[Closed] Driest of Seasons

[Rhys Valentin]

almost uptown

Late Afternoon of the 10th of Yaris, 2719

Rhys didn't want to imagine worse. Not to say he hadn't, awake or asleep, torn from nightmares with a gasp or staring as the first blue light of dawn crept over the peeling ceiling in the bedroom he shared with his wife in the Painted Ladies, mind racing through all the foulest of endings. He'd imagined worse, but he wasn't convinced he had it inside of him to actually live it.

Maybe he did—maybe he could—but he sure as the Circle didn't fucking want to find out.

Where the tall blond didn't hesitate, where he boldly moved to best express his sympathies, Niccolette received the comfort with her typical immovable grace. Words, he'd learned, always got in the way. His words, especially. He wasn't unaware of the trouble his mouth usually found for him and this time—this moment—he kept his scarred lips pressed tightly together. A slow exhale at the curl of nails into the light green of his uniform dress shirt, and Rhys' arms a little tighter because he was far too perceptive, far too sensitive, far to used to reading unspoken things in the fields of others.

It was enough, though, just enough, to tip the scales in his delicate veil, and if he pulled away quickly, if he turned on his heels and fled into the glaring sunlight, it was just as much for himself as it was for the dark-haired Bastian he'd once known too well.

Too much.

But still, here they were.

She had to watch him melt into his own seat once they were indoors, once all of his well-practiced manners were played out, one card at a time. Nicco sat with a purpose and it was all Rhys could do to keep his pieces together. The sheer strength of her field was a bastion, a shield that not only kept him at arms' length but also held him up—

Oh, that flicker of a smile before his attention was drawn to the human, patient and ready, turned his insides, cooled his nerves. He didn't really want to drink, but, damn the Circle, he really did,

"Same as the lady, thank you." He hid it all behind a smirk, unable to come to his own conclusions, suddenly overwhelmed by choices he shouldn't even have been making. The young Valentin dug the bones of his elbows against the table, feeling the pinch of nerves because he needed it,

"Four fucking snaps—I was an Inspector first—Investigative Division. Youngest Sergeant in at least a few decades, a century, maybe. I could've had it made—before—before—" Rhys searched her face, blue eyes washing over her grin like a tide rushing from shore, down to her hands, staring at the table while his teeth dug into that scar that split his bottom lip. His pale eyelashes fluttered. The words were there, burning in the seething oven of his narrow chest, a chest that had been battered and broken, put back together again, slowly, painfully, never to be the same.

Never the same. His jaw clenched, shifting in his seat, ignoring the ringing that lingered in his left ear.

"—until this year. I transferred to Patrol Division in Intas." He hesitated on naming the month, looking at her, knowing now that her start of the year was far worse than his own. He'd made his choice. She hadn't had one, that much he could tell, "On purpose. You'll never guess who my Captain is—and, fuck, chroveback is a bit rough on ... things. Yeah. I'll leave that for you to imagine, eh, Nicco? But you get used to it. Pain is, well, it's relative I suppose."

The bitter officer shrugged, dismissive, looking away from her to watch the bar, left foot beginning to bounce under the table to the sudden faster tempo of his pulse. He'd talked about all of this before, but it was more difficult than he could articulate to just dance along the edges, to draw just a thumb over the blade to see how sharp it was.

He was used to being hilt-deep.

Right in the guts.

A hand reached up, fingers raking through his hair, finding tangles, finally letting it fall from it's half-ersed tie. Too long. In need of a trim. Wild. Feral like he felt beneath the illusion of his Seventen greens.

Their server reappeared, their lack of a field and general body language allowing them to be unobtrusive and swift, depositing their drinks without a word before shuffling away from the dangerous depths of their conversation.

Rhys' hand fell, dropped, snatching his glass and immediately lifting it aloft in Niccolette's direction, raised in as rebellious and mocking of a cheer as he could ever be known for, letting a smile crease its way into his well-carved features, gentle and true,

"Sana'hulali, Uzoji."

Hello. Goodbye. Many Blessings. It all meant the same in Mugrobi and he meant it, swallowing everything else that could have been with a mouthful of Brunelleschi and a hiss.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 10th Yaris, 2719
Uptown

Before? Niccolette wondered. Before the wedding? Before the trial? Before... the Bastian’s eyes lingered on Rhys’s eyebrow, dropped down to his lower lip. Niccolette had never bothered to hide her curiosity, and she did not hide it now, the living conversationalist studying the scars on her former lover’s face with a characteristically professional ease. It was, oddly enough, easier to see them in the dim light of the bar than it had been in the brightness outdoors, or perhaps she just had not been ready to look.

Recent, she decided. Her gaze traced down the side of his face. Painful. It was always possible that he had been hit hard enough to break the skin without cracking the delicate bones of his handsome face; and it was still handsome, Niccolette thought. The scars showed something that he had held (not very far) inside before, part of what had drawn her to him as a girl. That quick, ready temper, that heat, had called to something inside her at a time when she had needed to learn not to fear it. She did not wonder that he had kept them, but she did wonder whether they were for him - or?

Niccolette knew something of scars, these days.

A beating, Niccolette decided. A bad one, though fists could do such damage well enough. She had not seen traces of a limp in his walk, nor any stiffness in any of his limbs, not particularly. But not just a blow. Not with those two scars, delicately arching across his face. With how tall he was - with the force it would require - yes, Niccolette was comfortable guessing he would have been on the ground for it. And Niccolette knew, knew and remembered well, what kind of a fighter Rhys was.

