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carrioncrows-readers · 3 years

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You may not be good at a lot, but damn if you don't know business and numbers.

Content Warnings: major content warning for sexual harassment, explicit violence

When Jacob first brought you to the brothel, you thought he'd genuinely lost his mind — you made it quite clear you weren't interested in fucking him for money. With his arm around your shoulders, you were prepared to make quite a lot of fuss if he tried anything — but he didn't. Instead, he offered you a bookkeeping job for steady pay, with room to take "freelancing" on commission should you so desire. It was unexpected. It was — nice. The place is nice. A bit gauche, and good lord, those curtains are tacky, but you didn't expect prostitutes to be so…

Well. Nice.

Come to find out, the woman who left a lipstick stain on Jacob's cheek (you aren't jealous; you aren't) is named Jenny. Jenny is in the elected position of being madame (you didn't know madames were elected?) of the establishment. Which also happens to be the name of the brothel itself. The Establishment. Tongue-in-cheek, but effective.

She's full-bodied and impossibly soft, brown hair piled into curls on top of her head. The pearls she wears are gifts from clients, apparently, and it's become so much of a running joke that for her birthday, the girls saved up to get her a new set of pearl earrings for fun. You have no idea why she wears them all at once.

She peers over your shoulder as you scribble in the ledger, writing down dates and numbers, trying not to get a headache putting it all together. Unfortunately, you haven't had time to sharpen up your sums.

"Ms. Jenny," you glance at her from the corner of your eye, looking for a way to fill the silence since no one is murdering the pianoforte, "can I ask why you haven't done the bookkeeping yourself?" She hums and smiles at you. You notice dimples in the roundness of her cheeks, like craters on the moon.

"Well, dearie, it's because I can nary read nor write. Neither can any of the others — been meaning to hire a bookkeeper for a bit, just never got 'round to it, I suppose." Suddenly and for, of course, no reason at all, you want to disappear into the floor. You should have guessed. Now you feel awful.

You look at your notes. You had all the girls tell you a rough estimate of their earnings for the past six months; some were more accurate than others, but you get the feeling that Jacob just wanted to find you something to do. He doesn't take a massive percentage anyways; usually, it fluctuates depending on how much they've earned that month. Always enough for a comfortable living after expenses, always favorable towards the brothel residents. You've no idea why, just that he somehow manages to supplement his own income enough that it doesn't put him in the red.

"I see," you say, pausing to add up all the earnings for July, minus overhead. Jenny leans in with her eyes narrowed and pokes your side, making you jump so high your ass almost hits the ceiling.

"You're a right hard one to read you are; what's that supposed to mean? Hm?" She pokes you again, and you feel your cheeks burn bright red.

"Nothing! Nothing, I just — felt terrible for asking, I suppose. Ow." You rub your side — does the woman have knives for fingers, or is your skin just made of paper? She pokes your arm — definitely knife fingers.

"Well, no harm done."

You sit quietly, shuffling papers in the ledger until everything is tight and up to date — it's not doing too terribly for a Whitechapel brothel. Still, there are some improvements to be made — namely, the settlement of customer debts.

How ironic that you have become the creditor now.

You set your pen down and lean against your steepled fingers, a plot crawling up the back of your mind and settling in. You ask Ms. Jenny, since she is much more familiar with the Rooks than you, to find you a few burly men. And to tell them to bring weapons. Blunt ones.

This is your job now — you'll be damned if you're not going to do it well. Besides, this isn't something you should bother Jacob with.

It isn't tricky to track down your debtors; one look at you smiling in your silks and velveteens, a train of rugged brutes behind you, and people scrape the ground to tell you where your targets live. They know what's coming, and they're not eager to try and quell the storm. You knock very politely on the door to an apartment in a run-down shack of a building, watching it crack open a hair's breadth. That is all the opening your boys need — they muscle in and push Mr. Curtis to the ground. You ignore him swearing to shut the door, folding your hands in front of your stomach.

"Mr. Curtis! I believe we have business."

"I don't know what you're fucking talkin' about," he spits. A simple nod of your head is all the excuse one of your enforcers needs to start walloping Mr. Curtis about the head until he begs you to stop him. You do, the smile on your face ever so slowly becoming a genuine manic grin.

"You owe my employer quite a bit of money. Do you have a wife, Mr. Curtis? I assume not if you visit brothels so often, but I wouldn't put it past you to cheat, either." Curtis rolls onto his side and covers his weeping nose, and you're fascinated by the slow drip-drip-drip of red into a puddle on the floor. "You have one month, which I find very generous. Can you read?" You don't receive an answer, just a low groan of pain that sends a tingle up your toes; you pull a piece of paper out of your pocket, the ink already dry as you sit it on a side table. On it is a sum of money, a date, and Curtis' name.

You leave him to lick his wounds, damn near skipping out into the darkened street. You visit three more houses in short order before returning to the brothel to see Jacob leaned over the intake desk, talking with Jenny. They both have lit cigars between their fingers. You had no idea Jacob smoked. He turns his head, and you suddenly feel self-conscious of where you've been.

"Done terrorizing the whole of Whitechapel?" He asks, but he doesn't sound unangry. Not that it doesn't stop you from worrying that he's simply putting on an air of calm. You quail and fiddle with the ends of your gloves, staring at your shoes.

"I apologize-"

"Think nothing of it," he says and comes over to pat your shoulder. "Debts need to be paid, and I appreciate you looking after my people. Your people now, too, I guess." Your people. You stare at Jacob and his toothy smile around his cigar, his hand still settled on your shoulder like it belongs there. You clear your throat and shrug it off, hurrying to the desk to note down when your debtors are supposed to send in their payments. It's mostly just to keep your hands busy.

