me simply because she knows that I broke her. I can make her cry- in private, in public- it doesn't matter. She always has in the back of her mind the knowledge that I can send all of her walls crashing down around her whenever I please. She probably thinks I abuse that- or at least did in the past- though if she could really understand all of me, she would understand that that has never been my intent.
And that's probably why we have such a history of dysfunction. It's not like I'm some sort of exception: she shuts me out too. And sometimes that makes me want to hate her- as if I ever could. Even that's not quite it, though. It's not that I want to hate her: I just want to know that she values me enough to be honest with me.
I let out a small sigh as I look over at her. Maybe sometimes I do want to hate her. I hate the fact that she can so easily make me feel inadequate. But then I watch her in those few minutes after she's just fallen asleep. I see the last few tears of the night slide silently down her cheeks. And I know that I'm powerless to do anything but love her for all that she is- every last, little façade included.