Pathetic, I know.
I am re reading my own fanfic. Because I have been so frustrated with my novel, I have felt so lost... and I just figured maybe if I went back and re read something I was actually happy with, I'd feel better.
Being that I just want to hear some feedback... I'll post a little of it. Because, while plot wise it is pretty unrelated to my novel, I just feel like being in a mind frame that doesn't make me feel like I'd be better off not writing so just... well, w/e read pls!
She doesn’t say a word since they get off the plane. He trembles if he thinks about the gaping hole that her silence is making him feel inside, so he consciously tries his best to ignore it. It is rather hard.
He wants to reach out to her and touch her. If only to indulge in the feel of her warm and soft skin under his hand, because his anxiety makes him burn inside with the need to touch her. He feels a painful and impending need to kiss her before she goes out, to reach out for her hand and be the last thing her hand holds before she walks out the door.
He wants to speak with her. But the distance she is imposing on him is far more painful than its cause, even if he surely always knew not to expect anything less from her.
She hasn’t stopped. She moves around the room, arranges her paperwork, re reads the brief, looks around for her clothes. She hasn’t stopped, and he’s aching for her to take a moment to look at him and for them to have the conversation that’s eating him inside.
He has an epiphany when she opens up her luggage and takes out a rather beautiful black dress: He is desperate to speak with her, but he has absolutely no idea what to say. He can’t take it back, he knows. He can’t make anything better, even if he were to speak with her. He can’t change anything now, but he so desperately knows, that even so, he needs to speak with her.
He can’t take her silence because it is the one thing she’s never given him.
She’s about to go into the bathroom and he knows he will lose her the second she does.
“Hermione, listen,” he says, with enough attitude that she stops what she’s doing, but with enough gentleness so that she doesn’t feel attacked.
She looks up at him. Her eyes are weary and slightly lost. The way she stares at him makes her look foreign and so strange that he suddenly wants to break down and cry. In the last year, he hasn’t looked this intensely into her eyes and seen anything but either sheer happiness or burning desire.
“Harry look,“ she begins. “I know you think this op’s too dangerous for me to –“
“Yes, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
A moment goes by and she doesn’t say anything. His heart is pumping so horribly hard inside his chest, that he fears she can hear it. Her face has frozen and her jaw has tightened, her eyes on the floor.
“I don’t think that there’s anything to be said about that.” She says quietly.
“Except you haven’t said a word since I told you.” He whispers.
“That’s because there’s nothing for me to say.” She says, her mood shifting perceptively and now she’s gone into a rather defensive mode that he knows he should be intimidated with.
“What is going to happen now?” He says, his own mood shifting to a desperation he was unaware he felt.
“What kind of question is that, Harry?”
“It’s the question that’s eating me inside, Hermione,” he says angrily but quietly. “It is the only thing I can think about because as horrendous a person as it may make me, I cannot imagine my life without loving you like this. And I realise I’ve fucked up, okay? I know I have.”
He goes quiet and she relaxes visibly. She stops being in a defensive mode, but she’s still not looking at him.
“Harry, please go away.”
He finds himself shocked as she speaks the words and the sentence is formed.
“Hermione, I’m in love with you, alright?” he speaks. He knows that as of right now, this has become the only argument he has going for him.
“You’ve always wanted this –“
“No! I’ve always wanted this with you.” He interrupts her.
“But she’s your wife.”
“Because I didn’t know it then,” he takes a step towards her and she finally looks up at him. Her eyes are fierce with a determination that scares him, but he ignores it and holds his ground.
“Harry, you know this has reached its breaking point,” she whispers sadly. “She’s your wife and you-“
“And I love YOU!” he yells and grabs her by her arms. “I want this with you, Hermione. I can’t… I have to have this with you, Hermione. It…”
“Harry, we can’t…” she whispers in an attempt he thinks is to interrupt him, but she stops.