“On purpose?” Niccolette raised an eyebrow, curiously, but Rhys was still going, and the Bastian grinned wider at his not-so-subtle allusion to the sort of discomfort he suffered. One of the sorts, she amended. “And who is your captain?” Niccolette did not know nearly enough about the inner workings of the Seventen to guess; she had read of the trial, of course, but it had been many months ago, and - well. Quite a lot had happened since. Perhaps Rhys would have drawn his fidgety attention back from the back to answer, but the human was back, settling the drinks on the table before he could.

Niccolette raised an eyebrow when Rhys lifted his glass, and she lifted hers as well, tentatively coming to meet him. There was the faintest of softenings in her field, a half-gentle expectation. She scowled at his half-ersed effort; she would have preferred nothing at all. Niccolette set the glass back down, sharply, and the wall of mona snapped sharply around her once more.

“You are still an ersehole,” the Bastian said, sharply, anger flaring tight and hot in her voice. She pressed her lips together, firmly, looking off to the side.

After a moment, Niccolette sighed, dipped her fingers in the whiskey, and flicked them at Rhys, splattering a few drops in his general direction; she had never had terribly good aim. “It is too good to waste on you,” she told him, eyes faintly narrowed still, then picked her glass up for a sip of her own. For a moment, Niccolette contemplates draining the drink and leaving Rhys to the pleasures of his own company.

Instead, the Bastian took a small mouthful of the whiskey, swallowing it down. Something like a headache had throbbed in her temples, unnoticed, and it eased, gently, the soft fire seeping comfortably through her, making itself at home in her stomach and chest.

Well, Niccolette thought, so he was still an ersehole. He had always been one, and Niccolette understood - she could understand. Uzoji had hurt him in a way Rhys would not forgive. Not with his fists, naturally, and not even with her; Niccolette knew that she had never been Charity D’Arthe to Rhys. She had known that all along, even when she had thought the tangled, throbbing longing she had felt for the tall blond was love.

But Uzoji - Niccolette swallowed that pain down with the whiskey, and let it settle a little longer. Later, she promised herself; later, she could indulge these longings as she liked. She very much did not wish to cry in front of Rhys Valentin. Again. For a third time.

“It was bad, I think,” Niccolette said, abruptly, taking a hard turn, the anger easing from her voice as quickly as it had flared up. She looked him over again, and raised an eyebrow. “The beating. May I cast on you, Rhys?” She tilted her head to the side, very slightly, fingers drumming softly against the table. “Quantitative. It will not hurt,” she added after a moment, voice almost soft.

[Rhys Valentin]

almost uptown

Late Afternoon of the 10th of Yaris, 2719

"Damen." The word was poison, acid on his tongue, and it showed in the way the pale blue of his eyes hardened like crystals, the way they narrowed with the syllables, just so, "Captain Damen D'Arthe, of course."

Rhys couldn't say the name nonchalantly. She'd know it. He couldn't pretend it didn't matter. He couldn't even lie about how much it hurt to see that bastard's face every day, to see him in his uniform with his five snaps, to hear him give orders, to feel the weight of his glare.

"On clocking purpose. what a godsbedamned glutton for punishment I've become. I've always been." The last phrase was a sigh, a wisp of thought, trailing away so faintly it almost wasn't his voice. It was almost someone else's.

That same bitterness shaped his words, turned a sentiment sour, and while he meant it as a kindness, he saw Niccolette's face and felt the harsh heaviness of a field that had once welcomed his own, bright like a flare of fire. He couldn't help but snort at her, though, his glass just a few inches from his lips, that bastard grin turning wicked when she called him what he was, when she flicked her drink at him like he was some unwanted house pet, shooed away, scolded.

"Do what you like. It's my fault anyway." He all but purred, coy now to hide the discomfort. He chose to drain his glass instead of savor it, rumbling growl of pain confirming his previous declaration when he set the empty thing down, staring at it as though it was the whiskey's fault. She was staring, too, and he felt her appraisal, realizing what, exactly, she was noting about him had changed other than the years that slipped so differently between them. Shifting in his seat, leg still bouncing, he ignored her first statement, blinking slowly, before he waggled fingers toward the server, indicating he wanted another drink.

Already ignoring his previous decision. Nothing out of the ordinary there, really.

Just one hadn't been enough.

"Bad? What—oh. Yes, it was a beating." His posture changed. His glamour dampened and his fingers curled into his palms as he leaned forward instead of away, as he once again slumped against the tabletop, "How do you know—nevermind. I almost died, sure."

He stopped, an indignant edge to his tone. taunting death. Of course she knew he wanted the reminders. He could feel the living mona thick and powerful in her field. He'd felt it enough over the recent months. He even felt the whispers of it in Charity's own field, though it hardly compared to Nicco's. He looked down at his hands, thumb restless along the pale gold band again, and his nervous knee grew still.

"—no. I mean, I can tell you instead." Rhys' voice dropped, a conspiratory sound dragged over hot coals, "If you want."

A new glass, full to the brim, had appeared for him and he slid it between his fingers, pressed the sweaty cool curved surface against calloused palms. He didn't drink it. He looked down into it, the ripples not reflecting his face back at him. Maybe he caught a glimpse of Benjamin instead. Maybe not.

He didn't look up.

He couldn't look at her, not right away, as if making eye contact with her would only invite her to cast anyway, to speak the Monite he knew and see all of him.

Too much of him. The broken pieces, knit together.

Just barely.

Worn thin.

