Don't go bacon my heart [Charity]

Morning after breakfast and truths.

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A large forest in Central Anaxas, the once-thriving mostly human town of Dorhaven is recovering from a bombing in 2719 at its edge.

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Rhys Valentin
Posts: 262
Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2018 5:06 pm
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Race: Wick
Location: Vienda
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Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:08 pm

14th of Roalis, 2718
HOME | LATER IN THE MORNING THAN EXPECTED
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By the Lady, what house was it? What hour? What day of the week was it, even? Rhys couldn't be sure, as daylight crept in through his eyelids with sharp discomfort, reminding him that he'd had far too much to drink, that he'd experienced far too much magic, and that he'd been up far too late doing things he probably shouldn't ha—

"—clock the Circle." He groaned, one eye willing to open while the other staunchly refused, suddenly aware of the weight of a comfortable, familiar field and the tangle of a warm, familiar body against his.

Charity.

He sighed, a lopsided, sleepy smile creasing its way into his face as he shifted, curling tighter around her deliciously petite form, arms snaking under her body to hold her and lips pressing against her pale shoulder, not really wanting to wake her. No one had been dreaming. Nothing had been an intoxicated fantasy. No one even knew except the two of them. She'd not only slept in his bed, but they'd brought their bodies together after what felt like a lifetime of longing to.

And it was everything.

She was everything—

Or, she had been once. He heard his pulse pound in his ears, thundering between his temples, and his head stung. Biting his lip, he realized everything he'd told himself for years had been unraveled in one night. In less than a house, Charity D'arthe had done what only she was capable of and taken him entirely apart. It was too lovely, too perfect, and yet whatever consequences would slither their way into this moment, Rhys couldn't bring himself to clocking care. Everything had been worth it. He'd wasted so much time in fear already. This time, this time, he'd fight—

Far too well-trained to fall back asleep no matter how hungover or how exhausted, the Sergeant simply drifted in a comfortable haze for several minutes, guessing at the time and vaguely aware he'd promised to show up at his office to file all the paper work necessary to make sure those clocking Black Hand wicks went to prison for a very, very long time.

Oh, Gods, he didn't want to move. It was his day off, but he'd have to stand by his word. Just ... not on time. Definitely not on time.

Thump.

His bedroom door still closed, eager grey paws found the gap where the door met the frame, pattering desperately for a few moments before mewling, angrily letting Rhys know he'd not only overslept but he had her to attend to when it came to matters of breakfast.

Thump.

The tall blond groaned under his breath, convincing both eyes to open this time and reluctantly sliding away from the woman it'd taken far too many years to get into his bed. Tucking blankets around her delicately while his osta continued to paw at the door impatiently, he quietly padded about his room for clothes that weren't bloodied or dirty, tossing everything over a shoulder before he opened the door to an expectant companion, her amber eyes staring up at him as if she had something important judgment to pass upon his disheveled self,

"Nothing you haven't seen before. Go on." Rhys smirked, whispering as if the creature understood him before he made his way into the kitchen without bothering to dress, Jynx at his heels as if she'd never eaten once in her life, "If you could get the clocking paper, perhaps I'd be more inclined to feed you on time. But, no."

His voice was gravely and tired, and he tossed his clothes over a chair while he set food on the floor for the osta and snatched the paper from outside his door with a comically minimalist level of discretion. Squinting at the blur of words, he simply set the paper on his small kitchen table and grabbed most of his clothing again, leaving his shirt hung over the back of the chair.

Quietly, Rhys made his way into the bathroom to wash away the night before with as much hot water as he could stand, though he was far too incapable of focusing to shave. Staring at his flushed, aching self through the steam, he was very aware of everything that had happened, lingering thoughts of what, exactly, had filtered into his senses through the magical connection he willingly shared with the delicate pianist in their intoxication leaving a strange taste in his mouth at the memory.

It was not the flavor of regret.

Glancing down at his fingers curled around the bowl of the sink, the tall blond sighed, narrow shoulders sagging, the green of his uniform trousers glaring back at him in reminder of his rank, his duty, his clocking job. But had he harmed anyone? No. Gods, no. Everything else about last night once in the safety of his home was all so clocking right. Then that, even that, was right, too. Just once. Now he knew, didn't he? Now he knew.

With that self-conscious justification tucked into the aching cavity of his chest, the young Valentine made his way back into the kitchen, committing himself to being unexpectedly late into his office but quite confident after all their drinking last night, not a single member of his squad would consider it a problem. What they didn't know wouldn't matter, not this time. So, Rhys tucked away the thoughts that gnawed heatedly at the back of his mind and went about keeping himself busy instead. Out of habit and muscle memory, he put the kettle on and lit the stove, beginning his morning routine of fixing breakfast, this time remembering he was cooking for two.

