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kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pm
onefellswoop) wrote in kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pmtexts texts texts
this one is for texts!
onefellswoop) wrote in kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pm
2/2
Less than I would prefer, given the [ … ] situation I found myself in. Given the claims she has made.
What she might attempt to do now thatShe visited my - I think it was still our? - home for a time. (Ah, there! It must have been ‘our,’ because I only know the castle as ‘home’ when I think of it outside the harrowed, hollow times. When my memory holds hazes. When you must have been at my side, and I curled at your own.)
She was a serving girl. A maid meant to busy herself in cleaning out the halls, no questions asked. An unintended consequence tacked on to a deal; she was never meant to stay for long. The particulars [ … ] blur before my thinking.
Well. She ought to have been less than nothing. She would have passed entirely from my recollection, had she not [ … ] resurfaced in our life.
[ … ]
For her truer name, whatever she may claim to be. Whatever she purports. My supposition is her claims hold little relation to what’s true. I don’t know who she was. I’m not certain who she thinks she is—
Though come to think on it. She called me ‘beast’ a time or three. A well-worn, tired insult, I assumed, but it might be something other. Another false claim; another vector for her delusions.
[ … ]
Gods below, but the thought of her sickens me.
And in the vein of noxious soulstains: You’ve located Mary Margaret’s name precisely! Snow White, indeed; her true self no less irksome than her current. Schoolteacher and so-called lover of birds (never mind the hell she puts those creatures through— I mean the birds and the children alike). Resident do-gooder, where ‘doing good’ equates to advertising her own virtue and mooning over an unnamed coma patient. Perpetual ‘victim’ and perpetual fixation of our town’s mayor and curse-caster—
Related: Have you guessed Regina’s other self? The identity of the one who dared to think the curse her own; whose audacity brought us here?
1/2
[...]
[...]
Look at me, still trying to be polite about "the missus" so I avoid making things uncomfortable. That's going to take some time. Christ.
It's fucked. The whole thing was fucked, how she treated you was fucked, and I shouldn't have let it go on the way I did. I should've said something like I'm saying now, because I can see where she got in your head. Made you think you're a man and you've got to live up to some kind of weird, precise notion of manhood that only she understands.
Even if you were a man, Desmond, that was some abusive shit.
But look at it from the outside, okay? Say it was me, and she was trying to run the "beast" out of me and make me a "good man". How would you have felt about that, knowing I am what I am? Or even not knowing that at all. Would you have thought she was doing any kind of good thing there?
Hey, did you ever even have a conversation with her in all that time that wasn't her asking for something, or her constructing an elaborate fantasy about your future and lives together, or her berating you? I didn't hear it, if so, and I was around a lot.
Okay. Got that off my chest a little.
Now you gotta listen to me.
You're not human. In the place before here, you didn't smell it at all. You didn't look it, or act like it, or live like it.
You want to think of it as being trans-species, I'm okay with that, but if you were transgender, we wouldn't be talking about what you were born as, would we?
I don't know what you were, but it was rare and beautiful, and if a wolf refused to kill you because of that, she had no right to come in and try to stomp it out of you like she's running some half-baked conversion therapy.
You are what you are, and it's something perfect. More than that, it's obvious you loved it. You chose it. I think you still do love it.
I'm not letting her take it away from you, and I'm definitely not letting you take it away from yourself.
2/2
Are you suggesting Lacey is the Beauty?
Nah, that's me. Thanks. ;)
[...]
It's not like Regina made herself difficult to identify. Didn't even bother changing her name.
Lazy.
[...]
I've got a better one for you.
Guess who Granny is. I told you her name before, but I know who she is.
1/2
F[ … ] [ … ]??[ … ]?????[ … ] [ … ]What was that sound, that word or name, II long to know your name, my Love.[ … ]
Puppy.
You leave me breathless, and sing my lungs to joy, back to renewal.
How lucky I am. To know you and to know you as my own; to be granted words like respite, and you, my Puppy, you speak relief precisely where my wounds run most raw.
My mate, you bring such joy to me.
You see your Desmond so clearly, and you love me, you care for me so well.
You’re correct, Love; I am not human.
Even when I nominally was a man, even before I knew the dagger, humanity never sat easy on me. I suppose something in my nature cried against it.