"After the trial—that shitshow—I was suspended—wait. No. I can't." The tall blond stopped to drink. He needed to think of how to word this. What truths could he possibly pick out of the tangled mess in order to fully describe what had happened. She knew he'd chosen to keep those scars—as a galdor—well, no, he couldn't go there—he didn't have to. But he did.

"Fuck it." Rhys growled the words and seemed to settle in, aware that none of this had anything at all to do with comforting someone else. He wasn't good at that anyway. Obviously. Would Charity confirm such an assumption? Probably.

"I know how the papers spun it. I know what it all looked like, those charges of corruption. I've been—I am still—investigating a drug ring, made up of galdorkind. I know—I know, Nicco—that the Co-Captain of the Patrol Division, that ersehole who sired my wife, is involved. After the trial—we—" There went his knee again, bouncing, and he dug nails into the tabletop, finally looking up with that knot of scar tissue crushed between his teeth, dropping to a gritty whisper,

"—we were warned. Charity and I, both, but she—that piece of chroveshit condoned Benjamin Tolsby to—remember that clockstopper? Yeah. Yeeaaah." Words flowed together, fast, and the Perceptive weight of his glamour flared the deepest shades of fury, hot like the Yaris sun. He couldn't finish a sentence. He couldn't keep all the thoughts together, fluttering off his lips like embers from a roaring fire, "He tried to. Nicco, he tried to—" He couldn't finish that sentence. He choked instead, a wet gurgle of denied tears and an angry sound of recognizing his own shortcomings. He'd been forgiven, but that didn't mean he'd forgiven himself, "—and I—well, I chased him—it a trap and it was in broad daylight. Men and women wearing the same uniform I work my sorry, Brayde County trash erse off to do justice to do blocked the street in fucking uptown. Human fists. Benjamin's magic. Damen and his fucking baton."

Whiskey spilled on the tabletop when trembling fingers missed their mark and Rhys dissolved into a few useless curses, scrambling to keep from tipping the whole tumbler over. His breath hitched and he sputtered, expensive alcohol hardly enough of a metaphor for the mess of his life,

"Damn it. I shouldn't have—"

He stared at the Bastian across the table. The widow who knew what he did not—the price he'd refused to pay. He hadn't asked. He still wouldn't. But he'd said too much.

Rhys shifted again in his seat, fumbling for his wallet, the flare of panic overwhelming, regret stealing his breath, fear like the sweat cooling against the small of his back. Running was not his style, but, this time...

"—I'm sorry. Let me just. I'm going to go. I shouldn't have done—this. This was all a mistake. Fucking up. I'm really clocking swell at it."

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 10th Yaris, 2719
Uptown

Niccolette took another mouthful of whiskey, larger this time. It was not nearly enough to match Rhys; he gulped his and asked for more. One drink, Niccolette thought. Some things never changed. There was a familiarity there too, and Niccolette swallowed back the desire to drain her glass too, to keep pace, to prove - something. Had she ever known what it was?

He had almost died. Niccolette watched him, evenly, her hands on the table, her left curled around the glass of whiskey, her gold wedding ring glittering against the pale liquid in the low bar light. Niccolette wondered if Charity would speak so nonchalantly about it, and knew that she did not have to wonder. She remembered.

Rhys did not want her to cast; he offered to tell her instead, and Niccolette raised her eyebrows, curiously. She doubted he could tell her what she wanted to see inside him; she supposed it was difficult to explain that it was his bones she wanted to see.

Niccolette was not a spell writer, herself. She had never had much talent for it; she preferred to find the grimoires she needed, to adapt what was out there already - to take it and twist it to suit her needs. The spell she would have cast on Rhys was one such, a modification of a common diagnosis spell to learn more about old injuries; to see the scars and cracks that lined a body, to find the weaknesses.

“Yes,” Niccolette said, her eyes on Rhys’s face. Not his scars, this time, but his face. “I would like to know.” Idle curiosity, mixed and mingled with something deeper; not academic, this. She had not thought he would want to talk about it; she had looked to the mona for another way.

Once, Niccolette had opened up a scar on a man’s face; it had been throbbing and red, hiding infection beneath a half-healed surface. She had drawn herself back from the mess that would result, and she had cast, and the mona had done the rest. It had reeked; it had been foul, laid out in the world for all to see, but when it had drained there had been fresh red blood beneath, welling up clean to the surface, hiding deep inside.

Niccolette felt as if she had taken a scalpel to Rhys with her words, in much the same way. The hot rush of words from him reminded her of that man. Not at first; at first he hesitated, trying to find where to start. Trying to find the seam of the scar, Niccolette guessed. How best to open it up.

Was that what she wanted? Had she asked because she knew that it would hurt? Had she wanted him laid bare - as she was? But he was the one who wore his scars on his face. Did he think she would not see?

Niccolette watched, and she listened. Her hand tightened on the glass of whiskey at the mention of a drug ring - soft, tantalizing, a brush against it that steered away as quickly as it had come. Damen D’Arthe, involved? No, Niccolette thought. Such a man would not be merely involved.

Niccolette picked up her whiskey and took another sip. She set it down as Rhys looked up again, and her eyes went wide as he continued, fury flaring over her small face. “What?” She gasped. She let go of her glass, both hands tightening into fists, fury throbbing through her.

Rhys went on; Niccolette did not think he could stop. Words gushed forth from him, hot and reeking, spilling out onto the table. Niccolette never took her eyes from his, her small face sharp and set.