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Charity Valentin
Posts: 129
Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2018 5:41 pm
Topics: 23
Race: Galdor
Location: Vienda
: The voices aren't real, right?
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Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:01 pm

14th Roalis, 2718
RHYS’ HOME | LATER THAN EXPECTED
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In the darkness of a strangely underlit room, the huge silhouette of a man stands in the doorway, filling it with a looming sense of fear…

Charity frowned in her sleep, eyes darting under closed lids as the fractured pieces of dreams skimmed across the depths of her mind, lips parting with a soft whimper as she protested the fear that rose in her chest.

The figure is changing, it reaches for her with a leer, the sound of drunken laughter filling her ears. “Hold her.” The voice is too familiar. How dare he…

Her manicured fingers curled tightly into the blankets, breathing rapid and heart pounding. A quiver caught her lip as the pale pianist whispered a sleep addled plea for help. She tossed in the bed, brow drawn deeply and beaded lightly with sweat.

The figure changes again, taller and more gentle as it slips a hand behind her waist. Silhouette lips brush her throat and shoulder, searing each spanse of skin they touched.

Charity groaned softly, rubbing her legs gently against the linens and grasping the blankets tightly. She sighed heavily, arching her head slightly to expose her throat when—

Quite suddenly the galdor’s violet eyes snapped open, and she sat up, looking around the room like a moonstruck kenser. She blinked, the sun filtering through the window bathing an unfamiliar room with pale morning light. Mildly, her head throbbed with the beginnings of a hangover, and as her gaze alighted on clothing dirtied or bloodied, through the blur that the Kings Crop made of her night Charity remembered something clearly.

Rhys.

Had it been real? She’d had so much of the premium opiate that even now the blonde doubted what she could recall, frozen suddenly by the sound of someone down the hall mulling about in a kitchen. Turning slowly to sit on the edge of the bed, the Captains daughter threw back the covers, glancing down at her naked form.

Oh, that’s right.

Her eyes searched out her lace undergarments, and with an almost possessive grab she pulled on Rhys’ white dress shirt she’d turned into a makeshift slip. Standing delicately as she did up the buttons, Charity dragged her fingers through her long platinum locks in an attempt to tame the knarls and slight curls that had followed her from sleep. Opening the door quietly, she crept lightly down the hallway, heart rattling in her chest.

What if she’d just been so intoxicated that she’d gone home with Benjamin and his friend, and she’d fantasised Rhys to stay sane? Maybe this wasn’t his shirt, maybe it was that clockstoppers. Her violet eyes took in things that felt familiar, so far lost in last nights inebriation. Now entirely sober however, Charity was petrified to look, padding across the living area and taking a deep breath as she leaned against the outside of the kitchen doorframe. A warm and almost welcoming field brushed against her, mingling with her own in a way that practically felt as though it always fit. Pushing away from the frame, the pianist peeked inside, her delight humming in her own field as she watched the taller man moving around his kitchen. Somewhere along the way, from bedroom to kitchen, he had managed to get pants on at the least.

“Rhys.” She breathed, breaking into a huge beaming grin as she all but ran across the small room to take his face in hers, raising on tiptoe to kiss him, regardless of what the Seventen might be doing or holding. Charity lingered, breathing deeply through her nose and savouring sober what she’d tasted intoxicated.

“By the Lady, it is you! I thought...I thought surely last night had been some sweet dream sent to bring me comfort...but you’re real! You’re here!” Her arms wrapped around his neck with a relieved laugh, which dissolved quickly into happy tears.

“I can’t believe...wait, is that breakfast?” Charity drew back with another laugh, moving away to lean against the bench with an incredulous giggle, sweeping away the tears on her cheeks with a grin.

“Rhys Valentin is making me breakfast. Rhys. Clocking hell. This is...this just...this I…” The petite pianist shook her head and ran both hands through her hair, looking at him with another incredulous laugh. Her violet gaze swept over him again, before becoming distant as she replayed the nights events in her head, smile fading slowly before she looked at him again with something akin to horror.

“Oh Gods, what have I done?! Alioe...Rhys, I didn’t...I mean you shouldn’t. Those things I said, you felt, I didn’t...I don’t usually…” The excuses to cover her narcotic explorations faded into nothing, as she knew that it was impossible to hide the truth after everything they’d done. Everything they’d shared. Her hands covered her face in shame, shaking her head slowly.

“Clocking hell, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened last night. I just, I was here and it’s been so long. So long. I missed you terribly, and I couldn’t bare to think that I might never get the chance to see you again so I just...I don’t ever do this...with other..uh. With other men.” Beet red, Charity tried to apologise for her utterly inappropriate behaviour, hoping the tall man didn’t take her for the Vienda bicycle. Running her hands through her hair again, she crossed her arms and chewed her lip, eyes downcast with shame.

“I didn’t think I’d ever actually see you again. After everything that happened, back then, I would have thought you’d leave Vienda and never look back.” The pale galdor said softly, unwilling to look up again lest she be met with a face of judgement.

