WIP Wednesday Sunday
I got tagged by the beautiful @twodiamondhoes on Wednesday but my life is a mess so I'm here now instead! I've been working on my arranged marriage AU like a good egg.
Unedited, so if you see errors, no you don't.
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Impulse is right.
Etho makes it home, but he's not sober.
Gem stands out of habit, hands smoothing down her skirt as Etho pauses to stare at her, his throat shifting as he swallows, his gaze unfocused just enough to give away his inebriation.
If he didn’t already smell like the inside of a beer keg.
He seems surprised, as though she's meant to be anywhere else now that she's his wife.
“Oh,” he says and Gem offers him a tight smile.
“Still here,” she tells him and he balks.
“You didn’t need to wait up for me.”
She'd lit the lanterns in the front hall when the sun had started to set, and now the orange glow gives him a flush above the line of his mask. Or maybe that's also the alcohol.
“Where was I meant to go?” she asks. “This is your house.”
“This is your house, too,” he tries, but his gaze drops to her bag — still where Impulse left it — before jumping back up to her face. “You’ve been waiting here the whole time?”
She offers him another tight smile in response and he blinks, starting to move, heading in the direction of the dining room.
Gem finds herself following, partly out of curiosity, partly from sheer desperation.
She has no idea what she's meant to do.
There's a glass pitcher of water on the windowsill, which Gem had originally assumed was as old and untouched as the rest of the stuff in the room, but he picks it up without hesitation.
“Your room is at the top of the stairs to the right,” he tells her without turning around and Gem stiffens.
“My room,” she says carefully, watching as he grabs a nearby glass and sniffs it as though to check if it's clean. She's not sure how much he picks up through his mask, but he starts to pour water into it regardless. “We're married.”
“I don’t know you.”
He says it as though it should be obvious and Gem thinks back to Impulse telling her that Etho won’t be unkind.
He’s already wrong about that.
“We'll sleep in separate rooms,” he continues, turning back toward her with an unsteadiness that makes her worry he'll immediately spill his water. But he holds steady, watching as though daring her to argue, though Gem knows she can't.
The heaviness inside Gem spreads until she's not sure she can put one foot in front of the other to leave. But as Etho continues to do nothing but stare, she realizes she has to.
“Right,” she says softly with a nod.
She knows there's no point asking if he'll help carry her case upstairs. And even as her stomach grumbles, she knows there's even less of a point asking if there's supper.
She'll go to bed hungry and alone on her wedding night.
“Goodnight,” she says, more than he deserves, and gets a grunt in return for her troubles.
She leaves without looking back, stooping to grab her bag, and for a long minute, she hesitates, staring at the front door.
She wonders how far she'd get before someone noticed. Maybe no one would. Maybe Etho would never say anything and she could just be forgotten.
But when she shifts her hand, she feels the pressure of her wedding ring and knows she has to try. She can’t disgrace her parents before they’ve even left town.
She turns, quietly climbing the stairs.