Your people.

You've never really belonged to a group before. You exist in the gray strata between the middle class and the aristocracy, scathingly referred to as the nouveau riche by your would-be peers and mistrust by the working people of London, you belong nowhere. Unwelcome in the clubs and symposiums of the genteel, nor the pubs and coffeehouses of the mercantile caste. You didn't even have that many friends among the newly rich, either. Even for them, you were too… off. Violet Morvell was someone who tolerated you enough to call you acquaintance. Or so you thought.

The idea of having people is foreign and exciting, and terrifying all at once.

***

Your time at the brothel is well-spent. You buy yourself a math primer with the salary you get and brush up on your sums. With that knowledge in hand, you are brutally efficient with the finances of The Establishment. You set up a sign-in sheet and record every name that comes through the door, much to the patrons' shock and chagrin. The burly doorman you recently hired on is insistence enough they give you their real names, which in and of themselves are insurance. Occasionally he has to throw out a tirading customer, but they usually come back for their fix of unfortunate women. Sex, you suppose, is at the root of most vices.

At the end of the month, all four of your debtors turn their money into your capable (you hope) hands. You didn't have to visit them a second time — they either respect Jacob Frye too much, or they're too terrified of him to keep skimping on his money.

You begin educating a few of the girls on manners, etiquette, and how to properly play a pianoforte without sounding like they're torturing a cow. When you suggest that the brothel start serving tea and coffee to waiting customers, Ms. Jenny happily converts one of the rooms into a small kitchen. It makes more overhead, but in the end, the payout is astounding — it makes the patrons feel special, and men who feel special are pleasantly inclined to give more in terms of tips. Pun intended. Jacob would be proud of that one, you think.

It also attracts wealthier clientele, whom you are more than happy to charge extra for the pleasure of pretty company. The Establishment prospers with you holding the purse strings; you almost dare yourself to feel proud. The Rooks have taken to calling you bookie, of all things. Sometimes they even invite you out for drinks.

You've never had a nickname before. You think you might like it.

The English winter drudges on and turns into an English spring, and you settle into a rhythm. You moved into an apartment in Whitechapel, a nicer one (in comparison — it's still poverty when set beside how you used to live, but you think you're slowly acclimating to it) closer to work. You spend most of your time with Ms. Jenny and the girls anyway — most nights, you find yourself passed out at your desk until Ms. Jenny shoos you to a couch in a dark corner by the stairs. She begins to insist that you call her Jenny, just Jenny — but that seems like a breach to you, a line you're just not ready to cross yet, no matter how many times she covers you with a blanket and lets you sleep in the receiving room.

At the end of every month, you meet Jacob in a pub to hand over his cut and go over the ledger. He always lingers to talk with you after, and you've gotten to know him, you think. As much as you can know someone who somehow manages to head both a crime syndicate and an alleged, shady reactionary freedom movement. At least that's what you can glean from the whispered conversations he's had with you when you ask after it.

"I think I know that look," he says, pointing his glass at you, "what are you thinking about?"

Damn him and his sharp eyes — you really must be more careful about your expressions.

"I realize that I don't actually know you at all," you say, swirling your glass around in your hand to slosh the wine inside. Frye's response is a dry chuckle and little more than that, grabbing the bottle of wine and refilling his own cup. You know he's not partial to wine. You know he prefers milds to bitters and finds that lager doesn't have the malty taste he enjoys, but he drinks it when he goes to Evie and Jayadeep's. But beyond that? He may as well be a ghost to you.

"Perhaps that's for the best," he says. You watch him chug half his cup before he sits it down again, wipes his mouth, and clears his throat. You sit your glass down, a companion piece. You'd threaten to kick him over not savoring it, but the wine they serve here isn't worth savoring.

"Do you have any hobbies?"

"Hobbies?" He seems utterly baffled by the idea.

"You know — things you enjoy. That you do on your off time."

"I think it's so incredibly, endearingly bold of you to assume I have off time." He smiles and then leans his chin on the heel of his hand and makes a show of thinking. "I do enjoy a good game of cards."

"Does that count as a hobby?"

"Why wouldn't it? Not everyone can afford to learn croquet or whatever they teach at Fancy Lads and Lasses School for Fancy Lads and Lasses." That stings — you take a drink of wine to lessen the bruise that puts on your ego, and Jacob visibly softens with an apologetic smile. "Sorry. That was unkind of me."

"No — no, you're right." You look down at your hands, smooth and uncalloused, and rub your thumb against your palm to keep them busy. "I'm coming to learn that the world is very different from what I thought."

You don't know why you said it. Or why Jacob Frye touches his fingertips to yours after a long, pregnant pause. You startle, and you look up to see him with that softened smile.

"It's a lot to take in." He pulls his hand away; you find yourself missing the brush of it. Your fingers curl into your palms of their own accord.

"When did you first learn about all this Assassin and Templar business?" You ask.

"About four minutes after Evie, right out of the womb. We were raised in it. Our parents were both Assassins, so were our grandparents, probably their grandparents too. It's a good thing we keep dying young; otherwise, we'd be twice as inbred as Her Majesty and company." You gasp.

"That is the queen you're insulting!"

"She's a right shit old bird, is what she is," he plants a hand on his chest, looking wounded. "She almost took Evie's knighthood! Because we dared ask politely for her not to steamroll over all India and probably gleefully kick puppies in the process."

"Evie was knighted?"

"Henry and I too, but I didn't want the damn thing."

