Painted Ladies
afternoon on the 20th of Loshis, 2719
"No! That's not at all what I was gonna say—" The tall blond slurred with the kind of heated defiance he'd always been known for, dizzy with the dangerous cocktail of inebriation, frustration, and hurt that flared through every capillary and singed through every vein,
"—let me finish for fuckssake—"
There was no small trickle of irony in such a statement, unsure of whether that was his body commandeering the use of his tongue or whether that was his heart pouring the truth through his lips. He wavered on his feet, flushed face contorted into a scowl, too slow to react to his soiled uniform shirt as it was tossed at him, letting it slide to the floor where his trousers were still pooled at his ankles.
"—that's not what I meant. I didn't want—I tried to—shit." Rhys tried to soften his tone, but he was already speaking to the wall instead of Charity, having let her roughly rush past him without even reaching to stop her. Bleary blue eyes stared at wallpaper so carefully glued by his own hands just a few months ago, feeling the sting of tears while the tension that'd once been coiled so deliciously in his core clawed furiously up his spine to cause his jaw to clench. His ears rang, and when he bent to kick away his shirt and fumble to pull up his pants, the entire room spun.
Bile burned the back of his throat and saliva flooded his cheeks, one hand forced to once again press against the wall for support, practically crawling back up it to stand while his belt jangled, but he held it all in. He'd always held it all in, hadn't he? He'd kept it all to himself, mostly hidden from view, burying it all beneath his handsome surface and hatcher-may-care attitude. He leaned there for several moments, listening to his high, distraught, no less hurting galdor of a wife weep and shout, sobbing and yelling behind him.
Turning to where he'd left his drink, vertigo still in full force, shaking fingers snatched the glass and he downed it all, washing the gross whiskey sting he'd nearly vomited with more of the same. He turned to see Charity in the library, and he opened his mouth to say more, to attempt to explain himself—
Shut up, she shouted, and he blinked at her, suddenly afraid he'd just forgotten what came out of his mouth. N-no, he hadn't said anything.
Fuck, he was drunk.
He barely managed to set the glass down on the bar, knocking it over, dribbling the last drops and trailing his hand heavily along the waxed wood as he swam his way closer to his wife. The air was thick. His legs were wobbly. Everything felt so heavy, but most of all the liquid fire lump in his chest that used to be his heart, nearly burned away into some hard lump of coal,
"Thassssnot it. That's not at all how things happened back then—stop it! Jus'stop. I didn't know! No one told me! Not a single one'f those monsters y'called your friends ever let me know what happened—I jus'figured you were ignorin' me—that I'd made th'right choice to make things right. I jus'—you're not gonna listen. It doesn't fuckin' matter."
Rhys watched her with that book, but his vision was blurry and the room moved of its own accord. He leaned against the archway, wanting to melt down into the floor boards and disappear, the petite blonde's voice too loud, too angry. Irrational, he tried to tell himself, some lucid part of his wasted mind reminding him that she was hardly any more sober than he was. She kept going, kept talking, kept rambling on and on about Niccolette, about how he'd kissed someone else when all he wanted to—
—she kept reminding him of just how much he'd failed. Gods, he'd failed Charity. So much. He was still failing. He was never not going to.
He'd fucked up then. He'd fucked up for so long. He'd fucked up now. He'd keep fucking up. That was all he was good at—fucking things up. He knew it, even now, barely able to navigate one thought to the next. He'd always known it. Damen must've seen it first. Nicco saw it, too. Plenty of others had seen it, from his fellow officers to strangers on the street. His father'd known since his birth. His sister'd been told to stay away from him, right? Everyone knew. So did he.
Now, well, now his wife could see it, here through the magnifying lens of too much opium.
He couldn't escape being born a bastard, after all; he'd just spent so much of his life not knowing why or how much he was destined to fail.
He didn't flinch. He didn't dodge the book that connected roughly with his shoulder in a flutter of pages. He grunted and ran a hand over his face, down his throat, over his chest to his arm, rubbing it. He inhaled a shaky breath and nodded,
"You're right."
So quiet, Rhys groaned the words, staring at the wild, beautiful creature he'd turned to law enforcement in some misguided attempt to honor, only to realize everything he'd ever done for Charity had just been one injustice after another.
"You're fuckin' right, an' I'm sorry."