[ … ]
They’re mistaken about me. Here, yes, and then in the Forest, where they took my nature for a plague, a passing, pestilent influence. Something with which I’d been afflicted. Something I might be cured of, and the realm made better for my curing.
Useless fucking words. Useless notions.
I do love what I am.
I love that you see this; that you understand me.
[ … ]
I miss it. What I was in the Forest; the form that best meets what I am at heart. I suspect I needn’t describe the feeling of this absence. I think - and mourn to think - you know it well, my Wolf.
We’ll have it back. Our truths restored, our forms regained. We’ll curl together, the wolf and the creature in their den, with our pup, with every lost member of our family.
For now, regarding subjects less pleasant—
Puppy.
My Love.
Please; there was nothing you could have done to intervene with Lacey. (Nothing beyond the worlds you offered and the hell that you endured. How could I have survived her, without you? You kept me nearest to myself when all she did was pry, and insinuate, and level poisoned words. It’s true I can’t recall a single conversation free from censure or/and plea. It’s true I felt she spoke only to a man I never was and never wished to be.
I should have understood, should have seen that there was nothing truthful in it, that I was only playing to some scheme, II ought to have trusted myself. I ought to have known that whatever we were in the Forest, I wouldn’t have betrayed you.) You know how stubborn your Desmond is, hm? My mind was made up; I was - as you know - certain I could unearth myself and free us both.And you were there at every step. Your very presence weighed against her needling, and kept me from sinking wholly.
[ … ]
It was fucked; yes. True.
What she did. How I [ … ] permitted her to act. How I took her nonsense in as anything other than calumny.
[ … ]
I have lived for centuries, my Love. A handful of weeks spent enduring her spite counts for little enough, relatively speaking. She may have gotten under my skin, but it’s your words and your eyes that endure. It’s your voice I trust, and you heal me, Puppy. With every touch and every ounce of speech.
All will be well. I will be well, and restored, now that I have you. ❤️
2/2
My one and always. 😌 Do you see how lucky I am?
(My supposition regarding Lacey is that she bore only a minor role in a story of no note, and that she’s pushed herself into someone else’s story. Given what you and I have seen from her, it isn’t tricky to envision.
Gods, she’s nothing more than a bad and a persistent parody of all that’s rancid.)
Granny, Granny, what do I know of Granny? That she existed as a perpetual nettle embedded in the royal court, for reasons I never could fathom. (Why should her misanthropy be deemed ‘charming,’ while my own is villainy, hm?) I presume her crusts were no less sodden, her prepared meats no less overcooked. That she holds some [ … ] perhaps-familial tie to Ruby
…why can I remember so little about her; if I recall the grandmother, surely I ought to have known the granddaughter?it strikes too close to something; burns toward a splitting headache.[ … ]
Beyond that, my knowledge hazes. Frustrating, when I feel there’s more I must have known. Something must have been lost, but I—
Hm. Best to let my own recollections be. Better that I hear from my Puppy; tell me, who was she?
As regards our mayor slash provincial queen, Regina never has been burdened by an abundance of foresight. Nor does she lack for inflated confidence. I’ve yet to piece out why she believed I (I, her long-lived once-teacher, I, who composed the damned curse— alongside my Puppy, of course! it thrills me still to know we shared in its creation, that we worked magic side-by-side) should have allowed my own curse to affect me. Why I wouldn’t have left a little loophole, a bit of clarity for myself.
Well. I suppose I was a bit mad at the time. Perhaps she thought I’d grown haphazard, prone to making errors.
…Perhaps she wasn’t entirely wrong. But the curse was built before my mind turned to gnawing at itself.
…Puppy.
You remember her. But does the mayor know who you are? Did she recognize you, Puppy?
Does she know what you are to me.An unnecessary question now, perhaps. Given my sudden ‘amnesia’Even so, I wouldn’t put it past herShe already turned her rancor on us onceFucking Regina.1/2
Right now, though, we don't have to talk about her anymore. We can if you want or need, but it feels like something to talk about in person, where I can hold you and comfort you.
We'll get back to ourselves again. Nominally, if not physically, and then - twelve years. That's not so bad when you've got your mate and lover beside you.