Fists, she thought idly, a baton. Magic? She could not remember what Benjamin Tolsby had studied at Brunnhold. Not living conversation, Niccolette thought. If he was halfway decent, Rhys would not be sitting here able to talk about it.

But the rest of her attention was solidly on Rhys Valentin. The flow of words stuttered - stopped - and he tried to take them back. Niccolette wondered if he knew that he could not; things said could not be unsaid.

The Bastian ignored his clumsy fumbling; she ignored the look like panic on his face, the feeling of it tangled in his field. She did not look away from him.

“Did you get him?” Niccolette asked, intently, looking across the table at Rhys. “Benjamin Tolsby,” She pursed her lips, imbuing the name with healthy disgust and no small amount of fury; it crackled through her field, a sharp red spark. He had always been a clockstopping ersehole; Niccolette had known him at Brunnhold, and she had thought him a weak and loathsome worm. “Did you get him?”

[Rhys Valentin]

almost uptown

Late Afternoon of the 10th of Yaris, 2719

Did he?

id he, really?

Rhys froze at the question, half out of his chair, fumbling for coins, blue eyes wide. Was he the osta with the hingle in its claws or the hingle finally caught in the jaws of the osta? Both. He was both.

“Niccolette,” The Sergeant exhaled, stuck there. Dumbstruck. While both the dark-haired Bastian and his petite pianist of a wife knew him, really knew all of him: his body, his bad habits, his penchant for physical expression, and his sarcastic mouth, if there was one thing the widow in front of him could assume better than perhaps even the galdor he’d married, if only because she’d by far seen who he was unfettered by four snaps and unbound by greens dyed by the very indigo his father grew in fucking Brayde County, if only because she’d enjoyed his temper so wickedly, it was this:

“You clocking well know I did.”

The tall blond left that there for a ragged inhale, shaking his head, holding up his other hand while he slid his money off the table with a scrape. Back into his wallet. Back into a pocket. He wavered on his feet, heart racing, mind seething, dizzy and paranoid. There was a tremor in his digits that were raised between them for a moment. Just a small one, vertigo gripping him and yet he didn't sit down right away, instead choosing to reach for his unfinished whiskey. Whispering from over the rim with a rumbling hiss, a passionate confession, a raw vulnerability that Nicco had not asked for, did not need, and probably never wanted from him in all their time together, he admitted firmly,

"But I didn't kill him. I thought I would. I allowed it, though. I had help. It had to be done. It was worth it, but that may come back to haunt me one day. I thought I could. I wanted to—he fucking deserved it—but—I wanted to be the better man."

He wasn't better.

He was worse.

"I should go. Shit. I should go, Nicco. I'm sorry."

Instead, however, he sank into that second glass. Disappeared for a moment behind it until it was empty again. He sank into his seat with half a groan, half a sob. Part of him wondered if Niccolette had done this on purpose, if she'd known all along once she recognized him there on the street what she would do with him. He was always such a useful distraction, was he not? When she wanted him to be.

It wasn't like he was ever truly unwilling.

Had she cut him with questions so he wouldn't see the depths her hurt? She didn't need to. The once Inspector earned his snaps by seeing that which was meant to go unnoticed, after all. What could he have asked about, anyway? Was he supposed to ask what she would be doing? Was he supposed to ask how it happened? Was he supposed to—no. None of that mattered. None of that could fix anything for her. None of that could do anything but rip stitches that were clearly barely holding the seams of split, gnarled skin together anyway.

He could feel it, too: that warm, metaphorical trickle.

That stained flow.

Bleeding.

He remembered the way blood felt flooding in his punctured lungs. The way it filled his mouth, gagging his broken face. The way it sloshed in his stomach. He remembered watching it pool on the cobblestones, mixed with his tears and vomit. He remembered it all. He'd eventually given in and savored the pain. Not only the breaking, either, because it had been the healing that hurt so much worse—Nicco would have appreciated that, had he been able to articulate that kind of real honesty out loud.

Regardless, he'd made sure Benjamin Tolsby saw it. Felt it. Lived it. He wanted to send a message back. He wanted to give a warning of his own. But that had been wishful thinking.

That had been a lie he told himself to make him feel like he'd made the right choice at all, to craft the illusion that he was, indeed, some better kind of man than Ben. Better than Damen. But he wasn't. He never would be anything more than a bastard half-breed, than lower class trash with a dirty secret. Staring at the her reflection in the glass, he slowly glanced up to look at Nicco, really look at her,

"I'm not finished, either. With any of them. Not even fucking close. Especially not with my Captain. I won't be until justice is served—not that court chroveshit, but the real stuff. If I happen to somehow miraculously clean up the flood of King's Crop into Vienda while sweeping the streets with corrupt corpses, so fucking be it."

Did he want another drink?

He'd have to just go home after this.

Go home and surprise Charity in his intoxication, so long as she wasn't high, anyway.

Rhys seemed to consider, chuckling, "Damnit, Nicco. I should've just invited you for dinner back there. Instead of this. I'm shit at this. Whatever this is. But, to be fair," He waved his empty glass for emphasis, slinging the other arm over the back of his chair, over his godsbedamned uniform, snorting while he looked up toward the tin-tiled ceiling while the room spun, waiting for the wave of it all to flutter away again,

"it would be more of a disaster than this lame-ersed attempt at a comfort. Not because I can't cook, though. I'll have you know I'm fucking amazing. Not because things would be awkward between us all—would they be? I mean, we both have worse to deal with than bygones, don't we? Just, well, because things are complicated. At home. Maybe some other chance meeting will be a better time for the both of us."

