( saying ash had a restful night's sleep implies he slept well through the entirety of it, which isn't fair to say. he fell asleep just fine, embry beside him where he should be, sleeping as easily as if he isn't a chronic insomniac regularly getting about three hours a night. he fell into a dark, heavy, pleasant sleep. only when he woke up, embry was gone, the blankets on his side of the bed folded over like he waited for ash to pass out before removing himself, very carefully, from his bed. he probably did. comparatively, the sleep ash falls into next is lukewarm and shallow, disturbed by rustling trees outside and the creaky sounds associated with an old house settling its wooden bones, every one of them sounding like embry's flayed skin, pulled taunt and pinned.
he wakes now with a start, sensing someone in the room with him. it's easier once he sees it's embry, sitting up in bed and reaching over for his glasses, setting them on his nose, turning the bedside table lamp on. embry looks frantic, unmoored. generally the answer to that is obvious — kneel.
except then he says i woke up in hawk's bed. i don't remember the sex, and nasty jealousy curdles ash's insides, with enough vitriol that he shuts his eyes tightly to buoy through the pain, not finding that his jealousy lessens any, but finding he can compartmentalize it after a few stable breaths. so, embry got up and left his bed to go find hawk's. so, he and hawk have sex, something that colors every interaction he's ever had with hawk in a new, unpleasant color. so, he doesn't remember anything about it. that's the important part. )
I didn't see you leave, but I woke up and you were gone. ( maybe he should've looked for him, knowing what lingers behind every corner, in every chapel of this house. guilt compliments the jealousy in his heart nicely, like a long suffering cocktail. ash feels unmoored, completely unalive in his skin. ) You weren't drinking last night any more than usual — we should get a drug test. I'll go with you to the clinic. ( ash stands up, stretching out his body, before moving to settle a priest-like hand on his embry's head, through his wavy hair. a confessional touch. proffer enough hail marys, and i'll forgive this cruel thing you've given me. embry's hail mary, the difficult thing he doesn't want to give but has to sacrifice: ) You need to get sober.
[ the blow-up he craves doesn't come, but that doesn't mean something doesn't detonate between them. embry feels it in ash's silence, his complete lack of response, like he's used to embry finding the softest parts of him to dig his knife into. his loathing curls more deeply inward, sharper than any knife he could ever wish to point in ash's direction. ]
A drug test? [ he sounds fifteen, bitching to vivienne moore. ] If I get sober, what exactly am I supposed to order up to my room when I'm having a bad day? Pancakes?
[ but his mind is still on hawk. it's still on how obvious hawk's actions have been, how all the pieces are probably slotting into place in ash's head, how every single ignoble, fucked up thing he's done has been for embry. and he has the horrible, sinking thought that if ash ever found out how much embry has lied, how many secrets he's keeping, how many ways he's dishonorably stood his ground to protect ash and his career, would he look at embry in that same bitter silence? would he hate embry for everything he's done over the years, for every no, for every time he's flayed ash's heart just to keep him safe? ]
Stop it. Sit down. [ it comes out in a mumble, his eyes dropping shut at the feel of ash's hand in his hair. his doubt comes again, ugly and mocking: he doesn't want to be in bed with you. the fear over whatever's happening to him grates sharply with the thought of losing this, which has happened so many times before that he should be used to it, and yet it scorches him like a lightning strike. ] We're not going anywhere.
( it feels pettily selfish, ash thinks, that he can't let himself feel whatever it is he's feeling, that he can only offer embry this husk of petulant solitude in the place of actual emotion. he feels embry's own quiet anxiety that ash is adding to under the palm of his hand, his own failures as a friend, a lover, a husband, a dom, all glaring up at him. ultimately, ash is incapable of fixing anything. here is his faithful follower, his brother in arms, his very best friend looking up to him with pleading eyes, and ash has that battlefield look of cold disconnect, somewhere else entirely, defeated by his own ineptitude. why shouldn't embry have whoever he wants? embry has no reason to believe ash can actually keep him safe. and of course he can't keep embry and the people he loves safe — he can't even keep embry happy.
pity is selfish too, he decides. ash gives a soft, understanding nod — we're not going anywhere. of course not. at the very least, ash isn't. he knew when we was twenty-five that one day he'd die loving embry moore, in the trenches or in the white house, in a softly made bed in the countryside, shutting his eyes on his favorite thing to look at in the world: embry asleep in the moonlight. bruised, sore, stuffed with cum. )
Can you. ( he cuts himself off, shutting his eyes hard, jaw clenched. he doesn't sit. he knows what the answer to his concave nothingness is, but that, again — selfish.
as it turns out, ash just is selfish. they both know that. and he's jealous, and cruel, and all these things he doesn't want to be but is, anyway. it's been a long time since he resented the way he is. ) Can you kneel? I need to think.
[ in this room, faced with the awful sight of the best and strongest man he knows splintering before the sun has even begun to light the sky, everything that's just happened shifts in his brain, moving to a different place, a different box with a sturdier lid. despite being a slave to his emotions, he's a slave to ash's too, and he's spent years fitting together a life where ash comes first, where embry rearranges his thoughts and actions based on how they would benefit ash colchester.
embry was gone for weeks, and when he was wrenched back he's spent his time in a scrambled daze, making sense only on his best days. and in all the time he's been gone, no one took up the work of prioritizing ash the way embry vowed to do for the rest of their careers, even if ash would hate him if he found out all the reasons why and all the things he's sacrificed for it.
the rest of their lives feels big. huge. even if he's wearing his ring now. ]
Fuck. [ he looks up at ash, an entire sky brimming with regret. ] Ash — I haven't...
