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inclineoftreesTitle: Pulling the Puzzles Apart
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kiltsandlollies
Characters: Billy
Word count: 2452
Summary: Back to Bodiam by the wrong road.
Index
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction; the recognizable people in the story belong to themselves and have never performed the actions portrayed here. I do not know the actors nor am I associated with them in any way. If you are underage, please do not read this story. I am not making any profit from these stories, nor do I mean any harm.
The last few weeks have had more than their share of cold, miserable days, Billy thinks, and too many of them have been Sundays. Days that are meant to be peaceful and spent preparing for the week ahead, not measured out standing in front of weak fires or rain–dappled windows. And they are certainly not meant for long drives through wind and fog, even to familiar, loved destinations. But Billy drives anyway, one of a very few on the motorway in this weather, and even the mild hangover he’s nursing can't deter him from his errand. His eyes stare blankly ahead, and for once there is no music playing, no harmony in his own voice singing along; there’s nothing but the hum of his engine, a soothing counterpoint to the angry, frustrated thoughts in his mind. The drive seems to take longer than usual, and Billy fights back the idea that it is because he’s once more alone on the journey. Better to consider it a result of the weather; safer, too, in that it makes him check his speed more often, which is to say once or twice.
Hours after he left his home, Billy's not surprised to find the grounds of Bodiam Castle deserted. Well beyond caring about the rain, he leaves his umbrella behind in the car, but not the camera bag. The camera itself rests on Billy's bed, emptied of film and unnecessary today, but the bag is still heavy with other instruments of beauty and destruction, ones Billy found in his shed after never knowing he owned them in the first place. Dominic must have found them first and put them safely away, Billy imagines, and the picture that thought brings to his mind is enough to keep him moving through the rain and down muddy path after path.
Billy is on his way to his beloved Athena—the statue of the goddess of wisdom hidden in Bodiam's maze from all but those clever enough to find her. He blinks back the rain and swipes his hair from his forehead as he walks, knowing these grounds too well to fear the slippery, slight hills and widening puddles. And he is at the maze before he even realizes it, Athena beckoning to him from far down an aisle of greenery.
The statue looks filthy from the rain, but beautiful too, in a way that makes Billy catch his breath. He's always been entranced by the piece, and more than once he's spoken words of devotion to it aloud, like a lover would. It’s to Athena's credit, Billy thinks, that she has never returned his affections. It's not her beauty that brings him here, after all, but her wisdom. And over the time since he first came across Bodiam during one of the long, escapist drives he’s always taken, he's treated this statue as a sort of confessor for the world’s least religious man, speaking his sins to her ear or the back of her neck in hushed tones when others were around and in loud, angry argument when he knew he was alone, on days like today.
Today, Billy is not here to talk. He cannot remember the last time he initiated a proper, friendly conversation outside of class, and in the greater scheme of things, that really is for the best. He makes for poor company at the moment, as evidenced last night by one hour in the pub followed by several more alone at home, and this morning, when he woke feeling torn into shreds from the inside out. Friendliness is beyond him at this point, and the thought of even the most polite socialization turns his stomach. Better to run, whatever the long-term damage to himself and his friendships; better to be here, where no one can find him, and where Athena will hear even what he has no intention of saying aloud.
He sits at first at her feet, staring up at the finely chiseled angles of her face, at the perfect curves of her hair and eyelids. As ever, Billy is struck by how much she is not pretty in either the classic or current sense. She is stunning, but she is not pretty. It makes Billy smile, for half a moment, and as ever, he is deeply grateful for that. He could sit here for hours, already soaked to the skin and barely feeling it anymore, but there’s something he came here to do, and after taking a deep breath, Billy stands and moves behind the statue, running his fingers down Athena’s back until he finds the almost imperceptible crack he has come to call his own.
It's an act of quiet, drawn–out vandalism, one in which Billy has participated for the worse part of too many years now, across two countries in one kingdom. It had been a well-kept-secret tradition of philosophy students at St. Andrews to slowly, carefully destroy the pillars of wisdom around them, be they metaphorical or very real. Earning the right to perform such destruction was nothing to be celebrated; rather, most students treated it as a form of self–punishment—the breaking down of images and beliefs they once held dear or strongly being more painful than any poor grade or browbeating from a professor. Billy had watched in amazement and not a little horror when one statue on the St. Andrews campus finally fell, splintered over the course of decades by students of Ethics whose professors had been the harshest Billy had ever known. It’s not a tradition about which the school can be proud or bemused, like the dawn walks students take in long robes, and it’s unclear whether the school is even aware of the extent to which they can credit the occasional campus vandalism to the philosophy students or their accomplices. It’s not something necessarily shaken off with age, either; Billy had seen men older than he is now hand over instruments of destruction with ready smiles and something approaching ceremony to the visions of their younger selves now suffering. Toppling anything takes time, after all, and if one learned nothing else at St. Andrews, one learned patience and the ability to let others finish what one had started.