“Don’t say that, Hermione,”
“You know it’s true.” She whispers, her voice almost breaking. “You know it is… “
“No, Hermione,” he says with the impending desperation he’s feeling quickly filtering into his voice. “I love you”
“And I love you, too,” she whispers so quietly he can barely hear her with the terrible pounding of his heart and the creeping fear that it’s very dangerously overpowering him. Her eyes are filled with tears and he is vaguely aware of the fact that his strong grip on her arms is probably bruising her. He doesn’t release her.
“But there cannot be ways around this…” she looks down to the carpet and then back again at him. “I love you too but that’s just not enough.”
“How can you even say that?” He asks with his voice broken. “Don’t you know, Hermione? Don’t you see?” He wants to shake her, he wants to crush her against him and yell out in her ear. But he only grabs her face with both his hands. “How can you not see that loving you is the only thing that’s kept me alive since I met you?”
She starts to cry and he’s now lost all of the angry determination that gave him power and he feels himself crumble down in a way that is distant and alien to him.
“You can still love me,” she says trying to breath in, but a second later a sob breaks her voice and she’s not capable of speaking anymore.
“I can’t love you like that, Hermione.” He crushes her against him and his own sobs break his voice and stop his breathing every few words. “I can’t go back, I can’t go back to loving you from within and far away. I can’t love you any differently –“
“Harry go away –“ She pushes him off, her sobs not diminishing her strength. She pushes strongly and even though by strength alone she can’t move him, he recognises her intentions in her strength and very unwillingly pulls away.
“Hermione please –“
“I have to get ready, Harry. Go away,” She wipes tears away from her cheeks, her hands shaking.
“I can’t let you go with this between us like this,” He says and approaches her. He has to settle this right now. He cannot bear the thought of her going.
“Harry,” she says, she stops crying when she speaks. Her voice is suddenly filled with clarity and determination. “There can’t be anything between us anymore.”
Silence follows.
He’s too shocked and hurt to even open his mouth. He looks at her, and he’s unsure of whether it’s what she spoke or the determination in her voice that hurt him most. He wants to break her ground and snap her out of this ridiculous situation because it cannot be over. But when he looks at her, he’s sure it is.
It can’t be, but it is.
“Get out,” she says quietly. “I have to get dressed. Harry, go. I’ll meet you at the extraction point.”
Half an hour later, he’s still in the hallway. He’s pitifully crying himself dry outside her hotel room, with his back against the door, his sobs shaking his body and his hair more tousled than usual because of all the scratching of his head that he’s made as a response to his desperation.
He hears her sobbing and sniffing through the door and he’s becoming a monster by the second. Every time he hears her he can’t help but wish for all of it to be unreal, for all of it to be a mistake. For Ginny to be wrong. He wishes none of this were happening, and every time he thinks that, he cries even more because he’s aware of what a sick, terrible thing to think that is.
He realises that nothing else matters, literally, if he can’t have it with her.
Nothing. And he’s very sorry for himself, because he cannot believe how badly it’s all turning out inside of him. How badly he’s behaving.
He’s sorry for himself because he never imagined he’d be unable to happily welcome a child into his life. But with horror, he’s realising he is.
It’s about 2 hours later when he finds her note inside his suitcase. He doesn’t know when she left it there, but when he sees it, his eyes and his insides light up with a glint of hope. He opens up his suitcase and finds a new small paper with a quote. Written on the paper from the hotel room.
This one is not cheerful, like the ones she’s dropped on his desk (“You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with.” – Dickens), or playful like some she’s left in the pockets of his trousers (“He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied her “– Jane Austen).
It’s not cryptic, like the one she once left in his pillow, come morning (“These violent delights have violent ends . . . “ – Shakespeare) and it isn’t dripping with honest and clichéd romance like other she slipped in his hand with half the world in the same room (“And here too the intimate exchange and echo of childhood history, of scar, of manner of kiss.” – Michael Ondaatje).
She has done it with the same careful stealth with which she’s done every other. But this one is intensely filled with a darkness that’s foreign to him, it is gloomy and painful, and he knows it before he reads it, even if there isn’t one thing that’s different about the perfectly practised script which he understands and knows even better than his own.
“My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself.”
-Emily Brontë
He wants to leap out of his seat and fuck the mission. Run after her and escape to a distant part of the earth where no one knows them and where their love can be enough.