[ he moves off the bed and sinks down to his knees, drawing in a ragged breath before resting his forehead lightly against ash's thigh. he's still warmed from sleep, while embry feels cold and more than a little unworthy to take up this space at all, not just after tonight, but after leaving him, again and again and again, worst of all for the grave. after all, the mere thought of losing ash has his heart pounding in his chest — and ash lived it. ]
Ash. You can't go back to that person you were before. [ it's the same look in his eyes — helpless and hollow, like he's stopped believing. it was worse than anything else, watching ash mimic some version of himself after being husked out. worse than anything, because embry didn't know how to fix him. ] After Jenny died? [ he sweeps his gaze up, adrenaline spiking at the mention of her name, her death. ] Don't. I'm right here.
( he breathes a little easier once embry is on his knees, although he doesn't take any special amount of relief in needing it, owned and leashed by his vices. it just is what it is — ash's endless, pummeling drive for control. at least for right now, embry truly isn't going anywhere because he couldn't, because he's on his knees, because ash would drag him back by the scruff of his neck if he tried to move an inch. he's here, alive, and ash is here, awake. by the wayside goes everything else, the baby and the bathwater.
fondly, he strokes his hand through embry's hair, thick and velvety soft, a little mussed from embry's anxious pulls and ash's affectionate ruffling. with a strong move, he presses his cheek into ash's thigh, keeping him planted there, twisting a finger around a single curl and tugging, playfully. )
I know, little prince. ( jenny is that wound that won't heal — embry's like that, too. ash gives him a small smile, fingers dropping to touch the corner of his mouth. ) I'm okay now, really. Sorry.
( it really is easier to think with embry on his knees, nestled against him. belatedly, his eyebrows scrunch together under the wire of his glasses, mouth frowning in a pout. )
You don't remember anything? But you went to Hawk. ( he shakes his head. ) You couldn't have been drugged, then. Maybe it was a compulsion like in the Werewolf game. But instead of anything dying, you just — had sex.
( ash is running under the impression that talking about it more will make it hurt less, which is so far unsuccessful, but he's not giving up trying. his eyes leave embry to glance back to the bed — the obvious thought being that embry had a willing body next to him, so why did he get up and leave, even compulsed, if all he needed was a partner? ash's finger accidentally tugs his hair a little tighter, jaw flexing. because he wanted to be with hawk, obvious conclusion. )
[ he doesn't believe for a second that he's okay, not when he's seen how grief can fell even a king. sure, he's back, in a miraculous and fucked up turn of events. but it's a thing they've never really talked about — existing in a world without the other — and embry doesn't really want to talk about it, and so he's part of the problem. big surprise.
he can hear all the things that go unsaid in ash's steady rationalization, and his scalp gives a sharp little sting at the pull. his breath draws tighter as if in tandem with ash's unquiet mind, his confession sitting in his throat like shards of glass. ]
I started seeing Hawk before you got here. [ not that that makes it any better or absolves him of any of his ever present guilt, as he says the words into the warm muscle of ash's thigh. ] I didn't know about Tim at first, but I didn't stop when I found out.
[ he wants to say something cruel, to balance the raw pain he feels for every hauntingly bad decision he's made. that ash came back and slapped him in the face with i love bucky barnes during a two am run, so why the fuck should embry feel guilty about any of this? he's given up years of his life for ash, so why can't he have some asshole that likes to rail him in the dark and kiss some other, better, nicer guy in the daylight that isn't embry moore? ]
Hawk understands me. [ that's twisting the knife. that's asking for it, when ash has seen him at his worst on the battlefield, bleeding and nearly dead for it, and then actually dead, and everything in-between, and still allowed embry space by his side. ] Because he isn't a good man. I'm not saying that explains anything about last night, but he knows what I've done over the years. He knows what I've had to do, for you. And I'd do it again, and I don't care if you don't understand it or you hate me for it. I'd do anything to keep your dumb ass safe.
[ he says while caring, deeply. another thought: what if it wasn't just the sex? he risks moving his face, just so he can give a flicker of a glance upward, his eyes swimming with anguished possibility. ]
I don't know what I could've done last night, Ash. I should... I should go back to my suite. We shouldn't — [ easy as breathing, to pull away. he might as well dump ash's ring too, for as long as he lasts when it comes to commitment. ] We shouldn't risk this.
( he'd be fine with never hearing any of this, actually, which is why it's all the more important that he does. it doesn't really count as wanting whatever makes embry happiest, if it's reliant on ash being a part of it — ash is not a happy person, not really, and if embry needs something else, who would ash be to deny him? the truth is he'd give embry anything he wanted, if he asked for it. he'd give up kink, he'd resign his presidency, he'd go back to the war, he'd disappear forever, whatever sacrifice embry would want for a designated chair at his table, ash would pay it. if that means hawk, that's fine. if it guts ash a little, that's fine too.
still, there's the jealousy, incapable of staying from his voice. it's despicable, what they've done. not because ash believe he's entitled to a monopoly on embry, but because, ) Does Tim know? Or did you lie to him, too?
