Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Printable Version

Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Printable Version

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RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-30-2019

Gareth tried petting her hair again, more tentative this time. "You don't have to worry about trying to spare my feelings," he assured her. "Being tortured is significantly more traumatic than… being complicit." Participating. He swallowed back the taste of bile. "I don't want you worrying about my reaction before you say what's on your mind."

He stroked his thumb over her cheek. "I love you," he said with a soft smile. "I'm so happy you're going to stay. That we can try to… figure this out."

"I'm going to make it right," he promised. "Things are going to be different. Better. You're going to be happy."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-30-2019

She couldn't really say he was wrong about which was worse, but felt like maybe he was missing the point of "both, both are bad." Which sort of brought them back to the core issue she wanted to talk about, but the sight of him being so cute ricocheted it briefly out of her mind.

She was bright red and there was a countdown timer on her ability to maintain any eye contact whatsoever. But that was fine because he loved her and he was happy and they were going to make it work.

God, if Avi picked now to walk in, she was going to just die.

Her mouth opened, then closed, and then opened again before she gave up and replied with a searing kiss instead, his injury briefly forgotten as she ran her fingers through his hair and then over his horn, tracing her nails over it and wishing she could yank. She hadn't forgotten his injury THAT much, however.

She was panting a little when she finally stopped, and it was with supremest regret that, flushed red and still breathing a little heavy, she said, "Well, then, now that th' fun part's over, we gotta talk about Avi an' yer avoidance tendencies."

She'd likely nearly broken his neck with that whiplash, but she pressed on while he was still too disoriented to protest. "Y'never told him I di... almost died th' first time. That was almost three months ago, Gareth," she said, trying to keep her voice gentle. It did not come naturally to her. "I know why, but. He knows about it now, and he's gonna wanna know why you never told him, and why I panicked and lied terribly about it. I don't like tryna lie to him, Gareth, or to anyone. You know I'm shit at it. You should talk to him before he figures it all out on his own."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-30-2019

Gareth made another happy sound as she kissed him, leaning into her and sliding his hand through her hair while she did the same. Her fingers teased one of his horns.

One of these days he was going to have to let her know that she could just tell him if she wanted to get railed, instead of nearly tweaking his neck all the goddamn time.

Then she threw a metaphorical bucket of cold water over the proceedings.

"He knows," he repeated. "I… I was going to tell him. I just. He's been busy. The next time he summoned me, I… I would have."

He'd meant to tell him. He really had. He'd had every intention of properly reporting the incident. But he would have had to think of an explanation of how it had happened, and every time he'd tried, it had rung too obviously false. Then he'd thought it might be better to wait until she'd fully recovered, anyway, so that he could elide over it as an incident in the past that no one needed to worry about too much. Except it had seemed like she never really recovered, and by the time they'd gotten a month out it felt like it had been too long. He would have had to explain what had happened, and explain the delay. It would have taken all day, probably. They had other things to do, other projects to work on. It wasn't as if the King fussed himself over every little near-death incident in the King's Guard. He'd get around to it eventually.

It hadn't seemed like it had been that long.

"You don't have to lie for me," he said. "I'm going to—why did you think I didn't tell him?"

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-30-2019

"Oh, he knows now, because I didn't know not to spill th' beans," Ren said dryly. "There I am, explainin' the first time I've died an' gone to shitty heaven an' he's like 'pardon me what.' Really threw me for a loop. Which is proly at least part of why I wound up jus' panicking and eluding to all th' times Colin left rat poison out. In, say, a sandwich. Honestly if I'd known Cara back then, I coulda jus' mentioned it to her, an' he would have been dead before it ever became an issue." This, she mostly said in an attempt to lighten the mood, which was going to get heavier as they went.

"I do have to lie for you," Ren pointed out, again aiming for gentle. "When y'put me in a position where I know somethin' you don't want th' King to know. I had to do th' same thing around yer little trip to the netherverse, an' I doubt he missed that I was bein' vague." She sighed, her hand still playing through his hair, hoping that was enough to convey that she wasn't mad, just disappointed. Actually she wasn't disappointed either, she mostly just had a terrible headache. Better now that he was here, though.