Billy doesn’t have decades to break or bring down venerable Athena; more, he doesn’t have the strength for it. What he does have is the desire to chip away at something, anything, that can’t or won’t return the favour, to perform an act of petty violence against Wisdom and all its taken from him recently. There could have been no wiser decision than to end his relationship with Dominic, no wiser move than to step back from the war he’d been prepared to wage against Noble, Rhys-Davies, and the rest, no wiser gesture than to dismiss himself from gatherings of friends and colleagues. All of it wise, yes, and all of it as painful in the end as if he’d made the opposite decisions. Wisdom’s done nothing for Billy lately, after all this time he thought he’d spent earning it, and he’ll take revenge how and where he can now, even on Athena, who he already knows is more than strong enough to take any blow he throws her way in the name of keeping himself sane.
Those blows are usually struck with the most pathetic of weapons—little penknives, sometimes the point of an old fountain pen, once with a large, rather ornate letter opener that had belonged to whoever occupied Billy's office before his arrival at Baskerville, another time with a miniature fireplace tool Billy had previously found no use for beyond decoration. In keeping with his mood this day, Billy is carrying something more vicious, but even so, the damage he will do should not be noticed for years. It's a small and roughly beautiful antique hammer, something from the end of the nineteenth century, Billy supposes, and the blunt end of it is etched with initials Billy can barely make out. The claw side of its head is of more interest to Billy than the more useful part, and it is that claw he uses now to tap the statue, testing the hammer's strength and listening for the pretty sound of its work.
It doesn't disappoint. Four well-measured, almost gentle strikes later, and the crack begins to widen. There’s no pretty arc to the movement of Billy’s hand and arm at first, no expertise gained from theory or practice on view. Billy can hear and feel himself beginning to breathe hard, not from exertion but from adrenaline. The last time he was here, Billy pressed Dominic against Athena’s back and listened for Dominic’s breath to catch, not his own. The last time he was here, Billy had known what he and Dominic were doing had been wrong; the last time he was here, Billy had thanked Athena for allowing him not to care.
Between the rasps of metal Billy can hear thunder approaching more loudly as the seconds pass. If he’s angered the gods by terrorizing a representation of them, well, then, he can manage to not care now, either. Billy lets the rainfall, harder and messier than it had been upon his arrival at the maze, speak for him as he works, until he can almost feel his thoughts being taken from him by force. I couldn’t have done anything else, he murmurs between the stone waves of Athena’s hair before he turns his wrist and lands a harder blow. I would have been sacked. He would have been thrown out.
It’s more difficult to keep hold of the hammer as the rains pelts down, and Billy feels it slip twice in his grasp before he makes contact again, the crack spitting back at him tiny bits of rock that fly through the air, a few rasping across Billy's cheek unnoticed by him or Athena. I need this job; he needs to finish. We both have to walk, away from this, away from that fucking school— The lightning comes, and Billy closes his eyes against it, feeling its energy prickle his spine. More thunder follows, muting what are becoming more desperate sounds from him, ones he can pretend aren’t real. We lie when it’s more important than the truth, even you do it, he hisses now, blindly caressing the folds of Athena’s robe before scraping the hammer against the sculpture again. The difference is that we don’t get the luxury of using someone else’s mouth to say it. Someone else’s eyes to see what happens when we do. I lied to his face and I see what that did to him and to me, Billy bites out now; I did the right thing but I still see that every fucking day—
Billy chokes on his next breath, surprised by thunder and lightning both, and the hammer slips again, its claw scraping hard down the knuckles and back of Billy's hand. He drops it as if it’s caught fire and then follows it to the ground, feeling mud seep into the fabric of his jeans, feeling the sting of blood rushing up to meet the air on his hand and his cheek. He’s at Athena’s feet again, from all appearances no more reverent and admiring than an animal searching the ground out of bored or hunger, but in truth terrified to see if he’s caused more damage to her than to himself. He couldn’t have, he reminds himself; there’s been no real catharsis here, no feeling of having won anything, much less the release he’d come for. He’s on his knees and bleeding while Athena remains standing, remains silent and certain and wise.