Maybe husband, too. I never did get to ask
I'm going to ask! Oh, shit, I'm going to ask!
Might need to get you a divorce. Fucking Regina.
I'll tell you a secret: from where I'm sitting, if we're playing Beauty and the Beast, I might be pretty, but I'm definitely the Beast. Proved it in our forest, didn't I?
...Proved it here pretty often, too. >;3
And you're definitely the pretty one. All those scales. [...] I miss your scales.
You're beautiful now, too, but my god, those scales were gorgeous - and I'm saying this knowing full well you were molting and probably not taking the best care of them when I can recall you, so imagine how you must've looked when I was there to look after you.
Like honey's dripping down your body[...]
Oh.
That explains the honey. Huh.
2/2
This is so stupid. I'm stuck in the magical Matrix, I'm awake, and I have to go to work? Garbage.
Anyway. Cold shower: Granny, who is actually named Mattie like I said. It's actually kind of funny: she was my brother's mate. I remember her. I remember Ruby, too. Weird, knowing your sister's actually your great-niece and the old bat running the diner is actually a wolf.
Going to give myself a complex if I keep thinking I'm the same age as Mattie. I must've gotten the good looks in the family - or maybe my mate was, mmmm, giving me a little cosmetic surgery?
I don't think Regina knows me. She was truly, honestly baffled that I'm here. She actually asked which wolf I am, like she thought I was the Big Bad one.
...Am I, do you think? The minute this curse ends, I'm making that my new stage name.
[...]
One more question for you. You mentioned knowing a dagger. What'd that mean? Did you have to damage your body or something to become my creature?
1/2
Yes I am.
I don’t believe I’ll ever find the words to speak my love for you. So much the better, perhaps; I’ll spend our centuries in their seeking, and know warmth with every breath that sings you.
My Love. My Puppy. My wolf, my mate, and my eternal companion.
(Related, perhaps: ‘Granny’ - also called Mattie; also called your sister-in-law, a revelation in its own right! gods, but I can’t envy you this connection; gods, but my own familial links are no less foul - may have done better to embrace the wolf she is and stray far from the ‘heroes.’
Mm. And it may have profited her to find love with an ageless creature, who would indeed have done his damnedest to fill his Puppy with eternal life. 😌✨
…Gods. She is your sister-in-law? I suppose that explains why the curse saddled you with her association.
I suppose it explains why the curse put you in nearness with your great-niece. I can’t imagine how Ruby might fair, were she lacking in wolf-ly connection.
…Is she my great-niece as well, then? Is that why she shifts out of knowing? My Puppy, who extensive was our family? How many remain to be found?Additionally, for the record: You are perfectly permitted to develop any complex you please. My Beauty. My handsome, my incomparably attractive mate!)
I am humbled, I am gratified, to find I might be some cause of your adoration of honey.
I do miss my scales.
No one ever spoke of them asIt wouldn’t surprise you, I expect, to hear the horror others spoke upon themHow did you know I was molting?No; of course you understood. Oh, my Love.Their ripple in the light; the guise they gave to me.
I’d love to feel your taste upon them.
Someday, my Love.
Twelve years, and we will hold each other fully, in true form again.
2/2
Why she seems to have made it her mission to destroy the truth of what I am.
[ … ]
I would rather be with you for it. Your present comfort and your holding will sustain me through discussion of her vilest deeds. And I would much prefer to hold you through it, too.
It wasn’t easy on you, Love; I know it. And though I am not without blame, I can certainly give, and I wish to give, what shelter and what comfort I may.
She’s done incalculable damage to us both, Love.
But as you say, we will return to ourselves. Arms wrapped around each other; my lips against your cheek, your ear, in recurrent adorations.
…I’m not certain how far I ought to speak of the dagger without being at your side. To hold you. To keep you steady, if needs be.
I really shouldn’t have mentionedI must have told you, in the ForestWhen you were fracturing. When Regina broke between us. You spoke ofI sometimes wondered if you meant to nod towardWhere in the FUCK is my dagger??[ … ]
It’s uneasy ground, Puppy. You must have known about it in our other world; I worry that speaking of my dagger might strike you raucous.
Tell me, please, if you feel the slightest twinge.
