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to wait until the morning train arrives
"But you can't come back. Not ever."
It is, without a doubt, one of the hardest things Prior has ever done. To walk away from this love — well, to limp away, once he's out of this hospital bed, but figuratively, to walk away from this man he's loved for so long — it's not easy. It is very, very difficult. He has faced angels. He has faced death and chosen life. He's struggled with this disease alone, and to be offered companionship, oh, how it tempts him.
But Louis had a point the other day when he said that nothing would change. Maybe Louis has grown, maybe these past couple months have changed him. But it would still be the same. Prior isn't going to stay and comfort him, always glancing back, always wondering when he'll be left again. He's chosen life, and he can't tie himself to a man he no longer trusts, no matter how he loves him. There is room in his life for Louis, perhaps, but not that kind of room. Not ever again. There's no going backwards.
"I'm sorry. But you can't."
To Louis' credit, he only cries a little. He doesn't pout or rant or refute what's been said. They cling to each other and they cry, and they feel the world split apart again, but he accepts this sentence that Prior has handed down. Maybe he has changed, a little. But that isn't enough. Louis will be waiting forever for him to get magically better, to heal, and that isn't going to happen, not the way Louis wants it. There is healing and growth and decay, life and death, all at once within Prior's body, and that's how it is. That's all, forever.
Still, it feels good to be held.
Eventually they untangle from each other, and Louis reluctantly departs, leaving Prior to the rest everyone insists he so desperately needs (and perhaps he does. He is exhausted. Heaven is a hell of a trip).
Somehow, he falls asleep.
In his dream, the rumble of wheels on train trucks lulls him into deeper slumber, and when he wakes, it's entangled in the same sort of stiff white sheets that speak of hospital rooms. This, though, is not a hospital, and there are no waiting friends or nurses. Outside the window, there's a steady flow of movement, trees flying past — not New York, not any subway Prior has ever ridden, with trees and land and beneath him a bed. He slips out of bed and onto his feet, letting out a soft hiss of pain, and stares out the window.
A train.
He bursts from the little room and into a hallway, walking down it as quickly as his leg will allow. The train is eerily quiet, all rows of empty seats, and it squeals to a stop before he can come across any kind of dining car or conductor. He nearly falls down, gripping the seats on either side of him tight to keep his balance.
"What the fuck?"
At first, he simply stands there, waiting for something; he doesn't know what. An announcement, perhaps, or someone to come in and tell him where he is. After a minute or two, though, when it becomes clear no one and nothing is coming, he hobbles out through the doors and into a station. People mill past, sparing quick judgmental glances for his hospital clothes, but not otherwise acknowledging him. He makes his way over to the information booth, and the young man there looks him over, and not in the way Prior is used to or likes. Instead, the man shoves a thick manila envelope through the slot under the glass and goes back to his paperwork.
Prior Walter, it says across the top and all Prior can do is exclaim again, "What the fuck?" He pounds on the window. "Excuse me? Excuse me, what the fuck is this —" But the man simply ignores him. Opening the envelope, he begins to pull out various objects — bits of what seem to be money, a strange dark glass rectangle, a key, an ID card, a map. He's going to have a panic attack if no one answers him soon, if he doesn't wake up.
This is not Heaven. It's not New York either, and he'd thought he was done with angels at last anyway.
He dumps everything back in the envelope and, clutching it close, he makes his way out of the station and onto the street, as if things might be clearer in the sunlight. He stops just outside the doors, looking up and down the sidewalk, seized by a fear of going further in his bare feet. If he steps on something rusty and develops tetanus, he's dead. If he steps on glass, there's no telling what might enter his system. Maybe he needs to go to the place the key is for; maybe something, someone, is waiting. He could hail a taxi, use the money in the envelope.
Truthfully, though, he's tired. This seems like more games from angels, and he is tired. "What the fuck?" he asks again, despairingly, hugging the envelope to his chest, and leans back against the station wall, closing his eyes. "There's no place like home, there's no place like home..."
Nothing.
It is, without a doubt, one of the hardest things Prior has ever done. To walk away from this love — well, to limp away, once he's out of this hospital bed, but figuratively, to walk away from this man he's loved for so long — it's not easy. It is very, very difficult. He has faced angels. He has faced death and chosen life. He's struggled with this disease alone, and to be offered companionship, oh, how it tempts him.
But Louis had a point the other day when he said that nothing would change. Maybe Louis has grown, maybe these past couple months have changed him. But it would still be the same. Prior isn't going to stay and comfort him, always glancing back, always wondering when he'll be left again. He's chosen life, and he can't tie himself to a man he no longer trusts, no matter how he loves him. There is room in his life for Louis, perhaps, but not that kind of room. Not ever again. There's no going backwards.
"I'm sorry. But you can't."
To Louis' credit, he only cries a little. He doesn't pout or rant or refute what's been said. They cling to each other and they cry, and they feel the world split apart again, but he accepts this sentence that Prior has handed down. Maybe he has changed, a little. But that isn't enough. Louis will be waiting forever for him to get magically better, to heal, and that isn't going to happen, not the way Louis wants it. There is healing and growth and decay, life and death, all at once within Prior's body, and that's how it is. That's all, forever.
Still, it feels good to be held.
