SNAFU
I had a talk with Sawyer. She sent me a text and I asked where she wanted to meet. She's staying, or at least had booked a room at, the Fairmont Olympic, And I met her there. She looked good.
It was gut wrenching, seeing her, knowing what we'd had and what was lost. I don't know what I expected, but the conversation didn't go as planned, I don't think for either of us.
[Cue wavery recollection of conversation]
Alec R Sutton: Arriving on the floor, he did, in fact, pass the hotel staff on the way to the room. He knocked before punching in the code and opening the door, a pause given as he listened, before stepping into the room. "Sawyer?" Moving deeper in, he saw her there on the sofa and stopped in his tracks, regarding her.
Sawyer E Monroe: After the entryway to the left would be the sitting area, to the right the entrance to the bedroom and restroom. At the sound of his voice she looked quickly over her shoulder. Just taking in the sight of him a moment before she stood. Hands clasped in front of her, she moved as if she suddenly remembered that standing there mutely was ridiculous. "Hey...come on in? I thought maybe you’d want a drink so..." The movement was just a gesture to the bottle and glasses on the table. "Have a seat? " She eyed him with hesitation, wary that he'd refuse. –d
Alec R Sutton: "Thank you." He nodded and hell yes, he needed a drink about now. He sat down, shades pulled and hooked into the neckline of his t-shirt by the bow. "So..." He didn't even know where to start this conversation or even what conversation as of yet that she wanted to start.
Sawyer E Monroe: She lowered to sit with him, knees together the slit of the dress parting thigh downward to gap with the movement. Leaning forward, she set her eyes on the bottle, breaking the seal in opening it before taking it up to pour the two glasses full and return the bottle to the tray. She lifted one and offered it to him, blue eyes roaming over his face before asking softly and maybe not so simply "How are you?" –d
Alec R Sutton: Taking the glass offered he contemplated the question for a long time before he stated: "Hurt. Pissed. Lost." He lifted the glass, and took a sip, then cradled the glass in hand as he sat forward on the chair, forearms resting on his knees. "You?"
Sawyer E Monroe: She watched him, really looking at him in a way she hadn’t been able to in a week. Turned inward to face him, her back to the arm of the sofa. "Same" She whispered softly. She wanted to touch him so badly her fingers ached with it but nothing in his body language said he'd welcome any closer contact, so her hands stayed in her lap instead of reaching up to his hair. "Talk to me.... tell me why you're hurt pissed and lost. Im tired of assuming I know anything at all" It wasn't demandingly spoken, just quietly so. –d
Alec R Sutton: "Why?" His brows shot upward. "You really have to ask why? Okay, I get it..." he took another sip of his bourbon and then set the glass on the table. "I was a dick, I was thoughtless, and not consulting you first was hurtful. But that was not intentional. I did not intend to hurt you. What you did? Packing up... Okay, I can see packing a bag, spending a night or two at Victoria's or..." he waved a hand around at the room. "But you took it beyond that. You had movers come out, and pack up all your things, the animals, our life... Do you really have to ask why I'm hurt? And as for why I'm pissed? You painted me pretty damned black with our friends. Friends who've only heard your side of things and have no clue the kind of crazy you unleashed on me. As for being lost... That should be pretty obvious. I lost the woman I wanted to marry," he snapped his fingers, "just like that. The woman I knew, the woman I thought I knew.... That's not you."
Sawyer E Monroe: It fucking hurt to hear it, but she owed him that, if nothing else, the space to unleash his hurt on her. She was silent, the only thing that reacted to anything he said was the emotion in her eyes of sorrow and regret above any other flickering readable expression. "No...I didn't have to ask to know what I did wrong, but Ive been so busy trying to run from the hurt I feel I haven't given you the chance to tell me anything at all about how you feel. " Fingers twisted at the ring on hand to combat the rage of nerves fraying beneath the surface. "We both made mistakes, but I need you to understand that intentional or not, I felt completely blindsided, pushed aside, and replaced. I panicked, horribly so...and my behavior reflected it. I lashed out, I floundered, I did anything I could to try and keep you away from the wound. I made one mistake after another just to try and recover from the last one. When you came home with her...It wasn't you not telling me about a dinner date, I felt like I'd lost my best friend. You’d never...I couldn't understand." She sat up, leaning in to be closer and look at him with searching eyes "Don't you realize I feel the same thing, that I don't know you? Tell me who you thought I was? "-d
Alec R Sutton: "Well, now you know." He lifted his glass and drained it, set it back on the table and then rose. "You know, I will be here for you, whenever you need me. That won't change. But as far as we're concerned, I'm done. Because even as you tell me, that you wanted to give me the chance to tell you how I feel, you're turning it right back around to what I did, and how I made you feel. I already understand that I hurt you. I understood that the day I brought Cam home and you had Duke and a bag slung over your shoulder. I'm not going to feed your constant need to throw it in my face that I fucked up. I get that, I know that; I live with that every day. And you didn't try to understand. Cam is my best friend. We've been through shit together that would boggle the minds of most people. We've always been there for each other." When she asked that last question, he regarded her for a long moment, and then said quietly "I thought you were someone I could share my life with."
