gonna_live | (no subject)

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On their way upstairs, Kaylee didn't even bother to request the key for their usual room. They were kind of in a hurry.

It is to be hoped for the sake of their current neighbors, if they had any, that the walls were soundproofed.

The show's over now, though, and Kaylee's feeling pretty deliciously lazy.

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"Because it's not the only one. Because most of the time I tried not to think about it, with him or with anybody I knew, because I didn't understand it and I couldn't just dismiss it as --"

He breaks off, biting his lip hard.

There goes her temper again.

She closes her eyes, and makes herself take in a breath slowly.

Very quiet:

"Because you didn't like to think that you had the kind of friends who went in for mass hysteria. Because them bein' stupid reflects poorly on you."

No louder: "Because they weren't stupid. Or irrational, or ..."

His mouth twists. "Anything else that matched what I thought about religious belief. I suppose it was some amazing coincidence that everybody I knew personally was an exception."

Barely audible:

"I'm tryin' real hard not to be hurt right now. And I'm not doing a real good job at it."

"I'm sorry."

He looks up, trying to meet her eyes and almost making it.

"I'm trying to change."

"I have to take you at your word on that."

She's not looking at him.

"I -- okay. You're tryin' to change." Beat. "What can I do to help?"

A breath.

Very low, and hesitant: "Can you tell me what it's like for you? If, if I promise to listen, and not ... ?"

"If you hurt me again -- "

Her eyes are a little bright. "I'm not stupid, Simon. There's only so many times I can put myself out there and let you see this business and then find out that you don't respect me for it. You're supposed to worship on your own, in private. I don't -- you don't even understand what it was you belittled. And I don't know if you noticed at all, but I can't just give of myself like that any more. I can't." Kaylee's shaking her head. "Maybe later, when I got some armor worked up, but not tonight."

Simon rubs one hand hard over his forehead and eyes, presses knuckles to his mouth.

Because, well. He's abruptly got a new appreciation for what it feels like to open up about something private, and to be hit hard right where you've made yourself vulnerable.

By someone you love.

I did that. I did that to her.

"It doesn't have to be tonight," he whispers. "It -- you don't have to at all. If it's too ..."

He swallows.

"Kaylee, I am so sorry."

It's pretty easy to see he feels bad about it.

He should, Kaylee thinks, and promptly scolds herself for it: That's not going to help.

"You say you're makin' the effort." Low. "Least I can do is match you. Just... not tonight. Please."

He nods.

"Not tonight."

"You still gonna ask him?"

A short silence.

Quiet: "I need to think about it some more."

A lot more.

"It's -- "

She bites her lower lip for a moment.

"It's not a bad question to ask," Kaylee says, tentative. "You -- you know that, right?"

"Unless I'm asking for a bad reason," he says, and looks up at her.

She's still not looking at him. "You never did say why you want to understand."

And I can't say I trust your motives.

"Didn't I?" Low, and uncertain.

"You said you wanted to understand. And that was all."

A loose, quick sigh. "No. I'm wrong. You said -- you couldn't just write us off as exceptions. Do you want to know because you want to make more excuses to make yourself feel better? Because if so -- you and me, we can't ever have that talk, because I don't find that acceptable."

Another tense silence, before he lets out a slow breath.

"It's not that." His voice is tired, but sure. "I don't want to make excuses. I want to stop making excuses."

The hand that isn't holding his tightens and loosens nervously on the hem of the smoking jacket.

"Two reactions I got to that." Quiet. "First up is I don't get why it takes the folks who believe to get you to quit makin' excuses. And why you can't just do it yourself. Second -- I still don't get what's bringin' all this on. Because it's not just the whatever-it-is that he sent over. Is it?"

He's trying to think of an answer to the first question when she asks the second one, and it stops him.

"I think it's been building for a long time," he says finally, "and this just ... tipped it over, in a way."

Because he's got something to let him deal with his dead and you don't.

Something else for the list of things Kaylee won't say.

She doesn't say anything.

"Because I --"

The silence after that is long enough to make one think he doesn't intend to continue the thought at all.

"I never told you."

It's a whisper.

"I never knew how."

Now Kaylee does look at him -- warily.

(And pale.)

The words stick in his throat, and then spill out like water.

"I -- tried to pray. Once. I didn't, I didn't know if I was doing it right, I still don't, I didn't know what I was supposed to do --"