When he does look up, the sight that greets him is worse than he’d expected: he’s gashed the statue, left a crack in Athena's back too great to go unnoticed, and one that will widen too soon. Billy kicks at the ground wildly before he can warn himself against such a childish reaction, moving away from what he's done, and chokes on apologies to Athena, to Dominic, to anyone and everyone whose boundaries he’s tested and broken. He tries over and over again to stand, to find his feet, but the ground is slick and he's frightened, angry and uncoordinated. After a moment, he goes still, surprised again by the sound of someone’s faraway call to a groundskeeper or guard, and then Billy’s vision and thoughts clear enough to let him reach for Athena again, levering his body up by holding on to one to those folds of her stone cape. Billy steadies himself against Athena once more, his hand moving nervously over and into the gash as he stutters another apology, and then he takes first another deep breath and then the wet, dirtied camera bag, shoving the hammer back inside and clutching the bag to his chest as he avoids the statue's eyes.
The calls grow louder and closer, and Billy stumbles slightly from the maze, racing his bloodied hand down the hedges as finds his way out. Only when he reaches the archway and can see the long hill down to the entrance to Bodiam’s grounds does Billy break into a messy, dangerous run, breathless and desperate to be back in his car. Even as he finally reaches the old BMW and throws himself inside, coughing and gasping for breath, Billy's aware that he hasn’t done anything nearly so noble or worth the risk as his fellows students had at St. Andrews; they’d escaped a world of frustration and fear through their acts of aggression, while Billy’s only escaped being caught at the attempt. This was a mistake, just like leaving Dominic was a mistake, just like every step Billy has taken for months now has likely been a mistake.
The storm pounds Billy’s car from all sides, forcing him to stay where he is and hear and feel its anger drowning out Billy’s own. Billy shivers, thinking he should run the heater but feeling utterly unable to take his hands from his pockets in case they act on some other instinct. It feels as though he’s destroyed almost everything within reach for too long now—up to and including parts of Dominic, up to and including a statue that brought him beauty and truth when he thought he'd never know them again—and whatever the current set of his mind, he’s not eager to take himself down as well. There you go, Billy hears his own voice say aloud, slurry and tired. You’ve still got that left.
And that’s enough, Billy decides suddenly and shoves the key into the ignition; that might be all, but that has to be enough.
Authors:
kiltsandlolliesCharacters: Billy
Word count: 2452
Summary: Back to Bodiam by the wrong road.
Index
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction; the recognizable people in the story belong to themselves and have never performed the actions portrayed here. I do not know the actors nor am I associated with them in any way. If you are underage, please do not read this story. I am not making any profit from these stories, nor do I mean any harm.
The last few weeks have had more than their share of cold, miserable days, Billy thinks, and too many of them have been Sundays. Days that are meant to be peaceful and spent preparing for the week ahead, not measured out standing in front of weak fires or rain–dappled windows. And they are certainly not meant for long drives through wind and fog, even to familiar, loved destinations. But Billy drives anyway, one of a very few on the motorway in this weather, and even the mild hangover he’s nursing can't deter him from his errand. His eyes stare blankly ahead, and for once there is no music playing, no harmony in his own voice singing along; there’s nothing but the hum of his engine, a soothing counterpoint to the angry, frustrated thoughts in his mind. The drive seems to take longer than usual, and Billy fights back the idea that it is because he’s once more alone on the journey. Better to consider it a result of the weather; safer, too, in that it makes him check his speed more often, which is to say once or twice.
Hours after he left his home, Billy's not surprised to find the grounds of Bodiam Castle deserted. Well beyond caring about the rain, he leaves his umbrella behind in the car, but not the camera bag. The camera itself rests on Billy's bed, emptied of film and unnecessary today, but the bag is still heavy with other instruments of beauty and destruction, ones Billy found in his shed after never knowing he owned them in the first place. Dominic must have found them first and put them safely away, Billy imagines, and the picture that thought brings to his mind is enough to keep him moving through the rain and down muddy path after path.
Billy is on his way to his beloved Athena—the statue of the goddess of wisdom hidden in Bodiam's maze from all but those clever enough to find her. He blinks back the rain and swipes his hair from his forehead as he walks, knowing these grounds too well to fear the slippery, slight hills and widening puddles. And he is at the maze before he even realizes it, Athena beckoning to him from far down an aisle of greenery.
The statue looks filthy from the rain, but beautiful too, in a way that makes Billy catch his breath. He's always been entranced by the piece, and more than once he's spoken words of devotion to it aloud, like a lover would. It’s to Athena's credit, Billy thinks, that she has never returned his affections. It's not her beauty that brings him here, after all, but her wisdom. And over the time since he first came across Bodiam during one of the long, escapist drives he’s always taken, he's treated this statue as a sort of confessor for the world’s least religious man, speaking his sins to her ear or the back of her neck in hushed tones when others were around and in loud, angry argument when he knew he was alone, on days like today.