If any word sets alarms ringing in your mind, don’t read whatever follows. Only tell me, message me: Not now, Daddy.
Do that for me, won’t you?
A slow beginning, and we’ll see whether it aches you. (And if it does, Puppy, I won’t hesitate. I’ll be at your side as swiftly as my vehicle can carry me. You know I’ve no qualms about closing the shop. You know I would always, always prefer your presence to these dusty walls.)
[ … ]
I spoke of the dagger. I mean—
My. Dagger.
The locus of my magic; carrier of what I sought, and what called to me.
It is a part of what I am, Love.
[ … ]
How are you feeling?
1/2
My mate, my love, and my Daddy.
Any time I try to think that you weren't, it feels wrong. Deep down inside of me, there's this knowing. I see you and I can't keep away from you. I don't know how I made it this long here without you, Desmond.
I guess I almost didn'tI guess I almost didn't.
Someone's going to answer for that, too.
But not you.
And I don't hold you accountable for Lacey, either; we've fixed the loopholes, right? No contracts that would harm our family? So there's nothing else you need to do or make up for or feel guilty about.
My heart got broken, but she caused it. It wasn't your fault. We put the blame where it belongs and now we don't judge one another or ourselves for being victimized.
[...]
You're mine, Desmond. You as you are, and you as the creature before - and who you will be again. You're going to see someday what that means: where you're weak, I'll be strong. Where you're strong, I know I can be weak.
I don't think you're anything less than perfect just as you are.
[...]
While I'm brushing up on it, what are you? "Dark One" is NOT a species. More like a brand.
Are there more of you? Does your kind have a name?
!!!
Can WE pick one?!
2/2
Part of you.
You don't have it, do you.
That dagger?
[ An audio file arrives shortly after.]
I'm going to try and tell you something, but.
It's hard to explain. I have to record myself because if I think about it to type it, I just.
Can't. So, um.
Every time I read what you texted me, it's like trying to see something out of the corner of my eye, or...trying to read in a dream. You know how you can never read in dreams? And if I focus on it, I feel a weird pulse.
My head hurts, yeah, but the pulse thing...
I think it's protecting me, or protecting itself, so it's protecting me. It happened when I tried to remember Corbin, too.
When I try to focus on it, I think, um. I think...I think not to think about it, but like someone else is telling me not to think about it. My voice, in my head, don't think about it. Or it's not important.
You wrote, "It's part of what I am." I feel like I know that. And I have this memory from that night in the shop, maybe. I remember...I don't know. I was in so much pain, Desmond, I felt like I was splitting apart, and there was someone I knew I had to reach for who could make me well.
But not you.
But yes, you.
But inward, like I could reach inside myself and through to somewhere else to touch him. You. Augh! Fuck, my head -
[ A moment or two of silence and steadying breaths, a drawn sound of irritation and pain. Finally: ]
I'm okay. I'm okay.
It did it again. Pulse and don't think, don't think, don't think. So I'm not gonna think about it anymore.
But - That knowing again. I just know - Uh. Well. I might know where it is.
Heh.
Good luck getting it out.
1/2
’Be careful, my Dearest,’ he thinks. Panic scraping at his throat as he listens, not breathing, listening intent to every shift in his mate’s voice. He hears Jack taking what care he can. Hears those staggered breaths, the pained intake, and his fingers wrap tight and tighter at his phone, willing, willing his Puppy to hold on.
He hears his Puppy’s words, and he understands. Recalls: “It’s okay. I still have it.” Recalls, “I kept you safe. Nothing to fear as long as I have it safe, you said.”
There are forms of magic - tricky to compose; not improbable, not beyond Rumplestiltskin’s capabilities, and certainly not beyond what he and his wolf might have reached together - that open space beyond its typical dimensions. Magic that can keep an object hidden from sight and seeking. That can keep a nonpareil artifact safe from prying hands and can perhaps, perhaps turn it into a form of protection.
His magic is in part here, in Storybrooke, even if it can’t be reached.
His magic lives in the one place he would have wished it.
Oh—Perhaps he has been protecting his Puppy all along.
Just as his Love has been guarding him.