"Because it was yer room. Yer hidden compartment, yer books of arcana, yer journal, yer poison," she said, quietly enough that there was no chance of an eavesdropper overhearing. The whole castle didn't need to know his business. "I'm not an' idiot. The fuckin' pillows had the same embroidery pattern, an' there was a ''''''sleep spell'''''," this she surrounded with enough auditory quotation marks to fill a bucket, "carved under th' bed. Th' King mentioned it was yer room today, too. I had always thought he jus' shoved me in a random fuckin' room to be a cruel dick, but it makes a lot more sense now."

Which reminded her, that there were secrets of the King's that she was keeping from Gareth too. She narrowed her eyes slightly to think of it from that angle. They were... not that she was one to judge, but perhaps they were just very bad at this honesty thing. Maybe she could be forgiven for being garbage at it, when both of them were too.

"Y'don't want him to know about yer... soul jaunts, whatever y'wanna call them, which you clearly do with some regularity an' look, I'm not judgin' you fer that, we all... cope." She'd spent the last, like, five months in fantasy more often than reality. She could throw no stones from her glass house, and her torment had only lasted a year. "So y'probably don't want him t'know that you had incredibly deadly poison hidden in yer bedroom, cause he's gonna wanna know why, an' yer scared th' whole thing will come out." She laced her fingers through his. "I know th' feelin'. Maybe it should. He's gonna wanna know, an' y'can't jus'... If he finds out th' two of us have secrets from him like that, don't y'think it'll..." She waved her hands vaguely, searching for a word she didn't have. "Hurt his feelin's?" she estimated.

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 12-30-2019

"There are a lot of people you could have mentioned it to and had him killed," he said. Least of all himself. Hiding rat poison in her fucking food. He'd kill him now if he weren't already dead. "Cara does take food tampering very seriously."

"I meant—in the future. You don't. Don't feel obligated. Just because I'm a fuckup. You don't have to protect me." It wasn't fair to put her in that position. If he were more observant and less obvious about his own bullshit, maybe this all could have been avoided.

He swallowed again. "Oh." He'd… somehow hoped she hadn't noticed that. Had he left pillows? He must have. And of course she'd go looking under the bed, prodding at all the detritus he'd left behind. None of it mattered if the King had told her, but there was always the optimistic hope that she wouldn't have put two-and-two together on the moonshine.

"I don't do that anymore," he protested. "Usually. I haven't done it in a long time. It isn't deadly to me. It's… slightly more poisonous than regular moonshine." That was a bit of a stretch, but whatever. "That's all over a decade ago. It's… I'd put it behind me. None of it would be relevant now if it weren't for extraordinary circumstances. We shouldn't have to worry about it again, not ever."

He squeezed her hand. "He's a dragon," he reminded her gently. "He's 694 years old. He's been King for thirteen years. That's like a couple of months. This is a whim he had to get the attention of someone who's actually probably dead, because he can't keep track of how long people are alive for. You can't assume he cares about the same things in the same way that humans do."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-30-2019

"Yer not a fuckup," Ren said firmly. Least of all because she'd fucked up significantly more dramatically with much more far-reaching consequences. What if she hadn't had the thought to come back here, and something'd happened to Cara? Or she hadn't thought to go to Gareth's? There were too many near misses all because, like he said, she mentioned it to zero of the many people who could have fixed it. "Y'wanted some privacy on th' matter of a really, really bad time in yer life. I get it. Believe me, I get it. But I think..."

She sat back, rubbing at her head, and sighed. "I'm really th' last person to give advice on this, but I jus' think it'd be better if y'talked about yer... stuff." Obvious severe trauma. "T' someone. An' the cat's already outta th' bag with this stuff an' the King, I think."

"You coulda died, Gareth," she whined. "Y'did, a little. I jus'... want y' to take yer health a bit more seriously, an' talk about yer problems, an'--fuck, I jus' realized how hypocritical I must sound," she interrupted herself with a snort. "You musta thought I was a workaholic this whole time when I was really jus' tryin' t' get outta my room." She sighed, squeezing his hand back. "I'll do better if you will," she suggested.