Instead, he opens up the suitcase with the tech gear and sets up the station to monitor her.
Being that I just want to hear some feedback... I'll post a little of it. Because, while plot wise it is pretty unrelated to my novel, I just feel like being in a mind frame that doesn't make me feel like I'd be better off not writing so just... well, w/e read pls!
She doesn’t say a word since they get off the plane. He trembles if he thinks about the gaping hole that her silence is making him feel inside, so he consciously tries his best to ignore it. It is rather hard.
He wants to reach out to her and touch her. If only to indulge in the feel of her warm and soft skin under his hand, because his anxiety makes him burn inside with the need to touch her. He feels a painful and impending need to kiss her before she goes out, to reach out for her hand and be the last thing her hand holds before she walks out the door.
He wants to speak with her. But the distance she is imposing on him is far more painful than its cause, even if he surely always knew not to expect anything less from her.
She hasn’t stopped. She moves around the room, arranges her paperwork, re reads the brief, looks around for her clothes. She hasn’t stopped, and he’s aching for her to take a moment to look at him and for them to have the conversation that’s eating him inside.
He has an epiphany when she opens up her luggage and takes out a rather beautiful black dress: He is desperate to speak with her, but he has absolutely no idea what to say. He can’t take it back, he knows. He can’t make anything better, even if he were to speak with her. He can’t change anything now, but he so desperately knows, that even so, he needs to speak with her.
He can’t take her silence because it is the one thing she’s never given him.
She’s about to go into the bathroom and he knows he will lose her the second she does.
“Hermione, listen,” he says, with enough attitude that she stops what she’s doing, but with enough gentleness so that she doesn’t feel attacked.
She looks up at him. Her eyes are weary and slightly lost. The way she stares at him makes her look foreign and so strange that he suddenly wants to break down and cry. In the last year, he hasn’t looked this intensely into her eyes and seen anything but either sheer happiness or burning desire.
“Harry look,“ she begins. “I know you think this op’s too dangerous for me to –“
“Yes, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
A moment goes by and she doesn’t say anything. His heart is pumping so horribly hard inside his chest, that he fears she can hear it. Her face has frozen and her jaw has tightened, her eyes on the floor.
“I don’t think that there’s anything to be said about that.” She says quietly.
“Except you haven’t said a word since I told you.” He whispers.
“That’s because there’s nothing for me to say.” She says, her mood shifting perceptively and now she’s gone into a rather defensive mode that he knows he should be intimidated with.
“What is going to happen now?” He says, his own mood shifting to a desperation he was unaware he felt.
“What kind of question is that, Harry?”
“It’s the question that’s eating me inside, Hermione,” he says angrily but quietly. “It is the only thing I can think about because as horrendous a person as it may make me, I cannot imagine my life without loving you like this. And I realise I’ve fucked up, okay? I know I have.”
He goes quiet and she relaxes visibly. She stops being in a defensive mode, but she’s still not looking at him.
“Harry, please go away.”
He finds himself shocked as she speaks the words and the sentence is formed.
“Hermione, I’m in love with you, alright?” he speaks. He knows that as of right now, this has become the only argument he has going for him.
“You’ve always wanted this –“
“No! I’ve always wanted this with you.” He interrupts her.
“But she’s your wife.”
“Because I didn’t know it then,” he takes a step towards her and she finally looks up at him. Her eyes are fierce with a determination that scares him, but he ignores it and holds his ground.
“Harry, you know this has reached its breaking point,” she whispers sadly. “She’s your wife and you-“
“And I love YOU!” he yells and grabs her by her arms. “I want this with you, Hermione. I can’t… I have to have this with you, Hermione. It…”
“Harry, we can’t…” she whispers in an attempt he thinks is to interrupt him, but she stops.
“Don’t say that, Hermione,”
“You know it’s true.” She whispers, her voice almost breaking. “You know it is… “
“No, Hermione,” he says with the impending desperation he’s feeling quickly filtering into his voice. “I love you”
“And I love you, too,” she whispers so quietly he can barely hear her with the terrible pounding of his heart and the creeping fear that it’s very dangerously overpowering him. Her eyes are filled with tears and he is vaguely aware of the fact that his strong grip on her arms is probably bruising her. He doesn’t release her.