Sawyer E Monroe: "I dont want to tell you that you fucked up! Im trying to tell you the place I was in when I made a series of really hard, but really horrible mistakes!" She stood wuth him and stepped closer. "You mentioned once that you had a cop ex, just once. And that's all I knew of her. Nothing. You pick and choose which part of your past you want to share with me and then act surprised as hell that I don't automatically love her as you do. YOU were my best friend. You're the man you taught me to believe in magic. To believe that I could be loved. Fuck, I never felt beautiful until it was you looking at me. And there's this entire person that is so tied into you ...and I know nothing of her? Yes, I reacted horribly. I am sorry and if I could take it back and go back I would. I'd do it just so Im not what hurt you. Im not drinking because you fucked up, Alec. It;s because *I* did. Im not miserable because you love someone else, Im miserable because the man I love? I apparently don't know well enough. And to sit and think about every fucking little thing I should have told you and didn't. I don't know how to fix it. I love the man that laughed his way through Italy with me. I love the man that let me be me. Ridiculous, ..goat loving...pancake making...slightly violvent but well meaning. You let me be weird and emotional and affectionate. I believed everything. That we could have forever. I never wanted a family until you... and I cant see myself wanting it with anyone else. Because that magic? It was you and me. I dont think I'll ever trust myself enough to love anyone else like I love you. Evennow I want to have your forgiveness and just kiss you until it feels like it should. Im sick of people telling me to go get laid like that's the only cure to fucking up at life. I want to hear you, I want to hear it even if it's hurtful and angry because not hearing you at all is the worst silence. I needed room to breathe and when I didn't get it I demanded more. I needed understanding and when I didn't get it I started shouting louder just to be heard. I did it all wrong and Im sorry. " –d
Alec R Sutton: "I fucked up, I know that and I tried to get you two together to get to know one another and until she walked into the Gator that night, I had no idea if she was even still alive. It had been three years since I'd seen her last. In case you hadn't noticed the scars? She's been through some serious shit and while most of them I knew about, was there for, some of them are new and the reason for them is simple. She has a dangerous job. And... she met me." He shook his head. "Had she never met me, she and Wren... never would have been taken. She never would have been tortured. She never would have been scarred, inside and out. People tend to get hurt around me. And you're better off. Just... don't let anyone change how weird you are. As for breathing room... I let you go when you walked. I gave you unrestricted access to the house when you wanted to pack up your stuff and move the animals away. That last day you came over, you came to me. So don't tell me I didn't give you breathing room. I gave you exactly what you wanted and you didn't like it."
Sawyer E Monroe: "I fucked up because I kept seeing the body language and the way you two just existed in your own bubble and it terrified me. I took all of that and I didn't understand the jealousy because no, no I don't know the relationship you had with her and Ive never been jealous. But Ive never been in love with someone to be jealous. " She bit her bottom lip to shut up, lifting her shoulders in a little shrug as she stepped closer, in his space to look up at him. "Never. Ever think that I'm better off without you. I have to learn how to be without you but don't pretend it's better. And you're right. I didn't like it. I don't like it. " She pointed a finger between them back and forth, close enough fingertip bumped his abs and her chest. "This? This is too much room. My problem isn't her. I tried and failed to tell you that it was inside me that I was struggling . And I hurt you, and Im sorry. " –d
Alec R Sutton: "For someone who says it wasn't her, you sure had a funny way of showing it. You took an instant dislike and it showed in your body language. The way you reacted every time she was in proximity to us. You say that you shouted to be heard but all I ever did was listen. I listened, I apologized, I owned up to the fact that I made a mistake in not letting you two get to know each other before I turned her. That's on me. I get that. I own it. But never once did I not listen to you. Never once did I not understand that I hurt you. And nothing I did was good enough." He mimicked her gesture of the finger between them. "This here... is as close as we'll be. We'll never go back to the way it was. That was wiped out when you went completely mental on me. How we proceed from this point forward... That's on you. But know this. I will always be there for you. I am your maker. Nothing can or will change that."