When he’s finished listening, he sends an audio file of his own. Voice low, soothing velvet. Fluttering his fingers through the thought of Puppy’s hair as he speaks, thinking, ’Easy, my Love; be easy.’ ]
Breathe, Puppy.
Breathe for your Desmond.
Don’t think at all; only feel my hand at your hair, my lips at your forehead. Nestle your cheek against my throat, warm, safe. Beloved.
Stay here with me, and breathe.
My Love, I thank you.
It’s safe; you’ve kept it for me.
All these years, I have been within your care, and my guardianship has been in you.
Oh, Love, we’ll be okay.
Breathe, my mate, breathe.
Your Daddy loves you so.
I am with you always.
2/2
I comprehend your meaning, and I ask that you don’t dwell on it. We have our answer; there’s no more that needs speaking on it now.
You’ve had it all along. You, the wolf prowling our grounds, what should have been our home. You, here in Storybrooke, before I knew your name.
My Love, they will pay for what they’ve done. We’ll drain their blood and leave them hollowed, eeking out upon the earth they’ve played their traduction on. They’ll watch our revelry, and shudder.
Repayment. We’ll give them all a bit of business.
Thank you, Puppy. You who are eternally Dearest to my soul.
Keeper of my dagger, of my name.
[ … ]
If you like, my Love. If you wish it, if you might allow it, we’ll speak on those darker days. When you [ … ] neared a precipice. It won’t come to that again, but [ … ] you have lived, you have known that harrowing. And if you care to speak on it, I’ll hold you, and kiss you close. I’ll be with you through the dark and thorns, Dearest. Where you’ll never find yourself again.
You will never be without me, Puppy. And I wish to aid in easing every wound, every absence that I can.
I love you. And it is my fortune, it is the sustenance of my soul, to know that you remain, and you will always be with me.
The world goes awry without you; nothing within or outside feels fitting.
What I mean to say is yes, I have always been yours. Since before I knew you, and until time spins itself to dust.
[ … ]
No self-judgement; I’ll work on that. I will, Love, and I’ve your encouragement to butt against my censures.
You have my gratitude for this, as well.
There is no one who has helped me feel more at home in myself, or aided me in seeing that what I am is not [ … ]
entirelyonlydespicable.[ … ]
And! As for what I am—
I’m not certain a word for it has been found. ‘Dark One’ describes the role; as I understand, the form that comes of taking on the name varies a bit.
I’ve only met one other, and he didn’t last for long. He bore [ … ] certain similarities, but the heart of him burned different. His existence felt different from the one I took upon myself.
Perhaps obfuscation was the point; perhaps the Dark One is meant to be no certain creature, and nothing that has been known before.
Even so, I see no argument against naming what I as the Dark One am.
My very own species, all for my Puppy’s joy.
And as I am wholly your creature, I find it only apt that you should name my species!
What, my Love, would you name me?
What title would you bestow upon my species?
no subject
People who inflict curses on beings like Desmond don't just stop there; they're going to mean him real harm. (Unless they're dead.)
(Unless the point was to rip Jack away from him, but even then, the work's being undone now, isn't it?) (What was the wolf before its memories were stripped away? A guardian as well as a mate? A defense mechanism?
Someone Desmond trusted, and when he lost the wolf, did that mean he trusted no one? Slipped deeper into paranoia and madness?
Oh, Desmond.)
In the meantime...he has to admit it's a little exhilarating to think part of Desmond is always with him. Always protecting him and marking him as Daddy's own.
Always inside him.
Jack listens to the audio file with his eyes closed, feeling his lover's hand running through his hair. He presses his own hand to his midsection and imagines (?) he feels something subtly bass - like a purr. Contenting, the knowledge of that maybe-dagger.
The headache eases away and he hums a pleased note. He won't think about it, and...well. It's not hurting him, whatever it is. It's just a little bit of Daddy. That's honestly all he wants lately, anyway, right? ]
No more thinking about it. It might not even BE a dagger, right? Might be anything. Might be, I dunno, my very vivid imagination or something. Might even be a tapeworm!
(But just in case, no more thinking about it. And maybe we ought to delete those audio files and anything that talks about daggers.)
No more talking about Lacey or blame or any other unhappy shit right now, either.
So, about this Dark One thing.
