Let Me Come Home
Before her, Aurora is a noun meaning dawn, and home is a colour and a sound and a far-away feeling.
But then it all becomes so much more than that.
Lord, I'm feelin' weary
And I, don't know what I should do
—
before her, aurora is:
noun.
natural electric phenomenon,
characterized by the appearance of streamers of reddish or green light in the sky,
usually near the northern or southern pole.
alternatively,
noun.
dawn.
but then he meets her and it's all that and it's also so much more.
(he didn't know that aurora could be a person too)
—
Lord, this world is dreary
And I, wanna come home to you
—
it's merely self preservation at first -
focus on one thing,
she says.
focus on me.
so he does.
he focuses on her.
but she isn't just one thing.
she's bright streams of colour and she's the smell of spring rain and she's clouds of blue and she's the warmth that hammers in his chest and she's the surprising taste of cherries and silk and she's flowery curtains blowing in the wind and she's so much more.
it works though, because all else fades to the overpowering, mesmerizing, everything of her.
what he doesn't realize in the moment, however, is that once he's started focusing on her,
- he can't stop.
—
Everyone tells me they know how I feel
And then they say in time,
You'll be as good as new, yeah
—
Once he realizes how different she is, he can't stop himself. Soon he's finding reasons to share smiles with her, to touch her hand, to stand close to her - hearing, tasting, seeing, smelling, feeling her.
It's almost too much, and he's like a moth to her dangerous explosive flame, never having felt any of this before. He expects the power to fade, tentative for acclimatization to set it, but it doesn't. He expects her to drive him insane, but instead she becomes the only thing keeping him sane, the only thing in his life right now doesn't feel like a sham.
His memory is perfect and he is desperate, he revisits and replays and remains in wonder every time.
He struggles to describe it, and the word "alive" comes to mind, and he thinks that he must have been waiting his whole life to sense her, to learn her, to feel this way.
His memory and his synesthesia have been a curse his whole life, but now, when he sees her and tastes her and hears her and smells her and feels her -
- he memorizes nothing better than her.
—
But I'm tired of waiting
For the wounds to heal
Lord, I wanna come home to you
—
They're all fighting this war for someone.
For their country, obviously,
And for the greater good,
And for the nameless lying facedown in the mud and for the people waiting by a phone back home and for the innocents that lose their innocence every second and for the trainloads of people going to hell and for everyone else and for everything -
And all that's fair.
But sometimes it's a lot.
So there's a specific image too,
It comes to mind whether they want it to or not.
For Harry, it's home, it's baked pies and a worn kitchen table and a family around it, who listen when he explains his latest gadgets even if they don't understand a thing and who smile when his words blend together in his excitement and who match the sparkle in his eye with sparkles in their own.
Tom sees a cabin in the green woods, a hazy fishing trip in the crisp of fall, and spaces without smoke or ceilings that spell out air and freedom, and he lets the words and images meld together into poetry, because he's a romantic and he doesn't (often) pretend otherwise.
Neil is plagued by family members who are becoming blurred and are buried far under and bricks that crumbled into dust and a little girl who likes flowers and is alone in the world, and another girl in Shanghai who thought that people were good and could read under bruises and scars.
And him?
It's the look on her face when she sees things getting worse, and not better.
And it's the look on her face when she believes that things will get better.
It's a tear that won't fall and a laugh that sobs and a sigh of pained relief and a smile that doesn't smooth the lines between her brows.
And it's when she looks at him like he can do something real about all of this.
It's for the catches in her breath and the expressions she cannot hide and it's for the world imprinted on her face, all perfect in his memory, and it's worth fighting for.
—
Everyone knows its dark before the dawn
And the patience of Jove is what we're aspiring to
—
A part of him is fighting for her. She's so broken that he doesn't know how she holds herself together some days. He's not naive enough to think that he can fix her.
He's not naive enough to think that she wants fixing.
He does not want to fix her.
But if he can make it all a bit better and a bit softer and a bit brighter then he will try and do everything he can.
So sometimes she wakes up to a wildflower bouquet outside her tent.
Or there's a cup of coffee nudged into her hand that she didn't have time to pour for herself.
He likes to point out artwork on walls and birds in the sky and deer in the distance, just to see her eyes crinkle in the corners.
One day when the skies are dark and her forehead has been pulled tight all day, he treats her to a bit of sugar that no one knew he had stored away.
It's carefully hanging up her coat at the end of the day and dusting off her hat after they've been underground and putting her shoes next to his when she's kicked them off in exhaustion.
