He supposes it was only a matter of time until she showed up at his door, if she ever would again. The possibility that she wouldn't wasn't far from his mind, all that they've said and not said considered. When he hears the creaking of the floor outside his door, sees her hovering shadow below it, heartbeat rapid and breath shallow, a tender part of his heart awakens with hope and longing. But it's a quiet refrain; a mere few strings of a prior orchestra: music stifled the day she could barely look him in the eyes; look at herself. Stifled every day afterwards.
Klaus is not one to linger on sentiment. To give to it anymore than he must, and even then, very little. As much as he's thought of Wynonna and what they've shared, what he wants and cannot expect of anyone who is not willing and prepared, he's had plenty to occupy him. His daughter. Her mother's arrival. His brother.
It's not worth the disappointment. It's not the first time nor the last that his intimacies and lovers have run their course. (That doesn't mean he hasn't felt it.)
He is still, watching the door, waiting. Waiting far too long for that knock; he's impatient by nature and his runs out. When he opens the door, it's with the frenetic desire to end his waiting and her hesitancy; his eyes, direct and piercing, lock with hers. Wordlessly, just as decisively, he turns back into the room and leaves the door ajar for her to enter.
He doesn't say anything. He opens the door but remains silent, making his way back into his room, the scene of the crime so to speak. There is that familiar urge in her feet to turn around and run. And she almost does it. She could turn around, shut the door, and that would be that. End of story.
But she doesn't want it to be the end of the story.
So she steps inside with more surety, one foot after another until she's finally standing in front of him. She forces herself to meet his gaze. She's even fairly sober. She know she needed to do this of her own volition, if she was going to do it at all.
"You told me not to come back until I wanted honesty. And maybe I've taken too long and already blown it, wouldn't be the first time, but I'm here now."
It's not everything she has to say, but it's a start, acknowledging the conditions that had been left the last time.
It's easier to be certain, to be angry and disenchanted. He knows that it is, because he so often has been; in love and all else. He was certain that this was over, that it was helpless, and not worth any further inkling or feeling of his time. Easier, even, in the interim, to not be around her: to keep her out of sight and out of mind, despite all external and internal reminders.
He wants that armor. He wants it to be easy, but faced with the reality of her in front of him, the look in her eyes, those lips and the sound of her voice; the words she speaks, he cannot help but feel himself bend. Loosen. Remember and feel. What he's wanted. How he's cared. His tongue is still. He does not move it and he wouldn't have the words if he did. Instead he shifts on his feet, lets out a held breath, and drops his eyes to the ground. Looks back up at her, less guarded now.
It's easier to be angry. To put up walls around you. To hurt people before they can hurt you back but where has that ever gotten her in the past. Dolls died before she could ever really say anything. By the time she confessed anything to Doc it was too late, he was done with her.
Saying what you want takes vulnerability. It leaves you feeling raw and exposed. Which is exactly how she feels right now. But his eyes are softer when they meet hers and while that's not as helpful as you know, actual words would be, it's something.
"It's been...a long month, to say the least, but it's also given me time to think about...what I want and what I'm willing to lose." God why didn't she bring her flask or a glass of whiskey with her? Doing this without liquid courage was a mistake. In any case she might be squirming a little in spot, and speaking quicker than she should, but at least she's talking?
"And I know you wanted something more real, and I was scared, because I'm always fucking terrified because the moment something is real you can lose it, but I don't want to lose it by default because I didn't try either."
Saying what you want does take vulnerability. So does sharing who you are. It is how he felt then, that morning, and it is how he feels now, stripped and bruised, despite intentions. What she says are pretty words, and if she means them... If. And even if she does, she's been, ostensibly until this moment, unwilling to at every turn of hardship. When she disappeared. So many moments of tenderness, turning a blind eye. When he told her all this.
When he speaks, his voice is roughened, merciless despite the strain. He is afraid too. Of course he is afraid, and hurt, and angry. His words come quick, on the very heels of her own. "There are centuries of blood on my hands; the cruelty for which I am known is legend." Elena was not the first of his victims, nor was she the last, and the chances that another might follow him here are not small. That he already has and would make another, not small. "If that is something you cannot handle, if it's something you cannot accept—" Feeling crowds his throat, takes his voice for a pause, for this is truly what this is about, for him. "—about me."