He sputtered, all spit and tears, ugly in his drunken epiphany and waving his hand toward the ceiling in a helpless gesture, "Th'one time I followed th'rules was my biggest misssstake—I did wha'that bastard told me 'cause I loved you, 'cause I didn't wanna fuck up. An' then I spent a long damn time tryin' to pretend I didn't regret it, tryin' to forget you so I wouldn't have to live a life seein' what I did wrong every mornin' 'cause I didn't have you—Pfffffttt. Like Nicco was th'only woman, Charity. Like I didn't try an' burn away all my feelin's for you for nearly a decade with whoever took a second glance at m'uniform."
His voice grew lower in volume, deeper in tone while the not-galdor dredged deep, fingernails scraping the bottom of the sludgy, dark barrel of his soul. There'd been no one he wanted more his whole life, but he'd been told she wasn't for him. He'd believed those words, all those years ago, and thought, foolishly, that he'd been making the choice that was best—not for him, but for her.
"It's not'bout Nicco, dammit! It's not'bout anyone! Never has been! It's always been 'bout you—an' I already know I fucked up. I already know! Alright?! Is that what you want to hear? I ruined everythin'—every day now, I get to see! Look at you! Why can't I talk t'you? You want to know? I'll fuckin' tell you—what's there to say when you'd rather crawl back t'opiates than to me?! We've both made promises, an' we've both not kept a word—"
Sliding from the wall and taking a step back instead of forward into the library, Rhys shook his head again, unable to clear it, feeling like his entire lanky self was full of molten lead instead of too much alcohol and regret. Unsteady, he shrugged even though the motion made his entire body roll with the motion. Looking down at the book on the floor for a long moment, trying to gather some part of himself for long enough to make the right words, the words he'd wanted to say since walking in the door—the words he wanted to say while wrapped in his wife's arms, all sweaty and wasted, all tangled in that euphoric afterglow with skin against skin,
"—what if I'd died last Achtus, there in m'own blood an' piss? What if I'd left you alone for good, finally? What if I left you t'your fuckin' father, to those erseholes who want t'use you, who want to—godsdamnit!—what if that was me? I saw Nicco's face an' I thought, well, fuck. Maybe it would've been better. How could it be worse?"
With that, he sat on the floor—crumpled, really. Nauseated, he hid his face in his hands, desperate not to hurl, tasting bile again,
"Fuck you. Fuck all 'f this. Jus'—fuck."
"—let me finish for fuckssake—"
There was no small trickle of irony in such a statement, unsure of whether that was his body commandeering the use of his tongue or whether that was his heart pouring the truth through his lips. He wavered on his feet, flushed face contorted into a scowl, too slow to react to his soiled uniform shirt as it was tossed at him, letting it slide to the floor where his trousers were still pooled at his ankles.
"—that's not what I meant. I didn't want—I tried to—shit." Rhys tried to soften his tone, but he was already speaking to the wall instead of Charity, having let her roughly rush past him without even reaching to stop her. Bleary blue eyes stared at wallpaper so carefully glued by his own hands just a few months ago, feeling the sting of tears while the tension that'd once been coiled so deliciously in his core clawed furiously up his spine to cause his jaw to clench. His ears rang, and when he bent to kick away his shirt and fumble to pull up his pants, the entire room spun.
Bile burned the back of his throat and saliva flooded his cheeks, one hand forced to once again press against the wall for support, practically crawling back up it to stand while his belt jangled, but he held it all in. He'd always held it all in, hadn't he? He'd kept it all to himself, mostly hidden from view, burying it all beneath his handsome surface and hatcher-may-care attitude. He leaned there for several moments, listening to his high, distraught, no less hurting galdor of a wife weep and shout, sobbing and yelling behind him.
Turning to where he'd left his drink, vertigo still in full force, shaking fingers snatched the glass and he downed it all, washing the gross whiskey sting he'd nearly vomited with more of the same. He turned to see Charity in the library, and he opened his mouth to say more, to attempt to explain himself—
Shut up, she shouted, and he blinked at her, suddenly afraid he'd just forgotten what came out of his mouth. N-no, he hadn't said anything.
Fuck, he was drunk.
