Closed risk and secrets

[Rowan Baros]

It had all felt so... off. Even Honey had felt it, not wanting to spend too much time in the room when Elio and Rowan both occupied it together. They still had their routine, their rhythm. He kissed her in the morning, she ran his fingers down his arm at night, kissed him on the cheek when she greeted him but it all felt so terribly automatic. Like their relationship was on autopilot. Once she'd spoken to Ilija and made a decision about what she was going to do, what she had to do, she'd needed time to figure it all out. What she was going to do, where she was going to go. She'd... admittedly been a bit sneaky, but her life was so entirely intertwined with Elio's she sometimes felt like she had to be sneaky. She wasn't doing this to hurt him, but to make sure she could make a clean break. If she didn't have somewhere to stay, he would leave, and she couldn't have that. This was her decision, she had to be the one to leave, if only because... honestly, she had more means than he did, and regardless of anything else, Rowan would always love Elio and she didn't want him to have no where to go.

Once she'd gotten back from the admittedly awkward reunion tour her brother had insisted on doing, Rowan had spend a couple of nights at Ilija's place, taking up his offer of a place to stay to clear her head. She still had no idea what she wanted to say, or even how she wanted to say it, but she knew she needed to say it now, before she chickened out. Ilija had been right, they stayed up talking for hours about anything other than what she was about to do and she appreciated that. She appreciated that he had found topics to cover that somehow didn't relate to Elio at all, or to Elsie, or to anyone else in her life she needed to worry about. She hated that this was happening now because she loved Elio and she loved Honey. She didn't want to hurt either one of them. She knew she couldn't let this continue, she had to do this. It was... it was time.

"Elio," she called as she walked into the place they'd shared for more time than she'd ever thought. "I need to talk to you," he would know something was wrong, might even be expecting it, this wasn't the first time he will have seen this look on her face, but they'd talked each other out of this that time. This time, she was steadfast and stubborn. She had to push this through. One way or another, Relio was about to be Rowan and Elio, and then Rowan Baros and Elio Zephyr. That probably hurt most of all.​

 

[Elio Zephyr]

Elio could feel it. He had for weeks. Something was off with Rowan and their overall dynamic. They'd been together for so long that it was easy to tell when there was a slight change in their air, but the last few weeks had been different even then. After being away with her family and their friends, it had been even more obvious. By the time she'd started to stay over with Ilija, he was convinced he knew what was coming. The days continued to come and go, the words on the tip of his tongue because he wanted to know what was going through that beautiful head of hers. Time and time again their problems had boiled down to the way they'd become too accustomed to their comforts that they forgot to communicate. Despite how close they were, it was their constant downfall.

The truth was he was scared. Up until now, they'd always made things work between them even if the relationship was somewhat unusual, but they were Relio, Rowan and Elio, Elio and Rowan, they came as a package deal and that was all he could remember. He saw the pain in her eyes whenever he went out without her, the disappointment when he returned. Having a relationship that was open on one side, committed on the other, Elio knew that wasn't balanced. As much as Rowan claimed that she didn't feel as though she was missing out on anything in her life, Elio wasn't sure it was entirely sustainable. The day that she asked for something different had always been a possibility in his mind and felt as though he would be as prepared as he would ever be for the day she asked for more.

Elio would have done anything to make Rowan happy, it was what he'd been trying to do for most of his life. So that afternoon when Rowan approached him asking to talk, he'd done his best to put aside his nerves and be the person that she needed right now. Whatever it was, they were good at working things out, together. "Hey," he smiled towards his other half, arms instinctively moving to wrap around her waist as though that was going to be the thing that held them like glue. "What's going on with you Ro?" he asked gently, tucking some stray hair behind her ear. It unnerved him when he couldn't work her out.​

 

[Rowan Baros]

How did he do that? The moment he had opened his mouth, wrapped his arms around her and held her, she'd broken. She hadn't even had a second to say anything before the tears he'd been freeflowing and she'd fallen into him for his support. She knew she couldn't do this, she needed to be strong but dammit she loved him. They didn't work, but she loved him anyway. It hurt, knowing that. She knew she could never be everything he needed, that he could never really be everything she needed and she would never ask it of him, because she knew that if she did, he would force himself to do it and she didn't want that. She didn't want him hurting himself for her. She couldn't stand it, she couldn't stand seeing his pain, or him seeing her pain. And what was this teaching Honey? That she couldn't have what she wanted if it didn't hurt? No, no she didn't want Honey to learn something like that, or for it to be their fault. "Elio, Gods, I'm... I'm so sorry. I can't," she tried to tear herself away from him, but her hands were twisted into his shirt and she couldn't force herself to let him go, not physically. Not yet. "I can't do this anymore, I can't do this, I'm sorry."