"You're a knight?" He curls his lip, topping up your glass and sighing. He nods his head as though it's a burden, and you snort into your wine glass. The dismay strangely suits him — he doesn't seem the type to want or even know what to do with a knighthood. You can't imagine him in a suit and medal either, no matter how hard you try.

You're about to ask him what his parents thought about him being here when someone grabs a chair and muscles their way to your table. You're pushed damn near into the wall, scowling and moving if only to keep your wine from spilling. You recognize the idiot who stuck his nose in — his name is Smith, and he's a bastard.

You've had to throw him out of The Establishment more than once; you'd entertain the idea that he has some sort of vendetta against you, but he's not worth the effort of thinking about. He downs his bottle of lager and sits it down onto the table, swaying in his seat. His eyes are bloodshot under the greasy, unwashed blond mop of his hair. He grins at Jacob with all his teeth after he greets him warmly. Loudly.

You cow in the corner as the whole bar turns to look at your table, trying to hide in your skin. For the most part, Jacob seems annoyed. Still, he greets Smith with the impatient smile of a father whose child interrupted an important meeting. You can see a muscle twitch in his cheek when Smith leans on you, his hand wrapping like an uncomfortable snake around your waist.

Your heart freezes, and every muscle you own goes rigid like stone as he spreads his palm over your hip.

"Didn't know you visited the Judies, boss! How much does ol' bookie go for these days? Gold or silver?" You grip your wine glass until your knuckles threaten to split, hot behind the ears as he leans in. His breath smells like a month's worth of stale beer. You fix him with your eye and pull your lip away from your teeth, speaking through a tight jaw. Usually, that is enough to get the handsy ones to back off; not tonight, apparently.

"You know very well that I work the desk. Nothing more, Mr. Smith."

"Yeah, with that stick up your arse, I bet you don't get many Johns. No room." He winks at Jacob, who simply sits and lets you wallow in your misery, the smile gone from his face. You look at him, pleading, as Smith leans even further in and plucks your wine glass out of your hands. You can't move. You can't stop him.

"Aw, c'mon, poppet! Give us a smile." Jacob grits his teeth until his jaw is white, a warning snarl curling his lip away from his teeth.

"That is enough, Smith."

"What? Boss, I'm jus' havin' a little fun. Hazin' the greenies, you know how it is." Smith turns back to you, leering ever closer, the rank of his breath falling across your cheek. "You're having fun, aren't you, darling?" The world melts away, candle wax as his hand travels down to rest on the outside of your thigh. You can only think of Thomas Fucking Morvell. His hand around your waist. It feels so suffocatingly like he's there instead of Smith, and something-

Something in you.

Snaps.

You think you might be seeing yourself outside your body, your hand wrapped around the neck of the beer bottle as you slam the motherfucker into his big mouth. It explodes in a haze of glass. The force pushes him backward, out of the booth, onto the floor, and he covers his bleeding face with his hands and screams, screams, screams.

"You stupid fucking cunt!" Smith wails more obscenities at you, but you aren't listening. Your ears ring. The bottle feels oh-so-right in your hands, perfect. Jacob stands when you do, eyes wide and eyebrows high, but he's not quick enough to stop you from straddling Smith's chest and grabbing his lacerated jaw with your hand. Glass cuts into your fingers. He stares up with one eye swollen shut with blood and the other ballooned in horror. You raise the shattered, razor-sharp bottleneck over your head. You feel like an animal.

You wish you could say something clever — but your teeth are pressed so tightly that your words wither and die at the pass. Smith shrieks when your arm falls towards his eyes in a violent arch.

Aren't you having fun, poppet? Gimme a smile.

Something firm and solid stops your arm and wrenches you up with so much force you spin, and the bestial part of you uses the momentum to try to punch out at whatever's caught you. You've never thrown a punch in your life, but by God, are you going to throw one now. Something grabs that arm too.

You force yourself to refocus, panting hard and covered in blood from a million tiny cuts, splattered in Smith's gore and stale beer.

Jacob is staring at you, holding your wrists tight and firm to keep you from hurting someone else — or yourself. Then, finally, the horror dawns on you that the bar — the entire bar — is staring at you. You drop the bloodied bottleneck; your chest feels like it's going to implode. And yet Jacob keeps staring.

"You," he says, more to himself than you, "are full of so many interesting surprises."

***

You are cleaned up, bandaged, and taken to a private room above the bar. You spend minutes (hours, feels like) pacing. Back, forth — back, forth. You chew at your bandages and lament that your nails are covered, gnashing like a beast to try and bite them to the quick.

When Jacob opens the door, you want to throw yourself at his feet.

"Jacob," your voice wobbles, your breath coming out in short gasps, "I am so, so sorry-" He cuts you off with a raised hand.

"No, I'm sorry."

...What?

Whatever for?

You stare in stunned silence while he rubs the back of his neck. "You were obviously uncomfortable, and he just — kept touching you. And I didn't stop him. I'm sorry."

"You — You told him to stop." You want to laugh. This is a trick — this has to be a trick.

"That is not enough." He sighs. "Considering I know what it feels like." He grimaces at the floor, arms crossed, and you collapse back to sit on the bare mattress, hearing the frame creak its protest under your weight. The two of you exist in oppressive quiet until Jacob pipes up from the door.

"But — that was impressive, back there. And you've shown a lot of initiative and drive these past few months. I think you should join us — the Creed." It sounds like a speech he's rehearsed for months, shocked into pulling it out now at the most inopportune of times. It's damn-near comical, but you can't bring yourself to laugh.