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Rhys Valentin
Posts: 262
Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2018 5:06 pm
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Race: Wick
Location: Vienda
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Fri Sep 28, 2018 9:53 am

Bacon sizzled while he waited impatiently on the kettle, ignoring the dull ache between his temples that served as a very firm reminder of the limitations he'd surpassed the evening before on too many levels. Fingers idly turning eggs over and over again in their little container, Rhys chewed the inside of his cheek and sorted through the blur of memories, attempting to decide if he should at all feel guilty for his decisions or not. He was Special Enforcement Sergeant of the clocking Seventen, by Alioe, and he'd put more ersehats in prison for opiates in the past handful of seasons than he felt he should have—

But Charity.

Something gnawed in his gut that last night wasn't a one time indulgence. It could have been the way the delicate pianist handled herself despite her intoxication, the way it all seemed comfortable enough. The young Valentine had seen it all before, if he'd been honest to himself in this moment, but at the same time, how could she possibly have made a habit of such substances while living under her Captain of a father's roof for so long?

No.

Surely it was all just happenstance.

And he'd made the choices he did. He'd even liked them. All of them. Even that little taste, filtered as it was through magical senses, had been delicious. The company had certainly helped, but, oh Gods, if that's what it was like to be high, no wonder he was so clocking busy!

The brush of her field made him smile even while his back was turned, worries washed away by the sheer thrill of her long-pined for return to his presence. He raised an arm holding a hot fork from turning bacon swiftly enough to meet her. The petite blonde's hands found his face and he leaned to kiss her as she stretched to reach his lips, closing his eyes while she lingered with a quiet hum of satisfaction caught in the cavity of his chest,

"I live here, you know." Rhys couldn't help himself, grinning into her hair as his free arm snatched her off her tiptoes in an over-indulgent embrace, "And it's too clocking early to talk metaphysics. Of course I'm real, Charity."

He laughed, releasing her with reluctance, fingers of his free hand lingering with a loose grip on his shirt that she wore again, turning to flip bacon with a hiss before he burned it all in his distraction, "Good Lady, it's definitely breakfast. I don't know about you, but I feel like sh—oh, stop."

The tall Seventen's shoulders sagged and he tilted his head to meet her violet gaze, his own blue eyes empty of apology, "First, I take responsibility for my own actions. Second, be honest with me—after all these years, we owe each other that much, don't we?" He sighed, setting things down so that both his hands could hold her face, to lift it back to look at him while he spoke with a quiet insistence, "I'm not sorry for anything. Not any of it—I made my decisions. I've missed you. I've wanted to be with you for ... well ... forever? I can pretend that I haven't thought of you at all, but that would be a lie. I just wish everything had happened sooner."

Did he care who she'd been with, if anyone at all? No. She was lovely and he'd certainly tried to forget her with distractions over the years. His tone implied that perhaps by sooner he meant he'd hoped they'd found each other again before she found opium at all, but he was admittedly ignorant that it was at all a habit and not a hobby,

"Leave Vienda? Where would I go? Back to Elmonton?" Rhys laughed, incredulous, rolling his eyes and turning to begin setting the bacon on a towel-covered plate, one at a time, "Please. I'm never going back there and you know it. Not until Theodore is dead and I'm selling the Valentin estate to whoever the hell wants it." He hadn't acknowledged his father by an affectionate name for as long as Charity had known him, having no love or respect for the man who claimed him as his son, "I'm going to become a Captain and be a clocking thorn in Damen D'arthe's side until he retires—"

Gods, he'd made so many of his decisions for her all of these years. He blinked heavily, falling quiet for a moment as he began the task of frying some eggs, hearing the kettle begin to bubble but not yet whistle. The heat of chagrin crawled its way down his spine as his adult life slowly filtered through his thoughts, the weight of revelation heavy like the mingling of their fields. He exhaled slowly through his teeth, words suddenly serious,

"I don't regret sharing any of last night with you, though I don't think I'll be telling my Captain about experiencing King's Crop, even second hand. Ever. You know—here, look—" The eggs were sizzling and the young Valentin slipped past Charity with a quick, reassuring kiss on her forehead, reaching for the paper to hand it to her. There, below the fold, was a headline about two Black Hand wicks and their Dragon's Tongue. Rhys had to squint to find it, unwilling to admit to how quickly Perceptive conversation had distorted his vision. His glasses were around somewhere, probably on the kitchen table where he left them, but he was too stubborn at the moment. He pointed,

"That's me. I did that—well, my squad did after months of hard work. I'm Special Enforcement Sergeant, Charity. Now, I can't say learning more about what I'm up against was an accident. And I can't even say it was bad—" He made sure she heard that clearly, his crystalline gaze honest, "—but I have a duty. I'm clocking good at my job."