Everything she'd ever rehearsed, everything she'd thought left her head. All she had were the emotions she'd been carrying, for how long? She didn't even have an answer, but all he'd had to do was ask, and she would answer, always. She would always answer him. "We're broken, Elio, we cut pieces of ourselves off and force them together... we... we don't work anymore." And maybe they never had worked, and maybe this was all inevitable, but gods dammit she hated to think that way. She loved this man with every fibre of her being, and it sucked that it wasn't enough. "My god I love you so much, I can't hurt you anymore, I can't do this anymore, I can't be with you anymore. Elio... this needs to stop."​

 

[Elio Zephyr]

Elio had wrapped his arms around Rowan, pulling her close into him as she started to cry against his chest. Something had clearly happened that he didn't know about. He said nothing during those moments, instead just standing rooted to the ground to hold her up, kissing the top of her head. As Rowan apologised he frowned, looking down to try to meet her face as though that would give any more indication of what she had to be sorry about. He didn't have to wait for long to find out.

Before he'd realised it, every muscle in his body was shaking. In the span of a few seconds, Elio felt like he'd been speared with a hot poker at every nerve, the blinding white flashing in his vision as he tried to comprehend the words that had left Rowan lips. She still clung to him, and him to her, but he could barely move beyond the involuntary movements of his limbs. After that day at the cliffs, it had been a possibility that it would happen again in the future but he didn't think it would ever become a reality. Over the years he'd told himself to be ready for the day she didn't need him anymore, and when that day came he would let her go. He'd gone through the logic in his head, the way that if it happened again, what was to say it wouldn't once more in the future, that they were repeating a painful cycle that had doomed them from the very beginning. Elio would never be sorry that he'd allowed Rowan into his life of course, but they could have saved themselves a lot of pain if they'd seen things through properly the first time. Was he really about to fight to keep Rowan trapped in the never ending cycle?

The words continued to come hounding at him from every angle to the point where broken, don't work, can't, and stop were the only things he could focus on. Taking Rowan's wrists in his hands, he removed her grasp from his shirt, turning his body out from underneath her so that he was free to walk a few steps away, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to shake out the adrenaline that threatened to have him running to the bathroom. "How long have you felt like this?" was the only thing he could control his voice enough to say. If this had been lingering under the surface for as long as he suspected, he knew this hadn't been a hasty decision.​

 

[Rowan Baros]

When he stepped away, it hurt, but she understood it. He needed space, she needed space, they both needed space from each other. She straightened up as he stepped away, but she was still crying. She was still sniffing, but she didn't care. This was Elio, after all, and he deserved the truth. "Longer than I should have, honestly," she said, swallowing hard. She missed him already, the closeness. She could feel his walls going up and where once she would have fought him to wrestle them back down, she didn't this time. She couldn't risk it. This had to be clean. "B-before Honey, I think, I'm... I'm so sorry." She didn't know how to fully explain any of this. Since that day on the cliffs in their fifth year this had always been looming, honestly. They were never going to work out, she'd known it then, she'd tried to tell him. Maybe if she'd fought harder, been stronger, been better, less selfish, loved him more, she could have prevented this. It was all her fault. She couldn't help the way that she felt about him, but that day in fourth year, when he'd told her he was gay, she should have just smiled, said sorry she hadn't realised and hugged him. She should have let it go, she should have let him go. But Rowan was a selfish girl, she just couldn't let things go and in her core, she never wanted to let people leave her. Even Elio.

