Black Thorned Heart

YOU’RE OKAY!! Raum wants to cheer. A lightness fills his chest like a parade of colourful balloons into summer. Every moment of uncertainty, stress, pain, apprehension, and fear he has suffered in the past month feels to dissolve instantly, like he has woken from a perturbing dream to find himself back in his room, and finally, back home.

Not a second later that joy is smothered by anxiety. This was not just some cute little hijink he got himself into this time. He really, really fucked her over these months with this stunt of traipsing around with the Majesty. She must be utterly pissed still… ‘stunt’, no, it wasn’t a stunt, but he’s already preempting what she’s going to call it, and bracing to mediate the imminent argument before it turns into a beatdown. He’s going to try and defuse her again. Oh god, please once again give him the will to still tell her ‘no’.

Then, slightly delayed, comes a terror. Raum’s eyes widen. Nevermind worries of falling back into her pace, because if this stupid fucking whore body dares to want Reyl, to spread itself to Reyl—

—it doesn’t. His feathers tense in preparation to fight, like a cat stooping before a rival. She certainly isn’t something he can play with, take, or ignore. She’s rather something he must beat back immediately, bully out of his space, flee from, and sometimes lose to. Of anything the ghoul has felt, this seething aversion, apprehension, and surety is as yet the most vital and the most significant. This is his opposite, but also his compliment, against which his own colours shine brighter. He needs to challenge it ruthlessly. He needs to let it be. In its own fucked up way, it seems even the ghoul recognises that yes, this is its sister.

Though perverted into sludge, her fundamental importance to him is heartening to see. Again a temptation to just defer to the ghoul, and its inhumanly twisted but sure understanding of Raum’s heart, flits through his brain. But no, no, no. Goddamn it, revolting, stop it, please stop it, no. A horrible relationship of eternal antagonism and bickering and opposition isn’t what he wants with Reyl. He doesn’t want to fight her. He doesn’t.

Raum forces his brain blank, sighs, flattens up his wings and tail, and smiles as he lets those initial emotions take over again. Man. He’s tearing up a bit. It is so good to see her.

Finally, he has balanced himself enough to actually consider her, beyond gut reactions.

She is sitting on the steps, not too far away, that lead out of the tunnels. Her expression is a little hard to read — generally, not a good sign — but between her wide eye and and taut shoulders, seems predominantly a mix of shock at seeing Raum’s state and cold judgement that he got himself in this predicament at all. She looks a bit ragged from months of rough living, but not supernaturally deformed or disabled. Her hand, rested on her knee, holds her radio as well as a knife.

She slumps back into her slouch, snorts. “Fuck has you gotten into now. Looking like Ma gave you dance classes."

Despite how he wants to protest, and despite how the aptness of that comparison stings, he laughs. He missed this. God damn it Jay.

Before he can find a reply, she cracks a sardonic grin and points. “Dead, ain’tchya?"

“Got—" Raum flinches at his own voice, which has lost its human tenor, and sounds closer to a friendly parrot mimicking a recording of Raum Whitewood. “Got betting pools going how long I can limbo, but some asshole keeps lowering the bar. Fuck, Jay." He leans into his body’s motions, letting himself roll out his chest, primp out his ass. He flicks his primaries down and back up in a booty tease before drawing his wings up like the fans of a flamenco dancer. Holds the pose. “Ain’t it mean?"

Though meant to make light of the situation, Reyl coldly and automatically analyses these movements for their market value, which settles quickly into respect. She glances away and flicks her nose with her thumb. “Says there’s the world telling you where you’re worth."

Raum smiles over the spear of pain. But that is, essentially, what he had been thinking too.

“Hey, catching-up stands a third-quarter jubilee," Raum loosens himself out of that pose. “But I got an appointment ticking upstairs with the kid."

“Yeah? He gotta pluck a big chicken?" Raum nods. Frowning, she rests her chin in her palm. “Sounds to me you’re better off missing it," then taps the knife and radio against her knee.

Really. God damn it, Jay.

Once again his feathers prickle with that wary, targeted anger. That callous dismissal of his fading humanity only validates the ghoul’s attitude towards her. Or maybe there is another way he should approach this conversation. Maybe he ought think of himself less, sympathise with her more. But the foundational sentiment required to pursue that approach is slowly crumbling, like grit shedding off of a cliff.