He made a face at her then, half a grin with his tongue between his teeth, as if to assure her he wasn't about to take her in with him for questioning. He would never! But ... what did that mean? For him? For her? For the Seventen? She'd always been his secret—he'd loved her in secret in their youth, he'd longed for her in secret as an adult, and he'd keep her secrets as an officer of the law. Because he couldn't imagine anything else,

"Gods, I don't say that to threaten you. To threaten us. I'm fine. You're fine. Safe. I—we—look at us, here in my kitchen. This is ... everything." Rhys smiled as if that explained it all, baring the depths of his heart without shame. He opened his mouth to say something else but interrupted by the whistling of the kettle. He set about plating eggs and bacon, taking the kettle off to pour it into the clever little press already full of coffee grounds, desperate to find the words to express himself properly with. The conflict clawed at his insides, the awareness that he'd tasted what was forbidden and the understanding that he didn't feel guilty about it in the least.

Last night had been all he'd ever wanted, and he didn't care about the consequences then any more than he did now.

"Tell me it's a hobby, Charity." He finally begged after so much silence, knowing the answer wouldn't be what he wanted to hear, "And if it's more than that, tell me the truth. Tell me what happened."
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Charity Valentin
Posts: 129
Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2018 5:41 pm
Topics: 23
Race: Galdor
Location: Vienda
: The voices aren't real, right?
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Wed Oct 03, 2018 6:55 am

14th Roalis, 2718
RHYS’ HOME | LATER THAN EXPECTED
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The petite woman grinned, slipping into a delighted giggle as the taller Seventen lifted her briefly off her feet, arms clinging to his neck tightly and toes curling in mid air.

“It’s not early, it’s late, depending on your perspective Mister Valentin.” Charity teased, watching as he flipped the bacon and her joy turned to horror and self disgust. As she worried her lip, Rhys moved so he could catch her gaze with his piercing blue eyes, warm hands lifting her face to look at him. His words were a welcome comfort, bringing the hint of a smile to her lips.

Sooner.

The blonde almost felt the weight being the word, aware that it could have meant a handful of things, perhaps more conscious of what it really meant given their previous nights shared experiences. As the man turned away to rescue the bacon from a charcoal-y death, Charity shrugged, leaning on the bench with her hands.

“Not Elmonton. Maybe somewhere interesting and exotic, like Hesse. Or even Mugroba.” The mention of his own father drew the galdor’s eyes back to his features with a genuine sigh of empathy. Rhys’ father was, according to his stories, not a kind or caring man. A trait perhaps that drew them closer as children, sharing their paternal experiences with someone who could understand. At the mention of her own father, Charity felt a rush of fear and hatred, emanating in her field like a sudden chill wind.

“I think he’ll die before he retires.” She said softly, letting the silence settle between them heavily as the eggs turned opaque, turning to rest against the bench top with the small of her back. It was too quiet for too long, the weight of unspoken words humming tangibly in Rhys’ field, giving a preview of what he was building to say. Her eyes dropped guiltily again as he finally spoke, closing briefly as his lips brushed her forehead, before opening to review the headline on the paper.

Dragons Tongue.

Not her particular poison of choice, but one she had heard of. Her delicate fingers traced the black inked words, listening carefully in silence, heartbeat in her ears as her violet eyes met his.

”...Now, I can't say learning more about what I'm up against was an accident. And I can't even say it was bad—"

Charity smirked, a light blush touching her cheeks as memories of their evening danced across her mind.

”—but I have a duty. I'm clocking good at my job."

The blonde’s eyes widened a little, her smirk disappearing with a sudden dismayed sense of dread. Even as he smiled at her, the Captains daughter felt her stomach sink. After all they’d done, all they’d said, was Rhys going to arrest her? Gods her father would...

You’re fine. Safe.

Charity’s heart started beating again, unable to stop the smile that broke across her features to match that of the taller blonde. She moved, walking to place the paper on the table and standing the awkward stance of someone unsure what they could do to help. Rhys had more to say, she saw it. Felt it. Leaning her elbows on the bench, the young woman laced her fingers together, keeping her eyes on the clever coffee press as the Seventen finally found his voice.

Here it is.

Taking a deep breath, the musician raised an eyebrow, finding it difficult to admit in front of the man who she could still remember as a rebellious boy that had given her a taste of what a normal childhood could be like. Her field simmered slightly, frustrated that her answer would never be the one he’d like.

“It’s...it’s more than that.” She said softly, cheeks darkening with shame and some indignation. The blonde stood suddenly, running her hands through her hair and moving to the nearest window, looking through it into the street that had already started its day.

“It started not that long after my father got involved. With us. I hated that I could see you every single day, but I couldn’t ever see you. I was a mess, and Alioe I was so miserable. Every chance he got father would find some way to parade me in front of his choice of suitors, or would press his contacts to send their sons or brothers or second cousins to inspect me. I was his property, God’s I still am!” She laughed harshly, throwing her hands up in exasperation and turning to face the man.

“I started small, sneaking his brandy and whisky when he would be at work, replacing it with tea so he didn’t find out. Anything to take away some of this feeling of emptiness I couldn’t shake. I can still remember sitting on the floor of the girls bathroom, wishing I would just die I was so hung over.” Charity lifted the white shirt, rubbing the ugly scar under her ribs for emphasis before lowering it again.

