"Sleepless"

 

Part 2 – Vincent

 

resignation - an act or instance of resigning something, surrender; the quality or state of being resigned, submissiveness

 

The touch of your hand on my hair is so fleeting that I wonder if I imagined it. I probably did, lost as I am in the haze more sleeping than waking.  For you would never touch me so gently, so hesitantly.

Is it because you hate me?  Or is it because you hate yourself?

Whatever the reason, you strive to push me away, to keep me at careful distance.

Do you fear me?  Do you loathe me?  Am I as disgusting to you as I am to myself?  I am only now accepting what I am.  I know I cannot expect the same of you.

Why do you stay?

What is it that compels you to follow when your every word and every look proclaim that you don’t want to?

What makes you more uncomfortable, the fact that I may be a monster, or the fact that my confession may be true?

Are you afraid that I love you?  Or are you afraid that I don’t?

You seem to think that the things you do or do not do will somehow alter my love for you.  There is nothing in this world or any other that could do so.

Were you falling apart before my eyes, I would still find you beautiful. If you revealed to me every flaw you possess, I would still find you perfect.  And if you hated me, if you stared at me with loathing or with terror, I would still love you.

I have no choice.

There is something in you that calls to me, that demands my attention, my devotion.

Is that so difficult to understand?

You are cruel even when you do not mean to be, and still I love you.

Protecting you comes naturally even when nothing else does.  There is no indecision, no other option; I am bound to you by invisible chains, by things I cannot begin to comprehend.

And it is only now I realize that I will never be free.

That does not bother me as I think it should.

Still, I cannot fight it – the need to be with you – and somewhere along the way I have stopped trying.  It is so much easier this way, to simply give in to this protectiveness, this longing.

Do you know what this is?  Can you tell me why I no longer have the will to fight that which I should never have had to fight to begin with?

It doesn’t matter, though I am sure you would think it does.  I know better now.

There are many things in this life that have no reason.

If life had reason there would be no domes.  If life had reason there would be no death.  If life had reason I would not exist.  If life had reason you would not be following me, drawn as much by the danger of Ergo Proxy as by the strangeness of me.

Where was the reason in my coming to Romdo?  Where was the reason in my near obsession with you, a woman I saw only once?  Where was the reason in your attention to me?  Where was the reason in any of our interactions?

There are no reasons, there are only questions.

And I have given up caring; have given up on answers too.

And in doing so I have found a measure of peace.

Reason does not change reality. It does not alter what we do.  Reason complicates, and so, perhaps it is better to abandon it after all.

To try to reason out my love for you is madness and would only drive me to insanity.

It very nearly did.

And so, I lay down my reason and watch you struggle with yours.  And I, driven by this need to protect you and perhaps to comfort you, long to share my revelation.  But I know that you would reject it, as you reject the truth of my love.

And that too I suppose I have come to terms with.

Would you think me weak if you knew?

I will never know the answer, and in the end it doesn’t matter.

My love for you is without reason.  And that is reason enough.

I watch you, though you think I’m sleeping, as you stare into the dark nothingness, and there is a warmth that fills me that I cannot begin to explain.

How can you bring me warmth when you are so cold?

But it doesn’t matter anymore.  All that matters is that you do.

You are cold and dark and melancholy and you bring me as much pain and confusion as anything else.  But you fill me with warmth and light and a measure of joy, and the feeling I get knowing you are safe and well and beside me is worth all the pain and confusion and so much more.

Because that has become all that matters.

Yes, there is the journey, and yes, there is the quest.  Yes, I want my memories, and I want to end this.  But beneath it all I know, I long ago gave up on those things, it is you beside me that keeps me going.

That which has no reason has become my reason.

There are those, you most likely included, who would find that sad in a derisive way.  But I have come to accept it.  It is a part of who I am. You are a part of who I am.  Your presence shapes me as much as Ergo Proxy’s.

It is not something I would fight even if I could.  I no longer have the will.

We are so different you and I.

And I don’t care.

This quest has come to mean more to you than to me, though it is for my memories we journey.  Your mind is wrapped in the mysteries, in the curiosity bred into you as an inspector.  You still want to know the whys and the hows.  I have long stopped caring.

You are skeptical, cynical, you have lost all faith.  The more answers you find, the more questions you ask, the deeper you delve, and the farther you fall.  But you don’t see it.  You think you are climbing higher.

And, perhaps, this is the greatest difference between us.

I am nothing but questions, having long ago abandoned the answers.

But you… you think that you have answers, not realizing that you are naught but questions as well. And they seem to seep from you to me the longer I am with you, weighing me down, dragging me under, drowning me in the uncertainty of you until I can barely breathe.

And I find, to my dismay, that there are still some questions to which I would like the answers, but I have long since given up that hope.  This is my fate, to love and be lost, and that I find is not so bad as far as fates go, because at least this fate binds me to you.

And there is no explanation for this that I feel, foolish as some might find it.  You have held out to me no hope, you have given no indication that you even care.  I have no fathomable reason to bind myself to you and take comfort in the bonds.  And yet, I do.

Is that what bothers you most?  That I can give you no reason?  Because if I could give you reason then perhaps you could dissect it and tear it away and leave me as empty as you?

Have you lived so long in a world where every moment has purpose that you cannot accept the existence of that for which the purpose is not obvious?

Does the fact that there is no answer make you so uncomfortable that you cannot even acknowledge there was ever a question?

Or are you afraid that if there is no reason it cannot be true?

I want you to want it to be true.  I want you to stop trying to tear it apart or rationalize it away and just accept that what is – is.

I want to be a part of everything you are and everything you do.  I want to be your friend; I want to be your companion.  I want you to chase the darkness from my tortured soul and walk with me into the light.  I want to bind myself closer to you, draw you closer to me, until there is hardly any distinction between us at all.  And there is no reason for that.

It is simply what I want.  What I need.

I want to know what you are thinking.

What do you see when you stare at me?

Do you see a monster or a man?

What is running through your mind as you sit awake when you should be sleeping?  Are you thinking of the journey?  Are you thinking of the past?  Do you reflect on how we came here as I do?  Do you remember the moment when everything changed?  When I, with all my insecurities, dared to confess the one thing I should have kept to myself?

Whatever else you may think I know that you do not believe me.

And in the end there is only this to give me hope: the fleeting impression of a soft touch on my hair.

I love you.  Really and truly, whether I have the right or not, whether you return my feelings or not.  My love is real.

And one day I will make you see.

 

 

            A/N: Short?  Yes, I know.  Even shorter than the first part, but I kept this on my computer for three months and could never think of anything to add… so here it is.  Drabble-ish I suppose.  The inner thoughts of Vincent.  And, yes, it is supposed to be the same night as part 1.  Set somewhere on the journey to Mosque (Mosk – can’t remember how to spell it…), but probably after the no wind episode.