He wants to be known. Accepted. Cared for. He deserves; he demands it. It's been easy for her to turn her head from what she doesn't want to see or feel. And perhaps he's been just as selfish, just as reticent, letting her. Letting himself. Because it would be easier to lose something you didn't care about. That you couldn't care about, by choice.
His voice levels. His gaze fills with fortified will. "If you cannot accept me — I would rather live with the disappointment."
She knows she has been unfair to him, unwilling to look at what was really forming between them any more than she had to. The past couple of months have been hard. He showed her the ugly truth about himself when she was struggling with the ugly truths about herself, about what she knows herself now to be capable of, and it had been too much. She had gotten angry because she didn't want more to reckon with. That wasn't fair to him. She has a track history of not being particular fair to people she cares about.
"I was angry. It felt like you were dropping a bomb on me when I was still recovering, and I didn't know what to do with it." But she's had time to talk about it, to think. And the conclusion she came to was this. Her voice is rougher, almost defensive as she continues.
"It was never about whether I could acccept you or not -- I can. I want to...it was more about what it meant that I could accept that. You were right. I didn't want myself mirrored back at me."
Is she thrilled he killed Elena, that he's killed so many people he was legendary for his cruelty? No. But it's not the first time she's given her heart to someone with bloody hands either. Maybe not to the extent of his -- but she doesn't know other people who have lived for as many centuries, so that might have something to do with it.
"But this isn't about me," She remembers those words spit at her too, and they still sting. She reaches for his hand, to anchor herself, to keep herself from running, to just feel him again at all. It's a little of all of those things.
"There are a million valid reasons to not want to be with you, and vice versa, I know I'm not a prize either," She says this not to be cruel but for the sake of the honesty she's been trying to present here, scary as it is. If he is looking for any hints that she might be lying he would fine none. Yes, her heart is racing from nerves, but that'll happen when you finally lay your cards on the table.
"But in the end, they don't matter. I still care about you. I still want you. And I know violence is not the only language you speak."
There's something caught in his heart, something heavy and empty and full all at once. He feels it pull and stretch and unfold itself as she speaks, as she reaches for him, the truth of it so plain and irreconcilable. Her hand is a shock of warmth in his; so strong in grasp in contrast to how her fingers slipped away from his that morning.
She's so sure. And it's not that he doesn't believe her; he does. He believes every word she says, because he knows that she does.
But they are not what he wants. How she feels about him — about them, has felt so clear from the start.
His fingers tighten around hers. The press and turn to envelope hers; his other palm reaches to cover them, to stay them. His voice now is soft, calm, assured. His eyes are rounded and wetted with tears; with the anguish and relief of this honesty. "I don't love you because you are broken. But I think you love me because I am." Because she doesn't know how else to love, not yet. Not him, nor herself. "And that does matter." It matters to him. It matters to the man he wants to be. The man he is. It matters because it is not the kind of love he wants.
His words echo the ones Doc said on that porch and it is like someone has put another dagger into her chest. She cannot breathe for a moment, it feels like. It had been a mistake. She should have left things how they were, sour as they were, it was better than this, the pain of confirmation that even if she tried, she put herself out there, it wasn't good enough.
It could not undo the damage she has already caused between them. Or at least that's partly how it feels. And yet it does not escape her how kind he is being in his rejection. He is still holding her steady even as he lets her go. She looks down for a moment, trying to find her words again and steady herself when part of her wants to just yell and run. But where would that get her? Them?
"You love me?" It's a simple question, but it feels important to get the confirmation, if a little selfish. So few times in her life have people other than Waverly loved her without qualifiers. Even if she doesn't know how to love herself that way just yet, let alone someone else. She lifts her head again for his answer, her own eyes red and wet with emotion.
"I don't want to lose you." Her voice is small and almost desperate in it's longing. He has been one of the few constants in this place since she first arrived, she doesn't want to lose that or him. Not completely, not the way it felt like she lost Doc. Even if they can't be....whatever they were anymore...she doesn't want to have to tiptoe around the suite trying to avoid him either.