Eventually they untangle from each other, and Louis reluctantly departs, leaving Prior to the rest everyone insists he so desperately needs (and perhaps he does. He is exhausted. Heaven is a hell of a trip).
Somehow, he falls asleep.
In his dream, the rumble of wheels on train trucks lulls him into deeper slumber, and when he wakes, it's entangled in the same sort of stiff white sheets that speak of hospital rooms. This, though, is not a hospital, and there are no waiting friends or nurses. Outside the window, there's a steady flow of movement, trees flying past — not New York, not any subway Prior has ever ridden, with trees and land and beneath him a bed. He slips out of bed and onto his feet, letting out a soft hiss of pain, and stares out the window.
A train.
He bursts from the little room and into a hallway, walking down it as quickly as his leg will allow. The train is eerily quiet, all rows of empty seats, and it squeals to a stop before he can come across any kind of dining car or conductor. He nearly falls down, gripping the seats on either side of him tight to keep his balance.
"What the fuck?"
At first, he simply stands there, waiting for something; he doesn't know what. An announcement, perhaps, or someone to come in and tell him where he is. After a minute or two, though, when it becomes clear no one and nothing is coming, he hobbles out through the doors and into a station. People mill past, sparing quick judgmental glances for his hospital clothes, but not otherwise acknowledging him. He makes his way over to the information booth, and the young man there looks him over, and not in the way Prior is used to or likes. Instead, the man shoves a thick manila envelope through the slot under the glass and goes back to his paperwork.
Prior Walter, it says across the top and all Prior can do is exclaim again, "What the fuck?" He pounds on the window. "Excuse me? Excuse me, what the fuck is this —" But the man simply ignores him. Opening the envelope, he begins to pull out various objects — bits of what seem to be money, a strange dark glass rectangle, a key, an ID card, a map. He's going to have a panic attack if no one answers him soon, if he doesn't wake up.
This is not Heaven. It's not New York either, and he'd thought he was done with angels at last anyway.
He dumps everything back in the envelope and, clutching it close, he makes his way out of the station and onto the street, as if things might be clearer in the sunlight. He stops just outside the doors, looking up and down the sidewalk, seized by a fear of going further in his bare feet. If he steps on something rusty and develops tetanus, he's dead. If he steps on glass, there's no telling what might enter his system. Maybe he needs to go to the place the key is for; maybe something, someone, is waiting. He could hail a taxi, use the money in the envelope.
Truthfully, though, he's tired. This seems like more games from angels, and he is tired. "What the fuck?" he asks again, despairingly, hugging the envelope to his chest, and leans back against the station wall, closing his eyes. "There's no place like home, there's no place like home..."
Nothing.
no subject
It would explain the getup and the distance from the hospital, too. Truthfully, Kat isn't sure which is the hypothetical better outcome here, but regardless, she doesn't have it in her just to pass by.
"Hate to break it to you, but I don't think that's going to work, Dorothy," she says, though she's more sympathetic than anything else, wrinkling her nose as she speaks. "Not if you're looking to get back to Kansas, anyway."
no subject
But she's not an angel, just a person, and he's not sure if that's comforting or just confusing.
"Luckily, Kansas is very low on the list of places I'd like to be," he says, feigning bravado, though she must have seen how frightened he is already. "Practically not on it, except that I'd be able to get back to New York from there. What is this place?"
no subject
There's no getting around it, though, or the fact that there's probably not much she can tell him that's very comforting right about now. She might as well get it over with.
"Yeah, that's... kind of a long story," she says, wincing. "A very crazy story. It's a long way from New York, for starters. And Chicago, which is where I was."
no subject
"California?" he guesses with a helpless flutter of his hand toward his heart, sure that's not it. This doesn't look a thing like that, but at least it's sufficiently far from New York and Chicago both not to be the worst of guesses. God, but he's tired of crazy stories. He just wants to change back into his normal clothes and hobble back to his apartment and sleep. He's trying so hard, though, not to seem like he's about to fall apart. He is stronger than that.
no subject
Pushing her free hand through her hair, the other steady on her cane, she shakes her head to try to focus again. "No, more like... different world kind of far away? Crazy story, like I said."
no subject
Asking if it's heaven anyway might make him look like the strange one.
"Different world," he echoes, voice rising dubiously. "I see. Well, this is my first time traveling between worlds —" Is heaven a world? "— so how exactly does one leave?" Curiosity is all well and good, but his leg is killing him, he's not properly dressed, and he would like to go home now to recuperate from this very long, very strange, very emotionally draining day in peace.
no subject
She pauses just a moment, then adds, "I'm sorry. It's a lot to take in, I know that, it's just also kind of hard not to get right to the point. No way to pull punches with something like that."
no subject
"So," he says, dragging the word out and holding up a finger, "I arrived by train, but the train doesn't go back?"
He would get stuck here in the worst possible outfit. How is he supposed to get normal clothes without a job? How is he to get a job like this? But then he remembers the bills he found in the envelope. "Wait, is that why there's money in this thing? Is it some kind of bribe?"
no subject
It's disorienting enough to be here at all.
"And I don't know if it's a bribe so much as... like, starter cash? Like Monopoly. And then you get some money every month, like passing go. Enough to live on if you can't find a job right away."