There is a long, awkward pause.
"I like when you're sad." Stupid. That was a stupid thing to say.
"Not- I mean, I don't like you being sad. I hate when you're sad. I'd give anything to make you happy-" He's just about proven that, hasn't he? "-I just meant... when you fall into me. When you're upset and then I make you happy again. It makes me feel like I'm the only one who can do that. The only one with that ability. I like saving you."
"When I'm falling I know you'll always be there to pick me up. I wish I was your heroine, sunshine."
She tangles her fingers in his hair and kisses his cheek sweetly. But there's a note of melancholy in her voice. A faint sadness that doesn't color one particular word or phrase. "I think I might be falling soon. Everyday I wake up worried I won't get to call you mine anymore. I know you said you aren't leaving but everyone leaves. They all leave because I ruin them and I'm scared I'm doing it to you too."
Rather than look at his eyes she stabs, a little viciously, a strawberry on one of the few clean skewers and dips it into the chocolate. "I'd rather erase the common factor in the problem than have that."
"And what is the common factor?" There's a challenging tone in his voice. He thinks he knows where she's going with this, but his voice heavily implies that it better not be heading there.
"Me." She offers the chocolate-kissed strawberry to her lover with downcast eyes.
"That's bullshit and you know it. Sangrey ruined himself, and he's not even actually gone!" A bit of his temper escapes then and he near-violently knocks the offered food away. Probably with enough force to knock the entire skewer from her hand.
"And your mother? She made her decision and she did the best she could to STAY with you, not to leave. Who else? Who else has left you that you would think it even POSSIBLE that you are somehow responsible?!"
"Jeffrey was made into what he was because he ‘took’ me from Mama. She hurried along the process which Georgie and I could have caught. Reversed. I'm not mad that it happened because I have you and I love you. Honest and true I love you so much it makes my heart feel near to bursting sometimes.
“And mama...mama killed my daddy because of me.Probably became Defias too because of me. Lian died because of me. And Jeffrey tried to die because of me. And you seem miserable most days because of me, Raoul.
“I just want everyone to be happy but I only hurt them. Somewhere in that desire there's a flaw." Amber eyes are on the cast off fruit now, the skewer and mushed strawberry lying abandoned on the marble floor of the pavilion.
"What is wrong with you?" His hands go up from where they had started to rest on her hips. They go to her shoulders then. "The people around you fought each other, killed each other, for you. You think people are leaving you because they don't want you? Everyone that ever seemed to matter to you has given up their life for you and you have the nerve to tell me you're something BAD? Something UNDESIRABLE?
“Have you forgotten who you're talking to? Maybe you forgot who I am or where I've been. Don't lie to my fucking face. Don't fucking lie to yourself."
He lets her go and leans away, glaring with a scalding look he's never shown her before. It's a very sudden switch from the cuddling and cooing they had minutes before, but her words have completely cut through his armor now to strike a very deep nerve.
Rarely is she scolded and never really by him. These are her feelings and she thought he'd appreciate hearing them. With as much dignity as she can muster she tries to slip from his lap, talking and sniffling the whole while.
"I haven't forgotten. I don't want to be like her. I don't want to break you like she did and I'm afraid I'm tearing you apart." Hands are tossed in the air and she curses quietly. "I'm not worth that. I'm just...I'm just, fuck it. Never mind. I thought I could be real and honest with you. I'm sorry." The last two words are barely spit out, a harsher tone than she usually takes.
"I'm not even talking about Valerie? What is your problem? You act like she's the defining... WHATEVER fucking thing of my life!" Raoul stands up, supporting his palms on the table as he does so. They're fighting like hissing cats now, and boy does this tom cat sputter.
"You can't be real and honest with ME if you're not being real and honest with your FUCKING SELF, Amy! My momABANDONED me. Sherry ABANDONED me. My aunt ABANDONED me. Everyone that was supposed to take care of me got up and walked out that door, or wasn't there to begin with, and you're going to stand there and tell me that you should leave because you're just ruining people's lives?