Right.

"Not that you could hit a harder bottom. Not that we can really be the softest place to land for you, us Valentins." The tall blond smiled then, tone gentle but expression strangely sharp, "I don't see how you could make anything worse, honestly, and Charity, well—It's fine. It would be fine. If you ever just didn't want to be alone. Or whatever. So long as you don't, uh, so long as you wouldn't find the Painted Ladies beneath your standards."

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 10th Yaris, 2719
Uptown

Niccolette did not let Rhys off so easily; he froze, half-up out of his seat, staring at her wide-eyed, and the Bastian held, every inch of her small frame locked upright, her eyes locked onto the much taller Anaxi. There was no way in which the question had not been a challenge - a demand -

And as she knew he would, he rose to meet her. Niccolette grinned at him, a familiar sort of grin, more than a little vicious. More than a little proud. Warmth thrummed through her, and for the first time spilled out into her field, pulsing golden soft through it, chasing the red blaze of her anger.

He was standing, wobbling a little, and he snatched the whiskey off the table as if it was his lifeline. Niccolette picked hers up as well, and she took a small sip as he spoke, listening curiously. This - this, Niccolette would toast to, although she did not say so aloud.

Niccolette could not quite follow the twisted strands of Rhys’s logic, knotted together, the sharp pain of his confession. He had let Benjamin die; he had set him up to die. Had he thought it made him the better man to let him live? To let another take the man’s life in his place? No, Niccolette thought. No. Unless it was Charity he had stepped aside for, or another to whom Benjamin’s life was owed - no.

Had he killed before? A Seventen, surely he - surely he must have. She wondered, from the way he spoke of it. She could not ask. Niccolette tapped her ring against the glass, the noise soft and sharp in the quiet emptiness of the bar.

“You did what you had to do,” Niccolette said, and shrugged. For her, it was that simple. It always had been.

Rhys groaned, said that he should leave, and sank back into his chair again, one more glass of whiskey down.

Niccolette traced her finger around the rim of her half-empty glass, watching him a little longer. Rhys was staring at something she couldn’t see, now. It did not feel good, Niccolette thought, to have brought him down with her. She wished - but she could not go back. She had thought - no, she had not thought. She had wanted to put off her own pain, just a little longer. She had wanted to feel something other than her own sorrow.

Niccolette felt tears burning somewhere in the back of her throat, heat rising in her eyes. The anger that had come so easily moments ago slid through her fingers like ash, and she was left with nothing in its place, nothing but the sorrow that called her chest home. Niccolette lifted her glass and drained the rest of the whiskey in a long swallow of her own. She settled the glass a little heavily on the table, a little harder than she had meant to. Sharp, she thought, too sharp. She had cut him deeper than she had intended and the taste of his blood was bitter on her tongue.

Niccolette looked up. Something squirmed in her chest, and for a moment she thought to speak. She took a deep breath, thinking it through. She had never been one for unnecessary niceties; she had never understood why people filled their mouths with please and thank you and I am sorry, and drowned out the rest of what was important. But -

Rhys spoke before she could, lifting his gaze to hers and holding it tightly. Niccolette felt the weight of a thousand things she might say, and she swallowed hard, feeling them heavy in her chest. The urge to cry was receding, at least, and she was grateful for that small favor. “Good,” Niccolette said, holding Rhys’s gaze with her own, and she meant it. “By Her deadly terrors, may it be so.”

Rhys’s half-hearted almost-invitation caught her off guard, and Niccolette shook her head without thinking it through. She should - she should - she felt dizzy to think about it. He wandered onward, withdrawing it as easily as he had offered it, and for a moment the Bad Brother could breathe again.

Some other chance meeting. Of course. Niccolette shrugged, and tried to say something about how she would not help him, next time - some quip about the citation in her purse. Something about how he had better pay the fine next time, something -

And then, in a way so familiar that Niccolette half wondered if she were in Brunnhold still, he offered again, his voice soft and gentle and his gaze too sharp. There were things she didn’t understand, hidden in his words; something, Niccolette thought, to do with Charity.

The Bastian’s hands slipped from the table and found the fabric of her dark gold skirt, and clenched tight against it. She dropped her gaze down to the table, and shook her head, once and then again, more firmly.

“I should not -“ Niccolette cleared her throat, unable to meet Rhys’s eyes. King’s crop! They had a common enemy, but she did not know how to say it. This enemy of his stood between her and what she really wanted - what she needed - the vengeance Hawke had promised would be hers. This was her proving ground, and she knew it; this was what the King of the Rose had sent her to find. Bring this back to him, and he would let her pursue the vengeance she was owed, let her quench the fire that burned in her veins and find what balm there was for the pain she would never not feel. If she could just - if she could only -

And Rhys, standing in the middle of her path, all unknowing, offering his words to her as if they were still children. As if he could trust her, as he once had. Letting her see him bleed through the pale green fabric of his Seventen shirt.

Niccolette shuddered, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. She was not ready for this; she thought perhaps she might never be ready for this. She knew what she should do, but in the end she did not know if she could bring herself to do it.

“No,” Niccolette whispered, soft tears clinging to her eyelashes, dripping down her face, and it was only as she spoke that she thought she had made her choice. She would find her own path; she would walk her own narrow, dizzy line through Vienda’s streets. She would not - she would not - “That is - I am sure you cook well, and I do not mind the Dives but I - I am not such pleasant company, these days.”