She had no choice this time. "You and me, we've... w-we've been through so much together, El, a-and... I could never, I could never replicate that with anyone again. But you know this isn't working, you know I can't be what you need." Every time he left her to find it it broke her, shattered her into pieces. Then he would come back, and he would help her to gather the pieces up and put them back together, but a broken vase could never really fit together perfectly again, especially if you continued to shatter it again, and again. Eventually you lose something. They'd both lost too much. "You know you can't be what I need, Elio. We've always known that."​

 

[Elio Zephyr]

The tears were brimming in Elio's eyes but he didn't let them fall. He couldn't look at Rowan, not when he told her she'd been feeling this way since before Honey, "Really Rowan," the smile on his face was not out of joy, "that was years ago." How could the last few years have been a complete lie and he hadn't even known? He knew their communication wasn't the best but how could he have not seen that she'd been unhappy for so long? Why had she just let him continue on day after day living a lie? How could she let him bond with Honey, knowing at the back of her head this was inevitable? "Yeah we've been through a lot," he nodded, still refusing to look at her, "that's not enough though is it." He didn't mean the side of themselves that would never match, but the fact that it didn't matter how much of himself he did give to Rowan, she would never respect him enough to tell him what was going on.

He moved across towards the kitchen, pulling out a bottle of something that sat on a shelf too high for Honey to reach, pouring himself a glass and draining it in one fell swoop. It was one thing that Rowan didn't want to be with him anymore, and maybe she was right, maybe they didn't work anymore. But it was another thing for him to find out that after everything they'd been through, the years he'd spent making sure that she was happy, content, and comfortable, despite everything in their past, she still let him believe the lie. "Have we?" he said rhetorically, draining a second glass before resting it on the countertop and turning to face Rowan once more, his eyes dark.

"Have we, always known?" In truth, he was starting to doubt what he did and didn't know. "I know things haven't been easy, or ideal, but I would've, if you'd asked." Elio was glaring at Rowan now, the tears in his eyes shut down as the anger was taking over. "I told you I would have given you everything. I asked you how you felt about what we were, of how things could work. It's been over ten years!" he said exasperated, referring to the last time she'd tried to break up with him. Maybe Rowan didn't want things to work, maybe she told herself it was to save him the pain of trying to be someone he wasn't, but they hadn't even tried. Why had he been fighting so hard for something she had no intention of saving?

"What happens to Honey?" he said, his throat closing a little as he said her name. Rowan had already decided what she wanted, perhaps she'd already decided everything for him for the last few years. "Just tell me, so that I know."​

 

[Rowan Baros]

The anger surprised her. And then it angered her. Rowan had tried to tell him, years ago, she'd tried. He wouldn't let her go, he'd asked her to stay and she would do anything for him. He knew that, so she'd let herself believe the lie, that they were okay whilst it slowly ate away at her. He knew she did that, he'd asked her to do it. She'd done what he wanted, after everything. She knew she wasn't perfect, she knew she wasn't a good person, but she thought he knew that too, she thought they would suffer that together, both of them knowing that things wouldn't work out but doing it anyway because they loved each other. She'd never lied to him, not when he asked. Seeing his anger broke something in her, and the tears stopped. His tone flipped a switch in her and or the first time in what felt like a long time, Rowan was fifteen years old again, facing off against something she had no understanding of, and she did what Rowan always did. She attacked.

"Don't. You. Dare." She said, her teeth clenched as he spoke to her as if she was the instigator of some malicious plot. Maybe she was? Maybe she'd done all of this so that she could tear him apart for her own purposes. Maybe she'd always wanted to hurt him. Maybe that had always been her end goal. It's what he thought of her anyway, it's what he was saying to her face right now. He didn't even care, despite it all, he didn't even care about any of it. He didn't care that she couldn't ask that of him, he didn't care that she was hurting, he didn't even care that she was trying to heal, to fix them in the only way she knew would work. He didn't care about her. And honestly, she didn't think she could blame him either. After all, everything they'd ever gone through was entirely her fault. That's what he'd just said, wasn't it?

Her anger reached a boiling point, but then suddenly, just as quickly, it dissipated and instead of anger, or hurt, or fear, or sadness... there was just blankness. Rowan had forced a wall where there had previously been none. She hadn't wanted a wall, not yet, but he was doing this on purpose. And after all, he wanted her to suffer through the pain of having to hurt him every day, he wanted to know why she wasn't asking that of him. How could he still not see her? Did he really only see fifteen year old Rowan? "I guess I never did leave your bed in the sixth year dorms... did I?" She really thought, after all these years, he would have stopped seeing her as a broken piece of something he had to hold tightly to protect. She really thought he had seen her grown and mature. She really, really thought he had seen the core of her and loved her anyway.