( tim deserves better. tim's a nice boy, with the same lofty ideals of love as ash. he can't go as far to say hawk or embry were cruel to ash, but if tim didn't know, they were definitely cruel to him. ash will right that wrong himself if he has to.
this whole conversation is a planted line of explosives in his chest cavity detonating one after the other, but there's nothing worse than he knows what i've had to do, for you, which hits ash right where it hurts. his gaze is sparked with gilded anger, scolding him for the words out of his mouth. loving ash has never been an easy thing, and he knows he's demanding, with embry's time and embry's heart and embry's sanity, but — he never wanted to be. he wanted to be easy, to give embry a happy life, to be the center of his universe, to make sure he never had to do anything but love ash and call him sir and dance the viennese waltz. ash never made him stay in the closet. he didn't force embry to love his career more than his life, more than ash. in fact, he got down on his knees several times to beg embry not to care, to see the sincerity in his king's eyes, to look at every sacrifice in the world and know it could be his, if he'd just let ash have him.
now he does have him. a ring on his finger. that's supposed to mean something — but what? fidelity? commitment? the last few seconds of this conversation would strongly argue either point.
to that end, the dead eyed look in his gaze goes melty and furious and mean all at once, ash no longer resisting brushing his hand through the hair at the top of embry's head, fisting it tightly. he yanks his head back, bending down partly to look him closer in the eye. )
Risk this? ( risk what? he wants to ask. someone embry can keep leaving, a bed left cold? ash holding a candle that one day embry might choose to be with him and greer? the last two times he asked embry to marry him, it was with god at his side, marriage not just an institution but a holy sacrament. he hasn't opened his bible since embry died — he didn't ask in the chapel. he took it. and what does that mean, if anything, but that embry didn't choose it? his voice doesn't get loud or emotive, but he speaks with the quiet effectiveness of someone deadly sincere. ) Go wherever you like. Your suite, Hawk's room, across the continent. It doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I will follow you — I will hunt you down like a fox, and I will drag you back by your ankle, and remind you who you belong to.
( he drops his hair, tossing embry back a little, onto the floor. ash balls his fists. ) If you don't believe me, then you don't understand me. Choose a safeword.
[ it might as well be a slap, with how that verbal reprimand lands, a reminder of how shitty his actions have been and how ash isn't the only one he's hurt. he doesn't argue that he tried to break it off, because it doesn't matter when he found his way to hawk anyway, consciously or not. ]
Tim knows. Now. [ he never asked hawk how he found out. if it was over his corpse or not. ] Hawk tried to tell me something about how they're both seeing other people now or — something, I don't fucking know. I didn't want to listen.
[ he doesn't have time to be surly about tim laughlin and ash's tender care about his dumb fucking feelings, because then ash is raw and terrifying in his face, forcing embry's head back while verbally pissing on his territory, which just happens to be him, and embry's cock goes erect in seconds. in tandem, volcanic anger erupts in his heart when he falls back on his ass, gracelessly catching himself, his legs wide in a sprawl.
practically spitting — ] Fuck you. You don't get to be mad at me. You left me. You married someone else. You left me lost and fucking alone for seven fucking years. And don't give me that shit about how you asked me to marry you first. I couldn't. You know I couldn't. And you say you'll keep chasing me now, but when you finally wise up again — then what? What if I walk into Danny Johnson's knife again and don't remember doing it?
[ how that last thing is related to any of it — who knows. he's just abruptly terrified of the possibility of it happening. ]
I'm not choosing a safe word. I'm not doing that with you. [ he crawls forward again, curling his fingers into ash's waistband and yanking them low, hungry at the sight of his chiseled hips but even more desperate for a reaction to his insolence. ] We've never needed one before. Unless you don't love me anymore, and that's — easy to fucking believe.
( it's better just to let embry ramble, ash finds. his face stays in the same carved from stone expression, though his eyes twinkle every so often with the effect of embry's words, like lashes on a saint andrew's cross, little shards of anger filling out the corpse green of his eyes. it isn't that embry couldn't marry him — it's that he wouldn't. he asked embry first. he wanted embry more. he loved jenny, loved her deeply even, but it was never the same as whatever he felt for embry — that all encompassing attraction, the immediate pull to him as if ash knew, in the marrow of his bones, that embry was made for him. what do you do when the other half of your heart looks you in the eyes and tells you no, like the question will you marry me? was an insult?
of course, he was right to reject him. if he married embry then, they would've found some farm in canada to nest in, children to adopt, a dog to run around with. ash would've closed that brief, hour-long chapter of love he had with greer and he would've been content to do it — above and beyond, just to have a full life with embry at his side. but now? he gets them both. he has rings on both their fingers. if embry thinks that's in any way temporary, he has another thing coming.
once he's finished, ash settles his hands on top of embry's wrists, pushing his thumb on a pressure point until he gives up his grip and ash can pull them off him, still holding onto them, tight. )
I love you. ( he nods. ) But I don't understand you — that's what you think, isn't it? Hawk understands you, Hawk knows things about you, but I don't. Then I don't understand your limits, and you need a safe word. ( his grip tightens, bruising, twisting embry's wrists. ) Unless you want to admit you don't always say what you mean. Unless you still want to walk out that door. Actually — yeah, go ahead and leave. Run, even.