"He is a dragon," she agreed, nodding. She'd thought he was way older than seven hundred, though, to be honest. The way he talked, she'd just sort of assumed he'd been alive for millennia. "An' I barely understand anythin' he does. But I know what I'm talkin' about here. I know what carin' about you looks like. It's like lookin' in a fuckin' mirror with him. He might not care th' same way, but he does care. He's worried sick about you, an' he hasn't come in yet fer worryin' reasons, actually, I should send someone to check on him. I thought he'd be right behind me." She sent Timothy, because it was easier and she didn't have to keep her focus on him.

She remembered, with a sigh. Gareth had asked the King to leave. He hadn't asked him to come back. He probably wouldn't, without prodding.

These two were idiots. She'd settled on it.

"When yer ready to talk to him," she decided. "About whatever, I'm not gonna force y' to have a heart t' heart, I jus' think it's a good idea... I'll have Timothy bring him. At th' very least y'need t'give th' poor man a kiss or somethin'. Frankly, I think I should too." Had she thanked him yet? She probably hadn't, knowing her. "Maybe he can send someone t'get my bird, too." She'd need something to do while Gareth was healing. She had every intention to set up here in the hospital wing and not leave until Gareth was back on his feet. In case he needed... emergency affection.

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 01-01-2020

"I never confused you for a workaholic," he corrected. "I sort of thought you were making excuses to spend time with me, actually." He could only manage a flicker of a wan smile. "Not really the same thing." Now it felt like gross vanity. He'd thought it was sweet.

Fuck.

"Maybe reserve judgment until you've seen him with other people," Gareth suggested. She didn't really have a baseline for What The King Is Like; she'd only ever seen him with Gareth. Obviously Gareth would seem important when he was the one who was there. "We're more likely to offend him than hurt his feelings."

"The poor man," he repeated with a snort. "The poor King. Listen to you go, you little monarch-apologist." He patted her hand. "Sorry. I shouldn't tease." He'd save that for later, when she was trying to have an argument about something and she was mad at him anyway.

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 01-01-2020

"Oh," Ren said, then blushed a bit more to think of it. That wasn't... totally inaccurate, actually, but she was considering reservations on her honesty plan. Surely she didn't need to tell him every little embarrassing thing that crossed her mind. She'd never be able to cope. "Well. I mean. K. Kinda?" It was hard to define where 'want to be with Gareth' ended and 'want to be with any other living person' began. She didn't want to make him think she hadn't enjoyed his company, or was just with him out of desperation. Even if... that had... one hundred percent, definitely been the case early on.

She just didn't want him to get a complex about it. She didn't want to have been forcibly involved in traumatizing him any more than he wanted to have been forcibly involved in traumatizing her. The whole thing was unfair and whenever she got mad about it she just imagined Colin's dumb face when the King bit his head off.

She had seen the King with other people. She'd seen him with an entire fair's worth of other people. He was a flirt and he... okay, yes, he was a slut, but that didn't preclude him from genuinely caring about someone, and she thought it was pretty hypocritical of Gareth to act like it did. He had like a million girlfriends! She flushed with indignation at the accusation, though.

"Don't say shit like that when I can't punch you!" she huffed, crossing her arms as if to head off the instinct. "He saved yer life, an' I saved it twice, so I think we both deserve kisses an' gratitude. Yer jus' bein' a brat because you don't wanna talk to him! 'Oh, I'm Gareth, I'm great talkin' about emotions, but if you make me talk about my problems I will try to run away with a hole in my chest.' Well, fine! Maybe I wanna talk to him. I'm not afraid of offendin' him; I do that shit on accident all th' time. If I was scared of offendin' people I'd never be able to open my damn mouth." Even her accent had been called offensive, frankly.

