Turning Tables

OA is Adele

Part of the Songfic Series

Turning Tables
Close enough to start a war

All that I have is on the floor

Her slim body shaking with exertion, her sandy, speckled fur pulled taut over lean muscles, her shoulders quivering as she suppressed racking sobs. Nothing she could do could prevent the tears leaking from her eyes, as she sat in the clearing, just in front of the river, amber eyes gazing into its depths as though she could see the long-awaited solution to a problem she had been encountering far too often for her liking. A problem she desired in the beginning, but grew to hate.

He was sitting opposite her, on the other side of the river, on his territory. His eyes raked her face, he willed her to look up, but she kept her eyes pointedly directed away from him. He wanted to apologize, but couldn't find it within himself.

She looked up. Everything she had spilled, every secret of hers, every secret of her Clan's, was lying out in front of him like an array of prey, and she gazed at him, blank, almost as though trying to anticipate which piece of fresh-kill, which secret he would choose to divulge. What he would choose to say, which battle he would begin to fight.

God only knows what we're fighting for

All that I say, you always say more

Only StarClan knew what brought them together, only StarClan knew what they saw in each other. She thought she could see warmth behind that cold, stone-gray pelt of his, if she dug deeper into those icy-blue eyes, she would find the charm of a hunter, the skill of a fighter, the desire of a lover. In the first few moons, he had been all that. Then another - clearly - had caught his eye, and she was no longer the most favorable. She fell out of his options, an opponent suddenly too weak to beat.

He thought he could find something behind that facade of vibrance. He thought he could pick apart whatever force was keeping her closed, that he could break the dam blocking all true emotions holed up inside her heart. He had - and then she turned on him, bit at his tail every time hea sked a question. He knew that he wasn't her favorite anymore, there must have been another who was in higher esteem in her eyes. Someone more skilled at hunting, or a better figher. She wasn't his anymore, she was a bird flying just out of reach after an escape from his claws.

I can't keep up with your turning tables

Under your thumb I can't breathe

"I'm done," she choked out, eyes raising to his level. She couldn't bear to speak to him, but if she didn't, he would keep pestering her, keep lurking about the border, waiting for the day on which she patrolled to pounce. Like a fox on a hare, stuck with the scent but unable to find its dinner.

Everything he had given her, it was all gone. He went from that cold-hearted snob she'd seen at Gatherings, the most talented of deputies, to a warm, purring fool, running through the trees while she pushed herself to catch up, back to the same cat he'd always been. The charming tom had just been a facade, a trick, a delusion. He wanted to get her on his side, to pretend to take her under his wing, just to learn about her. He was deputy, there was nothing he wouldn't share with his own Clan leader. And she had fallen for it. She believed that he truly loved her - but love makes fools of us all, doesn't it?

So, I won't let you close enough to hurt me

No, I won't rescue you to just desert me

All she'd done, that false impression of a beautiful she-cat, who loved, who had emotions, who felt and understood and empathized; she was just a delusion, wasn't she? He had let her get close enough to him, he'd let his walls drop in favor of her, he'd torn down everything he'd striven to achieve, just for her. And she'd turned on him and betrayed him with a purr on her face.

No, he wouldn't save her. If she had fallen into the river just then, even if she had been reaching across the stream to apologize, her face already softening as she opened her mouth in anticipation of the words about to come out, and the current dragged at her paw, pulling her off the soggy bank and into the roiling water below, he wouldn't have moved a paw. A cat who had ripped apart his own hear, who had hurt him worse than a swim down some silly little river could, didn't deserve to be saved from that very fate. A cat who had pulled at his emotions, toyed with them like a mouse before the kill, she deserved even worse. But he couldn't bring himself to harm her, not unless provoked, not unless she decided to say something, to apologize.

I can't give you the heart you think you gave me

It's time to say goodbye to turning tables He might have expected love in return, now, that he had come crying back to her after his own she-cat probably decided she didn't love him. He might have expected her to hand him her heart on a green leaf, just as he thought he had done for her. But all he gave her was pity, was the delusion that he loved her, the delusion that he really cared. She couldn't give him kindness in return for all that he had done to her, that wouldn't be fair, it wouldn't be right. He wouldn't deserve it.

She had to leave him - it was what was best. After all, if she didn't do it, others might follow her example. Try and break through that icy facade that made every tom so handsome. The demeanor that every she-cat adored, the careless apathy, the hating-the-world physique. All she-cats loved it, all she-cats loved him. It was natural, instinct. But she couldn't let anyone else fall for that trap. She couldn't let anyone else smell that flower, the beautiful petals, to be turned on and choked as the blossom smiled sadistically, fully conscious of its actions and taking pleasure in them.

To turning tables

Under haunted skies I see you He glowered, his eyes hardening and his heart clenching at her tear-filled eyes. She was unjustified in feeling so upset; she hadn't been the one whose heart had been trampled by a herd of horses, whose heart had been wrenched apart and then pieced carelessly back together by a simple gesture.

He'd never see her, not when the sky remained blue, the grass green, and the birds still chirping. He'd have to be dragged across burning coals, through a boulder-strewn minefield, beneath the hooves of cows, across mountains and through the skies to see her again. Never voluntarily would he want to see those amber eyes, sparkling with whether happiness or joy, or swimming with grief brought on by herself. Never would he nudge that golden-brown fur, flecked with darker tabby patches, glossy after a grooming or matted after a training session with her apprentice.

Where love is lost your ghost is found

I braved a hundred storms to leave you

As hard as you try, no, I will never be knocked down

I can't keep up with your turning tables

Under your thumb I can't breathe

So, I won't let you close enough to hurt me

No, I won't rescue you to just desert me

I can't give you the heart you think you gave me

It's time to say goodbye to turning tables

Turning tables

Next time I'll be braver

I'll be my own savior

When the thunder calls for me

Next time I'll be braver I'll be my own savior

Standing on my own two feet

I won't let you close enough to hurt me

No, I won't rescue you to just desert me

I can't give you the heart you think you gave me

It's time to say goodbye to turning tables

To turning tables

Turning tables