Words of love do not come easy to him. Love itself has so often been a secret in his heart; the ones he would even allow to take up space, and even then. Even then he sought to eliminate them. To obscure them. To turn them bitter and hard. Mikael did not think him worthy of love. Esther's was tainted, twisted, manipulative; even as a child, he could not trust it. The first woman he allowed to inspire such reckless vulnerability tore that love away, mercilessly and with object disgust.
They come easy to him now. Easy and simple and indulgent in the seeds of their truth. Perhaps because of all the losses and deaths; because of the transitory nature of existence, now so obvious and irrevocable to him and for him. Perhaps because of Hope; because of loving her, so completely and truly has inspired in him more kindness and clarity than he could possibly express.
He aches. Watching the devastation, nearly feeling the breath empty from her lungs. Listening to her small, sad words. He does love her. He believes he could, fully and completely: her strength, her spirit, the ferociousness of her own love and loyalty. His eyes burn with tears, his hand lifting and hovering there, beside her cheek, the intimacy of the touch he wants to give too intimate. He hesitates before his fingertips thread through tendrils of her hair; his palm dropping instead to the side of her neck.
His lashes gather tears as he blinks through them. "I do — love you." The words are a truth as much as they are a choice. A promise. "And I'm not going anywhere."
Wynonna has never been able to express love easily to anyone besides her sister. Perhaps because no one outside of Waverly ever loved her completely. Ward had been too busy turning Willa into a good little soldier to pay much attention to his middle child, and that was the best he could do. Her parents would fight. Her father beat her mother. Michelle burnt down a barn with little Waverly in it and even though Wynonna knows the full story behind why now....when she finally had the chance to be with her daughters again, she didn't stick around long. Wynonna was on two types of birth control by the time she was thirteen. She learned too young that most men only wanted one thing from her, and it wasn't her heart. So she locked it away behind layers of trauma, jokes, and deep rooted insecurity.
Doc loved her, but he's also broken her heart so many times it's hard for her to ever fully trust he won't again. Dolls might have loved her more purely but between the pregnancy and everything else...she wasn't ready to address it, and then he died. She had talked about that recently with Sara. The pain of the unknown. The what-ifs.
Maybe if she could have kept Alice things would be different, she would have had to learn and grown up, but instead she dug her heels in in the aftermath. The mission was the only thing that mattered. She loves her team, she doesn't trust them. She had tried to get Waverly out of town before the showdown with Bulshar, drugged most of her friends. Tied Doc up with holy water soaked rope.
So as much as things hurt, it is important when he says he loves her, even as he sets his own limits. He doesn't plan on giving up on her, or just continuing to ignore her, it is so different from what she is used to. His hand on his neck is reassuring and scalding somehow all at once. Tears are dropping on her cheeks now, mirroring his own. And maybe it is both the pain and the love she feels from him that helps her come to a conclusion that's been rattling around inside of her for a while.
"I don't love me. Maybe that's the problem."
And how can she truly give her heart to another before that? As much as she cares about him, and she does, he wormed his way into her heart without her permission, it can't fully blossom, not the way she is now. She steps in closer, and wraps her arms around his waist, allowing herself the small comfort of his embrace unless he pushes her away.
He knows. He knows she doesn't love herself — he knows it with the familiarity of his own degraded self-worth; because he has seen it, time and again, in her own actions and words; because it has been at the core of their tragedies. There's a pity he feels: a true sadness and tenderness that ends in a soft ache, hearing the tremble of the confession and watching the crystal beads of tears as they find their paths down her face. His thumb grazes the line of her jaw, slipping across the wetness that hangs there. He wants to touch it, to feel it in kind with his heart. To soothe it, knowing there is nothing he can do for her but this.
The scent of her hair envelopes him; drowns the salt of her tears. He feels them on his neck as he pulls her in close, eagerly; earnestly. He knows it is what she needs. It is what he needs, his head turning into her, nose pressing into the silk and fragrance. He's silent, for a moment, considering whatever roads she might take, whatever steps she might consider, are not for him to decide. He cannot follow. He cannot conceive any for himself, for them, past this; his hands rubbing her back and cradling the nape of her neck. Mourning whatever loss this might constitute. Whatever desires he has felt unfulfilled.
"I don't know." Despite the centuries he has spent loving and losing, he does not know. Camille was right. He spent his time in life avoiding the agony of loss. He did not know how to say goodbye before death, nor start anew here. But there is an anew here, and of that he is not afraid.
