Chapter Text
No name for this feeling existed. It was a shame, putting a name to things often made them easier to cope with and bury deep down, but this one was elusive. A pastoral life was something that he and Melly often talked about, with the hopes that every issue in their worlds would be solved if they could just live out their dream together in a blissful, pastel-tinted harmony peppered with the happy hum of cicadas, bees and fireflies (and all the other ones with scientific names he couldn’t remember for the life of him); and all the food they could imagine, all the food they didn’t have to scrape for with soot-blackened pennies. That served to be uncharacteristically naive of Norton Campbell, who found himself more starved and wary the very minute they settled down.
Hours were spent being restless, never in one place - something was always amiss in their new home, something always posed some kind of danger that would force them to move and force them back into the dregs of London, choking on familiar polluted air. Of course, Norton would abhor such a thing, going back and killing himself slowly, but at the very least, he wouldn’t have to endure the facade of being safe for five minutes before being hurtled back into tumultuous chaos, everyone laughing at him for thinking he had it made.
Norton was often good at keeping that side of himself in check, with nonchalance pressed against his thick Scottish accent as opposed to choked worry for not only himself, but his life partner. Wife. Life partner sounded clinical. A box to check.
He couldn’t even bring himself to admit he had a wife first. The others, leering in the shadows, would slap their knees and howl - Norton Campbell, finally getting hitched? I’m out a tenner then, lads. Who’d he find that was just that desperate? And no matter how much he could protest to ghosts that he and Melly chose one another; it was a futile effort. They only kept laughing. Or was that the sound of a gurgling pipe he missed? A reason to move back?
The prospector jerked himself off the chair like a puppet losing the hinges on its limbs, a little too hastily, before muttering something about having to check on something. Vague. Too vague. The entomologist sitting curled up beside him wanted to protest but could only muster reaching out to him with her slender fingers. Which, Norton endeared to himself, were ungloved. Good, he thought. He always did appreciate her soothing touch, though he wished it lasted longer.
“ I’ll be back in a sec, Mel.” He took the hand that fell and kissed it once, cupping it like one would an injured dove before letting it fall again. “ I just… heard something from upstairs...”
Melly looked at her knuckles, noting that the oft-present blackened stains didn’t graze them like a writer’s final fading ink pen, finding the words to describe indescribable love. “ Of course. I’d advise you to hurry back before all these new biscuits happen to disappear.” She reached for one to prove her point, waving it in front of him.
An aromatic scent, raw honey and lavender swirled together, nudged him back to the dusky-brown couch, caressing the prospector in the hopes that most of his sensation hadn’t been buried in a grave, six - or thirty - feet under.
“ Aye, wouldn’t want that, would we, Melly? They were made for us to share, after all.” Norton kissed his teeth and went to tear off half for himself, ready to offer a coal and alcohol laced kiss in exchange, until that noise jerked his hand back into his pocket.
“ I’ll be back, Mel. New places, eh? I bet we could ‘a gotten a better deal from that other plaid wearing man by the woods up north.”
New places in London, sure. The valves never worked, there was a heaving groan from the kitchen sink as though it was ready to take a wrench to itself to end its suffering, there was an infestation (landlords called them roommates with a hearty laugh), a stove that threatened mutual destruction - the possibilities were endless. That was less likely in a home in the countryside (unless it was a haunted manor, then one was really and truly at risk without mailing invitations that would take weeks to deliver). Norton had a feeling that Melly was aware of it, but let the man go anyway, to check on something.
The stairs didn’t agree with him when he walked up with heavy-set boots, creaking with unsung resentment for his existence. Dirty, mouldy colours had no place in a home such as this, and they were right, to their snobbish credit.
Looking back, he saw the entomologist curl up toward the faded wallpaper, peddling her legs back and forth. Her head was lazy against a small, tailored cushion with a cartoonish bee on it, a small housewarming gift from one of her friends (Annie, she may have mentioned). In her hand, a small home-baked honey-flavoured biscuit from a specially woven basket, (with the natural addition of a red-checked cloth) courtesy of Alice and her adoptive niece, Emma. At least he thought it was from them. Melly did wind up getting a lot of gifts surrounding her suiting her very presence.