( ash drops his hands and steps over him, towards the door. a boundary before it, actually, impeding an easy exit. when embry gets up to try and leave, ash mirrors his motions, a step here, a feign there, a goalie defending his net. clearly, he'll tackle and wrestle embry on the floor before actually letting him leave — embry might be taller, might be as much of a solider as ash, but ash is stronger, and fueled with the higher purpose of proving a point. it won't be a difficult victory. )
[ he ends up where he was always meant to be — in ash's arms, because of course if ash poses a challenge, embry can't help but contradict him. of course he tries to run, of course he tries to best the immovable object that is ash colchester's will. even after saying no to his hopeful, lovelorn gaze in a valley in carpathia, ash still gets his way — embry, orbiting him, because he can't live his life any other way except caught in ash's gravitational pull.
ash stops him, of course, wrestles him against the door as if mocking him. it's right there, so why don't you just walk right through it? ash won't let him, and maybe a part of embry won't let himself, either. god, he wants to, though. he wants to because he's so fucking angry. he's so fucking close to not caring how big of a wound he tears through ash's heart, because this weight is too much to carry — to keep carrying, endlessly, no reprieve in sight. how long? how long does he have to keep his lies tangled up inside of him, wrapped around his heart and his lungs, squeezing so tight that some days he can't breathe or think for how thickly the guilt permeates every part of him? ]
Fuck you.
[ he bucks uselessly against ash's grip, his skull thumping against the door, his words like a cornered animal, all snapping teeth and thoughtless cruelty. yes, he decides, there's a lot he wants to admit, if ash can't see that his no has always been yes, that he doesn't ever say what he means, because he can't, he can't, he can't. ]
I hate this. You don't understand. [ his eyes prick hotly, his cheeks flushed with rage. ] You don't know what Merlin said to me all those years ago. You don't know what he asked me to give up. You don't know all the goddamn secrets I'm keeping to protect you. How the fuck am I supposed to choose between you and my family? You are my family. But fuck you. You want to question my goddamn loyalty? You fucked my sister, who you know is also your goddamn sister, and you got her pregnant. Lyr is yours. Morgan came to Carpathia to tell you that, and you left her in a church to die.
[ a feeling worse than watching ash propose to jenny comes over him then, worse than taking bullets in carpathia, worse than the kiss of danny johnson's knife. his gut roils. he wants to vomit, but he stays exactly where he is, blinking angry tears from his eyes. ]
( his blood is hot, hot in his veins. he might be just an empty carcass of the man he usually is, one tragedy after the next depleting him like an empty vending machine, but sex stirs him — embry stirs him, really. the ever present fight there is to being with him, wrestling with a strong man and winning, thinking about all the places he can catch and pin him, thinking about how long it'll take to pull his pants down and shove his cock inside embry, punish him for leaving. for wanting to leave. for suggesting he should, like ash ever wants him anywhere else but the space directly in front of him, on his knees, mouth open.
it would feel good to hurt him. it would help ash feel sane. he's about to turn embry around and fuck him against the fucking door, but instead he stops, frozen in place, embry's words sinking in with their cold, icy grip. morgan. pregnant. ash lets him go and stumbles backwards, eyes wild like some feral, rabies stricken dog in the street. put him out of his misery, it's the right thing to do.
he stumbles back, misses the bed, sits down on the floor, his knees bent up, his eyes in the middle distance. remembering that day in carpathia where he gave the call to abandon morgan. he'd been annoyed with her — frustrated she wouldn't go home, irritated she felt so entitled to ash's time when there was a war, and when there wasn't a war, there was embry. still, he felt affectionately towards her — he didn't want her to die, would've done whatever he could have to protect her, for embry's sake alone. and she was pregnant? with his son? she tried to tell him — she asked so many times for him to make time, and he couldn't, because there was a war, and because he didn't care all that much. because he was young and cruel and disinterested in anything outside of embry.
distantly, he remembers jenny's funeral, and morgan driving home the point — i'm your sister, like she just wanted to hurt him, gut him where he stood, take out anything human inside himself and dump it on the ground. this is like that, but worse, because there's a boy involved, ash's son, a product of his incest, a kid morgan had to raise ... by herself? but he's never heard of a son, never even knew about her giving birth. )
A son?
( his voice is quiet, broken. more ways ash colchester is a failure. he puts his head in his hands, raking through his black hair, trying to reframe what he knows about his character within himself — ash colchester, president, captain. deadbeat dad.
[ embry moore is going to hell. he already knew it, but it's a solid fact now, indisputable. there's no reversing it, no atonement for the way he's blown a hole straight through the man he loves. he remembers jenny's funeral. he remembers morgan hitting ash with the ugly, sordid truth in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. he remembers how he could've killed her on the spot for doing such irreparable harm to a man who'd just buried his goddamn wife.
he's just like her. apparently, being a horrible fucking person is hereditary.
he could slip out the door right now. the fact that he even considers it, even just for a moment, is another strike against him. forcing himself away from the door, he takes a step toward ash's fallen form, then another. he doesn't feel worthy to even approach him. ]
My aunt Nimue raised him. [ he sinks to his knees, feeling as if the floor has spun out from beneath him. a ragged sound escapes him. ] As if Morgan could ever be a mom. Lyr would have grown up to be a sociopath.