It's a role, and you get the title by taking it on. How many are there, or are you like...the Dark One Highlander? Did you have to kill all the other ones?
I mean, if so, it's probably for the best unless you want to start breeding more Dark Ones. Pretty sure some of your magic makes you a little squirrelly - and before you deny that, remember I saw you do some wild shit. Not a condemnation! Just saying you don't want to load up on Dark Ones like you don't want to load up on apex predators. They still have their niche in the environment and all.
Or! Is it possible that the role didn't make you something else, but maybe...unlocked your ability to be something you already were? Like tapping into a latent gene, you know?
What's the dagger that we're not thinking about got to do with all this?
no subject
Again, my Love, if the words begin to burn, or to blur overmuch, you must slip past them, and let this message pass into the void.
Anything that fails coherence now will be known in time, when we’ve mended this rift by which we’ve found ourselves fractured.
The Dark One, Love, is both a title and [ … ] a sense of being intrinsic to my identity. What I am now cannot be severed from the title and the being I took on. Some might say that to become the Dark One is to be changed at the core, but I find— Your words speak it more to my liking, and to my experience. In becoming the Dark One, I wasn’t changed utterly; better to say that something in me was unlocked, that I was granted reign to become better aligned with my own potential. That I stepped into greater wholeness.
In a way, then, the dagger— Mm. For sake of maintaining a bit of distance, potential cushioning for my Love’s mind, let us say ‘the artifact.’ So in a way, the artifact functions as a kind of key.
A key and a tether. A connection to a vast, an ever-evolving energy. An access to magic, and an opportunity to take that magic into one’s own being. A deal and a contract of its own, really.
And double-edged— It’s that, as well. There are particularities of the artifact’s power best kept out of texted messages (no worries, Puppy! Daddy will tell you all another time, when I can nestle at your chest and grace your cheek with kisses; where no one but we two can hear the words I know) but becoming the Dark One requires a price of blood drawn.
It is rather a Highlander situation; there can only be one wielder of the artifact - thus,
as the kids say,there can only be one Dark One (a pity, really; I quite warm to the idea of a bundle of Dark One pups, all equally frenetic, every one a buzzing handful to their fathers!) - at a time.I killed the one who came before me.
A being I caught wind of and sought after. A being whose will had been compromised. Whose magic was [ … ] like and quite unlike my own (which is, I would neither dare nor bother to deny, indeed quite squirrelly at times).
I can’t say how many lived before him.
I cannot say how long the dagger has existed, orIt frustrates me, that its origin remains enshroudedThe artifact holds no trace of their memories; whatever connection I bear to past Dark Ones is minimal.If the Dark One is a species, then, it seems to be ever-evolving. And whatever species I may be, I place entirely up to your naming. 😌❤️✨
no subject
Until I figure something out for you, I think "Highlander", "Sweetheart", and "my love" work very well, don't you?
[...]
You still want pups?I guess if we had (more?) pups, they wouldn't be Dark Ones, exactly. Depending on how we went about it. If we went about it, I mean.
Seems to me we've got a lot to work through before we even think about bringing kids into
[...]
It's strange, isn't it? Going from dating for a few months - practically living together after our first date - to screwing around for a few months, to thinking maybe we've been together for decades and also knowing we were pretty antagonistic for a while, too. Every time we've built something even a little, something happens to knock it all back down.
This conversation's making me realize I don't really know anything about you. The real you, or the whole you. And you can't get to know who I was - the whole me - because I can't remember.
And I don't know how much of the past six months we get to keep, you know?
Like the conversation about children.
And whether you want me to keep being how I was for you, with that contract, or if we go back to how it was before. Or if we figure out how to be both ways together.
And what happens if we remember who we were together in the forest and it's not like any of that?And [...] whether you still would want to marry me if I asked.
And where we live. How we keep up the pretense that you don't remember anything. What we do about Regina.
[...]
We've got a lot of things to figure out together.
At least we're together, though. Right?
1/3
Together, always.
We’ll find a way to shake whatever and whoever has inflicted us with fractures. I know this; I believe in us. In our need to return to one another. In the ways we’re drawn together.
Even in this curse, designed though it is to keep love severed.
Even in the last days - years, years - in the Forest; antagonists though we were, still we couldn’t stay apart, hm? Still you were in my thoughts at every turn, the wolf in shadows, the one for whom I left my cloak.