This may not seem like much to him, but for her it means more than he can say. He has been kind in his rejection. Even if they cannot be what they were before, he does not want to exorcise himself from her life. He is not leaving her alone to reckon with her pain, like so many before him have. So rarely has she received comfort outside of her sister.
Perhaps part of her will always be that young girl who made a terrible mistake, who wishes someone had listened instead of sending her away.
And so while this way not seem like much to him, for her it is more thn enough, more than she could have allowed herself to hope to want in this moment as his arms wrap around her in kind, cradling her close. The smell of him is warm and familiar, as comforting as his embrace itself. She is not ready to pull away, not just yet. She allows herself this tiny act of selfishness, who knows when or if he'll hold her like this again.
"Maybe it's okay if we don't know." This is new for both of them, albeit in different ways, and they will have to figure it out as they go. It is bound to be messy, caring for people always is. And she knows much of what is up ahead, she will have to figure out on her own, not that that's ever been her strong suit.
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no subject
Klaus is not one to linger on sentiment. To give to it anymore than he must, and even then, very little. As much as he's thought of Wynonna and what they've shared, what he wants and cannot expect of anyone who is not willing and prepared, he's had plenty to occupy him. His daughter. Her mother's arrival. His brother.
It's not worth the disappointment. It's not the first time nor the last that his intimacies and lovers have run their course. (That doesn't mean he hasn't felt it.)
He is still, watching the door, waiting. Waiting far too long for that knock; he's impatient by nature and his runs out. When he opens the door, it's with the frenetic desire to end his waiting and her hesitancy; his eyes, direct and piercing, lock with hers. Wordlessly, just as decisively, he turns back into the room and leaves the door ajar for her to enter.
no subject
He doesn't say anything. He opens the door but remains silent, making his way back into his room, the scene of the crime so to speak. There is that familiar urge in her feet to turn around and run. And she almost does it. She could turn around, shut the door, and that would be that. End of story.
But she doesn't want it to be the end of the story.
So she steps inside with more surety, one foot after another until she's finally standing in front of him. She forces herself to meet his gaze. She's even fairly sober. She know she needed to do this of her own volition, if she was going to do it at all.
"You told me not to come back until I wanted honesty. And maybe I've taken too long and already blown it, wouldn't be the first time, but I'm here now."
It's not everything she has to say, but it's a start, acknowledging the conditions that had been left the last time.
no subject
He wants that armor. He wants it to be easy, but faced with the reality of her in front of him, the look in her eyes, those lips and the sound of her voice; the words she speaks, he cannot help but feel himself bend. Loosen. Remember and feel. What he's wanted. How he's cared. His tongue is still. He does not move it and he wouldn't have the words if he did. Instead he shifts on his feet, lets out a held breath, and drops his eyes to the ground. Looks back up at her, less guarded now.
Go on.
no subject
It's easier to be angry. To put up walls around you. To hurt people before they can hurt you back but where has that ever gotten her in the past. Dolls died before she could ever really say anything. By the time she confessed anything to Doc it was too late, he was done with her.
Saying what you want takes vulnerability. It leaves you feeling raw and exposed. Which is exactly how she feels right now. But his eyes are softer when they meet hers and while that's not as helpful as you know, actual words would be, it's something.
"It's been...a long month, to say the least, but it's also given me time to think about...what I want and what I'm willing to lose." God why didn't she bring her flask or a glass of whiskey with her? Doing this without liquid courage was a mistake. In any case she might be squirming a little in spot, and speaking quicker than she should, but at least she's talking?
"And I know you wanted something more real, and I was scared, because I'm always fucking terrified because the moment something is real you can lose it, but I don't want to lose it by default because I didn't try either."
no subject
When he speaks, his voice is roughened, merciless despite the strain. He is afraid too. Of course he is afraid, and hurt, and angry. His words come quick, on the very heels of her own. "There are centuries of blood on my hands; the cruelty for which I am known is legend." Elena was not the first of his victims, nor was she the last, and the chances that another might follow him here are not small. That he already has and would make another, not small. "If that is something you cannot handle, if it's something you cannot accept—" Feeling crowds his throat, takes his voice for a pause, for this is truly what this is about, for him. "—about me."