[ ash has met his family, though it's never been anything like the trips to ash's home in the midwest. vivienne moore's grand estate complete with lakes and horses and yachts could never hold even an ounce of the warmth and laughter that ash's mother has in spades. nimue, to her credit, raised lyr very differently from the way vivienne raised morgan and embry. ]
He's not like Morgan or me. [ it seems like an important distinction to make. his heart flutters rapidly in his chest. ] He's a good kid, Ash. Smart. Bookish. Takes life too seriously. He's my favorite. There wasn't... after the church, there wasn't anything you could've done. Morgan didn't want you to know. She didn't want anyone to know. And I —
[ guilt closes his throat, throwing him back to the shitty little hospital where he'd sat by morgan's side and listened to the doctors tell her she'd never regain full movement in her shoulder again — and morgan tell him that she'd never forgive him, either. ]
I could've gone to her, too. You didn't leave her in that church. I did. She's my sister. I'm the one that chose you over her. [ he swallows down the broken glass feeling in his throat. ] Fuck, Ash, it's my job to hold all this for you. I'm sorry. I'm... I'm sorry.
( there's no other word for it — he's disgusted with himself. it sits like a pit in his stomach, throwing out anything good he ever thought about himself, leaving all the trash in place. exactly like his own father, who abandoned ash at birth — isn't ash just as awful? isn't he worse, since he made the call that would've killed morgan and his unborn child, if she hadn't been clever enough to fake dead? maybe he didn't deserve to know. maybe morgan saw something in him that day that made it evident, obvious ash could never be a successful father. and he just —
absolutely fucking hates morgan leffey
— for one whole minute, for not telling him, for keeping this from him, for not giving him a choice in being an absentee parent. but then ash remembers that she tried to tell him. at one point, she wanted to. then ash left her for dead and earned her lifelong loathing, which is about what ash deserves. he doesn't hate her. he hates what happened to her, that she nearly died, that she had to give birth alone, that she had to give up her son, that she didn't really have a choice, either. she still should've told him, but ash understands with perfect clarity why she wouldn't have.
still, doesn't lyr deserve to know his father? to have that choice? smart, bookish, too serious lyr. ash would give an arm and a leg just to know him, just to meet him once. to see if they look alike, if they act alike. to see if he's as angry at the world as ash was, at his age. he has to be a teenager now — still young, but older. ash missed all the milestones, things he would've loved to see, things he's always dreamed of being a part of when he managed to right the wrong of his father through parenthood. the heels of his hands flatten on his eyes, pushing the tears back in. )
No. ( he only stops when embry says all that, squeezing his nose before pulling away his hand. his face is splotchy and wet, but he looks at embry, so he can see how serious he is. ) That was my call, my choice. You were following orders. You could've been court-martialed if you didn't. ( he shakes his head. ) She's my sister, too. I own that.
( if the only thing he can manage to do right is assuage embry of his guilt, then he'll do it. )
I don't need you to hold anything for me. I want to protect you. Come here. ( he extends an arm, gesturing embry closer with a wave of his hand, to fold him against his chest. he waits until he knows it's the truth to say, ) I'm glad I know.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cw: alcoholism
he wakes now with a start, sensing someone in the room with him. it's easier once he sees it's embry, sitting up in bed and reaching over for his glasses, setting them on his nose, turning the bedside table lamp on. embry looks frantic, unmoored. generally the answer to that is obvious — kneel.
except then he says i woke up in hawk's bed. i don't remember the sex, and nasty jealousy curdles ash's insides, with enough vitriol that he shuts his eyes tightly to buoy through the pain, not finding that his jealousy lessens any, but finding he can compartmentalize it after a few stable breaths. so, embry got up and left his bed to go find hawk's. so, he and hawk have sex, something that colors every interaction he's ever had with hawk in a new, unpleasant color. so, he doesn't remember anything about it. that's the important part. )
I didn't see you leave, but I woke up and you were gone. ( maybe he should've looked for him, knowing what lingers behind every corner, in every chapel of this house. guilt compliments the jealousy in his heart nicely, like a long suffering cocktail. ash feels unmoored, completely unalive in his skin. ) You weren't drinking last night any more than usual — we should get a drug test. I'll go with you to the clinic. ( ash stands up, stretching out his body, before moving to settle a priest-like hand on his embry's head, through his wavy hair. a confessional touch. proffer enough hail marys, and i'll forgive this cruel thing you've given me. embry's hail mary, the difficult thing he doesn't want to give but has to sacrifice: ) You need to get sober.
no subject
A drug test? [ he sounds fifteen, bitching to vivienne moore. ] If I get sober, what exactly am I supposed to order up to my room when I'm having a bad day? Pancakes?