Puppy. Whatever may seek to separate us, I will always long for you, want only you. I will always know wholeness when I find you.
You are my mate; there is no other.
I would marry you in a heart’s beat. Now. Any time in the future that awaits us.
I suspect we may have beenI have memories, Puppy, of a pair of rings, andWould that I could rememberHow can I have forgottenI’m going to ruin whatever sun-starved cretins took you from my mind.I failed to meet my opportunity once; I won’t let another pass.
[ … ]
I believe you were mine once, mate and heart’s consonance and husband, all.
I want nothing better than to be your own in every way.
2/3
Regarding these past six months, we will keep everything we want.
Everything that strikes us now as apt, as right and needful.
There is nothing we need to forfeit. There is nothing we’ve grown together that I’d care to - or bear to - lose.
Here, consider—
If there is any truth to [… ] what we suspect. Regarding the artifact. (And I suspect this is true, Puppy. It suits so perfectly into my knowing; it meets my knowledge of you across these six months, and in every conversation we’ve shared, in every glance you give me.) (In my memory, there has never been a being I would permit to take the artifact in-hand, let alone [ … ] keep it more intimately. And yet I would give it over to you without need for thought. I am inclined to trust you with it just as much as I trust you with myself.)
Presuming - suspecting - it is true, it’s a telling fact, my Love. It means that however we existed before absence was inflicted on us, you held my trust, you held my heart entirely.
Truly, it would be enough for me to know how I feel about you know, how I have felt about you since you first laid your hand on my cane: That you are the world to me. That if there is such a thing as fate, we are fated; and that apart from fate, you are and you will always be my choice.
Granted that I’ve shown that choice poorly, in recent incidents. I misjudged the harm that might be done if I tore myself from that woman…Well. We’ve discussed this; better not to bring you torment with its talk again.My Love, where are you now? Step out into the sun and speak to yourself, hand upon your chain, fingertips stroking our charm slow and steady: ‘Daddy loves me.
‘Daddy is watching; Daddy will guard me.’
And we have time. Together, Daddy and Puppy will bring all tumult into sense. And I will hold you, lover, through it all.
We have years ahead to manage any and every complication. Years to discern what we are now, and to find what we have been. To discuss our feelings regarding children - I know my own inclinations, and how well you would shine as a father, how well I’d love to see your care for any pups of ours - and to share all we can find of one another (certainly, I mean to tell you all I know of myself, of the man-not-man I have been).
To find all that we once knew, unlock our past knowledge and rejoice in its discovery.
My Puppy, there isn’t anything to fear.
(Regarding Regina, give her no further thought. I’ve feigned ignorance with her before, and for years. Think of it as a game, hm? One you can aid your Desmond in: Running rings around the mayor-queen, seeing just how far we can push credulity and keep her swathed in ignorance.)
There is so much we might worry over, but Puppy, my Love—
Let Daddy handle things, hm?
Let your Desmond take care of you.
My Dearest, you’ve done so much, and cared for me through such distress (your own as well as your Sweetheart’s). To my mind, it’s high time that my Puppy give his weary head a rest. And I long to guard you, to guide you, my Dearest.
3/3
I don’t say that I wouldn’t like to revisit that arrangement. I quite enjoyed it - I enjoyed that form of your care, and your viciousness - but I love equally to guide you, choose for you. It’s something to revisit someday, perhaps. If we feel so inclined.
For now, it’s only fair that Daddy takes control in-hand.
I do love to command my Puppy, and watch him melt to Daddy's dictates, hm?
[ ... ]
Tonight, perhaps, we'll have some silence. A fire and the gathering dark. You kneeling beside me, your cheek against my thigh, my fingers brushing through your hair. In silence; in adoring consonance; in peace. ❤️
1/2
But maybe you would've wanted it, because while you're not human, you're also not inhuman [...] and I know I'd have done anything to make you happy. Anything you asked.
[...]
I'm not inhuman, either. Even then, I wasn't quite or wasn't just a wolf. And I've been living as a human for years now. I understand a little better the beauty of being able to call you 'husband'.
I know how badly I wanted it both times around.