She was gorgeous, sitting without a care in the world until her (their) bees came, and there was no question of her being deserving of such a place. Thinking of London almost seemed sinful, given how he saw Melly in his peripheral vision tearing her gaze from cracked and muddied pavements reflecting the image of an unknown woman back at her. Someone who had no business belonging there, only hugged by billowing, ashy smoke. She deserved this little place more than him, more than anyone. London only deserved to be her distant memory.
Even when he was drinking with Orpheus, late one night at the Oletus Manor, he nodded with a rather grave expression, eyes deadening like trees in winter as he too, admitted he wanted to leave London for the manor as soon as he could. Norton wasn’t a writer, nor was he close to the creative industry, but he believed Orpheus too easily when he said that the London he lived in wasn’t conducive to writing. The man had lived in an orphanage for the better part of five years before he was able to find Alice, so he imagined that tended to colour his biases, but when he spoke of the London he lived in (A wonderful title for a book, he mused), Norton knew exactly what he meant.
“Stuck in crowds of groaning flesh, pollution bleeding past us like concrete covering the cracks in pavements beaten down like orphans begging for scraps, crumbs, even,” was quite the tasteful image that the writer conjured up as he started to slur his words. And then they downed another drink at his request. By the end of the night, Orpheus said he could smell the ash-black pollution, warding off any purity death may have once had. “ Something more new, more corrupted – wicked… the souls of our broken past – lurch grotesquely, taking us by the scruffs of our necks and dragging us down with them, leaving only billowing – choking clouds in its wake, hiding their reprehensible sin.”
Cheers to that, Norton muttered to the strange, drunk novelist.
Norton wished he’d asked him about how he felt at the manor instead. Even Orpheus DeRoss, he thought, might have wished for a day where he didn’t fear somehow losing everything - the even more uptight composer he was affiliated with, his adoptive kid, his adoptive sister, the manor itself - everything he held dear, and that returning to the impoverished, crooked version of London he used to live in would just be easier than suffering through feeling like a impersonator of a Baron.
Like he’d made something of himself he wasn’t supposed to, leaving scared little kids like himself behind in the blasted orphanages he seldom spoke of.
Whether he didn’t remember or didn’t want to remember wasn’t something Norton was ready to ask his drinking partner, but the scar on his hand he saw on occasion was enough of a hint to him.
No mistake made, Norton wanted to believe he’d suffered enough, been scarred enough, rotted enough to earn his keep like the hero of a fairytale he’d never read about. But an itch kept itching at him, making him wonder if he would be more well seen in one of those groaning London flats, bones heaving and shuddering to their near-last breath. Like a kid in an orphanage who’d finally found a home, a prisoner leaving prison after a couple decades. A shite home was still home, and fitting in elsewhere was certainly an effort enshrouded in constant fear. Fear that they might lose everything and suffer worse.
Being with Melly alleviated that, somewhat, though she was none the wiser to his feelings. He reached the top of the stairs and ventured to take his boots off. And why should she, he thought. Melly was one who didn’t have to be burdened with that, having gone through the heartache of - everything, starting with the first time she saw him in that bar again, unable to stop the flow of tears streaming down heavier than the rainy night they met in. Just remembering that made him grit his teeth, looking back downstairs just to hear her light humming fill the main room. A soft habit of hers that wouldn’t have been allowed before, with that other asshole.
He had no idea how he found himself in the bedroom, swearing up and down that he had only the intention of entering the storage room they somehow already filled, but kept walking, pacing back and forth over the burnished wood. He felt it, bending down to check for any cracks, splinters, poor varnishing - and nothing.