"Maybe I'll call him here an' I'll thank him for you!" she pouted, visibly sulking. "We wouldn't even have t' tie you to a bedpost first."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 01-02-2020

Her indignation immediately set Gareth to laughing. "I never said I wasn't grateful," he pointed out when he'd recovered. "But, please. Call the King in here so I can watch you tell him you don't think we've been grateful enough for his benevolent presence. Maybe we can write it down for posterity—will you be addressing him with his full title, or just Your Majesty?"

"Just so we can be clear," he added, "are you now threatening to cuckold me while I'm recovering from a near-fatal wound to prove a point about how you serve the King better than I do? And how I should be grateful?"

She was just... so bad at this.

"Stop worrying. I'll worry for the both of us once I'm feeling better. Stay here for a minute, and just... be with me."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 01-02-2020

Gareth's laughing, predictably, did nothing for her indignation. Well, nothing good; it was a lot like pouring kerosene on a fire. She was remembering, very quickly, that she'd been mad at him earlier. She was remembering, suddenly, every detail of the rough position he'd put her in with the King, and remembering just how upsetting it was that her almost dying hadn't even been important enough to mention.

"This ain't about 'the King'," Ren snapped. "It's about Avi! You scared him! You scared me! You scared all of us an' you refuse to take it seriously an' I don't even fuckin' understand why! D'you think yer immortal or d'you jus' not think anyone should care if you, if--" Her eyes were burning again now, but she absolutely refused to cry. She had cried too much in the last two days, and too much in the last two months, and she was done giving everyone the satisfaction.

"You worry about all th' wrong things," she accused him. "You'll worry about me when y'don't even know that's wrong; you'll worry about how to keep yer secrets, even if it means avoiding th' King for another two months! An' either I'll be stuck in th' same hellish in-between position you stuck me in now, or he won't even see me because he'll be too busy sulkin' about you!"

She moved away, just a little, to lean against the wall. She was exhausted and her head hurt and she'd had a horrible day and she wasn't one-hundred percent sure she'd fully recovered from killing herself and she definitely hadn't recovered from trying to manage feedback from about twenty rats at once at the same time. Her mouth still tasted like copper. But she didn't trust Gareth not to spontaneously drop dead if she stormed off.

"If you weren't hurt," she fumed at him. "I would. At least he was talkin' through th' situation with me. He didn't make fun of me. He apologized."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 01-02-2020

"Hey," he said gently, reaching for her with the hand closest. "I was only teasing. It's over, now. I'm going to be fine. I'm sorry—this has been going on for a lot longer, for you. For me it was just sort of. A bad day. I forgot, I shouldn't have done that."

"I'll talk to him," he insisted. "I told you, I'll talk to him. I just said, you don't have to do that again."

"I..." He felt the beginnings of frustration. "If you would like to keep talking with Avi, you're free to go looking for him. I will be here, trying to rest, while this rock keeps me from getting necrosis or whatever it is this rock is doing." He was well aware that the enchanted quartz was relieving his pain while staving off infection and encouraging tissue growth. But that wasn't necessarily relevant to the conversation. "But if you want to stay and talk to me, I'd like that. I always like talking with you. You know that."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 01-02-2020

She was still mad, she was pretty sure, but she reached out to grab his hand almost without thinking. He was warm, and she felt better.

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry I yelled, it's jus'." She wiped at her eyes, which didn't help the burning. "It's been such a shitty couple o' days. First I was sure I was gonna die, then I was sure you were gonna die, an' then I was sure I was gonna die again. I jus'..." She just wanted every misunderstanding cleared up and every secret and lie out in the open. But that couldn't be done instantly. Not with this many secrets and that many lies. Gareth was still hurt. It could wait. It would wait. She scooted closer, close enough that she could rest her head on his shoulder. God. Her head really hurt, actually. If she could just--

Oh. Right. She was literally in the hospital wing, and she'd just died. She didn't really like medicine, but she couldn't yell at Gareth for not taking care of himself and then do the exact same thing. Also. Her head. Really. Hurt. "Hey, doc?" she called out, loud enough that she hoped he could hear her from wherever he was trying not to eavesdrop from.

"Necrosis?!" she squeaked. "Yer not actually in danger of that, are you?" Oh god! It was worse than she thought!