“Don't you get how much people want you? How much people are so in love with you that it makes them fucking crazy? Are you out of your mind? Have you driven YOURSELF completely fucking insane?" His tie hangs free of the suit, everything disheveled much how he feels.
"I. Am. Not. Insane." A nerve has been struck and she kicks at the basket on the floor now. Whatever remained inside for them spills over the marble floor. Another bottle of wine hits one of the columns and shatters, the light liquid wetting the floor and making it as glossy as her tear streaked cheeks.
"Show me you want me. Stop pushing me away! We said we'd be honest with each other and I am being fucking honest with you! My feelings aren't what you think they should be? I'm sooooo sorry! How dare I! I just wanted to try and make shit right because if I am crazy it's crazy in love WITH YOU!
“You make my heart stop, Raoul. I don't want to lose you. It'd wreck me and I'm scared. You say a lot of pretty words but you haven't really been backing them up!" A package rolls past her foot and she kicks it off the edge to crash along the rocks as it tumbles to the ground so far below. "What do I have to do to get honesty back from you?"
"Well what else am I supposed to say, huh? What am I supposed to say when you tell me you love me, but then you go off to fuck another man? And you DID fuck him, didn't you? Did you even wait for me to get out of the building? How could you agree to my terms? How could I MAKE THEM? FUCK. Fuck you and fuck me/for being so fucking in love with you.
“You're manipulative, you know that? Manipulative and CRAZY. I'm not taking about the visions-" He oh so maturely gestures wildly with his hands. "Or the torture or whatever the fuck else happened that I don't know about. No I'm talking about how you can still LOVE that son of a bitch. I'm talking about how you can LOVE him and then think so LITTLE of yourself. Because that's just wrong, Amy. That's just BEYOND THE REALM OF REALITY. WHICH MEANS IT'S CRAZY. IT'S CRAZY, AND YOU'RE FUCKING CRAZY FOR INDULGING IN IT.
“Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you told me. I'm glad you told me so I could see how INSANE you are! You want the truth from me?! The absolute truth?! I wish you'd kept Sangrey a fucking secret! I wish you'd done him every day behind my back as long as you didn't FUCKING TELL ME ABOUT IT. That was CRUEL. To get me to BREAK and give you PERMISSION.
“Light, do you know how that sounds? Do you hear it? Does it sink in? I gave YOU, my FUTURE WIFE, PERMISSION to FUCK. SANGREY. And now that I've done it, what am I supposed to do?" His voice lowers considerable, no longer shouting but still- hah, still crazy. He shrugs.
"I can't leave. No, love you too much! Can't kill him. No, no, can't do that because you love HIM too much. I can't kill all of us because fuck, then I'd be a PSYCHOPATH and STILL wouldn't get the girl all to myself." He looks down at the table and hangs his head between his shoulders. The bangs fall into his eyes and shield them so that she would barely be able to tell he closes them. His voice softens just a little bit, but more noticeably loses its sarcastic air.
"If you can't stop loving him, then my only chance in this goddamn world is that you don't stop loving me."
Throughout his tirade she stands there mouth agape. How dare he speak to her in such a way. To call her crazy! KNOWING her fears and worries as he does. But he has expressed his own concerns here and that is what she asked for. Sadly logic isn't the driving force and she turns her back to him.
He doesn't deserve to see the tears that are streaming down her face anymore. Nor the heartbroken look on her face. "Fuck you. I have never been spoken to like this. Not even SANGREY spoke to me like this. Not even when he TIED ME DOWN and RIPPED OUT MY SPIRIT in pieces did he talk to me like this." Arms snake around her waist and she hugs herself as tightly as she wish he'd hug her. Hug her and tell her it was going to be okay.