[ but his mind is still on hawk. it's still on how obvious hawk's actions have been, how all the pieces are probably slotting into place in ash's head, how every single ignoble, fucked up thing he's done has been for embry. and he has the horrible, sinking thought that if ash ever found out how much embry has lied, how many secrets he's keeping, how many ways he's dishonorably stood his ground to protect ash and his career, would he look at embry in that same bitter silence? would he hate embry for everything he's done over the years, for every no, for every time he's flayed ash's heart just to keep him safe? ]
Stop it. Sit down. [ it comes out in a mumble, his eyes dropping shut at the feel of ash's hand in his hair. his doubt comes again, ugly and mocking: he doesn't want to be in bed with you. the fear over whatever's happening to him grates sharply with the thought of losing this, which has happened so many times before that he should be used to it, and yet it scorches him like a lightning strike. ] We're not going anywhere.
no subject
( it feels pettily selfish, ash thinks, that he can't let himself feel whatever it is he's feeling, that he can only offer embry this husk of petulant solitude in the place of actual emotion. he feels embry's own quiet anxiety that ash is adding to under the palm of his hand, his own failures as a friend, a lover, a husband, a dom, all glaring up at him. ultimately, ash is incapable of fixing anything. here is his faithful follower, his brother in arms, his very best friend looking up to him with pleading eyes, and ash has that battlefield look of cold disconnect, somewhere else entirely, defeated by his own ineptitude. why shouldn't embry have whoever he wants? embry has no reason to believe ash can actually keep him safe. and of course he can't keep embry and the people he loves safe — he can't even keep embry happy.
pity is selfish too, he decides. ash gives a soft, understanding nod — we're not going anywhere. of course not. at the very least, ash isn't. he knew when we was twenty-five that one day he'd die loving embry moore, in the trenches or in the white house, in a softly made bed in the countryside, shutting his eyes on his favorite thing to look at in the world: embry asleep in the moonlight. bruised, sore, stuffed with cum. )
Can you. ( he cuts himself off, shutting his eyes hard, jaw clenched. he doesn't sit. he knows what the answer to his concave nothingness is, but that, again — selfish.
as it turns out, ash just is selfish. they both know that. and he's jealous, and cruel, and all these things he doesn't want to be but is, anyway. it's been a long time since he resented the way he is. ) Can you kneel? I need to think.
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embry was gone for weeks, and when he was wrenched back he's spent his time in a scrambled daze, making sense only on his best days. and in all the time he's been gone, no one took up the work of prioritizing ash the way embry vowed to do for the rest of their careers, even if ash would hate him if he found out all the reasons why and all the things he's sacrificed for it.
the rest of their lives feels big. huge. even if he's wearing his ring now. ]
Fuck. [ he looks up at ash, an entire sky brimming with regret. ] Ash — I haven't...
[ he moves off the bed and sinks down to his knees, drawing in a ragged breath before resting his forehead lightly against ash's thigh. he's still warmed from sleep, while embry feels cold and more than a little unworthy to take up this space at all, not just after tonight, but after leaving him, again and again and again, worst of all for the grave. after all, the mere thought of losing ash has his heart pounding in his chest — and ash lived it. ]
Ash. You can't go back to that person you were before. [ it's the same look in his eyes — helpless and hollow, like he's stopped believing. it was worse than anything else, watching ash mimic some version of himself after being husked out. worse than anything, because embry didn't know how to fix him. ] After Jenny died? [ he sweeps his gaze up, adrenaline spiking at the mention of her name, her death. ] Don't. I'm right here.
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fondly, he strokes his hand through embry's hair, thick and velvety soft, a little mussed from embry's anxious pulls and ash's affectionate ruffling. with a strong move, he presses his cheek into ash's thigh, keeping him planted there, twisting a finger around a single curl and tugging, playfully. )
I know, little prince. ( jenny is that wound that won't heal — embry's like that, too. ash gives him a small smile, fingers dropping to touch the corner of his mouth. ) I'm okay now, really. Sorry.
( it really is easier to think with embry on his knees, nestled against him. belatedly, his eyebrows scrunch together under the wire of his glasses, mouth frowning in a pout. )
You don't remember anything? But you went to Hawk. ( he shakes his head. ) You couldn't have been drugged, then. Maybe it was a compulsion like in the Werewolf game. But instead of anything dying, you just — had sex.
( ash is running under the impression that talking about it more will make it hurt less, which is so far unsuccessful, but he's not giving up trying. his eyes leave embry to glance back to the bed — the obvious thought being that embry had a willing body next to him, so why did he get up and leave, even compulsed, if all he needed was a partner? ash's finger accidentally tugs his hair a little tighter, jaw flexing. because he wanted to be with hawk, obvious conclusion. )
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he can hear all the things that go unsaid in ash's steady rationalization, and his scalp gives a sharp little sting at the pull. his breath draws tighter as if in tandem with ash's unquiet mind, his confession sitting in his throat like shards of glass. ]
I started seeing Hawk before you got here. [ not that that makes it any better or absolves him of any of his ever present guilt, as he says the words into the warm muscle of ash's thigh. ] I didn't know about Tim at first, but I didn't stop when I found out.
[ he wants to say something cruel, to balance the raw pain he feels for every hauntingly bad decision he's made. that ash came back and slapped him in the face with i love bucky barnes during a two am run, so why the fuck should embry feel guilty about any of this? he's given up years of his life for ash, so why can't he have some asshole that likes to rail him in the dark and kiss some other, better, nicer guy in the daylight that isn't embry moore? ]
Hawk understands me. [ that's twisting the knife. that's asking for it, when ash has seen him at his worst on the battlefield, bleeding and nearly dead for it, and then actually dead, and everything in-between, and still allowed embry space by his side. ] Because he isn't a good man. I'm not saying that explains anything about last night, but he knows what I've done over the years. He knows what I've had to do, for you. And I'd do it again, and I don't care if you don't understand it or you hate me for it. I'd do anything to keep your dumb ass safe.