“You already know about my eighteenth birthday in the Stacks. I remember a lot of alcohol, Xi kept just filling and filling my glass, and then we got separated. You know the rest of that story.” Charity said with a dismissive shrug, uncomfortable dwelling on the incident.

“Whilst in the hospital, they gave me some incredible medications to help ease the pain and I finally felt...nothing. I mean literally nothing, no pain and no thoughts. I felt numb. And it felt good.” Her gaze shifted to the paper on the table, brow drawing together.

“Once I got better, I realised I needed that. I needed to escape where I didn’t have to think, or feel. I needed the medicine, only I couldn’t have it. Not...legally. I fell in with the wrong people, to get the right drugs, and the rest is history.” She sighed, shaking her head and toying with the buttons at her wrists.

“I’ve tried a lot, with good and bad results. But the Kings Crop though, it doesn’t just make me feel nothing. It makes the smallest things seem so amazing and wonderful. It’s like I can sense on a whole different level. It’s like...it reminded me of how I felt when we were together. Eventually I forgot how it felt to be so miserable and sad, because I was always so wasted.” Charity stopped there, spreading her hands as though presenting it all on the table for him.

“It’s a habit Rhys, a way to cope with things that I don’t want to cope with. Like my father. Like missing you.”

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Rhys Valentin
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Wed Oct 24, 2018 3:07 pm

"Hesse!" Rhys chuckled, bare back turned while he rescued delicious bacon with obvious, well-practiced skill. Clearly, with a Sergeant's salary, he could live elsewhere and have help, but the young Valentin chose not to. He probably had half of his earnings shoved under the bed they'd done more than sleep in, too, "I couldn't have gone anywhere. I wouldn't. You—" He hesitated, chewing the inside of his cheek in his pause before he barreled through with honesty, "—you are here in Vienda, and so there is nowhere else I'd rather be stationed. There's nowhere else I'd rather go if you're not there, and I've never admitted that out loud. To anyone. But, yeah. Uh. There you go."

It was a bold admission, one perhaps only dampened by his purposeful lack of eye contact. The tall blond continued with his impressive breakfast making until he'd run out of things to do, refusing to comment further on Damen and his incorrigible, horrible self. His crystalline blue gaze watched her expression as she looked over the paper, as she read the headlines, and as she heard his words.

He meant them. He'd earned his position in two very grueling years, and he had absolutely no intention of losing it. Rhys also had no intention of losing Charity again after the gods had been so kind to bring them together. No clocking way.

The balance, however, seemed impossible. Especially once the delicate pianist spoke:

It's more than that.

What he'd hoped had been some misplaced opportunity for recreation was not at all innocent dabbling gone wrong the night before, but instead, something the petite blonde turned to as more than just an escape: as coping mechanism. His too-warm heart sank in his narrow chest and his expression faltered from a concerned smile to a worried frown. One hand reached idly to scratch his chest in thought, to dig a palm against his sternum as if it hurt. Maybe it did, inside. Maybe his heart ached with the weight of the words that came from lips he'd tasted so greedily the night before.

Shit.

Had the Sergeant not seen the ravages of opiate use in the lower races? Had he not investigated, flushed out, wrestled with, arrested, and cleaned up after strung out drug-pushers and their sober, pretty-sitting drug lords? More than once. He'd been shot at. He'd been stabbed. He'd had strangers die in his arms.

And here Charity D'arthe was admitting to be caught in the tight grip of an addiction he knew the twisted end of.

Rhys turned back to the eggs and said nothing, jaw clenching, mind racing. It was too long of a silence, his busy mind turning over her words and following how everything had come unraveled in all the wrong ways. Gods, he'd been a little drunk last night and he could blame everything on how clocking intoxicating it was to finally have the girl he'd loved from afar for almost a decade in his godsbedamned bed, but, no. He knew now. He understood the allure of warped sensation and the dizzying difference in how pleasurable everything had appeared—

Still, the young Valentin didn't feel regret. Fear. Worry. Concern. Yes. Regret? No. Not a single breath of it.

He picked up both plates and turned, making sure to hold Charity's violet gaze firmly, "I'm sorry. I know you're going to say that none of this is my fault, but had I been brave enough to ignore your father's nonsense years ago, maybe, just maybe, I could have stood in the middle of your choices. I can't help with him now, given he is in a position of authority over me still, but in a different context. I can, however, promise you won't have to miss me ever again."

His smile was brief, pained, full of an unspoken anxiety because he wasn't sure what to say to assuage a situation he had no idea how to bring healing to. Setting plates on the table where he spied his glasses—thank the Lady—and stepping toward the delicate pianist again, his still-warm hands reached for her face one more time,

"Listen, I'm not going to judge your choices. Shit happens. I can't—I've seen so much of the underside of our glorious Kingdom that what's happened to you, what's happened between us, isn't anything to feel bad about. But, it's fixable, you know. If you want to fix it, that is."