He’d seen homes where only darkened, musty timber carpeted the floors, where owners bet on which planks would crumble first with the sort of gaily joy one could only expect from the men whose lives had hit rock bottom. But here, no such colour distortion even existed. No nostalgic smell of rot, thinning every layer of wood; no acrid scent – nothing.
Norton, dissatisfied with the result, stood and groaned, feeling his joints ache with an uncharacteristic ferocity he had never felt before. It was a loathing pain – nothing so unbearable, nothing that burned in the same way his face had (and his body, but those were more easily covered), but it was a plaguing sort of pain, cramping his leg into stillness for a hot moment.
If he wasn’t certain about his belonging before, his body made it clear that rest was not a welcomed sensation - even sitting on the bed wrought some discomfort from the long-suffering prospector. The feeling of absolute belonging, though it was written in pen and paper, was neither here nor there, it seemed, as he was nudged with the reminder of stale bread being forced down his throat only washed down with water protruding from rusted pipes. Even gave the bread a little kick when it finally softened. Those were roots he could not untether from no matter what sort of reassurance he got, no matter how much his physical body detached from his past.
Once, he imagined it was impossible to leave the world of the impoverished behind – that bitching and moaning about the upper class was going to be the life he knew through no fault or choice of his own, that it was just one’s predestined fate.
It turned out then that staying was not a matter of pure unfairness, but rather because it was easier to accept one’s given place in the world, no matter the gruelling hardships that came with it. Even a few more scraps in one’s pocket bred resentment here and there, and the anxiety of then losing everything and starting from zero. The cycle ran its course again, and again, always starting with the incessant bitching and incessant moaning toward those with more, as though having more would somehow make them happier. As though they forgot how being “rich” (if only by a slightly greater income or haul) made them truly feel.
Norton’s morose internal rambling distracted him from the pain, as he expected, for only a few minutes, but a few minutes was enough for Melly to notice the silence. It was a silence where everything stilled in one fell swoop with an unnatural quality, something one might expect from one’s death. Where the one was known for being rather lively, rather animated, forced to stop and die with no rhyme or reason. It was that sort of silence that stifled Melly, who often found a charming comfort in Norton’s constant work. Even in sleep, he often snored – this was often an annoying quality to many in his life – but Melly treasured it, even lulling herself to sleep from it a few times.
Joshua provided that sort of uncomfortable silence often for Melly to stew in while he worked and slept and ate, often staring at her as she hesitated to even move for risk of disturbing the meticulous world he made for himself and himself alone.
To not hear Norton, then, was something that washed over her like an unpleasant morning tide, and something worth getting up for. She left her gifts on their new couch and met him in their bedroom, watching him ponder. He chewed his lip in that cute way he often did, staring at the ceiling and blowing his cheeks out with a defeated sigh until she was caught in his peripheral vision.
Of course, he stopped his small existential crisis and returned to reality to stand and greet his wife, who picked at a piece of fluff on his overalls for no other reason than to touch him, he guessed. “ Alright, Melly? How long you been watching, then?”
He was quick to return to himself with that winning grin of his, but that did not diffuse Melly in the way he wanted, who pulled at a stray thread on his shirt with a soft tug. “ Not long, I fear you have quite the perception about you, Norton,” she started, “ Certainly an impressive feature, one particularly useful, bug-like even.”
And he’d known Melly long enough to know that being compared to a bug was something positive. He remembered the time when she called Orpheus akin to a phasmid – a stick insect, she explained – and he, to his shock, smiled and agreed. A damning insult, ruined by what he thought was Orpheus’ uncharacteristic density, until Melly explained that she was complimenting him. (He remembered her going on and on about how they were known for their seamless mimicry to the point of their own unrecognisability. If it wasn’t her voice talking, he feared he would not remember anything beyond the first word.) “ Pff, well, when you get used to seeing little changes in the pitch black of the mines, you tend ta notice a couple things in the light, right? Something bother you downstairs, or did you just want to see me? You can be honest, Mels.”