The Bastian’s hand settled back on her side, holding tight, her slender body doubling forward slightly. She felt as if she could not breathe, and she closed her eyes, not wanting to see him, or perhaps wishing that he could not see her. I am sorry, she told herself. I am sorry, she begged, and her fingers pressed tighter into her side. You do what you have to do, Niccolette told herself. You always have. Was this strength or weakness?

[Rhys Valentin]

almost uptown

Late Afternoon of the 10th of Yaris, 2719

Their server had a particularly well-honed sense of awareness about their patrons, that much became quite obvious as they reappeared in some lull between the pair's words, producing the bottle of Brunelleschi, ready to pour more of its contents right into Rhys' glass. The blond reluctantly looked away from Niccollette and reached for what the human had brought to them, insisting that the entire bottle be left with them with a waggle of persistent fingers. Eyes widened but the older human smirked and nodded, acquiescing into the Seventen's calloused palm the expensive alcohol without even opening their mouth to question his decisions or the depth of his wallet.

He held it there, resting it against the table in thought, "Did I? Did I really? I have an oath to uphold. I've made promises with this godsbedamned uniform. Promises to protect the citizens of this Kingdom. To keep them safe. Now, I've broken them, but not before they were broken against my bones first. Shattered. Turnabout's fair play, though, right? Lessons in real justice aren't learned in Numbrey, after all."

Honesty pooled hot in his lungs. He felt like he would drown in it, choke on it like so much blood.

She'd set her glass down empty, too hard. His blue eyes darted to it for a moment, and when he looked up again, there was unspoken challenge there. Sitting up, he moved to pour her a second serving without asking, without saying a word, and it was obvious he wasn't going to take a refusal as anything but cowardice. It was perhaps just another thread of nostalgia he grasped at, tugged at, unraveled like some old sweater, toyed at out of need. The flicker of amusement creased into the edges of his eyes and faded just as quickly, Rhys shifting to refill his own glass with a hand that trembled in the wake of too much adrenaline, just enough magic, and too much truth. He sloshed a bit of whiskey, moving to set the bottle upright on the table, watching it run down over his thumb.

Pleasant company.

"Fuck you." He snorted, not intending to make a show of licking alcohol from his own hand but making one anyway, the pad of his thumb dragging back over the scar that split his lip when he was finished, pressing it against his teeth for a long moment, remembering the sting of it, remembering stitches, "You have never been good company, Nicco."

It was an old taunt but a tried and true one. He smiled but it was bitter.

"Nor have I, for that matter. You should. Come over, that is. And you can—you just—"

He'd said too much. He'd let her have her way, which was nothing new. If anything, it was perhaps the most familiar, but this time, he'd taken the risk without even knowing the price to be paid for it. She'd cut him and he knew already how easily he bled for her and yet he clearly didn't resist. He'd trusted Niccolette Ibutatu on the whim of memory, on the need for connection, desperate.

What did he have to lose anymore?

What price could she demand that was any higher than what he'd already given everyone else? What could he possibly have left to hand over to anyone other than what life he clung to with his own two hands?

Here he was in his Seventen greens. Was this what he'd become? Was this who he really was?

What path had the dark-haired woman across from him traveled on? What choices had she made after she so gracefully cut herself free from his company all those years ago?

Reaching for his drink, he sighed, staring at the burnished gold contents, "—to comfortably enjoy dinner in the Painted Ladies with yours truly, you need to understand that I'm not just professionally interested in that King's Crop business. It's not just about corruption among the Seventen. It's not just about Damen's hand in it—" He paused for another long swallow and a hiss, "—but also because it's personal, because while I was angry and afraid, that one fucking time I did what I was told, Charity's life was used and ruined. I'm holding together what I can, but I'm not even sure if there's—if it's entirely possible to—I don't know what can be fixed, but I will leave ashes and blood in my wake regardless."

He pointed then, one unsteady finger lifting from his half-full glass to aim for the petite Bastian across from him, blue eyes narrowing. He was an Inspector. He was a Sergeant. He knew her. He was traveling the fast and hard route toward being intoxicated, but he wasn't stupid. He couldn't stop drawing conclusions, reading body language. His glamour was so weighed down with Perceptive mona that he couldn't stop observing.

"You know something, godsdamnit. You're not entirely ignorant behind those tears, beneath that loss. I saw that." Rhys' voice was gentler than it would have been in an interrogation, an empathy there he couldn't hide, watching the way she drew inward. His gaze drifted to her hand, washing back over her face before he looked back up to the tin tiles of the ceiling, composing himself before he tilted his head back in her direction, drawing that sharp edge right back along his wrists again, undaunted,

"You're still sitting here drinking with me, and it's not just for comfort. That shit's not in my skillset and you know it. Distraction, maybe. Now you know enough to see me arrested, but here we are."

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 10th Yaris, 2719
Uptown

"You have sworn other oaths too,” Niccolette said, fierce and unrelenting in this, as in so much else. The widow did not yield, but she did raise an eyebrow, and when she spoke again, her voice was almost gentle. “Unless your vows were meant very differently from mine.” She lifted her left hand, thumb rubbing up and down the back of her ring, letting it shift and catch the dim light.

Justice and revenge; they were words for the same thing, justice hiding behind its veneer of green-jacketed respectability. Niccolette did not care for respectability; she did not care how bloody the price she was owed would be, what fire she might have to walk through; she knew how much it might take from her. There was so little of her left already, and yet none of it was worth anything at all - not without this. She did not think the vows of a Seventen had so changed Rhys that he could not understand this, as he once would have.