He wants to be known. Accepted. Cared for. He deserves; he demands it. It's been easy for her to turn her head from what she doesn't want to see or feel. And perhaps he's been just as selfish, just as reticent, letting her. Letting himself. Because it would be easier to lose something you didn't care about. That you couldn't care about, by choice.
His voice levels. His gaze fills with fortified will. "If you cannot accept me — I would rather live with the disappointment."
no subject
She knows she has been unfair to him, unwilling to look at what was really forming between them any more than she had to. The past couple of months have been hard. He showed her the ugly truth about himself when she was struggling with the ugly truths about herself, about what she knows herself now to be capable of, and it had been too much. She had gotten angry because she didn't want more to reckon with. That wasn't fair to him. She has a track history of not being particular fair to people she cares about.
"I was angry. It felt like you were dropping a bomb on me when I was still recovering, and I didn't know what to do with it." But she's had time to talk about it, to think. And the conclusion she came to was this. Her voice is rougher, almost defensive as she continues.
"It was never about whether I could acccept you or not -- I can. I want to...it was more about what it meant that I could accept that. You were right. I didn't want myself mirrored back at me."
Is she thrilled he killed Elena, that he's killed so many people he was legendary for his cruelty? No. But it's not the first time she's given her heart to someone with bloody hands either. Maybe not to the extent of his -- but she doesn't know other people who have lived for as many centuries, so that might have something to do with it.
"But this isn't about me," She remembers those words spit at her too, and they still sting. She reaches for his hand, to anchor herself, to keep herself from running, to just feel him again at all. It's a little of all of those things.
"There are a million valid reasons to not want to be with you, and vice versa, I know I'm not a prize either," She says this not to be cruel but for the sake of the honesty she's been trying to present here, scary as it is. If he is looking for any hints that she might be lying he would fine none. Yes, her heart is racing from nerves, but that'll happen when you finally lay your cards on the table.
"But in the end, they don't matter. I still care about you. I still want you. And I know violence is not the only language you speak."
She speaks back words he said to her, once.
no subject
She's so sure. And it's not that he doesn't believe her; he does. He believes every word she says, because he knows that she does.
But they are not what he wants. How she feels about him — about them, has felt so clear from the start.
His fingers tighten around hers. The press and turn to envelope hers; his other palm reaches to cover them, to stay them. His voice now is soft, calm, assured. His eyes are rounded and wetted with tears; with the anguish and relief of this honesty. "I don't love you because you are broken. But I think you love me because I am." Because she doesn't know how else to love, not yet. Not him, nor herself. "And that does matter." It matters to him. It matters to the man he wants to be. The man he is. It matters because it is not the kind of love he wants.
no subject
His words echo the ones Doc said on that porch and it is like someone has put another dagger into her chest. She cannot breathe for a moment, it feels like. It had been a mistake. She should have left things how they were, sour as they were, it was better than this, the pain of confirmation that even if she tried, she put herself out there, it wasn't good enough.
It could not undo the damage she has already caused between them. Or at least that's partly how it feels. And yet it does not escape her how kind he is being in his rejection. He is still holding her steady even as he lets her go. She looks down for a moment, trying to find her words again and steady herself when part of her wants to just yell and run. But where would that get her? Them?
"You love me?" It's a simple question, but it feels important to get the confirmation, if a little selfish. So few times in her life have people other than Waverly loved her without qualifiers. Even if she doesn't know how to love herself that way just yet, let alone someone else. She lifts her head again for his answer, her own eyes red and wet with emotion.
"I don't want to lose you." Her voice is small and almost desperate in it's longing. He has been one of the few constants in this place since she first arrived, she doesn't want to lose that or him. Not completely, not the way it felt like she lost Doc. Even if they can't be....whatever they were anymore...she doesn't want to have to tiptoe around the suite trying to avoid him either.
no subject
They come easy to him now. Easy and simple and indulgent in the seeds of their truth. Perhaps because of all the losses and deaths; because of the transitory nature of existence, now so obvious and irrevocable to him and for him. Perhaps because of Hope; because of loving her, so completely and truly has inspired in him more kindness and clarity than he could possibly express.
