Title: When I Love You (1/1)
Universe: Pre-The Following: London
Rating: PG
Pairing: Joe Carroll/Claire Matthews
Summary: His life was different with her than it was with other people.
Author's Note: It's been a while. I've missed you guys, and I've missed writing. I hope you enjoy this little short.
When you love me
I drop my polished mask
my smile becomes my own
—Claribel Alegría
.
His life was different with her than it was with other people. It was easier, in a way, because he felt so relaxed in her presence—but it was harder, too, because that ease made him so acutely vulnerable to any number of oversights or slip-ups. One misstep on his part, one little reveal, and they were finished, and she was gone—she had to be; he would have to see to it. With others, it didn't matter if he let something slip; he could disappear easily enough, or he could make them disappear, and then he would be safe again. But when he was with her, he didn't want to disappear. And he wanted even less to make her disappear. The thought actually made his stomach twist, when he dared, as infrequently as he did, to acknowledge that potential outcome.
Still, he worried about it often, on and off, and though he was practiced at keeping his inner emotions separate from his outer emotions, sometimes she saw. She was quite perceptive like that, when it came to reading him. Even when he thought she wasn't paying attention, and that he was safe to brood, she'd surprise him. She'd notice his gaze turn faraway, and she'd turn to him, a frown upsetting the usual smoothness of her face, as she asked what he was thinking of, what was wrong, and always—What can I do?
Nothing, nothing, he always said, smiling quickly, proffering some excuse about work or some other care that was meaningless in comparison to her.
She caught on slowly—or at least, she pretended to catch on slowly—and so she didn't pester him with questions for a time. She just smiled and squeezed his hand or kissed his cheek and said, Well, don't worry about me; you know I'm not going anywhere, like she always did, and he smiled, like he always did, because no matter what happened, no matter what he ended up doing, those were the words he wanted to hear. It might be a silly promise to make on her part, but it was a promise from her nonetheless, and he held onto it.
Because he did worry about her. He worried about her and he worried about himself and he worried about what they were doing together, because even when he tried to take measured steps, he always ended up rushing with her. One short meeting between them turned into two and then three, and in a matter of months, she was living in his flat. He had stopped listening to the warning signs completely, choosing instead to blind himself with pleasure, couching himself in a ridiculous display of faux humanity with her as both his guide and his partner.
It was a silly, juvenile thing to do, but more than that, it was dangerous. As their days together turned into weeks, and then months, and then grew ever closer to a year, and whatever might come after that, he risked more and more with her. He told her more, showed her more. He stopped hiding certain things, and when she asked what he was thinking, he more often than not began to tell her the truth.
It had alarmed him at first, how clearly she could see through him when he was faking, but soon he stopped being scared of what she knew. He even began welcoming the intrusion of her insight, sometimes going so far as to long for it, for he found that he liked the way she knew him: more deeply and wholly than anyone else who had come before her.
He knew such a familiarity between them was dangerous, for eventually her perception would pierce too deep into him, and she would know too much, and then he would have to silence her before she could say a word to others, but he comforted himself with the remoteness of such a happening.
We're not that close, he told himself again and again, quelling that nagging that rose as regularly as the tide of an ocean. We're not that close. He repeated the words so many times that they became ingrained in the folds of his brain: a private mantra, a promise, a bald-faced lie.
We're not that close.
He told himself that as they walked around London together, keeping a respectable distance as new acquaintances do, while they took in the sights and traded polite conversation. He told himself that as they went on their first date just a few weeks later, and repeated the mantra later that same night when he kissed her. He told himself that after they made love for the first time, actually saying the words aloud this time while she slept against him, trying desperately make the sentiment more real. He repeated them again and again in his mind afterwards, endlessly into the night, feeling his heart continue to pound in his chest long after hers had grown slow and steady with sleep.
It seemed simple, and perhaps even natural, for her to share her life so wholly with him. She seemed to do so without holding a single thing back, and he soon came to envy her lack of inhibitions. Did she really have nothing to hide? He found himself wondering if she trusted everyone in the world as quickly and implicitly as she trusted him, but then he remembered that she only knew half of the rules to their game and he excused her unsuspecting nature, soon growing to love it in its optimism. It was refreshing to spend his days around someone who saw the humanity in people first, and rarely, if ever, so much as guessed at their underlying inhumanity.
He supposed that was what did it, in the end; that was why he chose to stay—or more accurately, that was the rationalization for why he didn't leave: he thrived in her presence, under her influence, bathed as he was in her worldview. It was not a pristine outlook—no, she was not so naïve about the good and the bad in the world to be that gullible—but it was brighter than he could hope to imagine on his own, and, when he was with her, he found he liked being in the light. It was where she lived, after all, and he had recently discovered it was practically impossible for him to live without her.
He grew restless when they were apart; he grew frustrated and angry and when he wasn't thinking about when he would next be with her, he was thinking about all that he would do to be with her right now. They were not pretty things, these acts he was more than willing to commit to have her, and they were not legal things, but they were true things. Amongst all the other good and human qualities she brought out in him, truth-telling was one of the most surprising. He had made a habit, crafted a life, out of lying. But he grew to crave any opportunity to tell her the truth, when he could spare it.
Sometimes, when he was back home, alone, and had just come from visiting her in America, he thought of telling her the whole truth. He liked to imagine she wouldn't run. He liked to imagine the love they shared would surpass any fear she might feel when faced with the confession of his true nature.
But he knew better than to live in his own imaginings, and he knew better than to risk everything they had on such a gamble. She would run, he knew, screaming as she fled, and then he would have nothing left. So he settled for the second-best option for both of them, as it was the only one readily available and the only one remotely tolerable: ignorance. If he couldn't have her and also have her know the truth, then he wouldn't try asking for both. He'd settle for what he couldn't live without, and push the rest away into hopeful dreams. She'd be ignorant, yes, but she'd be his, and that was all that mattered to him.
.
When I love you
I'm sure I don't end here
and that life is transitory
and death a transit
—Claribel Alegría
Author's Note: I'm not even sure if I believe this take on Joe myself, but it was interesting for me to imagine nonetheless. Reviews would be lovely if you have any thoughts. Thank you for reading. :)