our houses of cards

Character: Bendix Llewellyn

Summary: It is all falling apart.

Companion: our cities of clouds, dream a little deeper

He is a mess and he knows it.

He is pale and his heart is beating too fast as he returns to his office. His colleague raises her head to look at him and he sees himself through her own, soul-searching and empty eyes. It is pathetic that even Jade Tempest can see that he has reached the end of his wisdom because everyone knows that there is nothing she will do about it because she cannot help at all.

She shakes her head slowly and looks back at her report, skipping the obvious questions.

But he needs to talk with her because she has been watching and listening from the beginning.

And so they go again.

He knows that she knows what is going on when she signs the last report and looks at him.

"Tempest," he starts. "I got no clue what to do anymore."

And this is the truth. His knuckles are still white from the way he has grabbed the door handle as he has slammed the door shut and his palms are still sweating because he has rarely been this nervous. This is madness and he knows but he has never had a choice because no one chooses the person they love so much that it hurts. And it is eating him alive that he has loved his childhood friend for all those years, that he has never moved on from her. He has tried to hold her when she has left him behind but there has been nothing to grab at all.

He looks at his colleague who looks just the same as always – clenched jaw as best indicator for her weekly migraine, her typical vacant stare that it easily deceiving because her eyes always contain an invisible fire and more tears that she could cry in a lifetime. They are alike. They have both feelings for someone they can never have but she is one steps ahead of him because she has let go of all the pain love brings.

"Tempest," he says again before he corrects himself. "Jade, I can't do this anymore."

She finally focuses on him. "You are thinking too much about options that are not meant for you," she says stoically as always. "You are the only one who she likes, her only option. She will understand all of this at one point. You need to have faith."

He frowns. This is so typical for her. She refuses to let him give up on his painful love and he trusts her too much to disobey her. "Can't you at least smile when you speak?" he asks instead of questioning her faith in his pointless love for his childhood friend. "Seriously, you are far too serious … I have seen you smiling – it looks nice."

Once more, he wonders why life would have been so much easier if he would have fallen for her because he can understand her when she speaks cryptically and he can console her when she breaks down. All the questions are making his head spin and ache but he stays focused.

She smiles thinly as she speaks again. "It is good that you brought her up yourself because we got an order," she says. "Looks like your dad wants to see us in Central City."

He freezes because this is the proof that whenever he thinks that it cannot get any worse, fate finds some way to mess with him. He looks at his colleague and sees that she thinks the same, that she is not happy about this either. "Shit," he mutters.

"My opinion exactly," she says as she shrugs. "Well, on the brighter side, it seems like we will both benefit from the promotions the new Fuhrer is handing out like candy at the moment."

"What do they need us for in first place? We are doing nothing special here, do we?"

"We are part of the office for International Relations and with Kay's promotion to commander of the South-Western Headquarters, it is likely that one of us will end up in Central and that the other one will replace our favourite redhead," she says as she closes another folder.

"Jade?" he asks. "You are kinda smart, aren't you? Give me one last advice, will you?"

She genuinely smiles now. "I have been waiting for that sentence," she replies. "Alright, I think that life is far too short to question yourself all the time. Confess to her and get over with it. In the worst case, she says no and you can finally move on after all those years."

He nods because she is so right that it hurts. "You are right," he says. "In both points … I guess that this means that I will miss you soon as well, Jade, when one of us is in Central and the other one here in the South."

"I won't miss all the conversations about your beloved," she grins as she rises to store away books that have been on her desk for months. "But yes, you are a good colleague, Bendix."

"We will wait with the hugs and the tears until it's official, alright?" he laughs nervously.

"Yeah," she says because she has never been a person for hugs either.

"What will you do now, by the way?"

"I will celebrate that I am young and single for another few months," she says in the same stoic way she speaks in front of her superiors and so he cannot be sure whether she is joking or not. "I will dress nicely, go out, drink some whiskey and dance alone."

He winks at her. "But you won't go home alone, huh?" he smirks.

"I will do as I please," she says calmly before she chuckles. "No, I will go to bed alone. That works best for me – especially since I still get up at four in the morning. And maybe, I will learn how to breathe without hurting again. That would be nice."

"Why did you never try to fall for someone else?" he asks as he locks his desk.

She shrugs. "I tried, damn, I tried so hard," she says and suddenly, she seems small and vulnerable. "But there are no options left for me – I wasn't kidding when I said that I can only fall for people I cannot have. It's a miracle that I didn't fall for you under that aspect."

"Yeah, that's something that baffled me too," he said smugly.

"You are probably not by type."

"Yeah, I got no purple eyes," he winks.

She freezes. "I was going to say that your hair is not reddish enough," she says slowly. "But who are you talking about, Bendix? Who on this planet has purple eyes."

He is silent for a moment. "Lynn," he says then.

She is silent for a very long moment before she starts to chuckle. "So you … all those years, you thought that I liked Lynn?" she asks in surprise. "Well, I would never have guessed that you would assume this … but I guess that I see where you are coming from … I was really very Lynn-centred the entire time we were in the West…"

"You are not mad or anything?" he questions as he takes a step back from her.

"Not really, no," she smiles. "Like I said: I can understand why you assume this even though it still confuses me a little bit … I thought that I was obvious…"

"Martin, then?" he asks as he leans against the bookshelf in their office.

"Never," she says as she shakes her head. "He is black-haired, by the way. No, the reason why I cannot have the one I love is not because he is married or because he loves someone else. It is because he is from Aerugo and thus hardly a good match for someone who is trying to have a decent career and to make her family proud."

He understands. "We should both have more courage then," he tells her. "Who has the right to tell you that you can't have both, Jadelina Tempest? I thought that you were stronger than letting other people tell you what you are supposed to do and what you are supposed to do."