Niccolette did not refuse the offer of more whiskey, but she only sipped at it, wetting her lips, before leaving it behind for a different kind of comfort, the only reminder of her husband that would always remain, seared across her side. She looked up with fury in her eyes when Rhys spoke again, breathing a little hard now, but he took the sting from the curse with the flick of his tongue and his words. Niccolette let out a little laugh, bitter, tears stinging at her eyes. She let go of herself, shrugged, and reached for the glass. She drained the rest of the whiskey in a long, hard swallow, without so much as flinching.

If Rhys did not reach to pour her another quickly enough, Niccolette would take the bottle and do herself, blinking away the last of the tears. “Fuck you too,” she said, but there was no heat to it; it sounded almost like an endearment. 

Niccolette watched Rhys as he spoke, almost sullen, her lips tightening into a faint pout. She shook her head again when he repeated the invitation, stubbornly. She took another sip of whiskey, heat blazing through her. As if she had not already known it was personal! She could see it writ large on his face, larger than the scars, but he was still a Seventen, and it was still a pale green shirt he was steadily bleeding through, and a heavy green jacket on the chair behind him. And it was a Bad Brother to whom he told all his secrets, not only Niccolette. She had as good as asked him not to, and he had not stop; she was not sure if he could.

Rhys pointed at her, and Niccolette stiffened, bristling at his accusation. “That is godsdamned unfair,” Niccolette hissed, anger sparking from her voice, snapping red hot through her field. “You have not changed one godsdamn bit, Rhys, but it is no fight of boys that you run into now.”

Niccolette fidgeted with her whiskey glass, shaking her head slowly from side to side. She had tried, Niccolette promised herself; she had striping tried to keep from him things he should not know. Fine. Be damned the consequences; she would drag him down with her, and let them both bleed.

“I do know of this drug ring,” Niccolette looked up, and ran her fingers through her hair, lifting it back and up, off her forehead. She still had the sense to lower her voice, although anger burned in it, and thrummed through her field as well, hot and fiery, strong enough to drive her past where she should have stopped. She had not colorshifted, but there was no escaping her fury, and the air around them seemed to warm. “As does Silas Hawke,” she held Rhys’s gaze, her own as uncompromising as ever; the temperature rose ever so slightly more. “He holds my revenge hostage to discovering the means to take it down.”

Let Rhys call it justice, Niccolette thought. She would call hers what it was.

Niccolette shuddered, drained half of her whiskey, and wiped her mouth on her hand, sitting back hard in her chair. Her field relaxed; the anger almost drained from it, leaving a faint edge of something sharp. Well enough; they had both bled plenty today. “So,” she shrugged again. “Strange bedfellows again, if you like. Perhaps we are used to it already.” Niccolette set the glass down again, her hands shaking, more than a little afraid of what she had done. But it was too late now; the words were out, and she could not take them back.

[Rhys Valentin]

almost uptown

Late Afternoon of the 10th of Yaris, 2719

Rhys sneered, jaw clenched and glamour flared in insult as if she hadn't said anything else that had dug as much as Niccolette's marital retort, "I know which words I've said that are most important, thank you very much. That doesn't mean I want to get caught red-handed while honoring my promises to my wife, however. I wouldn't want—" The blond all but growled his words from over the rim of his glass, stopping himself short, watching her through a narrower field of vision while she emptied her second and hardly too shy to reach and pour her a third.

He swallowed far harsher words, words about how he wouldn't want to follow Uzoji to the grave by being foolish, chasing them down with the fiery hard liquor to keep them from exiting his lips. He didn't need to burn bridges now that he'd built them, no matter how much it felt as though the petite Bastian across from him seemed Everbent on drowning him in her own hurts, in twisting the sharp sadness that surely must have been stuck in her chest harder in his guts just to watch him squirm so she wouldn't have to feel.

He took it well enough. He took it as well as he took all his pain: as if he'd wanted it all along, as if he deserved it.

The Sergeant even grinned at her return curse, the curl of his lips appreciative of the soft, not so insulting tone.

Still, like the wounded animal he was, it was just as easy to bite back, to sink teeth into familiar flesh because he was too well-trained not to. As expected, Niccolette rose to meet his next challenge, hardly better than himself despite her lofty implications about her marriage, lost though it was. He weathered the shift of her field without even a change in expression, still too much of an Inspector no matter how all the whiskey was seeping into his bloodstream and burning through his veins already,

"—I do believe I'm quite fucking aware of what kind of fight I'm running into. We went to school with some of them—Diaxio, Benjamin—and I wear the same uniform and patrol the same routes as some of the others. I've changed enough—have you?"

His empty glass clattered on the table, Rhys steadying his hand by pressing his palm on the wood for a moment before pouring himself a little more—oh, a little over half—squinting at it for a moment before his sharp, bright blue gaze snapped back up to the angry, delicate features of Niccolette once she admitted that his observations had been true,

"You—"

Silas Hawke.

"—you're family, then. Clever. Not where I'd see you had you asked me all those years ago, but, who am I to judge?"

The tall blond blinked, tugging at his pale green shirt with his free hand for emphasis, Seventen gears turning, well lubricated by experience and too much damn alcohol. He stared for a moment, but it was not surprise that washed over his flushed features. Where else was someone like Nicco to go? Where would she excel, unrestrained, unconfined? Where would feed her wild nature with all the kindling she could possibly consume?

Not the fucking Resistance.

