Katherine "Kissin' Kate" Barlow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ikissdhimbck) wrote2010-07-10 11:31 pm
ikissdhimbck) wrote2010-07-10 11:31 pm
Entry tags:
OOM sorta: Happy, happy anniversary
Drowning.
The encyclopedia defines it as "suffocation by immersion in a liquid, usually water," and goes on to say: "Water closing over the victim's mouth and nose cuts off the body's supply of oxygen. Deprived of oxygen, the victim stops struggling, loses consciousness, and gives up the remaining tidal air in his lungs. There the heart may continue to beat feebly for a brief interval, but eventually it ceases."
Kate walks into the room, same as she always does. She sits when he asks her to. She breathes the same air, in and out, in and out.
But tonight, she's drowning.
It's a world inside a prism. Every line is muted, every shape undefined. She's looking at him from underwater; he shifts and blurs, while she remains frozen in place.
(In and out; in and out)
This is a joke.
He tells her that he has a job to do; obligations to his pals that come before this.
You can't be serious. No, Doc, please.
She has no place in his world; they have no place in his world. He never wanted her to come with him, and they'd fought about it the night Billy came back to the bar. She didn't understand why he wouldn't want her by his side, after everything that had happened. She thought maybe he just needed his space.
Turns out he needed more than that.
I don't understand. Why are you doing this?
He says things ain't right. That they haven't been right for a long time. He says this life that they've been living for two years now is a lie.
That cuts the deepest.
(In and out; in and out)
You asked me to marry you. Twice. We had plans.
He says they both deserve better; that he can't give her the kind of life she deserves. The irony hits her like a clap of cold seawater. It's every fear she's had about herself, since she shot those two men in Refugio, now coming from his mouth. She sees what it's been like from his side, fighting through her tears as she tries to tell him that's not true.
She's no lady; no gentle schoolteacher. She doesn't need property or title.
All I need is you.
He doesn't budge an inch. He says she's not over the other 'him'; he's never owned property in Colorado (the look in his eyes saying he never will — there are no ex-Regulators), that he's not the man she's loved.
No! That ain't true!
He says he can't give her a family, and some deep piece inside of her breaks. She weeps.
(She's no lady; no gentle schoolteacher. Even if she was, she's no miss. No man in his right mind would touch her with a ten foot pole, knowing she's bedded with a man unwed. Especially not if she's got a barren belly. She don't blame him.)
I love you.
He doesn't look at her much. He's distant. Resolved. He won't change his mind, and she knows it.
(You're not what he wants anymore.)
(You're cursed, Katherine. You only kiss the men you kill.)
She dries up her tears, and shuts her heartbreak away in a little black room inside her heart. She's breathing in water, great heaving lungfuls, sinking to the belly of the Earth.
What about the boys? Roz, and Goldie?
Her voice is hollow. She can be practical; pragmatic. Concentrate on the details to distract herself from the way her whole world has just been washed away.
And our books? Our things?
They don't have much. Doc had only asked her to move in with him a few months ago (before everything came to light). She collects a few volumes of poetry, maps, and plans. She collects her clothes. She collects her things out of his bathroom, and empties her drawers.
He hands her a few leather journals, and her heart almost breaks all over again. They belonged to the older 'him' – the ones with his plans for them, for their future, where he'd written their hopes and dreams.
He doesn't want them, he says.
She packs their life into two duffel bags and a cardboard box.
She'll come for the cats in the morning; their toys and things will fill another whole box on their own.
And then she leaves his spare key on the desk, and walks out of the room.
The door clicks shut behind her, and for half a minute she almost expects him to come after her, to tell her this was all some horrible prank. To gather her up in his arms and promise her that he'll never leave her again, the way he used to do.
But she makes it down the hall in silence.
And when she reaches her empty room, she walks to her closet in the dark (it's safe there), sinks to the floor.
And cries herself to sleep.
(In and out;
In and out;
In
Out)
.