Today, Billy is not here to talk. He cannot remember the last time he initiated a proper, friendly conversation outside of class, and in the greater scheme of things, that really is for the best. He makes for poor company at the moment, as evidenced last night by one hour in the pub followed by several more alone at home, and this morning, when he woke feeling torn into shreds from the inside out. Friendliness is beyond him at this point, and the thought of even the most polite socialization turns his stomach. Better to run, whatever the long-term damage to himself and his friendships; better to be here, where no one can find him, and where Athena will hear even what he has no intention of saying aloud.
He sits at first at her feet, staring up at the finely chiseled angles of her face, at the perfect curves of her hair and eyelids. As ever, Billy is struck by how much she is not pretty in either the classic or current sense. She is stunning, but she is not pretty. It makes Billy smile, for half a moment, and as ever, he is deeply grateful for that. He could sit here for hours, already soaked to the skin and barely feeling it anymore, but there’s something he came here to do, and after taking a deep breath, Billy stands and moves behind the statue, running his fingers down Athena’s back until he finds the almost imperceptible crack he has come to call his own.
It's an act of quiet, drawn–out vandalism, one in which Billy has participated for the worse part of too many years now, across two countries in one kingdom. It had been a well-kept-secret tradition of philosophy students at St. Andrews to slowly, carefully destroy the pillars of wisdom around them, be they metaphorical or very real. Earning the right to perform such destruction was nothing to be celebrated; rather, most students treated it as a form of self–punishment—the breaking down of images and beliefs they once held dear or strongly being more painful than any poor grade or browbeating from a professor. Billy had watched in amazement and not a little horror when one statue on the St. Andrews campus finally fell, splintered over the course of decades by students of Ethics whose professors had been the harshest Billy had ever known. It’s not a tradition about which the school can be proud or bemused, like the dawn walks students take in long robes, and it’s unclear whether the school is even aware of the extent to which they can credit the occasional campus vandalism to the philosophy students or their accomplices. It’s not something necessarily shaken off with age, either; Billy had seen men older than he is now hand over instruments of destruction with ready smiles and something approaching ceremony to the visions of their younger selves now suffering. Toppling anything takes time, after all, and if one learned nothing else at St. Andrews, one learned patience and the ability to let others finish what one had started.
Billy doesn’t have decades to break or bring down venerable Athena; more, he doesn’t have the strength for it. What he does have is the desire to chip away at something, anything, that can’t or won’t return the favour, to perform an act of petty violence against Wisdom and all its taken from him recently. There could have been no wiser decision than to end his relationship with Dominic, no wiser move than to step back from the war he’d been prepared to wage against Noble, Rhys-Davies, and the rest, no wiser gesture than to dismiss himself from gatherings of friends and colleagues. All of it wise, yes, and all of it as painful in the end as if he’d made the opposite decisions. Wisdom’s done nothing for Billy lately, after all this time he thought he’d spent earning it, and he’ll take revenge how and where he can now, even on Athena, who he already knows is more than strong enough to take any blow he throws her way in the name of keeping himself sane.
Those blows are usually struck with the most pathetic of weapons—little penknives, sometimes the point of an old fountain pen, once with a large, rather ornate letter opener that had belonged to whoever occupied Billy's office before his arrival at Baskerville, another time with a miniature fireplace tool Billy had previously found no use for beyond decoration. In keeping with his mood this day, Billy is carrying something more vicious, but even so, the damage he will do should not be noticed for years. It's a small and roughly beautiful antique hammer, something from the end of the nineteenth century, Billy supposes, and the blunt end of it is etched with initials Billy can barely make out. The claw side of its head is of more interest to Billy than the more useful part, and it is that claw he uses now to tap the statue, testing the hammer's strength and listening for the pretty sound of its work.
It doesn't disappoint. Four well-measured, almost gentle strikes later, and the crack begins to widen. There’s no pretty arc to the movement of Billy’s hand and arm at first, no expertise gained from theory or practice on view. Billy can hear and feel himself beginning to breathe hard, not from exertion but from adrenaline. The last time he was here, Billy pressed Dominic against Athena’s back and listened for Dominic’s breath to catch, not his own. The last time he was here, Billy had known what he and Dominic were doing had been wrong; the last time he was here, Billy had thanked Athena for allowing him not to care.