"He seems to get off on folks being in his debt, but that's not surprising." He grunted without judgement, not even bothering to give her any satisfaction in his expression. He shrugged, dismissing the revelation because it was a leveling of the playing field as far as he was concerned.

Now they'd both shared too much.

Here in this little narrow dive of a bar.

Exposed.

Bloodied. Bleeding.

"Strange. Shit. It's true—I think we've both had better, both been better since then, yeah?—but I hardly look on my time with you so poorly as you seem to look on your time with me. Typical, Nicco." Rhys waved a hand, moving on. Wrung dry despite the sweat that had settled between his shoulders and against the small of his back. Wrung dry despite all he'd had to drink, all he was still drinking once he set the empty glass down again, glaring at the bottle as if weighing his options. He waited, chewing the inside of his cheek.

"So, the name's a ruse. A snub. An insult. How fucking galdori of Damen's pawns. As a once-Inspector of the Seventen, I'm not ignorant as to how comfortable between the sheets your brunno Silas is with those in Anaxi power. I know where I sleep, mind you—" He couldn't help himself, winking coyly, the not-galdor in galdor clothing reaching to pour just a little bit more, only a little. If he was going to pay for the whole godsbedamned bottle, he'd better enjoy it, after all. He knew who he had in his bed and he had no complaints—always and forever, sober or painfully high. It wasn't as though he hadn't thought of Charity all those years ago at least once, anyway, right?

"—but it sounds like you're offering to lend a hand. For vengeance? Fine. I'll own up to that."

He waggled his glass in a much more intoxicated mockery of another toast,

"Looks like we're just used to being the same fucking mess."

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 10th Yaris, 2719
Uptown

Niccolette wanted to shout at Rhys; she wanted to tell him that it did not matter if she had changed enough, it did not matter in the least, because there were no choices left for her. There was nothing else she could do, and nothing that she did do would ever change what had happened. She knew that, and yet too she knew that it did not matter.

And, Niccolette realized – it did not matter for Rhys either. She understood. She understood in a way she wished she did not, in a way that burned in her chest and on her tongue, in a way that hurt in a place deep inside that she could not name. This sort of pain was not lessened by the sharing; this sort of pain was not lessened by anything.

And so she bared her secrets, and let Rhys see through the rich dark golden fabric of her dress. Not her blood - he had already seen that, weeping from her eyes – but the skin beneath, the shape she had taken, since he had known her a decade ago. It was a familiar one, now, to her if not to him.

Niccolette’s gaze dropped to Rhys’s hand on his shirt, and she grinned at him. Her hands stopped shaking; they settled against the table, smoothed out, and she went back to fidgeting, running the tip of her finger in a circle over the edge of her whiskey glass, slowly, again and again. A drop of whiskey clung to the glass, and Niccolette flicked it casually on to the floor, then went back to tracing.

Had she changed enough? Had either of them? There had always been an understanding there; Rhys had never sought to contain her, as so many others had wanted to. He had fed the flames of her anger with his understanding; he had seen it, seen her, and never flinched. A friend, Niccolette realized. He had been a friend, and she had missed him.

Niccolette shrugged as well. She did not care to discuss the particulars of her arrangements with Hawke; she did not care to discuss the risks she ran of sinking to the depths of Mahogany Bay for this conversation. Rhys either knew or he did not, and it did not much matter anymore. Risks in both direction, Niccolette thought. She did not think the jails of Vienda would be much fun for either of them; she herself had no particular desire to return. They had set a knife between them, and pressed their wrists to either edge of the blade; it was held there by the pressure, but the slightest wobble –

Niccolette scowled, shaking her head. “You do not always need to be an erse, Rhys,” she told him, chafing at the words ‘so poorly.’ “It suits you, but it is not always warranted.” There was more she could have said – there was much more she could have said – but she did not. Perhaps she had changed; it had not always been so easy to hold her tongue.

“Hardly my business whose sheets he is between,” Niccolette made a little face at Rhys, an amused sort of pout, and picked up her whiskey, swirled the glass, and took another sip. “But you are right. I do not know if it is a ruse or a snub, but it cannot be tolerated,” Niccolette shrugged, setting the glass unsteadily back down. “Not by him, and – so – not by me.” She looked up at Rhys, feeling the haze at the edges of the room, that soft golden unsteadiness of too much whisky, fizzing through her veins and numbing the edges of her skin, just enough to get through his little crack about bedmates, the fierce, miserable loneliness of her own empty bed. Just to feel Uzoji hold her – one more time, just once – she had not known, the last, that she would not feel it again.

“For vengeance,” Niccolette agreed, her eyes flickering shut for a moment, until the heat throbbing behind them had faded. Her hand found her side again, settled there; not clinging, this time, so much as comfortable. She sighed a little, opened her eyes again, and looked at Rhys. “Not the same mess,” Niccolette said, looking at the whiskey sloshing in his glass, then away. “But I suppose it is close enough,” there was more than a little self-pity in her voice still, an edge of something raw beneath the liquor; all that fiery anger had drained away, and something about the Bastian seemed to have gone limp with it.

A moment, Niccolette told herself, easing into it. A moment. And the next? She took a deep breath, and shifted upright; she took her hand from her side, and picked up her glass, lifting it to clink against Rhys’s, wherever it was – even if he had already set it down, and held her own steadily between them. “To ashes and blood, instead,” Niccolette grinned, suddenly, and found that fierceness once more, throbbing in her chest and her voice. “In your wake and mine,” she finished the drink, her third, and set the empty cup down, leaning back in her chair once more.