The encyclopedia defines it as "suffocation by immersion in a liquid, usually water," and goes on to say: "Water closing over the victim's mouth and nose cuts off the body's supply of oxygen. Deprived of oxygen, the victim stops struggling, loses consciousness, and gives up the remaining tidal air in his lungs. There the heart may continue to beat feebly for a brief interval, but eventually it ceases."
Kate walks into the room, same as she always does. She sits when he asks her to. She breathes the same air, in and out, in and out.
But tonight, she's drowning.
It's a world inside a prism. Every line is muted, every shape undefined. She's looking at him from underwater; he shifts and blurs, while she remains frozen in place.
(In and out; in and out)
This is a joke.
He tells her that he has a job to do; obligations to his pals that come before this.
You can't be serious. No, Doc, please.
She has no place in his world; they have no place in his world. He never wanted her to come with him, and they'd fought about it the night Billy came back to the bar. She didn't understand why he wouldn't want her by his side, after everything that had happened. She thought maybe he just needed his space.
Turns out he needed more than that.
I don't understand. Why are you doing this?
He says things ain't right. That they haven't been right for a long time. He says this life that they've been living for two years now is a lie.
That cuts the deepest.
'Never. Never gonna lie t'you again, Kate, swear to God.'
(In and out; in and out)
You asked me to marry you. Twice. We had plans.
(You were gonna look out for me.)
Us outlaws stick together.
He says they both deserve better; that he can't give her the kind of life she deserves. The irony hits her like a clap of cold seawater. It's every fear she's had about herself, since she shot those two men in Refugio, now coming from his mouth. She sees what it's been like from his side, fighting through her tears as she tries to tell him that's not true.
She's no lady; no gentle schoolteacher. She doesn't need property or title.
All I need is you.
He doesn't budge an inch. He says she's not over the other 'him'; he's never owned property in Colorado (the look in his eyes saying he never will — there are no ex-Regulators), that he's not the man she's loved.
No! That ain't true!
He says he can't give her a family, and some deep piece inside of her breaks. She weeps.
(She's no lady; no gentle schoolteacher. Even if she was, she's no miss. No man in his right mind would touch her with a ten foot pole, knowing she's bedded with a man unwed. Especially not if she's got a barren belly. She don't blame him.)
I love you.
He doesn't look at her much. He's distant. Resolved. He won't change his mind, and she knows it.
(You're not what he wants anymore.)
(Maybe you never were.)
(You're cursed, Katherine. You only kiss the men you kill.)
She dries up her tears, and shuts her heartbreak away in a little black room inside her heart. She's breathing in water, great heaving lungfuls, sinking to the belly of the Earth.
What about the boys? Roz, and Goldie?
Her voice is hollow. She can be practical; pragmatic. Concentrate on the details to distract herself from the way her whole world has just been washed away.
(And she's not the only one. Doc tells her that she can have the boys, because she'll be able to take better care of them than he could, anyhow. She almost argues -- they mean so much to you, Doc -- but then, so did she, once upon a time.
And there's nothing she can say to that.)
And our books? Our things?
They don't have much. Doc had only asked her to move in with him a few months ago (before everything came to light). She collects a few volumes of poetry, maps, and plans. She collects her clothes. She collects her things out of his bathroom, and empties her drawers.
He hands her a few leather journals, and her heart almost breaks all over again. They belonged to the older 'him' – the ones with his plans for them, for their future, where he'd written their hopes and dreams.
He doesn't want them, he says.
She packs their life into two duffel bags and a cardboard box.
She'll come for the cats in the morning; their toys and things will fill another whole box on their own.
And then she leaves his spare key on the desk, and walks out of the room.
The door clicks shut behind her, and for half a minute she almost expects him to come after her, to tell her this was all some horrible prank. To gather her up in his arms and promise her that he'll never leave her again, the way he used to do.
But she makes it down the hall in silence.
And when she reaches her empty room, she walks to her closet in the dark (it's safe there), sinks to the floor.
And cries herself to sleep.
(In and out;
In and out;
In
Out)
.