"Again, with your crazy cult of conspiracy theorists." You sag, running a hand over your face. "Fine. I'll join you. What else do I have to lose?" The silence that follows is awkward and strange, so you try to fill it with conversation. "What did you mean when you said you knew what it felt like?" Jacob leans against the wall, watching a patch of the floor behind you with great interest. It takes him a moment to speak, but he sounds distant. Weather vaned to a place in history far away.

"His name was Maxwell Roth."

"The old leader of the Blighters? The one that set fire to the Alhambra?"

"The very same." You try to conjure him in your mind from what you remember. You come up with a shadowed figure in a mask and a cruel grin; you only know that he was much older than the two of you. You pull your knee to your chest and block out the thoughts as Roth slowly mutates into a figure you know far, far too well, and hate far, far too much.

"I'm sorry," you mumble.

"Don't be — it was a lifetime ago."

"A year," you smile; it doesn't reach your eyes. "But those can feel like lifetimes, can't they?"

"Sure as the sun shits gold, are you right." He moves to sit beside you, his hands folded between his knees, back bent. "He — I loved him. At least I think I did, afterward. After he died. He'd call me darling and my dear, and he made me feel so — so damn good about myself — all the things I'd accomplished like I was special. But I think we both loved a man who was," he trails off, trying so hard to find the words. You finish for him, hauntingly familiar with the feeling.

"Different from who the real man was," you say. "You loved the image you had in your head." And afterward, Jacob fell in love with the nostalgia.

"Right." He pauses and then coughs, the tips of his ears red. "We never had sex. I mean, afterward, shit — yeah, there were men. But for Roth and me — he was just touchy-feely. I thought I didn't mind then, but looking back on it now…" You feel nausea coil in your stomach; it's like looking in a mirror.

You never would have known. Or maybe he's just not as broken as you.

But to hear that you're not alone — you can find some measure of comfort in that, even if you're horrified to see your doppelganger sitting by you. You ask Jacob if Evie knows — she doesn't. She never will, if he has anything to say about it; all she knows is that something changed when he killed Roth, maybe for better or maybe for worse.

You don't know what to do — so you hesitantly lean against him, hoping that you're a comforting weight. He lets you. You stare straight ahead to keep from crumpling like a paper crane.

"I'm glad you said yes," he says. "This isn't — it's not a life I ask you to join lightly."

"What do I have to lose?" You repeat yourself, finally feeling brave enough to glance up, watching Jacob light a match and catch fire to the end of a cigar — the same one he's been smoking for a week, you realize. He must be saving it. "Does your mother know you smoke those things?" Not that it'd make much of a stir — they're meant to be healthy for the lungs anyhow. It's just unfortunate about the smell.

"Didn't know her," he says, almost as a throwaway comment as he takes a deep drag of smoke. You jolt, the shock of it filling your bones. "What?"

"Nothing," you say, fiddling with the selvage of your bandages. "I simply realized that we have much more in common than I thought."

#dig yourself a hole #ac syndicate #jacob frye #m #general #multichapter #i will say. you DO get to hit someone in the face with a beer bottle in this one #catharsis <3

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direnightshade · 3 years

Text

Broken Patterns

“Where are you working, if you don’t mind my asking?”

The steady tick, tick, tick of the wall mounted clock nearby fills the silence that follows the woman’s statement. I glance around nervously, taking in the sight of the room. The walls are white and the bottom half is trimmed with a molding that I’ve only ever seen in places that are far too expensive for me to afford. Meanwhile, the top half of the walls are covered in a multitude of photos and art, each one framed in mismatched metals. To my left there is a bookshelf that spans the entirety of one wall. It is filled to the brim with books of varying genres.

Oh, how I long for a place such as this some day.

My gaze swings back to the woman with the pinched face and the short, jet black pixie haircut. I swallow thickly and wipe my already clammy palms along the tops of my jean-clad thighs. “I just landed an internship with Simon & Schuster.”

A steady scribble of the tip of her pen can be heard as she scrawls across her piece of paper, humming in acknowledgement, though I am certain the sound is a mere afterthought; one to appease me as if she’s giving off the appearance that she’s listening. “And when did you move to New York?”

“Two years ago, right after I turned eighteen.”

More scribbling follows, and I shift anxiously on the velveteen couch that has been dyed a pretty shade of dark green. Almost immediately, I am pinned to the very spot I sit by the intense gaze of the woman who is meant to be my therapist. There are no words exchanged, but the look that she is giving me seems to say it all: stay still. I sink into myself and remain in place as she has so silently willed me to do.

This is only the beginning of the session, and already, it is unlike anything I would have expected.

“So, tell me,” she says, finally satisfied that she’s written all that she can for the time being, “what brings you into my office?” Her posture has straightened considerably now, and for the first time since I’d stepped foot past the threshold of the room’s door do I feel as if she’s actually listening to what I have to say.

I inhale a shaky breath in hopes that it will steel my resolve, and when I exhale, I begin to tell her everything.

I tell her about the screaming that became a staple in my childhood home; about how it had all been my fault, because of course it was. I had been unable to grasp the simplest things that were being taught to me. It certainly hadn’t been because the expectations that were set so heavily onto my shoulders were so unrealistic that no child at my age could have lived up to them. No. No, of course not. That wasn’t it at all. It was all me. My failings.

I tell her about how I’d taken out all of my pent up anger and aggression out on the dolls that my mother had so lovingly gifted to me; that I’d mutilated them so badly my mother took me to see a child psychologist claiming she thought me to be some future murdering psychopath. Isn’t that hilarious?!

It’s an absurd thought. Truly.

I couldn’t harm a fly…

I tell her about Ben.

