Rotten / Drabble / @pierced-morals
The name slipped softly from pink lips, bare feet stepping from carpet to the cold wood of the outdoor balcony. She had heard him come home, but hadn’t seen him since. Hidden away with his guilt, cigarette smoke mixing with the stars as the blackness of night overtook the property. She knew there was more going on than she could ever know. Demons that this man faced, that he felt he had to fight alone. But nights like these...
Soft steps, and her arms slipped around his waist, head resting on his back where she could hear the stutter of his breathing as he inhaled more of that toxic smoke.
“Another hard night.” It wasn’t a question, a statement that passed her lips with certainty, she knew. Rarely did he distance himself these days, pull away from the carefully crafted faux normalcy of their life together. But here he was.
A bitter laugh rolled off of the man’s tongue, laced with a venom she heard many a time, but felt was foreign each one. Residual cruelty from a double life she knew little of. Even still, she knew enough.
“Y’ could say that, Princess.” One hand - the human one, of flesh and bone, moved to rest over her own, fingers tracing over the too-soft skin of a spoiled girl. “Gon’ catch cold out here ya know.”
A smile, half hearted, curled her features, face pressed briefly into his back. He was right - with bare feet and wet hair, she was destined for illness. “Don’t care, Donnie.” Softly spoken words, a murmur against his coat, eliciting a sigh from the man. “I’m not leaving you out here to brood all alone.”
Words met with silence, first. The distant sound of wind-chimes near the barn, sound of the staff cleaning inside. A long minute, until his cigarette was finished, pressed out in the crystalline ash tray.
“Why d’ you-” Words spoken softly, laced with frustration, but cut off by her own voice, still muffled by his coat.
“Care? Because I love you, Donald.”
“Why? ‘s rotten work, lovin’-” What, he asked himself. What was he? A monster, a villain, a cursed soul.
A rotten no good murderer.
( A child abuser, a kidnapper )
“-Me.” The sentance finished with lack of flare, cold fingers of his metal hand curling around the balcony railing, a tense grip, trying hard not to splinter the wood.
The response came softly, drifting past her lips in a murmur that could have easily been mistaken as a passing fairy, or a wind chime in the distance.
“Not to me.” Words spoken softly, followed by a pause before they were repeated, almost as if steeling her opinion, writing it in stone. “It isn’t rotten work to me. Not if it’s you, Donald.”
A reaver, a killer, a criminal. She knew the labels people would throw around at his name. Monster, they may say - but Shay had seen the kindness in a monster’s eyes. The love beating in his chest. A monster he may be - but if that were the case, then her love would be the sword that slay the beast.
“Now, come inside, I’ll get Cassidy to start some tea.”
Or some faux illusion of it.