Raum sighs hard, but the undercurrent of his tone stays a hiss, “bringing show knives to waste my time? Figures nah, so why piss the details?" A vague hope flickers through his mind. “Is Phoenix making you…?"

She smirks and winces at the same time. “I got maybe five minutes to think how I gonna put my investments. Spare me ‘em. Is called ‘consultation’."

for FUCK’S SAKE REYL THIS IS NOT THE TIME. I MIGHT NOT HAVE FIVE MINUTES EITHER.

“Saying my advisories made it on your radar now?" he laughs. “Kumbaya kumbaya. You wanna be happy?"

She bows her head, twists her thumb over the flat of her knife.

“Then fuck off the goddamn stairs ‘fore all there’s left of me’s bullshit!" he screams.

“—Right shit Jackie, there’s the thing, you never been anything else!" She yells back, snapping to her feet, slicing air with the knife. “Calling it bullshit, that’s what you are! Real life finally throttling you outta dreamland to where you seeing it? Fucking my good fortune that it ever did! You done nothing for anybody but talk talk talk talk talk, slinging little bullshit promises and bullshit happy handies ‘cause hooking ‘round sadsacks is all you got. Is empty! Is worthless! You peddling oxy, that all you got, is a poison worse’n hard drubbings spitting hopes you never gonna fucking make true.

“Hear it? You still got brains enough to hear it? Eh? Worst thing Ma ever did to me was saddle me with fucking you. Fucking left me with her own dealer 24/7, what the hell was gonna happen to me? Now ‘m looking at your bullshit all knowing what it is and still staying addicted worse’n anyone else. All you ever good for is making people happy."

“What’s wrong with that?" Raum asks sincerely, confusion and concern swelling in defiance of the ghoul.

“The whole goddamn thing is wrong!" She screams. “Lookit yourself! Lookit all this!" She spreads her arm, indicating the whole world. “There ain’t nothing here to be happy about!"

Raum falls speechless. He’d known she was cynical, but this is… oh, god, Reyl.

“All ‘happiness’ is, is a sham. Issa oxyhigh braintrick babies do so their mam-mam don’t kill ‘em. ‘Cept only get as good as you when they plain fucking useless, fucking ain’t good for anything, scrams when the working get tough, whines when they see what it takes to make dollars, cries when somebody ain’t smiling coz ooooooo maybe they gonna huurt me. Happy happy happy is all gutless trash like you got. It ain’t for me… it ain’t goddamn for me."

He wants to hug her.

Obviously that’s not the right move. He wishes it would be, but it’s not. She would unquestionably take it as him proving her point and use the closed space to shank him. This knowledge doesn’t change that every cell in him screams with the demand to HUG HER. SHE NEEDS IT. SHE’S HURTING.

The things their mother made her do, he realises abruptly, probably were significantly worse than anything that happened to him. At least he can still find what makes his core feel strong, confident, and joyful, and know himself broadly enriched by pursuing it. For Reyl, the world has become so twisted that such positive signposts are just warning signs of being manipulated, fucked over, and rendered impotent.

She might even be right. But even if all the world’s happiness was some sentimental illusion, Raum could still enjoy that and find it purposeful. She can’t. There is no demonstration of love or acceptance he could give that will flip her worldview in under five minutes, and given that, the only way such things could make her move are by explicitly proving her point: exploiting the emotional ties and responsibilities foisted on her since birth. By saying that actually he can make her happy. That he can be her place where it’s okay to relax and wind down. That he loves her. That he matters. That he cares.

What he should do, though, is just yank her off the stairs and run past her. The fact this option even occurs to him, and that he quickly accepts it as the objectively correct one, proves to him that these months with Aquila really have rubbed off on him, for the better.

But even if he has steeled his mind against the impulse to ruthlessly love her, he cannot do this plan. Understanding her as an obstacle between himself and what he needs, (as she has always, always goddamn been), his seething ghoul body and instincts demand, the second he nears her, to choke her, beat her, rape her, slash up her tits if she’s not fucking using them, shut up her whining and put her in her place, until she can’t deny that she lost this round and needs to get over it.