Alec R Sutton: "What part of I owned up to that and admitted to it and apologized for it, repeatedly don't you understand? After the fact, I did listen. I heard you. You're blaming me for not listening but you're the one who isn't. How many damned times do you want me to say I'm sorry? You act like every single event after the first was the same when it's not, it's new shit heaped onto my mistake in not talking to you first, and even then it wasn't a matter of not listening it was a matter of not consulting you. Never did I not listen to you. And if you can't see that, then there's no point in continuing the conversation." Alec sidestepped out from between Sawyer and the chair and started for the door and then turned back as she came off with that last. "I gave you every opportunity to try and work through it. You made it perfectly clear that you had no desire to do so. I'm the one that said you don't walk away from someone you plan to marry because of an argument. And that's all it was. An argument. And you still walked away. Frankly, I'm amazed you didn't leave burning tracks in your wake." He shook his head over the bed hopping comment. "That... makes no sense. As for trying... You might want to try moving on." He nodded and continued toward the door, pausing after opening it to look back at her, one brow rising. "That comment I made at the dock that day, about you and your cross... You might want to decide whether or not you want to nail yourself to it or step on down. Martyrdom is not a good look on a vampire." Stepping out, he closed the door, with a quiet snick of the lock engaging and then he headed back to the elevators.
It was gut wrenching, seeing her, knowing what we'd had and what was lost. I don't know what I expected, but the conversation didn't go as planned, I don't think for either of us.
[Cue wavery recollection of conversation]
Sawyer E Monroe: She'd already showered, so it was just a simple matter of getting dressed. Black and tan dress, heels and just enough time taken to tidy the sitting room portion of the suite and get a better bourbon brought up to the room. In fact, he'd probably pass the hotel worker that left the room, the maid dipping her head to him in polite but silent greeting as she went about her way. Within the room Sawyer kept busy with the task of putting glasses, ice and bottle on a tray to put on the coffee table in front of the small sofa. –d
Alec R Sutton: Arriving on the floor, he did, in fact, pass the hotel staff on the way to the room. He knocked before punching in the code and opening the door, a pause given as he listened, before stepping into the room. "Sawyer?" Moving deeper in, he saw her there on the sofa and stopped in his tracks, regarding her.
Sawyer E Monroe: After the entryway to the left would be the sitting area, to the right the entrance to the bedroom and restroom. At the sound of his voice she looked quickly over her shoulder. Just taking in the sight of him a moment before she stood. Hands clasped in front of her, she moved as if she suddenly remembered that standing there mutely was ridiculous. "Hey...come on in? I thought maybe you’d want a drink so..." The movement was just a gesture to the bottle and glasses on the table. "Have a seat? " She eyed him with hesitation, wary that he'd refuse. –d
Alec R Sutton: "Thank you." He nodded and hell yes, he needed a drink about now. He sat down, shades pulled and hooked into the neckline of his t-shirt by the bow. "So..." He didn't even know where to start this conversation or even what conversation as of yet that she wanted to start.
Sawyer E Monroe: She lowered to sit with him, knees together the slit of the dress parting thigh downward to gap with the movement. Leaning forward, she set her eyes on the bottle, breaking the seal in opening it before taking it up to pour the two glasses full and return the bottle to the tray. She lifted one and offered it to him, blue eyes roaming over his face before asking softly and maybe not so simply "How are you?" –d
Alec R Sutton: Taking the glass offered he contemplated the question for a long time before he stated: "Hurt. Pissed. Lost." He lifted the glass, and took a sip, then cradled the glass in hand as he sat forward on the chair, forearms resting on his knees. "You?"
