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[suaine.livejournal.com]

This came to me when I thought about another story in which I speculate on Fraser's peculiar grasp of English (I have the same difficulties speaking German, although it is my mother tongue, I think English and some idioms just make no sense in German) This is a weird little story that was supposed to be about Halloween but is more about masks and costumes and the armor we wear.


Words
by Suaine


I learned all those fancy words late at night, sneaking out of my grandparents' cabin to look through the dictionaries they had accumulated. I glanced at the French one but didn't dare open it. My mother had started to teach me French just before... I was looking for a word, a specific one. There were words for everything - there had to be a word for the emptiness in my heart.

I studied hard every night and soon I knew words like pretentious and scintillating. The words came out when I needed them, they protected me from the grown-up questions I didn't have answers for, like "how do you feel?" or "can we do something to help?". They were an armor that worked both ways and the stronger their protection became, the harder it was to break through.

One day I just stopped trying.

Then I met Quinn and he showed me a world that worked without words. He taught me the language of nature and the language of his people. I realized some things didn't need words.

And here I am, applying a sheen of white, ghostly make-up to my skin. It feels like trading one armor for another, but in a way it's freedom. Words are forbidden to me now and all I have to express will have to be expressed by look and touch and movement alone.

Maybe now I can say what needs to be said.

* * *

I don't like Halloween.

Well, okay, so I do like Halloween, but I don't like dressing up. Before Fraser - and yes, it is like saying B.C. - I always bought some cheap costume at the dollar store whenever Stella dragged me to a party. Don't need to be said that the Stella wasn't too pleased with that.

I'm a cop. An undercover cop. Wearing a costume is like working during happy hours. It's like double negation but what comes out isn't exactly positive.

So, when Fraser started going on and on about Halloween being a chance to let some of your innermost feelings and desires show, in a way I wanted to believe him. I wanted this whole exercise to mean something other than the hiding I'd been doing all my life. I didn't know who I was until I met Fraser.

But who was I?

I stood in front of a mirror for a while until my eyes went blurry. I didn't see anything other than the scruffy kid with the glasses, even though I wasn't wearing them at the time. All I knew was that something, something important, was missing. I'd been missing it for so long that I didn't even notice the empty space anymore.

It strikes me that Stella used to be there, in that space, but that she hadn't been for a long time. Even before we got married things between us started to go wrong. I think it happened when my jumbled sentences and the way I was always out of words for the things I wanted to say stopped amusing her and became a nuisance.

Now, I try to go back to that time where no piece of me was missing, because somehow it's there again, like it was never lost. I found it without realizing, fit it in the empty space without acknowledgement. I'm the kid with the glasses again, the kid who had dreams and ideals and love to give.

It's like leaving all my maturity and all the snark behind, I put all the Vecchio parts of me in a box and seal them tight. Don't want them to get out. Not tonight when everything seems so much more real despite the costumes.

I pick Fraser up at seven, but he doesn't seem ready to go anywhere. He's as vulnerable as I am, because we've both gone the difficult route. We're not wearing disguises tonight, no masks left. It makes me twitch a little.

Fraser wears the costume with the maximum amount of dignity. On anyone else a pantomime would look funny as hell. Fraser only looks sad and vulnerable. I really don't want him to go out like that. No one is supposed to see this part of him.

He plays the role like a pro.

* * *

The party at the 27th is in full swing when we arrive. Ray looks strangely attractive in his baggy pants and the striped pullover. His glasses magnify his eyes and refract the color like sunlight on ice. He is beautiful to me.

No one but him understands the significance of my costume. But of course, I'm really only wearing it for him and when the others laugh I play the part like I have done so many times before. I barely remember a time when I didn't need to pretend.

We leave early. Ray is nervous for some reason. I can't figure out what he wants and dread settles in my stomach. He's been like this before, in the Territories, when the snow and the expanses of nothing but light drove him almost crazy with homesickness. He didn't dare tell me about it, fearing I would send him back home, where we both thought he belonged.

There's something on his mind again and I fear it will take him away from me.

* * *

Sitting in my car in front of the consulate and there are no words, nothing to say, for once. Fraser can't, he wouldn't compromise the costume, and all I want to say would scare him out of this car and out of my life.

How do you say "I love you" and "I want you" and "I need you" to your best friend?

So I say nothing and he says nothing and we sit there for a while.

When he is ready to go I turn to him. I have all those important things on the tip of my tongue, ready to be spilled in a moment's notice. I face him and I can't say a word.

I kiss him instead.

The soft, gentle kiss is over too fast and I feel the loss like something burning in my chest. The smile he gives me makes it all better though. He doesn't smile like that for everyone, and I've only seen it once before, on an ice-field in the Northwest Territories.

He gets out of the car and maybe I should feel worried. Stella used to say that these emotional things had to be talked through, had to be discussed and analyzed.

I smile. Fraser and me, we don't need words.

And when he starts leaving stuff at my apartment I won't ask. And when he takes my hand on the flight back to Inuvik there is nothing to say. And when we stand together in front of his cabin, in silence, we speak the only language that counts.