[ he says while caring, deeply. another thought: what if it wasn't just the sex? he risks moving his face, just so he can give a flicker of a glance upward, his eyes swimming with anguished possibility. ]
I don't know what I could've done last night, Ash. I should... I should go back to my suite. We shouldn't — [ easy as breathing, to pull away. he might as well dump ash's ring too, for as long as he lasts when it comes to commitment. ] We shouldn't risk this.
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still, there's the jealousy, incapable of staying from his voice. it's despicable, what they've done. not because ash believe he's entitled to a monopoly on embry, but because, ) Does Tim know? Or did you lie to him, too?
( tim deserves better. tim's a nice boy, with the same lofty ideals of love as ash. he can't go as far to say hawk or embry were cruel to ash, but if tim didn't know, they were definitely cruel to him. ash will right that wrong himself if he has to.
this whole conversation is a planted line of explosives in his chest cavity detonating one after the other, but there's nothing worse than he knows what i've had to do, for you, which hits ash right where it hurts. his gaze is sparked with gilded anger, scolding him for the words out of his mouth. loving ash has never been an easy thing, and he knows he's demanding, with embry's time and embry's heart and embry's sanity, but — he never wanted to be. he wanted to be easy, to give embry a happy life, to be the center of his universe, to make sure he never had to do anything but love ash and call him sir and dance the viennese waltz. ash never made him stay in the closet. he didn't force embry to love his career more than his life, more than ash. in fact, he got down on his knees several times to beg embry not to care, to see the sincerity in his king's eyes, to look at every sacrifice in the world and know it could be his, if he'd just let ash have him.
now he does have him. a ring on his finger. that's supposed to mean something — but what? fidelity? commitment? the last few seconds of this conversation would strongly argue either point.
to that end, the dead eyed look in his gaze goes melty and furious and mean all at once, ash no longer resisting brushing his hand through the hair at the top of embry's head, fisting it tightly. he yanks his head back, bending down partly to look him closer in the eye. )
Risk this? ( risk what? he wants to ask. someone embry can keep leaving, a bed left cold? ash holding a candle that one day embry might choose to be with him and greer? the last two times he asked embry to marry him, it was with god at his side, marriage not just an institution but a holy sacrament. he hasn't opened his bible since embry died — he didn't ask in the chapel. he took it. and what does that mean, if anything, but that embry didn't choose it? his voice doesn't get loud or emotive, but he speaks with the quiet effectiveness of someone deadly sincere. ) Go wherever you like. Your suite, Hawk's room, across the continent. It doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I will follow you — I will hunt you down like a fox, and I will drag you back by your ankle, and remind you who you belong to.
( he drops his hair, tossing embry back a little, onto the floor. ash balls his fists. ) If you don't believe me, then you don't understand me. Choose a safeword.
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Tim knows. Now. [ he never asked hawk how he found out. if it was over his corpse or not. ] Hawk tried to tell me something about how they're both seeing other people now or — something, I don't fucking know. I didn't want to listen.
[ he doesn't have time to be surly about tim laughlin and ash's tender care about his dumb fucking feelings, because then ash is raw and terrifying in his face, forcing embry's head back while verbally pissing on his territory, which just happens to be him, and embry's cock goes erect in seconds. in tandem, volcanic anger erupts in his heart when he falls back on his ass, gracelessly catching himself, his legs wide in a sprawl.
practically spitting — ] Fuck you. You don't get to be mad at me. You left me. You married someone else. You left me lost and fucking alone for seven fucking years. And don't give me that shit about how you asked me to marry you first. I couldn't. You know I couldn't. And you say you'll keep chasing me now, but when you finally wise up again — then what? What if I walk into Danny Johnson's knife again and don't remember doing it?
[ how that last thing is related to any of it — who knows. he's just abruptly terrified of the possibility of it happening. ]
I'm not choosing a safe word. I'm not doing that with you. [ he crawls forward again, curling his fingers into ash's waistband and yanking them low, hungry at the sight of his chiseled hips but even more desperate for a reaction to his insolence. ] We've never needed one before. Unless you don't love me anymore, and that's — easy to fucking believe.
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of course, he was right to reject him. if he married embry then, they would've found some farm in canada to nest in, children to adopt, a dog to run around with. ash would've closed that brief, hour-long chapter of love he had with greer and he would've been content to do it — above and beyond, just to have a full life with embry at his side. but now? he gets them both. he has rings on both their fingers. if embry thinks that's in any way temporary, he has another thing coming.
once he's finished, ash settles his hands on top of embry's wrists, pushing his thumb on a pressure point until he gives up his grip and ash can pull them off him, still holding onto them, tight. )
I love you. ( he nods. ) But I don't understand you — that's what you think, isn't it? Hawk understands you, Hawk knows things about you, but I don't. Then I don't understand your limits, and you need a safe word. ( his grip tightens, bruising, twisting embry's wrists. ) Unless you want to admit you don't always say what you mean. Unless you still want to walk out that door. Actually — yeah, go ahead and leave. Run, even.