"You aren't saving me now, Raoul. You're only making me want to leap off this Light damned cliff so you needn't tolerate your CRAZY fucking girlfriend. Poor Raoul, forced into an engagement with a girl who loves him so. Now you don't even have to give up your child. Would you have preferred he gave you to someone else? To be an affair forever? Would us BOTH fucking other people we would NEVER love have been better than this? I will ALWAYS love you. Even when you make me feel so small and worthless like I do now I will love you."
"MAYBE. Maybe it WOULD have been better. At least then I'd know that it was just something out of our hands and not a CHOICE you made because you can't JUST love ME. What does he have that I don't, Amy? Huh? What does SANGREY, a MURDERER, a GRAVEROBBER, and a NECROMANCER have that I do not? I know I'm not Mr. Perfect. I never thought that once in my life, but give me a fucking break I've got to be better than he is."
His throat burns a little from talking so loud. His eyes burn more than a little from holding back tears. He's never yelled at anyone like this. He's never been so angry at someone. He's never been so in love with them, and so hurt that those two emotions are sitting right next to each other in his heart.
When he walks over, his hand goes to her left arm and he tries to forcefully turn her around to face him. "If you jump off that cliff I'm going after you. And we'll both live. And I swear on the fucking Light that you'll regret it. So don't even think about it."
She's a small girl, smaller than him by far, and unsteady due to the turmoil in her heart. It's no great struggle to turn her and she glares up at him. In the fading sunset - something she'd hoped to watch in his arms - and the dim candle light her eyes are as dark as her mind.
"Is that a threat? Am I going to have to tell people I walked into the door? Fell down the stairs? I knew you liked to fight but I didn't think you'd fight me. Here," Her cheek turns up at him.
"I'm not going to hit you back so you might as well start. I think I'd prefer it over the beating I'm taking inside. You're killing me. Right here." Her right hand taps over her heart. He'd said that to her once before when she was glum and down in the dumps. When she had been abused and left to suffer alone till he tried to pick up the pieces.
"I love him because I know what to expect. He doesn't hide from me. It doesn't make him better than you. Just different."
He lets her go like she was a hot pan against his skin. If they weren't on the edge of a cliff, he probably would've pushed her back. Instead, he repels himself in a shocked way. "That's not- that's not what I fucking meant at all." Stunned reaction is stunned. But at least he's too stunned to say 'What are you fuckin' crazy? Think I'm like Sangrey?' Because we all know that would've ended badly.
"Sure sounded like it." In a defeated fashion she plops onto the edge of the structure and lets her legs swing over the edge.
"You should go. Before we say anything else mean and horrible. We're getting good at you walking out with me in tears." A hand scrubs across the back of her eyes and she tugs the shawl as close as she can now.
Those little magically preserved apple blossoms haven't fared well and several are wrinkled now from her time in his lap. Slim shoulders shake and anyone looking at her could tell she was doing just as she said.
"Sorry I'm a crazy bitch. Maybe you'll luck out and I'll bite it on our case."
"Well it's not what I meant." He folds his arms in an illogically stubborn way. "Why do I have to leave? You're the one that brought me out here. I don't even have a stone to get back. Am I just supposed to fucking walk? You know what? Forget it. Yeah. I'll walk."
He starts to turn around, throwing his hands up in the air helplessly. His voice is cracking too and he'll be damned if he starts to cry. He mumbles to himself in what he thinks is quiet, self-tone, but is actually loud enough for her to clear. "Don't know where the fuck I'll go but if Sangrey can find his fucking way back to fuck fuck FUCK."
Amavia stands and musters the most of her dignity she can. It's soon lost once more as she tears off her little silken slipper and tosses it squarely at the back of his head. Satisfied she crosses her arms over her chest and glares his way. Cheeks are dampened and pink and her tears still come readily.
"Nice of you to WALK out. Especially after you tell me how heartbroken it made you! How many times are you going to walk out on ME before I become worth staying for?!" She's practically screaming now and removes her other slipper to chuck at him too.
He whirls around after the first slipper, ducking just in time to avoid being hit by the second one.