Sawyer E Monroe: She watched him, really looking at him in a way she hadn’t been able to in a week. Turned inward to face him, her back to the arm of the sofa. "Same" She whispered softly. She wanted to touch him so badly her fingers ached with it but nothing in his body language said he'd welcome any closer contact, so her hands stayed in her lap instead of reaching up to his hair. "Talk to me.... tell me why you're hurt pissed and lost. Im tired of assuming I know anything at all" It wasn't demandingly spoken, just quietly so. –d
Alec R Sutton: "Why?" His brows shot upward. "You really have to ask why? Okay, I get it..." he took another sip of his bourbon and then set the glass on the table. "I was a dick, I was thoughtless, and not consulting you first was hurtful. But that was not intentional. I did not intend to hurt you. What you did? Packing up... Okay, I can see packing a bag, spending a night or two at Victoria's or..." he waved a hand around at the room. "But you took it beyond that. You had movers come out, and pack up all your things, the animals, our life... Do you really have to ask why I'm hurt? And as for why I'm pissed? You painted me pretty damned black with our friends. Friends who've only heard your side of things and have no clue the kind of crazy you unleashed on me. As for being lost... That should be pretty obvious. I lost the woman I wanted to marry," he snapped his fingers, "just like that. The woman I knew, the woman I thought I knew.... That's not you."
Sawyer E Monroe: It fucking hurt to hear it, but she owed him that, if nothing else, the space to unleash his hurt on her. She was silent, the only thing that reacted to anything he said was the emotion in her eyes of sorrow and regret above any other flickering readable expression. "No...I didn't have to ask to know what I did wrong, but Ive been so busy trying to run from the hurt I feel I haven't given you the chance to tell me anything at all about how you feel. " Fingers twisted at the ring on hand to combat the rage of nerves fraying beneath the surface. "We both made mistakes, but I need you to understand that intentional or not, I felt completely blindsided, pushed aside, and replaced. I panicked, horribly so...and my behavior reflected it. I lashed out, I floundered, I did anything I could to try and keep you away from the wound. I made one mistake after another just to try and recover from the last one. When you came home with her...It wasn't you not telling me about a dinner date, I felt like I'd lost my best friend. You’d never...I couldn't understand." She sat up, leaning in to be closer and look at him with searching eyes "Don't you realize I feel the same thing, that I don't know you? Tell me who you thought I was? "-d
Alec R Sutton: "Well, now you know." He lifted his glass and drained it, set it back on the table and then rose. "You know, I will be here for you, whenever you need me. That won't change. But as far as we're concerned, I'm done. Because even as you tell me, that you wanted to give me the chance to tell you how I feel, you're turning it right back around to what I did, and how I made you feel. I already understand that I hurt you. I understood that the day I brought Cam home and you had Duke and a bag slung over your shoulder. I'm not going to feed your constant need to throw it in my face that I fucked up. I get that, I know that; I live with that every day. And you didn't try to understand. Cam is my best friend. We've been through shit together that would boggle the minds of most people. We've always been there for each other." When she asked that last question, he regarded her for a long moment, and then said quietly "I thought you were someone I could share my life with."
Sawyer E Monroe: "I dont want to tell you that you fucked up! Im trying to tell you the place I was in when I made a series of really hard, but really horrible mistakes!" She stood wuth him and stepped closer. "You mentioned once that you had a cop ex, just once. And that's all I knew of her. Nothing. You pick and choose which part of your past you want to share with me and then act surprised as hell that I don't automatically love her as you do. YOU were my best friend. You're the man you taught me to believe in magic. To believe that I could be loved. Fuck, I never felt beautiful until it was you looking at me. And there's this entire person that is so tied into you ...and I know nothing of her? Yes, I reacted horribly. I am sorry and if I could take it back and go back I would. I'd do it just so Im not what hurt you. Im not drinking because you fucked up, Alec. It;s because *I* did. Im not miserable because you love someone else, Im miserable because the man I love? I apparently don't know well enough. And to sit and think about every fucking little thing I should have told you and didn't. I don't know how to fix it. I love the man that laughed his way through Italy with me. I love the man that let me be me. Ridiculous, ..goat loving...pancake making...slightly violvent but well meaning. You let me be weird and emotional and affectionate. I believed everything. That we could have forever. I never wanted a family until you... and I cant see myself wanting it with anyone else. Because that magic? It was you and me. I dont think I'll ever trust myself enough to love anyone else like I love you. Evennow I want to have your forgiveness and just kiss you until it feels like it should. Im sick of people telling me to go get laid like that's the only cure to fucking up at life. I want to hear you, I want to hear it even if it's hurtful and angry because not hearing you at all is the worst silence. I needed room to breathe and when I didn't get it I demanded more. I needed understanding and when I didn't get it I started shouting louder just to be heard. I did it all wrong and Im sorry. " –d
Alec R Sutton: "I fucked up, I know that and I tried to get you two together to get to know one another and until she walked into the Gator that night, I had no idea if she was even still alive. It had been three years since I'd seen her last. In case you hadn't noticed the scars? She's been through some serious shit and while most of them I knew about, was there for, some of them are new and the reason for them is simple. She has a dangerous job. And... she met me." He shook his head. "Had she never met me, she and Wren... never would have been taken. She never would have been tortured. She never would have been scarred, inside and out. People tend to get hurt around me. And you're better off. Just... don't let anyone change how weird you are. As for breathing room... I let you go when you walked. I gave you unrestricted access to the house when you wanted to pack up your stuff and move the animals away. That last day you came over, you came to me. So don't tell me I didn't give you breathing room. I gave you exactly what you wanted and you didn't like it."
