Bleeding Heart Disease (Ariel/Markise)

[Markise Sterling]

"Everyone can love, Ariel," Markise said softly. "If it's not me, I hope you find it some day." It hurt to say the words, but he knew that he meant them. He had tried to support Dare when Dare found love, he really had, and he'd do the same for Ariel. He just wasn't made to settle down, no matter how much he loved the idea of holding someone and knowing there was no one else. He'd given up on that months ago, when he'd started visiting Mano. At least, he thought he had until today.

[Ariel Logan Callahan]

Ariel shook his head. If it wasn't Markise, then he didn't see how it could be anyone else. Markise was the only one that knew anything about him. "I can't even be your friend without pissing you off every other word," he said. How could he be expected to do any better to get to the point where he could love, assuming he could even figure it out. Every day it seemed more obvious the basic skills he had missed out on.

[Markise Sterling]

"You don't piss me off that much," Markise said. "I don't remember the last time you really pissed me off." There had been plenty of hurt and too many awkward silences, but none of them had come from being angry with Ariel. It was longing, wanting things that weren't going to happen, and fear that what they had might disappear in an instant. "Yesterday doesn't count," he went on, just in case he'd said something cruel. "Yesterday wasn't about you." And yet somehow he'd brought Ariel into it anyway. You said you wanted me to love you.

[Ariel Logan Callahan]

"I know it wasn't!" Ariel shot, his eyes turning up sharply to Markise. "But you made it about me! I tried to say that it wasn't about me, but you just kept on." He glared for a few moments before he looked away again. He didn't see how it didn't count. Just because Markise had been drunk didn't mean he didn't really think all of those things. "I told you not to drink."

[Markise Sterling]

Markise's head snapped up at the sudden hard tone in Ariel's voice, and he winced, both from the pain the movement sent into his head and the look on Ariel's face. He stared a moment in shock before his brows drew together and his eyes dropped again like a child severely chastised. "I'm sorry," he half-whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and shook his head slightly, but doing so changed nothing. "I wasn't going to make it through if I didn't." And he hadn't made it anyway. "I didn't want to go."

[Ariel Logan Callahan]

"I know you didn't want to go!" Ariel said, closing his eyes and putting his forehead on his knees. "You should have told him before," he continued, his voice slightly muffled. "Or you should have refused to go." One or the other. Markise could even have hid it a little longer, couldn't he? Didn't friends do things they didn't want to do? He barely even remembered urging Markise to go, but then...then he hadn't known just how much Markise felt for Dare.

[Markise Sterling]

"I tried!" Markise exclaimed, lifting his head to look at Ariel. "I tried to tell him and I tried to say I wouldn't go! I told him months ago I wouldn't go, I told him and Michael I wouldn't go and they talked me into it and I thought I could do it! I've told Dare a hundred times, and he just doesn't understand!" And when he'd realized before the ceremony that he wouldn't make it, he'd tried to find solace in a bottle of cooking sherry. He'd told Ariel he didn't want to go, and Ariel had told him that they were going so the past month wouldn't be wasted.

[Ariel Logan Callahan]

Ariel could have groaned. He had no idea what to do! He wanted to help, he wanted to be able to fix this for Markise, but he couldn't do anything when he didn't know how to deal with people in general. "I don't know what to tell you," he said finally, "Everything I say ends up making something bad happen." Things made sense when he said them, but then they very rarely, if ever, worked and he took it back.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise's brows were still drawn together with hurt and frustration as he looked at Ariel. "You don't have to tell me anything," he said. "I don't even know what you want to tell me!" He tried to think back, but his head hurt too badly to put too much thought into the conversation they'd been having. "If you want to help me, you can stop sitting way over there. But you don't have to." He muttered some form of apology for being so much trouble, then shuffled back down, rolling toward the wall to close his eyes. Maybe if he slept long enough, he could find out this was just a nightmare.

[Ariel Logan Callahan]

Ariel looked back up at Markise. "Last night all you could do was tell me to either stop helping you or to be with you!" He was at a complete loss and he felt so incredibly alone. Markise couldn't understand, couldn't help, that much was obvious, and Ariel had no one else to go to. He needed something, but he didn't know how to ask for it or where to go to find it. He closed his eyes tightly and put his forehead on his knees again.

[Markise Sterling]

"I'm not making you choose now," Markise said softly. "I'll take what I can get." That was the simplest truth that he could give Ariel as an answer. He couldn't say a thing about having told Ariel to stop helping him. Half the time he fought it and half the time he accepted it gratefully. He could only think that it was chance, or something to do with his mood that last night had been one of the former. He felt pathetic asking for anything Ariel was willing to give, but he didn't want to be alone again. He didn't want to have thrown away both Dare and Ariel in one night.

[Ariel Logan Callahan]

Ariel didn't want to get into the bed with Markise, he wanted to find a swimming pool so he could exhaust himself in the water and try to think. Not that he really ever figured anything out while swimming, but it helped just to be able to look at everything with the comforting, repetitive strokes through the water. "This isn't all about what you want," he breathed, barely even loud enough for him to hear himself. A lot of it was because of Markise, but right now Ariel was more concerned with figuring things out for himself.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise's face crumpled with the pain of hearing it, and every interpretation his mind made. He was constantly convincing himself that Ariel wanted him, then reminding himself that there wasn't and never would be anything there again. This was a reminder. No matter how much he wanted something or someone, it didn't mean there was a chance.

But he knew that already! He'd known it for years with Dare. He'd waited and hoped for years, and Dare had picked someone else. Wanting Ariel wasn't any better. If anything it was worse, though Markise couldn't think of why that was. Maybe it was because he'd already lost Dare and there was no one else.

This isn't all about what you want.

"I know." Markise decided to be quiet now. If he pretended to sleep, maybe Ariel wouldn't feel like he had to stick around anymore.

[Ariel Logan Callahan]

Ariel might have left, but he had nowhere to go, not that he really wanted to be away from Markise in the first place. Maybe, just maybe there was a chance they could work it out and become more, but Ariel didn't want to think about that. He wanted to figure things out now, he wanted to know where they stood. "Are we friends?" he asked softly, his mind moving to the words Markise had spoken the night before.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise was silent a moment before he spoke, his voice low in the quiet of the room. "I hope so," he said. He hoped he hadn't ruined things too badly, but all he knew was what Ariel had told him, and what if he'd said even worse things that Ariel wasn't telling him?