He aches. Watching the devastation, nearly feeling the breath empty from her lungs. Listening to her small, sad words. He does love her. He believes he could, fully and completely: her strength, her spirit, the ferociousness of her own love and loyalty. His eyes burn with tears, his hand lifting and hovering there, beside her cheek, the intimacy of the touch he wants to give too intimate. He hesitates before his fingertips thread through tendrils of her hair; his palm dropping instead to the side of her neck.
His lashes gather tears as he blinks through them. "I do — love you." The words are a truth as much as they are a choice. A promise. "And I'm not going anywhere."
no subject
Wynonna has never been able to express love easily to anyone besides her sister. Perhaps because no one outside of Waverly ever loved her completely. Ward had been too busy turning Willa into a good little soldier to pay much attention to his middle child, and that was the best he could do. Her parents would fight. Her father beat her mother. Michelle burnt down a barn with little Waverly in it and even though Wynonna knows the full story behind why now....when she finally had the chance to be with her daughters again, she didn't stick around long. Wynonna was on two types of birth control by the time she was thirteen. She learned too young that most men only wanted one thing from her, and it wasn't her heart. So she locked it away behind layers of trauma, jokes, and deep rooted insecurity.
Doc loved her, but he's also broken her heart so many times it's hard for her to ever fully trust he won't again. Dolls might have loved her more purely but between the pregnancy and everything else...she wasn't ready to address it, and then he died. She had talked about that recently with Sara. The pain of the unknown. The what-ifs.
Maybe if she could have kept Alice things would be different, she would have had to learn and grown up, but instead she dug her heels in in the aftermath. The mission was the only thing that mattered. She loves her team, she doesn't trust them. She had tried to get Waverly out of town before the showdown with Bulshar, drugged most of her friends. Tied Doc up with holy water soaked rope.
So as much as things hurt, it is important when he says he loves her, even as he sets his own limits. He doesn't plan on giving up on her, or just continuing to ignore her, it is so different from what she is used to. His hand on his neck is reassuring and scalding somehow all at once. Tears are dropping on her cheeks now, mirroring his own. And maybe it is both the pain and the love she feels from him that helps her come to a conclusion that's been rattling around inside of her for a while.
"I don't love me. Maybe that's the problem."
And how can she truly give her heart to another before that? As much as she cares about him, and she does, he wormed his way into her heart without her permission, it can't fully blossom, not the way she is now. She steps in closer, and wraps her arms around his waist, allowing herself the small comfort of his embrace unless he pushes her away.
"So what do we do now?"
no subject
The scent of her hair envelopes him; drowns the salt of her tears. He feels them on his neck as he pulls her in close, eagerly; earnestly. He knows it is what she needs. It is what he needs, his head turning into her, nose pressing into the silk and fragrance. He's silent, for a moment, considering whatever roads she might take, whatever steps she might consider, are not for him to decide. He cannot follow. He cannot conceive any for himself, for them, past this; his hands rubbing her back and cradling the nape of her neck. Mourning whatever loss this might constitute. Whatever desires he has felt unfulfilled.
"I don't know." Despite the centuries he has spent loving and losing, he does not know. Camille was right. He spent his time in life avoiding the agony of loss. He did not know how to say goodbye before death, nor start anew here. But there is an anew here, and of that he is not afraid.
no subject
This may not seem like much to him, but for her it means more than he can say. He has been kind in his rejection. Even if they cannot be what they were before, he does not want to exorcise himself from her life. He is not leaving her alone to reckon with her pain, like so many before him have. So rarely has she received comfort outside of her sister.
Perhaps part of her will always be that young girl who made a terrible mistake, who wishes someone had listened instead of sending her away.
And so while this way not seem like much to him, for her it is more thn enough, more than she could have allowed herself to hope to want in this moment as his arms wrap around her in kind, cradling her close. The smell of him is warm and familiar, as comforting as his embrace itself. She is not ready to pull away, not just yet. She allows herself this tiny act of selfishness, who knows when or if he'll hold her like this again.
"Maybe it's okay if we don't know." This is new for both of them, albeit in different ways, and they will have to figure it out as they go. It is bound to be messy, caring for people always is. And she knows much of what is up ahead, she will have to figure out on her own, not that that's ever been her strong suit.