Despite her alarm, she flushed slightly. "I didn't, actually. Know that. I mighta... suspected, but." Until he'd spontaneously confessed his love for her in his dumb perfect cabin, she'd actually had no fucking idea. She was his job, and if he liked having sex with her, well, he liked having sex with a lot of people. If he hadn't mentioned it, she probably would have gone right on assuming she didn't have a chance in hell--pun mildly intended.

She wondered, dully, if it was as obvious from the outside as Gareth and Avi's whole thing seemed to her. Maybe everyone was always just really stupid about emotions when it came to themselves. That seemed plausible.

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 01-02-2020

"It's okay," Gareth assured her. "I understand. Obviously I can't totally understand, but I get it. Shitty is an understatement. You've been doing really well, under the circumstances."

He almost laughed, but stopped himself rather than risk upsetting her again. "I would have thought all these times I asked you to talk to me would have given me away."

Dr. Karek poked his head inside the room. When he was satisfied that nothing untoward was going on, he entered, fixing his coat.

"Probably not," Karek said, though he hadn't been the one asked. "Sepsis, maybe." He gestured at Gareth's chest. "He's got third-degree burns running right through his chest. It's pretty fucked up."

"It's his official diagnosis," Gareth said dryly.

"I put it on his chart," Karek agreed. The clipboard had fucked up scrawled on it. "I've never seen that much pus come out of a person. We had to put a towel under him. That's not usually why we have to put towels under people."

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - SolitareLee - 01-02-2020

She didn't know that she had been doing well, under the circumstances, but she also wasn't sure anyone else had ever had the exact circumstances they were having to deal with before, ever, so his judgement on the matter was as good as anyone's.

"I thought it was, y'know," she muttered, flushing more. "A managerial technique. Or jus'... a reaction to th' other thing I do bein' mostly yellin', explosions, or rats." Rats were a verb when she was around.

"My official diagnosis is that I'm gonna be sick," Ren decided, and did look more than a little nauseous. "Although I guess given th' condition I found him in, anythin's a step up. I hope my initial 'treatment', if y'can even call it that, didn't fuck him up any worse. Is he gonna be okay? How long d'you think he's gonna be out for? Is this thing," she pointed at the crystal, "th' best we can do fer him?"

She paused, remembering why she'd called the doctor in. "Oh, also, I drank an excess of nightshade yesterday, puked it up, hiked through th' end of a blizzard in not enough clothin', an' I'm probably insanely malnourished. More immediately, I overexerted myself an' my head hurts like crazy; d'you got anythin' fer headaches or migraines?"

RE: Beg Forgiveness [Closed] - Tindome - 01-03-2020

"It can be both," Gareth said.

"Nah, you did fine," Karek said. "Since he's not already dead, he can't have severed anything important. Dunno how that works, going to have to assume magic. He should be fine as long as it doesn't get infected, but that's what the big boy's for." He gestured to the crystal. "And he needs plenty of fluids. Drink more water."

Gareth obligingly tilted his head so he could take a sip from the bottle on his bedside table.

"He should be better in a few weeks. Instantaneous healing spells are never the best option if you can avoid them, but obviously with his history we're going to stick with slow and steady."

Gareth didn't acknowledge the statement.

The doctor squinted at her. "Hm." He pulled a small crystal torch out of his pocket. "Keep your eyes on the tip of my nose," he said, lighting the crystal and moving it slowly through and along the edges of her vision. Apparently satisfied, he put it away, then reached behind her ear and produced a ginger lollipop wrapped in paper. "Try this," he suggested. The candy would probably help her blood sugar, and the ginger would settle her stomach. Once she had it in her mouth, it would also be just distracting enough for him to stick a paper sticker to the middle of her forehead. He licked his thumb, and pressed it more firmly against her skin.

The feeling was unsettling. The lollipop was convenient for biting. The sleight-of-hand was just for funsies.

"See if that helps," he said. It should. He wandered over to the table in the corner, shelves of herbs and various bits of glassware and small metal tools. He lit a burner beneath a round-bottomed flask full of water.

"Cute," Gareth said, tapping his forehead.