Sawyer E Monroe: "I fucked up because I kept seeing the body language and the way you two just existed in your own bubble and it terrified me. I took all of that and I didn't understand the jealousy because no, no I don't know the relationship you had with her and Ive never been jealous. But Ive never been in love with someone to be jealous. " She bit her bottom lip to shut up, lifting her shoulders in a little shrug as she stepped closer, in his space to look up at him. "Never. Ever think that I'm better off without you. I have to learn how to be without you but don't pretend it's better. And you're right. I didn't like it. I don't like it. " She pointed a finger between them back and forth, close enough fingertip bumped his abs and her chest. "This? This is too much room. My problem isn't her. I tried and failed to tell you that it was inside me that I was struggling . And I hurt you, and Im sorry. " –d
Alec R Sutton: "For someone who says it wasn't her, you sure had a funny way of showing it. You took an instant dislike and it showed in your body language. The way you reacted every time she was in proximity to us. You say that you shouted to be heard but all I ever did was listen. I listened, I apologized, I owned up to the fact that I made a mistake in not letting you two get to know each other before I turned her. That's on me. I get that. I own it. But never once did I not listen to you. Never once did I not understand that I hurt you. And nothing I did was good enough." He mimicked her gesture of the finger between them. "This here... is as close as we'll be. We'll never go back to the way it was. That was wiped out when you went completely mental on me. How we proceed from this point forward... That's on you. But know this. I will always be there for you. I am your maker. Nothing can or will change that."
Sawyer E Monroe: "I meant her as a person, who she is. It could have been anyone in her shoes and the reaction would be the same. But it wasn't her, it was you I was angry with. It's just easier to be angry at someone I don't love. And no, you did not hear me. YOu say it was in my body language, but you made her a priority without even talking to me. That's not listening. Im owning up to overeacting, but you will not pretend that you didn't have -admittedly- every clue that something was wrong before you took steps you knew would escalate it. It is good enough. The apology, accepted. The consequences to both out actions are understood. I know full well that you'll never be in my bed again, but if Im going to even attempt to have an honest conversation with you, it'd be stupid to pretend I don't want you there. And no, it's not on me...this is two of us, we decide how we go forward. Our biggest mistake is that we gave each other no room to fail. We've both apologized, we've both made mistakes. But we were both really pretty spectacular too. And that has to be worth something that can be salvaged beyond polite strangers that happen to be tied by siring rites. I love you. I won't insult you or myself by pretending otherwise. Im sick to death of people telling me to hop in bed with someone else as if that's the only thing that keeps me hoping you love me too. It isn't. Im terrified. Im lost. But Im trying" –d
Alec R Sutton: "What part of I owned up to that and admitted to it and apologized for it, repeatedly don't you understand? After the fact, I did listen. I heard you. You're blaming me for not listening but you're the one who isn't. How many damned times do you want me to say I'm sorry? You act like every single event after the first was the same when it's not, it's new shit heaped onto my mistake in not talking to you first, and even then it wasn't a matter of not listening it was a matter of not consulting you. Never did I not listen to you. And if you can't see that, then there's no point in continuing the conversation." Alec sidestepped out from between Sawyer and the chair and started for the door and then turned back as she came off with that last. "I gave you every opportunity to try and work through it. You made it perfectly clear that you had no desire to do so. I'm the one that said you don't walk away from someone you plan to marry because of an argument. And that's all it was. An argument. And you still walked away. Frankly, I'm amazed you didn't leave burning tracks in your wake." He shook his head over the bed hopping comment. "That... makes no sense. As for trying... You might want to try moving on." He nodded and continued toward the door, pausing after opening it to look back at her, one brow rising. "That comment I made at the dock that day, about you and your cross... You might want to decide whether or not you want to nail yourself to it or step on down. Martyrdom is not a good look on a vampire." Stepping out, he closed the door, with a quiet snick of the lock engaging and then he headed back to the elevators.
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