He barely managed to set the glass down on the bar, knocking it over, dribbling the last drops and trailing his hand heavily along the waxed wood as he swam his way closer to his wife. The air was thick. His legs were wobbly. Everything felt so heavy, but most of all the liquid fire lump in his chest that used to be his heart, nearly burned away into some hard lump of coal,
"Thassssnot it. That's not at all how things happened back then—stop it! Jus'stop. I didn't know! No one told me! Not a single one'f those monsters y'called your friends ever let me know what happened—I jus'figured you were ignorin' me—that I'd made th'right choice to make things right. I jus'—you're not gonna listen. It doesn't fuckin' matter."
Rhys watched her with that book, but his vision was blurry and the room moved of its own accord. He leaned against the archway, wanting to melt down into the floor boards and disappear, the petite blonde's voice too loud, too angry. Irrational, he tried to tell himself, some lucid part of his wasted mind reminding him that she was hardly any more sober than he was. She kept going, kept talking, kept rambling on and on about Niccolette, about how he'd kissed someone else when all he wanted to—
—she kept reminding him of just how much he'd failed. Gods, he'd failed Charity. So much. He was still failing. He was never not going to.
He'd fucked up then. He'd fucked up for so long. He'd fucked up now. He'd keep fucking up. That was all he was good at—fucking things up. He knew it, even now, barely able to navigate one thought to the next. He'd always known it. Damen must've seen it first. Nicco saw it, too. Plenty of others had seen it, from his fellow officers to strangers on the street. His father'd known since his birth. His sister'd been told to stay away from him, right? Everyone knew. So did he.
Now, well, now his wife could see it, here through the magnifying lens of too much opium.
He couldn't escape being born a bastard, after all; he'd just spent so much of his life not knowing why or how much he was destined to fail.
He didn't flinch. He didn't dodge the book that connected roughly with his shoulder in a flutter of pages. He grunted and ran a hand over his face, down his throat, over his chest to his arm, rubbing it. He inhaled a shaky breath and nodded,
"You're right."
So quiet, Rhys groaned the words, staring at the wild, beautiful creature he'd turned to law enforcement in some misguided attempt to honor, only to realize everything he'd ever done for Charity had just been one injustice after another.
"You're fuckin' right, an' I'm sorry."
He sputtered, all spit and tears, ugly in his drunken epiphany and waving his hand toward the ceiling in a helpless gesture, "Th'one time I followed th'rules was my biggest misssstake—I did wha'that bastard told me 'cause I loved you, 'cause I didn't wanna fuck up. An' then I spent a long damn time tryin' to pretend I didn't regret it, tryin' to forget you so I wouldn't have to live a life seein' what I did wrong every mornin' 'cause I didn't have you—Pfffffttt. Like Nicco was th'only woman, Charity. Like I didn't try an' burn away all my feelin's for you for nearly a decade with whoever took a second glance at m'uniform."
His voice grew lower in volume, deeper in tone while the not-galdor dredged deep, fingernails scraping the bottom of the sludgy, dark barrel of his soul. There'd been no one he wanted more his whole life, but he'd been told she wasn't for him. He'd believed those words, all those years ago, and thought, foolishly, that he'd been making the choice that was best—not for him, but for her.
"It's not'bout Nicco, dammit! It's not'bout anyone! Never has been! It's always been 'bout you—an' I already know I fucked up. I already know! Alright?! Is that what you want to hear? I ruined everythin'—every day now, I get to see! Look at you! Why can't I talk t'you? You want to know? I'll fuckin' tell you—what's there to say when you'd rather crawl back t'opiates than to me?! We've both made promises, an' we've both not kept a word—"
Sliding from the wall and taking a step back instead of forward into the library, Rhys shook his head again, unable to clear it, feeling like his entire lanky self was full of molten lead instead of too much alcohol and regret. Unsteady, he shrugged even though the motion made his entire body roll with the motion. Looking down at the book on the floor for a long moment, trying to gather some part of himself for long enough to make the right words, the words he'd wanted to say since walking in the door—the words he wanted to say while wrapped in his wife's arms, all sweaty and wasted, all tangled in that euphoric afterglow with skin against skin,
"—what if I'd died last Achtus, there in m'own blood an' piss? What if I'd left you alone for good, finally? What if I left you t'your fuckin' father, to those erseholes who want t'use you, who want to—godsdamnit!—what if that was me? I saw Nicco's face an' I thought, well, fuck. Maybe it would've been better. How could it be worse?"
With that, he sat on the floor—crumpled, really. Nauseated, he hid his face in his hands, desperate not to hurl, tasting bile again,
"Fuck you. Fuck all 'f this. Jus'—fuck."