He was, I think, the first person I ever thought I loved. I met him, of all the places, on Bow Bridge in Central Park one crisp Autumn morning. I’d been fresh off the train, barely in the city for a full twenty four hours when we’d crossed paths. He’s a painter—a lovely one at that, I’ve always told him as much—and when I’d stumbled across him, he was painting the landscape. I couldn’t help but admire his talents. I think I may have stopped and gawked for far too long and perhaps that is what caught his attention, though I am sure if he was here, he would sing a different tune. He loves to tell people that when he saw me it was if I had walked straight out of one of his paintings; a dream incarnate. The line makes me roll my eyes with disgust now, but back then in the early stages of the relationship, that line would always have me hook, line, and sinker.

But therein lies the problem, you see. I am a sucker for pretty words, for people who can paint me the loveliest picture of a life that I have always wanted but yet to have. And, oh, how he painted that lie well.

Over time the compliments and the affection have waned significantly, and now I fear that it is only I who is trying to give it my all any more. I believe that he is seeing someone else, that the pretty words he once showered down on me are now being put upon another heart, leaving mine to rot.

He checks his phone late at night when he thinks that I am asleep. I can hear the steady tap, tap, tap of his thumbs against the screen and every now and again, I can hear the soft laughter he emits whenever whomever she is responds with some undoubtedly witty remark. Where he once used to be so adamant that we put our phones aside and focus on one another, he now has done a complete one-eighty. We sit on opposite ends of the couch whilst he entertains himself with whatever conversation he is so engrossed in, meanwhile I am left to watch this movie—one that he chose—alone.

I am turning into my mother more and more every day, I realize. I am untrusting and paranoid, always asking him who it is that he’s taking calls from or who he’s texting. He tells me it’s nothing, that it’s just work, but he was never this busy with work before…

Two days ago is when he’d come clean.

My suspicions were not unfounded. He had been seeing someone. Her name is Mina and apparently she is lovely.

There is a brief bout of scribbling of a pen against paper, and when it stops, my therapist lifts her head once more to look at me. “How does that make you feel?”

Like I am a waste, I want to tell her. It makes me feel as if I am nothing; that if the one person on this planet who was meant to love me cannot seem to then perhaps I am, myself, unworthy of such a gift.

My features soften and I allow the corners of my mouth to turn up into a small smile. “I feel fine.”

The woman reaches up to pull her glasses down off of the bridge of her nose, setting the frames atop her notebook. She exhales a sigh and regards me carefully before doling out a reply. “This is a new development for you. Surely you must have some sort of feelings about it.”

“I told you that I’d had my suspicions. I’ve had more than two days to process the inevitable.”

“Having a suspicion and having confirmation are two completely different things. This idea in your mind has since been made real. Doesn’t that hurt you,” she counters.

The smile that had been so carefully put into place falters, and my lips press into a thin line.

It is clear that my therapist is pleased with this non verbal response as she once again resumes her note taking.

“No,” I reply carefully.

“No?”

“No.”

There is a stretch of silence that follows my insistence, and soon enough, she sets the notepad, pen, and her glasses aside and regards me carefully. “What are you doing to cope?”

I barely manage to bite back the snort that nearly bubbled up to the surface. Cope? Since when have I ever coped with anything? I suppose, if we are being technical, what I do is a form of coping, albeit an unhealthy one. I take those feelings, the ones that weigh on my chest so heavily that it feels as if it may very well collapse under the strain, and I compact them until they are so small I can easily store them in a cage that I have built myself. I tuck them away and store the box somewhere deep inside myself, never allowing them to see the light of day so that I never have to deal with the emotional traumas that I have been dealt.

“I work,” I say matter-of-factly, as if the idea of me needing to do anything else is utterly absurd.

She hums and clasps her hands together, setting them atop her lap. “And what have you done for an emotional release? Anything at all? Or are you throwing yourself into work to avoid the situation?”

My jaw clenches at her insistence, though, I don’t know why I would have expected anything else. Perhaps I wasn’t expecting this first session to have become so deep so quickly. “If you’re asking if I’ve cried, the answer is no.”

“And why not?”

I am growing more and more irritated by the second. I could, if I so wished, put an end to this right now. I could get up and end the session, thank her for her time and walk right out of the door. Or, the pen sitting beside her on the end table would push straight into her eye socket rather nicely, I reckon…

No. No, I rid myself of that thought and exhale an audible sigh.

“Because what is the point? Crying doesn’t fix the relationship. He’s made his choice.”

“Crying can be a good release for us. It’s very cathartic.”

“I’m not wasting my tears on someone who didn’t have the decency to leave the relationship before giving a part of themselves to someone else.”

The irony is not lost on me that eleven years later I find myself in another office in a different part of the city with tears freely spilling down onto my cheeks as I reach for the tissue that is offered to me. When one isn’t enough, I am gifted the entire box.

It feels as if I am crying out years and years of repressed emotion, and I fear—as my body wracks with sob after sob—that the tears will be never ending. This therapist, who I have already decided is miles above the one I’d seen when I was twenty, sits and waits patiently for me to let it all out. She has been nothing short of supportive and I feel relief.

Earlier this week I had requested that Charlie jot down the number for his therapist’s office so that I may make an appointment of my own. Though he, too, has been more than happy to listen to me when I vent my frustrations or cry on his shoulder when things become a little too overwhelming for me, I have come to realize that perhaps it is not fair of me to unload so much onto him when he is still dealing with so much himself. And what’s more, is that I have realized that I have begun to fall into an old pattern.

Rather than fully dealing with the emotional upset he has caused with his trysts, I have once again begun to tamp down and repress my negative emotions in favor of pretending that all's right with the world. Not only do I not want to shut myself down and risk ruining this relationship, I also do not believe my tactics to be in the best interest of Little b. So, if nothing else, I will do this for them.