That wasn't a guarantee, and even Rhys knew that. He swallowed more words and stood there without judgment so much as a heartfelt and well-kept steadfastness as if he'd saved all of his hopes for her for all this time, bright like a spell cast in the dark.
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Charity Valentin
Posts: 129
Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2018 5:41 pm
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Race: Galdor
Location: Vienda
: The voices aren't real, right?
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Wed Oct 24, 2018 6:59 pm

14th Roalis, 2718
RHYS’ HOME | LATER THAN EXPECTED
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The Captains daughter allowed his crystalline eyes to capture hers, brow drawn into a frown of self-loathing and doubt, platinum strands falling across her face with a small shake of her head and a sound of disagreement. He was right, she would absolutely say none of this was his fault. More than that.

“Rhys, if you’d tried he’d just have…he makes people disappear. He made Mathias disappear after the testing. He drove my mother to take her own clocking life. You couldn’t have made a difference then, and you can’t make a difference now.” She blinked back tears, voice thick with sudden almost overwhelming grief and a sense of entrapment. The taller blonde knew her father, knew of him too, but to speak so openly about her brothers disappearance and her mothers suicide was raw. Painfully so. She didn’t speak with Xi about those things, and without Rhys there wasn’t anyone to confide in.

Tocks. This wasn’t the time for breaking down.

Taking a breath, she offered him a quick smile in return, leaning into the brush of warm hands on her face. It was so surreal, being in the Seventen’s home after the evenings intoxicated events. His face, older and wiser now, was still that same smirking cheeky boy that she knew and it gave her a thrill of joy that trilled through her field. His own embraced her, a familiarity that she’d never felt with anyone else, a homecoming in some ways.

“I would never have forgiven myself if something happened to you on my part, Valentin.” Charity said softly, searching his face as their breakfast cooled on the table, momentarily forgotten. His words struck a chord, and for a second the blonde laughed. A short, sharp sound.

“Fixable. I’m not fixable Rhys. I’m a walking disaster. I’m just dancing around my fathers desires, until he finds someone that meets his needs for my future. Marriage, money, legacy. What could you possibly…” Her brow drew together again, swallowing the lump forming in her throat and bringing her small hands to rest on his wrists.

“How can I be fixed, when you know this can’t happen?” There. She’d said it. The elephant in the room.

“No matter how much I missed you, no matter how clocking much I am pinching myself standing here in Rhys Valentin’s kitchen after sleeping in Rhys Valentin’s bed, no matter how desperately I don’t want to ever leave I know that I can’t stay in this fantasy. He’ll never let this happen, and if he finds out…” The panic stirred in her field like vicious claws, curling and digging cruelly, fangs snapping at her heels. Charity squeezed his wrists, pressing his hands firmer to her face as if she could imprint his touch into her skin.

“I want to fix it. I don’t like who I am. Who I’ve become. I hate myself, I hate my life.” Taking a shuddering breath she growled through clenched teeth, field flaring brightly.

“I hate him. I hate him Rhys. I’m scared of what he could do, and I clocking hate it.” The pianist admitted with an anguished break in her voice, turning her head to press a kiss to his wrist and laughing again, violet eyes on the verge of tears.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m not the teenager you remember. She’s locked up somewhere distant, so far away I’m not sure I can even find her anymore. I’m trouble Rhys, and you know it. I can’t even get through breakfast without making a scene.” She laughed again, fighting the ache in her chest and the burning in her throat, refusing to sob like the useless mess she had been last night. Like she would probably be tonight.

Gods, she didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to end this just because of Damen.

“I want to fix us.” Charity said clearly, her face sincere and her lips still holding a slight smile. It would be an impossible dream, but at least Rhys would know the truth of it all. At least he would know that whatever they’d had, the love she so painfully knew she’d harboured for him still burned like embers in the fireplace. Even if she didn’t say it out loud, not with so many years between then and now, Charity knew it was still there.

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Rhys Valentin
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Fri Oct 26, 2018 3:13 pm

"I'm not afraid of him anymore, Charity. I'm a clocking Sergeant and my Captain, Captain Haines, would notice if I went missing. Your father can't do shit to me with my rank without someone paying attention." Rhys growled with vehemence but not with entire certainty, a waver of doubt in his words despite how much bravado filled them. His face twisted in to a scowl, but it was obvious he cared little for how threatening the man was anymore. He'd worked his clocking erse off to get where he stood now, to earn every one of his four snaps, and he'd be damned if he was going to let someone as clocking strange in the head as Captain Damen D'Arthe get in the way of anything else he wanted any more. How the man was still a Captain was beyond his comprehension, and Rhys was more than just a little suspicious that Damen was under Judge Arazmus' wing and was being groomed for the Oculus.

Bastards. Dirty. All of them. He could taste it some days. Smell it. The Perceptive mona that weighed down his field shifted and seethed with his suspicions even as it mingled with the delicate pianist's in their comfortable familiarity that had been rekindled by passion and intimacy.