Between the rasps of metal Billy can hear thunder approaching more loudly as the seconds pass. If he’s angered the gods by terrorizing a representation of them, well, then, he can manage to not care now, either. Billy lets the rainfall, harder and messier than it had been upon his arrival at the maze, speak for him as he works, until he can almost feel his thoughts being taken from him by force. I couldn’t have done anything else, he murmurs between the stone waves of Athena’s hair before he turns his wrist and lands a harder blow. I would have been sacked. He would have been thrown out.
It’s more difficult to keep hold of the hammer as the rains pelts down, and Billy feels it slip twice in his grasp before he makes contact again, the crack spitting back at him tiny bits of rock that fly through the air, a few rasping across Billy's cheek unnoticed by him or Athena. I need this job; he needs to finish. We both have to walk, away from this, away from that fucking school— The lightning comes, and Billy closes his eyes against it, feeling its energy prickle his spine. More thunder follows, muting what are becoming more desperate sounds from him, ones he can pretend aren’t real. We lie when it’s more important than the truth, even you do it, he hisses now, blindly caressing the folds of Athena’s robe before scraping the hammer against the sculpture again. The difference is that we don’t get the luxury of using someone else’s mouth to say it. Someone else’s eyes to see what happens when we do. I lied to his face and I see what that did to him and to me, Billy bites out now; I did the right thing but I still see that every fucking day—
Billy chokes on his next breath, surprised by thunder and lightning both, and the hammer slips again, its claw scraping hard down the knuckles and back of Billy's hand. He drops it as if it’s caught fire and then follows it to the ground, feeling mud seep into the fabric of his jeans, feeling the sting of blood rushing up to meet the air on his hand and his cheek. He’s at Athena’s feet again, from all appearances no more reverent and admiring than an animal searching the ground out of bored or hunger, but in truth terrified to see if he’s caused more damage to her than to himself. He couldn’t have, he reminds himself; there’s been no real catharsis here, no feeling of having won anything, much less the release he’d come for. He’s on his knees and bleeding while Athena remains standing, remains silent and certain and wise.
When he does look up, the sight that greets him is worse than he’d expected: he’s gashed the statue, left a crack in Athena's back too great to go unnoticed, and one that will widen too soon. Billy kicks at the ground wildly before he can warn himself against such a childish reaction, moving away from what he's done, and chokes on apologies to Athena, to Dominic, to anyone and everyone whose boundaries he’s tested and broken. He tries over and over again to stand, to find his feet, but the ground is slick and he's frightened, angry and uncoordinated. After a moment, he goes still, surprised again by the sound of someone’s faraway call to a groundskeeper or guard, and then Billy’s vision and thoughts clear enough to let him reach for Athena again, levering his body up by holding on to one to those folds of her stone cape. Billy steadies himself against Athena once more, his hand moving nervously over and into the gash as he stutters another apology, and then he takes first another deep breath and then the wet, dirtied camera bag, shoving the hammer back inside and clutching the bag to his chest as he avoids the statue's eyes.
The calls grow louder and closer, and Billy stumbles slightly from the maze, racing his bloodied hand down the hedges as finds his way out. Only when he reaches the archway and can see the long hill down to the entrance to Bodiam’s grounds does Billy break into a messy, dangerous run, breathless and desperate to be back in his car. Even as he finally reaches the old BMW and throws himself inside, coughing and gasping for breath, Billy's aware that he hasn’t done anything nearly so noble or worth the risk as his fellows students had at St. Andrews; they’d escaped a world of frustration and fear through their acts of aggression, while Billy’s only escaped being caught at the attempt. This was a mistake, just like leaving Dominic was a mistake, just like every step Billy has taken for months now has likely been a mistake.
The storm pounds Billy’s car from all sides, forcing him to stay where he is and hear and feel its anger drowning out Billy’s own. Billy shivers, thinking he should run the heater but feeling utterly unable to take his hands from his pockets in case they act on some other instinct. It feels as though he’s destroyed almost everything within reach for too long now—up to and including parts of Dominic, up to and including a statue that brought him beauty and truth when he thought he'd never know them again—and whatever the current set of his mind, he’s not eager to take himself down as well. There you go, Billy hears his own voice say aloud, slurry and tired. You’ve still got that left.
And that’s enough, Billy decides suddenly and shoves the key into the ignition; that might be all, but that has to be enough.
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Date: 2009-06-28 12:01 am (UTC)The weight of that is real for me.
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Date: 2009-07-07 11:22 am (UTC)Is it cheating that after reading this I pulled out my saved copy of the future Paris verse and read the reunion chapters? Even if you rewrite them, even if things happen differently, even if there is no reunion (!!!), for now they bring me comfort.