When the tears finally subside, and I have once again managed to pull myself together, I take a moment to dab a clean tissue against the underside of my eyes. Just as I am inhaling another shaky breath, my therapist—who is not the same woman that Charlie shares his allotted time with—poses a question.

“Have you discussed your feelings with him?”

I sniffle and ball up the tissue in my hand as it comes to rest in my lap. “We had a long, long discussion after things calmed down. He knows that I was—am—unhappy with his choices.”

There is a soft sigh emitted when she shifts in her seat and crosses her legs. One hand rests on her knee whilst the other keeps her chin propped up as her elbow sets on the arm of the chair she’s currently seated in. “You told me that he’s admitted to opening up to someone emotionally when he felt he couldn’t do that with you and that this seems to be the root of your dispiritedness. I’d like to talk about that.”

I wouldn’t, I think to myself almost immediately.

But, this is why I am here, after all. I need to discuss the things that I wish to bury. Only then do I have any real chance of repairing the damaged, unhealthy parts of myself. If we, as a family, have any real shot at moving forward, then I must face this head on regardless of how much I want nothing more than to run the other way.

And yet…

I am struggling.

“Do you still worry that this may be an issue?”

My head hangs forward, and I close my eyes tightly to ward off the onslaught of tears that once again threaten to force their way out. There is a slight tremor that starts in my chin and works its way to my bottom lip. I hate this, this feeling of being rendered speechless, of being weak and vulnerable. I hate that, once again, I have given someone else the power to crush me so.

I nod wordlessly, the motion so slight that it would have been missed had she not been paying careful attention.

“Has he done anything to make you think that it is?”

Another stretch of silence follows her words, and this time, I find myself shaking my head. No, no he hasn’t.

And yet…

I am afraid.

And…

My therapist says my name to grab my attention, and when I finally lift my head to look at her, it is with tearfully blurred vision. “If he has not done anything to make you think that it is, then tell me about the steps he has taken to attempt to alleviate those fears.”

I inhale a shaky breath and begin to list off everything from deleting the long list of contacts in his phone to quitting his job at the theater. When the subject of the move to Los Angeles is brought up, I am asked that one question that haunted my thoughts mere days ago.

What do I want?

How do I feel?

“I…” My lips press together as I trail off, and I work my jaw as I take a moment to think. “I want to leave. I think the move will be good for both of us, and not just because this means that Charlie can see Henry more regularly now.” While I speak, I lift a hand to dab away the last remaining tears from my eyes, finally feeling more confident in this turn of conversation. “You know, when I first moved here, I loved this city so much that I resolved to stay here until I turned old and grey.”

There is a small smile that forms when I speak, and I huff out soft laughter. But as I shake my head, the smile begins to wane. “But now… After everything that’s transpired over the last month… This city that brought me so much joy just feels so oppressive now. Some of the places I used to love to venture to have been tainted by the awful confessions that he’s bestowed upon me. What I want is to leave. But most importantly, what I want is for this to work...”

By the time that my session concludes, I am feeling infinitely better than when I’d initially walked through the front door. For the first time in all the times that I have tried—or was forced to try—therapy, I am leaving a session with tools that I feel will be useful in aiding my own emotional recovery from everything that I have dealt with in life. For the first time in my life, I will attempt to cope with the emotions that I feel in a healthy way. I feel, for the first time in a long, long time, like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

When I make my way out of the building, I am surprised to find Charlie waiting for me just outside. There is a fleeting look of concern that flashes across his face when he takes in my red-rimmed eyes, but just as quickly as the look emerges, it dissipates entirely when a broad smile stretches across my face. “You came all the way out here to get me,” I ask, the pleasant surprise evident in my voice.

“Wanted to make sure your first session went well,” he says just as he reaches out for me once I’m near enough.

A soft hum is emitted when his hands settle on my waist to draw me in closer, and I lift my arms to wrap them loosely around his neck. I tip my head back slightly to look up at him, taking a moment to soak in his features before I speak. “You were nervous.”

He huffs in automatic response, his gaze darting to the side momentarily. “Absolutely not.”

If it is possible for my smile to widen any further, then it certainly does so. “It’s okay,” I say, fingers raking through the hair at the nape of Charlie’s neck whilst he continues to hold me close, safe and out of the way from any passersby. “We’re okay. It went great. Probably the best session I’ve ever had. Now I know why you’ve chosen that office.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

We smile at one another, and for the first time in over a month, I truly feel as if everything will be alright.

#B+C #B+C+b #personal au #cw: pregnancy #cw: infidelity #cw: angst #iamakiller

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orionunfathomable · 7 years

Text

Andromeda Inked - an Orion Unfathomable short story

so, I wrote a canon short story a little over a year ago now for a creative writing class. I was hoping to introduce the story around the time Andromeda would show up in story (a flawed thought), but that is far away, so i decided it’d be best to release it eventually

do keep in mind it’s old writing, and tumblrs Shit Formatting will take out any italics and correct spacing

as always, feel free to send questions or criticisms this way. enjoy

Andromeda Inked

They set up camp a week before the delivery. It was not their custom to stay in one place long, but this section of the forest was well suited, and they knew it was close.

The canopy opened up to allow the starlight to pour through. The soft rustle of the pale blue leaves gave life to the quiet dark forest. The group all shared in the labor, setting up tents of a dark canvas, and intricate gold stands for dull bronze instruments.