"What the fuck was that?" He picks the slipper up and throws it not at her, but chucks it clearly right over the edge of the cliff, far enough down the way to make it obvious he wasn't even trying to hit her.
"There! Good luck trying to throw it at me now! I hope a goblin picks it up and bemoans how CHEAP it is." He takes a moment to catch his breath, chest heaving. His adrenaline is racing and his heart is in deep trouble, so it's no surprise that her bout of immaturity was repaid with an immature bout of his own.
"I was there for you! I was there for you when you thought no one wanted you. But I wanted you. I want you. And then you have the gall to tell me you ought to leave to keep from hurting me? Like everything I did for you meant nothing? Like everything EVERYONE did for you meant nothing that you would just WALK OUT OF OUR LIVES because that would be easier on YOUR CONSCIENCE?
“Do you realize how selfish that is? I was faithful to you Amy, and even after you fucked Sangrey who knows how many times already, I still haven't even TOUCHED another woman. That's a whole lot of sacrifice that you're just returning with this crazy threat to ditch me so you feel better and get to sleep easy at night thinking 'oh well maybe he'll find someone else now that I'm out of the picture'.
“It's bullshit. And I don't have to take that from you. I don't have to take that from anybody. I'll stop leaving when you stop trying to give me a heart attack. How much do I have to give? How much do I have to give UP? Look at me, Amy. I'm a wreck and I'm stupid and GREEDY and I am trying so hard to make this work just the way you want it. It takes getting used to but you won't give me that time or that space. I've got a broken leg here and you want me to march up a mountain when I'm barely even used to hills. That's why I think you've lost your mind."
"You are SUCH an asshole! Have you even HEARD what I said? A single fucking word? Or are you too worked up raging at me to listen?! I SAID I was sorry! What the fuck else can I do? What. Do. You. Want. From. Me?!
‘I love you! I wanted to hug you and kiss you and watch the sunset and do those fun SWEET things you told me you missed! But oh no, I'm just a crazy bitch! I don't deserve a logical fucking conversation where two people in love SHARE their feelings. See if I ever tell you what I feel again. If I'm so worth this pain I'm putting you through and you're this selfless fucking martyr why are you leaving me here? After I tell you I want to fling myself off here you're just going to leave?"
Shaking hands struggle for the basket and she rips the portal stone out. There's only one but she doesn't plan on going home now.
"Here! Take it! Only brought one but I won't be needing it!" The reagent is chucked his way the same as the shoes were. "Good-bye, Raoul Wheaton."
The finality with which she says it is certain. As certain as the kick of the basket over the edge of the drop. There'snothing here for her to get home with but will he really register that in his anger? Or what her goodbye meant?
Blinking back to where she is? Easy.
Taking hold of her? Well, he's already proved how easy that is.
Leaning her very, very dangerously over the edge in such a way that he could very well drop her if he wanted and send her plummeting to a potential death? That's... not so easy, but he manages.
And when he has her in that tight hold that still feels frighteningly loose, he stares at her.
"Is this what you want? It's a long fucking drop Amy so you better look and think really hard about this. If one of us goes down, we're both going down. You want to try and scare me into staying by threatening to jump? HAH. Don't make meLAUGH. I'll push you off and be right behind you.
“So go ahead. Look. Think about your bones snapping and your brain slowly oozing out of your skull. It's probably not going to be an instant death either. I bet at least one of us spends ten minutes writhing in twisted agony. So which one of us do you think that's going to be?" He jerks her to the side a little, as if shuffling around where she might hypothetically land even though he has no real control over that.
"Huh? You? Me? Maybe you'd like to live long enough to see me go down too? Seems to be a theme in our relationship. 'It's just not right until Raoul has done something stupid for me!' Well?!"
He doesn't actually intend to drop her. He could never do that to her. In fact he has a chains of ice spell on the tip of his tongue just in case she really IS crazy and decides to try and jump or take them both over. But his bluff is a good one and he certainly sounds like the crazier of the two.