That's all a conversation for another day, of course. Maybe after you secure an annulment? Regina owes you. Or she owes me. I don't see her fighting it, in any case.
[...]
Did I tell you I went to see her? Aside from saying she thinks you don't remember anything, I mean. I paid her a visit and made her tell me everything.
She didn't appreciate my methods, but I don't appreciate being cursed, so I'd call us square.
2/2
Let's go to the cabin. That's the one place that's felt like it's just ours, right?
I'll get us some takeaway from that Italian place if you bring the whiskey.
And grab my blanket from our bedroom, please? It gets to live in the cabin from now on, not in the house getting all the remnant Lacey taint all over it.
[...]
She took the tablecloth, by the way. Hope she thinks to dry-clean it. 😇
1/3
[ … ] Traces, glimpses of memories like gossamer, like fog. Difficult to clasp hold of, but glowing with the warmth of heart’s truth.
Molten metal, and the glint of burnished gold. Excitation, euphoria running through my blood, my fingertips. [ … ] Golden scales on material toned gold and red.
Two rings, crafted by my own hands.
[ … ]
I don’t know what became of them. When they were - or when one was - bestowed. But I have my suspicions. I have certainties.
My husband; I am certain you were that.
And I would have asked my wolf. That, as well, I believe; that, as well, strikes warm resonance.
[ … ]
I loved you; I know that. My heart leaps toward the thought, nestles into it like honest, long-for comfort.
Well.
We’ll find the rings, my Dearest. And your wolf self is right; ‘mate’ holds meanings manifold, holds connectivity that sings itself even when memory’s gone absent.
Your nearer-to-human self is right, as well, or I find it so: This wish to be known as your husband. This desire to call you and have you known as my own.
My wolf, and my sometimes-a-man. Your man-not-man, your creature walking in this guise adores you fully.
And I will bring that blanket.
Your blanket.
I remember you, wrapped soft in its embrace. Myself, nuzzled at your neck, and you drawing your arms outstretched, then clasping, to wrap me in the blanket with my Puppy.
You rememberI’m so pleased that you remember it, I[ … ]
I didn’t let her touch it, you know.
It remained in my room always. For my knowledge only; a comfort in which I might enclose myself, and know your scent.
And think of you only, you always.
My love, I missed you so. Missed what we were, and ought to have been. I should haveWell. There isn’t any changing what’s occurred. Only moving forward and with you, always.
I know my luck, the grace of your fortune as infinite.
I long now for the night’s arrival.
Your and I, your blanket, and a soft-burning fire.
My Love, we’ll have our heaven. This night, and every day, every evening after.
2/3
Please. Your blanket will be spared that poison always.
3/3
During those three days, yes?
It did strike me as singular, that Graham was on your side - and so, on my own - with no retaliation from the mayor. That she gave me no earful after.
Do you know, I think she did take you at your word (no surprise; my Puppy, my wolf is convincing when he has cause to be, hm?); she’s watched me with wariness, tried to prod the boundaries of what I know and who I think I am.
I suspect she’s being careful. I suspect she has no wish to wake up what I am.
I suspect she’s relieved. (She shouldn’t be. Even supposing I’ve forgotten myself, she ought to be wary of you— But again, and always, she errs toward over-confidence. Toward what is simplest to believe.) Something that may aid in securing annulment for a marriage that never was. If she wants to keep calm waters, and keep ‘Mr. Gold’ from working himself into a memory-fracturing tizzy, it behooves her to speed along the process.
…What ever did you say to her, my Love?
What ever did you do?
1/2
Corbin, who has, as it turns out, both rings.
Jack laughingly calls him 'quite the magpie', all the while feeling something in his chest like pride of the paternal sort.
He takes a moment to photograph the unusual rings, then sends this image to Desmond. ]
Look familiar?
Corbin gave me one of them when I decided to propose.
Maybe I should have asked that night, Regina be damned. Maybe if you'd seen the ring, things would've turned out differently.
Or maybe you'd have thought they were yours and hers. With all the mind games they played, I would've thought the same.
But it's all right.
Gold and red toned, just like you said. That's more proof, isn't it? Can't do anything but believe you.
Can't do anything but ask you to be my husband again - soon! - and make sure it sticks this time.
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