Stopping meant downtime, and downtime was spent wisely. The charters took pride in their observations, slender pens of a fine wood painting the crackled orange surface of parchment with the language of the sky - the stars. Preparations were made, skillful eyes sought out medicinal plants, others tended to the fire. Bedding and tents were set up, and several others cut up vividly colored vegetables and greens for a meal. All hands were to help.

The stars, in their infinite wisdom, guided them across the terrestrial landscape. The world was foreign to them, yet homely. They were born of this earth, but not from it. They had no tether like the terrestrials did. It was their cosmic isolation, the distance they maintained from man.

The stars were integral to the nomads. Stars were the bastions of life in a cold universe. The world they walked was born of the decaying stars. They too, found new life in the passing. The color in their eyes, the iron in their blood, their very soul - forged in the heart of a star.

Tonight was such a night. The charters labored intensively over piles of parchment and ink, whilst the others gathered water, wood, and food. Deliveries were stressful, but in a beautiful way. The process of life, the continuation of the universe, it was all central to their beliefs.

The mother had been set up comfortably in a larger tent. It was a beacon of life in the peaceful lull of dark the camp resided in. Deep orange light spilled from the entrance, and the interior was warm and cozy. The father stayed often, bringing in water and food as necessary. It was a matter of waiting.

Their leader, a middle-aged nomad of around five hundred named Sirius, surveyed the area. His face was older, wise in a way, lined with fatigue of the ages. His hair, lightening from black to a much more silver color, was long and intricately braided. The clearing was large enough to hold their numbers, and he himself had helped set up tents for rest. It was a fine place to have stopped, he considered, gazing upwards. The stars were bright tonight, and they were far from the drowning light of man. He shifted the weight of his armoring, the dark metal plating resting squarely on his shoulders. He had meant to ask the star gazers earlier if they had found which one it was yet. Out there in the sky, stars were dimming.

The Celestial Nomads had a special connection to the stars, for they were the stars. They tracked the movements and peculiarities of the stars, wandering the corners of the Earth in search of heavenly knowledge. They crafted elaborate maps of the heavens, fine recreations of the vast universe in bold inks and sharp parchment. They plotted out the future and past of their people - the stars who once walked among them, and the ones who were destined to journey with them. They were stars reborn into human form, named after the star they came from.

When stars die, they fade slowly into the cold void, spreading across the galaxies. But within those elements are memories - memories of names, of constellations, of stories to what they were and who they would be. The love shown for the stars drew them to the Earth, where they took their human form. For every star that died, a new nomad was born into the world. The stargazers would watch with bated breath, searching for the stars that had died since their last look, a name of the new life that would join them on Earth. A star would be fading tonight, Sirius thought, he felt it in his very soul.

Returning his attention to the camp, he noted that the mother’s tent was glowing even more brightly. Other, more keen observers were already in a commotion. It had begun. The process of birth, despite the great time between them, was a special time for the nomads. It was a lengthy process steeped in tradition, roles that were second nature at this point. The charters continued their search, and others prepared for the birth itself. The father, Cepheus, had gone off into the forest to help search for more water. With the camp tended to, Sirius strode into the forest himself.

The forest was bright for the middle of the night, the vibrant cyan leaves glowing in the moonlight. He had always had an appreciation for how the stars illuminated the world. It filled the nomads with a sort of passion, an energy that helped guide them along their way.

There was a stream not to far away from camp, where he spotted the tell tale robes of the group. The Celestial Nomads all wore a peculiar sort of cloak, a deep velveteen sheet that mirrored space itself. Terrestrials, if ever granted sight of it, considered it a form of magic, some sort of cloth imbued with their mystics.

“Cepheus,” Sirius called in his low, echoing voice. The taller of the three looked up, his expression hopeful. He was a dark eyed man, a deep brown flecked with green that contrasted greatly with his light golden hair. He stood up at attention to their leader, a waterskin still in his hands.

“Yes?” He asked.

“It has begun, I’d advise you be there.” Sirius said, before bowing and turning back. Cepheus stared for a moment, before snapping into action and sprinting back to catch up with Sirius. The younger man maintained a quicker pace, seeming to prefer walking alongside Sirius. He looked worried.

“Is Cassiopeia alright?” He questioned nervously. It was presumably the first birth Cepheus had attended, judging by his anxiety.

“She is in good hands.” Sirius said calmly and silently. He had watched over the nomads for a great amount of time in his five hundred years. He had been present for Cepheus’ birth himself, as well as Cassiopeia’s. She would be taken care of.

The camp, as they returned, was still racing. There was movement in Cassiopeia’s tent, but the atmosphere remained cool and calm. Nomads would race in and out with rags, bowls of water, amongst other items.

Cepheus himself wove through the crowd and into his partners tent. The dull orange of heatstone reverberated off of the canvas walls, and the air was no longer cool and clear. There was a hazy smoke and smell to the room, stemming from herbal remedies they had been burning all night. Cassiopeia laid on the soft cot they had prepared for her, attended by several of the older and wiser nomads. Above the crowd, Cepheus met her eye. His worry melted away, and he grasped her outstretched hand. He crouched down to be level with her

“How are you doing?” He asked tentatively. Cassiopeia’s dark eyes, weary like the rest of her, met his with an expression of deep pain. It was a process, Cepheus thought, and he understood well.

He stayed by her side throughout, helping as he could for her comfort. With one hand, he laid a soft cloth in a basin of cool water, letting it rest for a moment before placing it across her forehead.

“Have the charters found the star yet?” She asked wearily. Cepheus wasn’t quite sure himself. He looked around the room for anyone who would know, when low and behold, Sirius stepped into the tent.

“How goes the delivery?” He asked. A few of the attendants broke off and began conversing with him. From the small bits he heard, it seemed to be going well. Sirius caught Cepheus’ worried look, and politely excused himself from the group. “Is something wrong, Cepheus?”