One day, the young Valentin longed to clean out the Seventen of trash.

He knew where he was going to start, too.

Oh, Gods. He shook his head, clearing his mind and attempting to focus on her words, his breath hitching before he could make a response properly,

"Nothing that would happen to me would ever just be your fault, Charity. I'm a grown man capable of making my own decisions now, not some boy to be kicked around. And you know what—" He offered in a much less angry tone, voice softening while he held her face. Gods, how could he have held onto everything for all of these years like that time didn't matter? She laughed at him but it wasn't because he told a joke. Her fingers curled against his wrists and she doubted him. Worse than that, she clearly doubted herself.

"—wait. Why? No. I don't—this clocking too can happen. Why can't it? Here we are after all these years and you just want to go home and forget last night? Forget us again. Fuck that. No. You can just tell that ersehat you call a father no. If you can't, I will. And, godsdamnnit, everything is fixable." Rhys had to believe that. He lived by it. Seeing the writhing underbelly of Vienda, of the Kingdom of Anaxas, the blond Seventen kept himself sane by believing somehow, someway, "Even you."

The tall blond's expression was pained and confused, his hands slipping from her face to her shoulders, from her shoulders to twist in her grip and snatch up her hands that had been on his wrists while she spoke with fear and worry, while panic filled their mingled fields. Anger pooled hotly in the cavity of his chest like a magma spell, roiling with years of forgotten frustrations. Everything he'd put aside! Everything he'd told himself so diligently to forget about!

Undone.

By the only woman who could do it, too. Charity D'Arthe.

His shoulders sagged and he stood in confused silence for several agonizing moments, no longer hungry, no longer concerned about coffee. Here in his house was the petite musician of his younger desires, and yet she was different. This was not at all what he'd imagined she'd become—these were not the choices he'd fantasized her making when he was alone and attempting to pretend he did not miss her.

"There's nothing to fix between us if you don't believe it possible."

He couldn't help it, he really couldn't. Petulant honesty slipped from his lips, a deflated collection of syllables that revealed the heights of his hopes and the depths of his immediate despair all in the same moment. Rhys steeled himself not to cry, field tightening, jaw clenching, and yet the stinging, hot burn of tears rimmed his crystalline blue gaze, "Charity, we were never broken. Look at us, here, right now, together as if time doesn't really matter. Last night—" he huffed those words breathlessly, warmth clawing through his veins at the memory of their bodies together, and he was forced to blink tears down his cheeks, "—godsdamnit. I'm not letting him or anyone else—clock it, anything else—get in the way of us. Again. Ever."

He meant Damen.

He meant her addiction.

He meant the clocking Circle gods themselves.

He'd clawed his way so high, so fast, leaving in his wake accolades and praises, success and surprise. He'd had only one direction, one goal, and while he'd denied that truth for years, masking it with other excuses and disingenuous humility, Rhys stood before the delicate, damaged creature that had been his only desire for so much of his life, and he meant every damn word,

"This is do-able. You are fix-able. But only if you want it all to be."

Madness. All of it. But there was nothing else if she walked out of his door and out of his life for good. Again.
Last edited by Rhys Valentin on Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Charity Valentin
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: The voices aren't real, right?
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Sat Oct 27, 2018 5:32 pm

14th Roalis, 2718
RHYS’ HOME | LATER THAN EXPECTED
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The Seventens almost angry tone caused the blonde to flinch slightly, her field drawing back from him with years of instinct kicking in. He wasn’t angry with her, she knew that. She did. But her mind and body couldn’t help the anxious twist in her gut, or the fearful preparation of something more than just words.

“I…I know you’re not a boy Rhys, but he—“ She swallowed her excuses, listening as he spoke a little less vehemently, closing her eyes with a frown against his almost desperate words. Why can’t it? Her eyes opened wide again and she shook her head.

“No it’s not…it’s not like that. I don’t want to go Rhys, I can’t. I can’t tell him that...” The young woman saw the hurt and confusion in his eyes, his hands capturing hers as though he could make the mess go away simply by keeping her there in his home.

”There’s nothing to fix between us if you don’t believe it’s possible.”

A choked sob came from the pianist, panic bursting through her field like a white hot flare, knowing in that second – in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to stay. She didn’t want to lose him again, not again! Words failed her, shaking her head uselessly as Rhys tearfully pressed on, torn between lost love and genuine fear. She should just tell him, just tell him exactly what Damen did behind closed doors to keep his daughter so firmly under his thumb. Just exactly what he’d done to force Charity to end it with the Valentin.

But she was ashamed. Afraid. She’d always told Rhys everything, always, except for that. Afraid of what he might say, how he might look at her. Not with adoration or warmth, but with pity and shame. Her father brought not only his fists to bare on the woman, but his shame to the D’arthe family name. Pity stared back at her from the eyes of the house staff. The petite pale creature didn’t need to see it from him.