But even now, he didn't care about her. His thoughts only on all the ways she had lied to him. All the ways she had made him suffer. And it was true, she'd lied to him, she'd hurt him, she'd manipulated him into her life and held him so tightly she'd lost every piece of herself that still mattered. And still, he was angry with her? Okay. Anger then. He could be angry with her, he could blame her if he wanted. She could take it. She would take it for him. If he needed to hate her, to blame her, to be angry with her, then so be it. He only cared about Honey. He didn't care that Rowan was trying to walk away from fifteen years. Even though she'd told him then. Her face kept its blank mask and she nodded. "I'll speak with Chrys. Honey loves you." And Chrys would side with Elio. Rowan didn't have anyone on her side anymore. It had always been Elio. Ilija wouldn't take sides and she didn't want him to. But it hurt to know, even Zennon wouldn't take her side. Not after she told him how she'd manipulated Elio, made him stay with her. She would take the blame. It would always be her fault.​

 

[Elio Zephyr]

He'd expected this, the way Rowan would turn the focus back to how it was his fault. That it was he who couldn't see things clearly and him who was out of line. Arguing with Rowan wasn't a new concept, even though it had been years, however as the anger continued to grow in his chest Elio was done taking the back step. Too many times he'd been the one to soften, to forgive, and he felt as though he owed that to her at least in the past. "Or what?" he asked with a chuckle, "You'll leave? Destroy our lives and take everything with you? Sure." He rolled his eyes, no longer able to contain himself and the burning he felt in his head, his chest, it was as though he was on fire.

Elio watched as though Rowan switched mindsets right in front of him, her walls flying up. It made him angrier still, to see that when things got too much for her she'd find a way so that she didn't have to deal with it, so that he was left picking up the pieces, as usual. He should have seen this coming, time and time again their mistakes repeated themselves. They were the biggest fools of them all. His brows furrowed thinking of sixth year, the analogy not lost on him, "I never needed you to be perfect. I just needed you." This was it, there was no coming from this, not after tonight. "But you, you just needed to not be alone. And now, you could be out there, doing whatever you want, even if we're together. I offer you everything I have, and you deny it. I thought we'd been growing together, building a life, a career, a family, together, all the while you're just biding your time because "this would never work". You don't get to do that to me anymore." he'd never spoken to Rowan the way he was right now, letting the words tumble out of his mouth. Let him regret them in the morning, if it would come to that. "I can't do this. You are no longer what I need," his voice had been gradually rising, as though thirteen years of pent-up frustrations came flying out in one go.

Right now it was only the thought of Honey that was keeping him grounded. Rowan was right, Honey did love him, and would have been damned if he was going to let Rowan **** up that aspect of his life too. She could ruin what he had, tear his heart into pieces, and toss them out the window for all he cared, but she wasn't about to get her hands on Honey or slice through their relationship too. "Don't bother. I don't need you to do anything for me, I'm more than capable of doing it for myself." Chrys may have been her friend initially, but he was Elio's now too. He didn't need Rowan to speak on his behalf anymore. Elio crossed the room, unaware of the way his body continued to shake as he moved into their bedroom, feeling nauseous as he yanked the biggest bag he could find from under their bed. ​

 

[Rowan Baros]

Rowan said nothing. She let him walk into the bedroom. Her face still a blank mask. Somehow, she knew this was how it would go. She looked over her shoulder, watching him, she needed to see him one last time. Maybe he'd never forgive her. Maybe she'd never forgive herself. He was right, again. He always was right wasn't he. Everyone in her life was Elio's. She almost laughed. Her chest tightened. That was the truth. Elsie had preferred Elio too. Honey preferred Elio. Even Matilda had preferred Elio and he hadn't even liked her. Apparently the only person in her life who liked her for who she really was, was Elio - only he didn't like her. And that was very fair. She deserved it, to be honest. Honey would be better off with Elio anyway. Rowan couldn't handle other people, she never could. She was the one who needed to be handled. Ilija had lied to her. She wasn't the one looking after other people they were looking after her. What was the point, honestly? Everyone in her life eventually left her in the end, that's why she'd held on so tightly. She couldn't exactly blame them after all, she was a bad person, she always had been. She didn't want Elio to forgive her. And he wouldn't want to see her again, not with what he'd said to her. She'd lied to him, manipulated him their whole relationship after all hadn't she? She was a monster.

Decision made, Rowan nodded to herself. Took one last look over her shoulder and apparated straight out of the room.​

FIN​