As vividly as she thought she wanted it, the idea of him suffering like that, his light snuffed out, chills her. Eyes wrench shut as he almost dangles her over the edge and she shakes her head.
"I just want you to kiss me. I just want you to be my White Knight and hold me. It's all I wanted since we got here." Tears run unbidden down her cheeks again and she shakes her head violently as she looks at him.
"I don't want that to be the theme. Why do you want to be with me if I make you so miserable?" It's a defeated tone and she looks ready to crumple. If his hands weren't supporting her she likely would. "I want to make you happy but I'm not so what good am I?"
He brings her back up straight not slowly, romantically, nor does he draw her into a kiss. Instead he steps back away from the edge and jerks her forcefully with him. Hard enough to jerk her right up against him.
"I don't have any fucking clue, Amy, but this isn't us. The past few months with you haven't been the best of my life, but they've been the best for my heart. I have felt more loved by YOU than by anyone else in the entire world. You're the woman I made love to. I know that shouldn't really mean all that much, but it does. I like when it's us eating darkmoon dogs. I like when we had smorcs with your mom. When I juggled torches and you were working that stupid stand at the fair. I really want that back, Amy.
“This? This... drama and this hurt? Honestly, if this is what you and Sangrey have then you two can fucking keep that. Have it together. I don't care. As long as you and I can go back to having what we have. Had."
Trembling hands rest on his chest and it looks like she needs the support now. Watery eyes stare up at his and she seems to have no care for her tears still.
"I want that too. I'm sorry they haven't been the best. I want to give you the best. I want to have fun and laugh and joke. I want light-hearted things. I hate shit like this." Her forehead rests between her palms now and she shivers.
"I want to be us again. How do we do that?" So many tears have been shed in such a short span of time that her readily dampen his shirt. "I want to lay in bed and goof off with you listening to spooky gnome horror broadcasts. I want to be in your arms and heart forever without fear of falling."
He's too young for this shit.
Not knowing what else to do, he picks her up and carries her to the first tree or really big rock he can find. Not the fancy table or going to fetch the portal stone to go home. Somewhere in between. He sits down with his back to whatever he happened to find and holds her in his arms.
He prides himself on being good with words or at least on being good at pretending. But he doesn't have the years of experience that make someone a master at acting. He doesn't have the decades of drama and trials to harden him so he can brush it off like a man.
Valerie did terrible things to him, yeah. Childhood was rough, maybe- in the eye of the beholder. But he doesn't feel like he's grown a whole lot since those things have happened. Seventeen years just isn't that long, and these things didn't all happen way back when he was just born.
So without legendary armor or ANY CLUE what to do here, he just leans back and closes his eyes. Later he'll cry. He's got that one shred of dignity left.
Once his back is to the tree she practically curls into his lap and just cries softly to herself. She is being selfish but she can't seem to stop. Face hidden against his shoulder hers shudder slightly. The shawl fell off halfway to the tree and she's cold for the lack of it. Tan skin rises in goosebumps and she presses as close as she can.
Something is whispered against him but it's almost impossible to make out between little squeaky sniffles. At least somehow in her sadness she manages to still be cute. Shaking fingers play with his hair, desperate for some sort of affectionate contact.
He doesn't say anything back or open his eyes. A little busy trying to handle all of the WTF?! raging in his system right now. But he does absentmindedly open his suit jacket and wrap it around her as much as it will go, holding her to his shirt and skin. He's so warm from their hot-blooded fight.
His arms wrap around her too, holding the flaps of the jacket in place and covering parts of her it can't.
With that warmth offered now she settles down some. Tears don't dry entirely but the sniffling sobs cease.
"I love you. Eternally. I'm so sorry, Raoul. I hope one day you can forgive me." Sighing she feels worn out, drained, and just hides her face against his neck now. Weren't fights supposed to end in spectacular ways of making up? Right now she just feels queasy and ready to vomit.
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