It's just little things, and he wishes that it could be more.
—
All I can simply do
is carry on Lord,
I just wanna come home to you
—
sometimes when she laughs
he sees stars
and feels fireworks
and his heart might skip a beat
(he's not sure the last one is because of the synesthesia though)
He wonders how someone like him could make her laugh more often.
—
Don't disregard my prayer oh Lord
Been workin' so hard
And I want my reward
I'm not talking green
It's just a tiny request
—
Tom, when he's shot and bloodied and fading in and out, mutters something about hair and smoothness.
It's weeks later, when Aurora's finishing a report and Tom's chatting up a girl at the bar, that Harry asks, brazen with a little more than a few drinks in him, "What do you think he meant?"
Neil, with only a few drinks and a lifetime more experience, tells him to shut it.
"What a man says when he thinks he's on his death bed is his own business, Harry. I remember when all it took was a bit of morphine to get you going."
Harry is abashed, and cannot argue with that, so instead he sloshes his cup towards Alfred.
"If you had two words to describe something perfect, what would they be?"
Neil is tired of inquisitive Harry though, so he says something to rile him up and the topic quickly changes as an argument begins.
Alfred does not join in, and instead tries to think of a second word.
—
I, I just need a little rest
—
No one has ever wanted to know before.
Instead, it's the opposite.
Bury it, they said. Don't talk about it. Hide it. It's not okay. Freak. Outcast. Demon.
So it's shocking when he realizes that she actually wants to know.
She wants to understand it.
She wants him to explain it to her.
She actually wants to know what rain clouds taste like and what colours his favourite records are and what coffee feels like and all the other little details that he thought were a curse.
He wants to tell her everything.
—
I close my eyes and it's you I see
A day of judgement
And I will not have to hide
You know I've been a sinner
But I long to be free
—
Home isn't a quiet flat with the blinds drawn on a side alley where your neighbours don't bother you but rather avoid you anymore. Home isn't a refuge where everything is placed just so with a small bed and a large bookshelf and a ritual that allows you to survive. Home isn't still air and low lights and only your breath.
No.
That's not home anymore.
Home is still blue and it's somewhere where guns aren't going off and it's e flat major and it's warm and it's a perfect day and most of all its her.
—
I reach out for your hand
And you'll be by my side
—
Before her, aurora is noun.
Then, Aurora becomes blue ribbons of bright light, and e flat major on a sunny day, and red-hot fireworks in his fingertips and on his tongue and so much more than that,
and home.
He practices it alone at night. Aurora. Three syllables. One at a time.
The sky lights up, he thinks.
He waits for his focus to shift.
He waits for the sensations to fade.
He waits for something to change.
But then he waits in a dark cell block and he takes one last look at her face and he summons the colour blue by whispering her name and he feels fire where she grabbed his arm and he tastes the summer sun when he imagines her laugh.
After that, he doesn't doubt anymore. Instead,
He waits to say her name to her, because he needs her to understand what it is to him.
He waits for her to find her way to him, to realize that he will fight anything and everything with her.
He waits for her to trust that her demons do not scare him.
He waits for her to trust herself, and to trust in her own demons.
He waits for her to come back, and he thinks that he is ready now.
—
The heavens will part
And the sky will split blue
—
It doesn't happen the way that he planned it, or dreamed it, but none of this has gone according to plan so that doesn't bother him too much.
They're in a muddy field and it looks like she hasn't slept in days and he doesn't know which way is up anymore but she's there beside him again and that's all that it takes.
He thinks he really might be insane and he's in the middle of a war but he can't stop focusing on her now that he's started. He's memorized nothing better than her and he still wants more; he feels like he has only scratched the surface, and that he could spend the rest of his life, however short that may be, learning more and more and more.
He doesn't tell her all of this now, because he's patient and he can wait a bit longer.
This is a step.
He thought he knew what home was, and what love felt like, but it turns out that he knew nothing.
He knows now that it's the word Aurora, and it's so much more than that.
—
I wanna come home
—
He loves her.
He needs to love her.
They're stuck in this war and he doesn't how he got here, he doesn't even know who he is anymore, but the one constant is that he is really truly fucking madly in love with Aurora.
and that's that.
—
to you
—
xx
Reviews would feel like blue lightening. If you can be persuaded, tell me which part was your favourite! I had fun with this one.
I take requests that run in the vein of one-shots. Please send, because the will is strong but the creative well is shallow.
We've also got a hiatus to fill!