Tearing her hands from his own, Charity threw herself against the warmth of the taller galdor, wrapping her arms tightly around his torso and pressing her body closely against his. Her violet eyes squeezed shut and for what felt like forever even to herself, the blonde just held him. Her field melded into his own, curling around them both like a cocoon from the world beyond his front door.

“Us. I want it all Rhys Valentin. I want to, I do. I really do. I’ll do anything, anything you want me to. Just don’t…don’t let me go.” Charity breathed against the bare warmth of his chest, needfully greedy for the us they’d lost for so long, desperate to be the girl he remembered.

“I can’t promise to be perfect, or even sane everyday, but I want to try. I can’t imagine leaving again, not again.” The self-confessed addict drew back, reluctantly withdrawing her arms from his body to wipe her hands across his cheeks, angry at herself for hurting him already. Already she was hurting the one person that made her life better. She knew she’d hurt him again, the Kings Crop wouldn’t just go overnight. As much as she wanted to, the cold grip of the drugs would call to her.

“I’m sorry Rhys. I’m sorry for bringing all this mess on your head. I never wanted to hurt you then, or now, or ever. Fix it, help me fix it please. This. Us. Me. Please.” Her hands pulled him closer, standing on her toes to hug him tightly, pressing kisses to his cheek and lips, before drawing back to look the blonde Seventen firmly in the eye.

“I believe in us Rhys. I’ll try, I’ll try.” Nodding firmly, she offered him a small hopeful smile, before glancing at the prepared table.

“We should probably eat that. A waste of bacon and coffee is just…well it’s a crime in itself.” The short musician said seriously, hoping to diffuse some of the intensity her melt down had brought. She didn’t know how they’d make this work, or how long it would work for, but the Circle be damned Charity wanted to try. For him. For herself.

For them.

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Rhys Valentin
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Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:49 pm

He was well aware of what kind of galdor Damen D'Arthe was, what kind of clocking ugly example of a man in power he'd become over the years, wearing his six snaps like he'd earned them respectably. Rhys knew otherwise, and the whispers of Judge Arazmus' Oculus always seemed to him to bear the Co-Captain's name on more than one occasion. None of it sat well with him, just like the quiet, weighty fear of Charity's objections didn't sit well with him either. He wasn't ignorant. He was too smart for his own good and he knew there had been so much unspoken between them. Too much.

This just meant all of his own fears had been right all along.

"Godsdamnit." He growled breathlessly even as the petite blonde's arms wrapped around his bare skin, stealing his will to inhale another lungful of air. She pressed herself against his narrow frame as if she longed to disappear and for a heartbeat his hands hung helplessly in the air while sunlight trickled through the small window of his meager kitchen, scents of bacon and coffee filling his senses while he was quite sure saline stung the edges of his vision. Self-loathing was a chill in his veins, an awareness that he could have stepped into this situation years ago but didn't.

Coward. He was just a clocking ersehat like everyone else.

Slowly, his arms wrapped around Charity's familiar, comfortable, delicate form and he held her back, staring down at her pressed so tightly against his skin, pretending that the mingling of their fields was more familiar than it was laden with memories and things too long left unsaid. Her words hurt, the soft exhale of sound sharp like a knife digging between his ribs, "I don't know what I want, Charity. It's been so long, I've just—I thought I knew, but—you. Us. I don't even know what that means anymore, and yet I feel like I could remember if I bothered to try." He breathed back at her, his brief hopeful expression crumbling at her apologies,

"Stop. No. You didn't bring anything I haven't wanted—" Rhys' voice wavered, the admission a hard one, aware that he'd messed around and made a go of things with a few relationships in her absence, but all of his sorry-ersed attempts had ended poorly. Messily. It was always his fault, for he knew the longing no other woman could fulfill.

He wasn't sure the woman he wanted could fulfill his longing anymore either.

And the young Valentin hated himself for the very thought.

"I don't know where to begin with fixing anything. You. Us. Anything. But I believe in us, too. After all this time. I just. We'll figure it out. Together. Really together, though." The tall blond almost whined, as if he was begging. Gods, if she disappeared again, he was sure whatever was broken would be irreparable. He would be irreparable. She was kissing him and attempting to remind him of breakfast and he sighed, hands wandering as he offered her a small smile in return.

Did she mean it all? Did she? Was it possible? Really?

Gods, he'd poured his whole existence into the Seventen, he'd given way too much of himself to climb the ladder—the right way, mostly—just to wear his four snaps like a brand, a torch burning in the dark. He'd just wanted her to see. At the same time, he'd wanted her father to see, too. Not that it mattered. Did any of it matter?

He wasn't hungry. Not for food. Part of him was terrified this was all he'd ever see of Charity D'Arthe again. Part of him was terrified of seeing her more. His heart couldn't decide which was worse, the ache in his chest sharp. His hands moved to scoop the petite creature up again, her diminutive form nothing in his arms, "Are you going to arrest me over breakfast? It's nothing that isn't salvageable. Later. If I'm going to be late for work, I think I want to be really late."
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