“Have they found which star it is yet?” He asked, still holding Cassiopeia’s hand softly in his own.

“Not yet, but we could use as many hands as we can get, if you’d join us.” Sirius offered. Cepheus looked back to Cassiopeia, who was already shooing him to go on. Cepheus smiled once more, she knew him so well.

He broke from the warmth of the tent, back into the crisp night air, and closed the crescent clasp on his robes before striding towards the cliff face. The charters stood silently, the faint scribbling of pens the only break in silence. The small clearing offered an unparalleled view of the velveteen sky, but tonight's observations were not for their beauty alone, they were looking for the one.

“I’ll lend a hand.” he informed one of the nearby nomads, who smiled, and moved away from one of the telescopes. Cepheus seated himself and readied one of the maps next to him. He scanned it over briefly to familiarize himself, and let his own intuition guide him. They had swept over a good portion of the sky, but there was more for him to gaze at as well.

His eyes lingered over a particular blank spot on the map, where both Cepheus and Cassiopeia had disappeared from the night sky not but two hundred years before. They had always found it poetic how even in the void of space they had been close, and how their cosmic fate continued in their life on Earth.

A good start at the very least, he considered. Peering into the telescope, his hands precisely and elegantly turned the bronze gears and knobs on the side, watching the crystal lens intently as it focused. Before long, he found himself staring into the deep void of space where he had once been. His sight glanced from the crystal to the parchment, plotting the outline of the dark space. The dark space he and Cassiopeia had left was still surrounded by thousands of shining stars.

“Lacerta…. Pegasus… Aries…” he murmured, tracing around the dark space. He quickly penned the main stars on one of the thinner sheets that laid over the thicker and more bold map underneath. As he scrawled the fine lines of connection between Triangulum, he realized the dark spot was much larger than he’d ever observed. Cepheus stopped for a moment, checking back and forth to make sure he hadn’t forgotten any. His void bordered Polaris, but Cassiopeia’s did not extend down through Pegasus. Whatever had been there was now gone.

It was a blur afterwards, the speed at which Cepheus leaped up from his seat had nearly upset the whole telescope. He rushed towards the main table, spreading the sheet he had been drawing over the main star chart they kept.

“Find something, Cepheus?” Asked Sirius, who had his own sheet laid over the map.

“Possibly…” Cepheus responded, looking desperately for Polaris on the map. Positioning it over, he turned it so the stars overlapped. His map showed the hole where Cepheus and Cassiopeia had been, but the gap extended further down, straight through-

“Andromeda.” Cepheus said aloud, “Andromeda is gone from the night sky.”

Sirius’ face broke into a wide grin, and patted him on the back. Cepheus, who had not been prepared, was nearly winded, but he was too elated to care. Her name was Andromeda!

He raced back to Cassiopeia’s tent. Once more entering the bastion of light and heat, he found Cassiopeia reclining in her cot, a bundle of blankets in her arms. Cepheus slowed down instantly, looking over her in awe.

“It’s a girl.” She whispered hoarsely. Cepheus beamed, the excitement building within him. He rushed over to sit beside her, eager to see his child for the first time. She was tiny, miniscule to the blankets she’d been wrapped in. He could see Cassiopeia in her, the shape of her tiny face and the dark shade of her skin, to which the tuft of golden hair from her head contrasted.

“Did they find it?” She whispered to him after a brief silence. Cepheus nodded excitedly.

“Andromeda has left the night sky, and joined us here on Earth.” He whispered back. Cassioepia gazed downwards at the child, who rested with her eyes shut tightly.

“Do you want to hold her?” She asked, and Cepheus cradled her with distinct care. She rustled faintly in her blankets, appearing to stir. Her eyes opened, and Cepheus was surprised to see his own bright green eyes staring back. Andromeda stared back up at him wide-eyed, like she was trying her hardest to memorize his face. He smiled at her warmly, hearing Cassiopeia gasp at her intensity.

“It must have been some journey.” He laughed, holding her tightly, “Welcome to Earth, Andromeda.”

“Congratulations to the both of you.” A deep voice shook from behind them. Cepheus had not noticed that Sirius was once more present. He walked on over, peering forth into the bundle that Cepheus cradled.

“Hello, Andromeda.” Sirius said in a deep, soothing voice. Andromeda’s eyes went wide open, and she stared into the dark purple of Sirius’ eyes. She was a rather quiet baby, he noted, and observant at that. He returned his gaze to the proud parents, both exhausted from their respective parts in the birth. It was a proud day for the Celestial Nomads.

“She’ll make a fine nomad someday.” He concluded, “The best of luck to the both of you.”

The next few weeks passed rather quickly for the nomads. Past the normal day to day tasks, the charters produced a more current map of the stars, which now missed Andromeda.

Andromeda, however, was not missed by the nomads. As the days went on and Cassiopeia regained her strength, little Andromeda became the star of the camp. The normal cool lull of the nomads became a little more vibrant with her around, and everyone adored her. Sirius and Cepheus had worked on knitting a little purple cap for her to wear in the cold; and other nomads worked on a small harness so Cassiopeia and Cepheus could carry her around.

The nomads never stayed in one place for very long, and so it was soon that they packed their dark canvas tents, curled up their many scrolls and maps, and left the azure forest behind. The walked silently in their robes of space, to wherever the stars would lead them. The sky was their map, and they had now taken a piece of it with them. And as the nomads continued their cosmic journey, little Andromeda looked up to the stars, staring at the majesty and brilliance of a past life.

#orion unfathomable #official story

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