“It was just too quiet downstairs. I thought you were going to check what was wrong here – though it doesn’t look like anything should be dealt with too urgently as far as I can tell.” She looked around before Norton chuckled and held her hand, trying to ease the entomologist. Having her worry would be a failing on him, given the peaceful, sound image of her before he left. “ Is everything alright?” She loved asking that. Not many had given her the same time of day in her past.
“ Yeah, no worries. Nothing’s wrong here – it was actually the storage room, you know? I needed to take a second when I got up here. Joints just... Yeah, nothing outta the ordinary.” That didn’t appear to help, given how she tilted her head. Like pigeons at mouldy bread. Like they had any say in what looked good or shite to eat.
“ You’re hurting?”
“As I said, nothing outta the ordinary.” Her expression didn’t change. “ Well, I mean – if it’ll put you at ease, I’m sure we can go and get some of that herbal tea you like – the one that you said helps aching, or something.” He hoped the offer was enough, aware that herbal tea was something they lacked and yet made up around fifty percent of Melly’s overall diet. (Between that and leaves, it certainly was a miracle that he hadn’t blinked and married a real insect. A mantis, most likely. Give one a hat, he thought, and he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.) Melly certainly pondered like an insect too, motionless with only a finger at her lip before she nodded, the cogs in her head working to see how she could convince Norton even further. It was unfortunate, then, that Norton beat her to it – it was, after all, a venerable distraction. “ I know we can get packs of ‘em for cheap by the farmer’s market. Closer to London than I would ‘a liked, but…”
Norton didn’t have to finish his sentence before Melly was already pulling him on his feet, both forgetting the onslaught of pain that threatened to incapacitate him not moments earlier. “Well, what are you waiting for? An invitation to get up -?” Melly huffed, tugging him by the wrist as he almost pulled back, going limp for a few moments to let the woman struggle for a moment. When he was satisfied with the image of her pulling like her life depended on it, he stood on his own with no effort and let her stumble back into the wall she decorated (thankfully) with a quilt from her family.
“ Your hat, Mel.” He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling as he passed by her on his way out, healed from his previous affliction at the mere sight of her. The feeling was not permanent, he knew, but they’d learned from one another the value of enjoying the present moment – even if it was a lesson that slipped.
“I’m aware, Norton. Hmph, I thought more of a gentleman was made of you,” a non-lethal venom laced her tone as she adjusted the bow on her hat and followed behind, dusting off her lacy white shirt (though nothing appeared to be on it), “ but clearly not! You aren’t even turning to see if I’m alright.” She did that mocking voice of hers, a few octaves higher in the fashion of the women she was often forced into languid discussion with. The very mention of them made Norton howl with a raucous boyishness that dispelled any dignity they may have once had.
“ Ah, you wouldn’t be talking so much if you were really injured.” They’d made their way downstairs together, but before leaving, Norton did turn, just feeling the dull pain of unbelonging shoot through him for another second, threatening an onslaught. “ That said…” He kissed her head in a last-ditch attempt to ward off his own demons, to which Melly flushed and took him by the hand by means of ‘forgiving’ him. “ Better?”
“Much.”
That answer reassured the prospector, who felt the pain rush back at him two-fold the minute he stepped onto fresh-trimmed grass.
It reminded him of pavement he scraped his cracked hands and knees on, constant rain puddles reflecting a wounded distortion back at him, telling him this was the life he was destined for - not some domestic paradise with love all around him, while others scraped their life savings for the week’s suppers, thinking of neighbours suffering the very same, thinking of the ones who were ‘ lucky’ to leave. They hoped that they would one day lose everything and trudge back to rejoin them in counting down the days to the expiry of their thread-thin life expectancies.
That familiar life was miles and miles away, but if it were truly so, then Norton had no real explanation for the shadows of the past that let him know that the path home was always open to him, following the worst-case scenarios (to which there were numerous).
Everything always ended with his sweetheart, his honey, his very reason for living, the wonderful Melly leaving him before he’d even the chance to reach out for her hand.
And as loving as she was every single day, Norton would not blame her for ever stopping.