Raum is not sure he can stop himself from doing these things, especially given it’s unclear just when or by how much his will could next tank.

“Jay I’m gonna hurt you," he says. “I think you gotta move way away, else Phoenix."

She snorts a laugh, genuinely tickled, and flourishes the flat of her knife against her palm. “Dumbass."

I can take you easy, even as a ghoul, she means. Right. Yeah. Not really her problem.

But even then this comment of his has dammed back the anger she only just worked up. He wasn’t even trying to do that.

This may be one of those times where the best way to persuade her is by doing nothing. She lowers her knife, threads her fingers through her hair, smiling dimly over her shoulder. Raum, naturally, smiles too. Though not something he could’ve helped, seeing his happiness at her passing respite reminds her to be offended, and the grip on her knife tightens again.

“Sick of holding to that goddamn string…" she mutters, struggling to rebuild that rage. The decibels rise slowly. “Get nothing from it. Get fucking, piss nothing from it."

Well what the hell are you trying to get.

If you don’t want your life to be influenced by me, you don’t have to kill me, just leave. Call that soft or naive if you want, but be bolder, be real. Why bother with these bullshit kill-rage dramatics. Just sit on the stairs calmly mocking me for four, three, minutes, and I’ll be bloody gone anyway. What does it matter if you work up the nerve to knife me before then?

Oh, but that’s kind of sweet, Raum thinks, then immediately, NO IT’S NOT. And since when does being sweet matter to Reyl!

“And ya’know! It pisses me off," she continues, “how my call’s hitting the bullseyes, but you lie like I ain’t know shit. I tell the Majesty’s getting you killed, well bingo, there’s one happened. So you got a month without me, all said, that fucking satisfy you? Ah nah nah nah nah nah course it ain’t, coz ring ring, ring ring, you wants to lock me up too. Saying you fancy your ass working the Majesty, lemme guess then, got an idea what’s for my own good?"

Better than you wound up doing!, he forces himself not to bite back. Suffered alone in the desert, jumped to massacre thousands, killed Ma… Raum’s momentum putters at that last thought, sadness pushing out the anger, and uncertainty pushing out his conviction.

“Like I’m gonna be some fucking princess! I’ll kill you. Imma fucking kill you."

But she does not make a move forward, instead panting red-faced at the top of the steps. She eyes him askance.

“Your noggin turned off? Can’t talk anymore?" she asks sincerely.

He shakes his head. “I’m thinking."

“Fucking—Hauh!" she bristles. “Putting that clean, working your angle! ‘How’m I gonna get Jay off this step, hmmm.’ ‘Dang, she getting angry, how’s to nip that ‘fore it bursts?‘ ‘Gee I gotta find the right words quick what’ll sell her to this smilestown bullshit.’ Zactly what I fucking mean!" She stomps down the the steps, clenches her knife in her fist and draws it to stab, spreads her footing, but freezes. “Well dumbass, sell me quick, how’m I better off—"

Raum’s mouth jumps. “I’ll be there."

As if hacked in two by a butcher’s cleaver, Reyl’s muscles all lock. Her mouth clenches in a grimace, tears squeeze from her eye. She is, very impressively, suppressing the impulse to crumple to the floor and scream.

—One thing to know about Reyl is that, for their intensity, she’s really good at repurposing and redirecting her emotions.

In the short time Raum has to think, oh, fuck, and to want to slap himself for responding at all, his body moves to receive the incoming blow and flip her momentum against her. Be careful, be careful, time to fight. Dumb to think this would resolve any other way.

Just throw her to the floor, and run past her. Don’t get hung up. Just throw her to the floor—

“Get the fuck out of me!" she screeches, surging in with her knife. “Cheat!"

—What she’s doing clicks.

Oh, my god. It’s the fucking witch ritual.

Taken off-guard by this realisation, Raum hesitates to act in that first, single split-second where he could have surprised Reyl. She pulls his arm forward and sweeps her leg behind his knees to break his posture smoothly, flips him to land against the wall with his ass to the ground, well practised.

Raum raises his hands to shield himself.

“Jay," his voice trembles, “wait,"

As with all the pleas for peace he has made thus far, when faced with Jayden Blackthorne, this one, too, achieves nothing.