“But there cannot be ways around this…” she looks down to the carpet and then back again at him. “I love you too but that’s just not enough.”
“How can you even say that?” He asks with his voice broken. “Don’t you know, Hermione? Don’t you see?” He wants to shake her, he wants to crush her against him and yell out in her ear. But he only grabs her face with both his hands. “How can you not see that loving you is the only thing that’s kept me alive since I met you?”
She starts to cry and he’s now lost all of the angry determination that gave him power and he feels himself crumble down in a way that is distant and alien to him.
“You can still love me,” she says trying to breath in, but a second later a sob breaks her voice and she’s not capable of speaking anymore.
“I can’t love you like that, Hermione.” He crushes her against him and his own sobs break his voice and stop his breathing every few words. “I can’t go back, I can’t go back to loving you from within and far away. I can’t love you any differently –“
“Harry go away –“ She pushes him off, her sobs not diminishing her strength. She pushes strongly and even though by strength alone she can’t move him, he recognises her intentions in her strength and very unwillingly pulls away.
“Hermione please –“
“I have to get ready, Harry. Go away,” She wipes tears away from her cheeks, her hands shaking.
“I can’t let you go with this between us like this,” He says and approaches her. He has to settle this right now. He cannot bear the thought of her going.
“Harry,” she says, she stops crying when she speaks. Her voice is suddenly filled with clarity and determination. “There can’t be anything between us anymore.”
Silence follows.
He’s too shocked and hurt to even open his mouth. He looks at her, and he’s unsure of whether it’s what she spoke or the determination in her voice that hurt him most. He wants to break her ground and snap her out of this ridiculous situation because it cannot be over. But when he looks at her, he’s sure it is.
It can’t be, but it is.
“Get out,” she says quietly. “I have to get dressed. Harry, go. I’ll meet you at the extraction point.”
Half an hour later, he’s still in the hallway. He’s pitifully crying himself dry outside her hotel room, with his back against the door, his sobs shaking his body and his hair more tousled than usual because of all the scratching of his head that he’s made as a response to his desperation.
He hears her sobbing and sniffing through the door and he’s becoming a monster by the second. Every time he hears her he can’t help but wish for all of it to be unreal, for all of it to be a mistake. For Ginny to be wrong. He wishes none of this were happening, and every time he thinks that, he cries even more because he’s aware of what a sick, terrible thing to think that is.
He realises that nothing else matters, literally, if he can’t have it with her.
Nothing. And he’s very sorry for himself, because he cannot believe how badly it’s all turning out inside of him. How badly he’s behaving.
He’s sorry for himself because he never imagined he’d be unable to happily welcome a child into his life. But with horror, he’s realising he is.
It’s about 2 hours later when he finds her note inside his suitcase. He doesn’t know when she left it there, but when he sees it, his eyes and his insides light up with a glint of hope. He opens up his suitcase and finds a new small paper with a quote. Written on the paper from the hotel room.
This one is not cheerful, like the ones she’s dropped on his desk (“You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with.” – Dickens), or playful like some she’s left in the pockets of his trousers (“He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied her “– Jane Austen).
It’s not cryptic, like the one she once left in his pillow, come morning (“These violent delights have violent ends . . . “ – Shakespeare) and it isn’t dripping with honest and clichéd romance like other she slipped in his hand with half the world in the same room (“And here too the intimate exchange and echo of childhood history, of scar, of manner of kiss.” – Michael Ondaatje).
She has done it with the same careful stealth with which she’s done every other. But this one is intensely filled with a darkness that’s foreign to him, it is gloomy and painful, and he knows it before he reads it, even if there isn’t one thing that’s different about the perfectly practised script which he understands and knows even better than his own.
“My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself.”
-Emily Brontë
He wants to leap out of his seat and fuck the mission. Run after her and escape to a distant part of the earth where no one knows them and where their love can be enough.
Instead, he opens up the suitcase with the tech gear and sets up the station to monitor her.