( ash drops his hands and steps over him, towards the door. a boundary before it, actually, impeding an easy exit. when embry gets up to try and leave, ash mirrors his motions, a step here, a feign there, a goalie defending his net. clearly, he'll tackle and wrestle embry on the floor before actually letting him leave — embry might be taller, might be as much of a solider as ash, but ash is stronger, and fueled with the higher purpose of proving a point. it won't be a difficult victory. )
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ash stops him, of course, wrestles him against the door as if mocking him. it's right there, so why don't you just walk right through it? ash won't let him, and maybe a part of embry won't let himself, either. god, he wants to, though. he wants to because he's so fucking angry. he's so fucking close to not caring how big of a wound he tears through ash's heart, because this weight is too much to carry — to keep carrying, endlessly, no reprieve in sight. how long? how long does he have to keep his lies tangled up inside of him, wrapped around his heart and his lungs, squeezing so tight that some days he can't breathe or think for how thickly the guilt permeates every part of him? ]
Fuck you.
[ he bucks uselessly against ash's grip, his skull thumping against the door, his words like a cornered animal, all snapping teeth and thoughtless cruelty. yes, he decides, there's a lot he wants to admit, if ash can't see that his no has always been yes, that he doesn't ever say what he means, because he can't, he can't, he can't. ]
I hate this. You don't understand. [ his eyes prick hotly, his cheeks flushed with rage. ] You don't know what Merlin said to me all those years ago. You don't know what he asked me to give up. You don't know all the goddamn secrets I'm keeping to protect you. How the fuck am I supposed to choose between you and my family? You are my family. But fuck you. You want to question my goddamn loyalty? You fucked my sister, who you know is also your goddamn sister, and you got her pregnant. Lyr is yours. Morgan came to Carpathia to tell you that, and you left her in a church to die.
[ a feeling worse than watching ash propose to jenny comes over him then, worse than taking bullets in carpathia, worse than the kiss of danny johnson's knife. his gut roils. he wants to vomit, but he stays exactly where he is, blinking angry tears from his eyes. ]
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it would feel good to hurt him. it would help ash feel sane. he's about to turn embry around and fuck him against the fucking door, but instead he stops, frozen in place, embry's words sinking in with their cold, icy grip. morgan. pregnant. ash lets him go and stumbles backwards, eyes wild like some feral, rabies stricken dog in the street. put him out of his misery, it's the right thing to do.
he stumbles back, misses the bed, sits down on the floor, his knees bent up, his eyes in the middle distance. remembering that day in carpathia where he gave the call to abandon morgan. he'd been annoyed with her — frustrated she wouldn't go home, irritated she felt so entitled to ash's time when there was a war, and when there wasn't a war, there was embry. still, he felt affectionately towards her — he didn't want her to die, would've done whatever he could have to protect her, for embry's sake alone. and she was pregnant? with his son? she tried to tell him — she asked so many times for him to make time, and he couldn't, because there was a war, and because he didn't care all that much. because he was young and cruel and disinterested in anything outside of embry.
distantly, he remembers jenny's funeral, and morgan driving home the point — i'm your sister, like she just wanted to hurt him, gut him where he stood, take out anything human inside himself and dump it on the ground. this is like that, but worse, because there's a boy involved, ash's son, a product of his incest, a kid morgan had to raise ... by herself? but he's never heard of a son, never even knew about her giving birth. )
A son?
( his voice is quiet, broken. more ways ash colchester is a failure. he puts his head in his hands, raking through his black hair, trying to reframe what he knows about his character within himself — ash colchester, president, captain. deadbeat dad.
he looks up suddenly, eyes wet. )
What's he — what is he like?
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he's just like her. apparently, being a horrible fucking person is hereditary.
he could slip out the door right now. the fact that he even considers it, even just for a moment, is another strike against him. forcing himself away from the door, he takes a step toward ash's fallen form, then another. he doesn't feel worthy to even approach him. ]
My aunt Nimue raised him. [ he sinks to his knees, feeling as if the floor has spun out from beneath him. a ragged sound escapes him. ] As if Morgan could ever be a mom. Lyr would have grown up to be a sociopath.
[ ash has met his family, though it's never been anything like the trips to ash's home in the midwest. vivienne moore's grand estate complete with lakes and horses and yachts could never hold even an ounce of the warmth and laughter that ash's mother has in spades. nimue, to her credit, raised lyr very differently from the way vivienne raised morgan and embry. ]
He's not like Morgan or me. [ it seems like an important distinction to make. his heart flutters rapidly in his chest. ] He's a good kid, Ash. Smart. Bookish. Takes life too seriously. He's my favorite. There wasn't... after the church, there wasn't anything you could've done. Morgan didn't want you to know. She didn't want anyone to know. And I —
[ guilt closes his throat, throwing him back to the shitty little hospital where he'd sat by morgan's side and listened to the doctors tell her she'd never regain full movement in her shoulder again — and morgan tell him that she'd never forgive him, either. ]
I could've gone to her, too. You didn't leave her in that church. I did. She's my sister. I'm the one that chose you over her. [ he swallows down the broken glass feeling in his throat. ] Fuck, Ash, it's my job to hold all this for you. I'm sorry. I'm... I'm sorry.
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absolutely fucking hates morgan leffey
— for one whole minute, for not telling him, for keeping this from him, for not giving him a choice in being an absentee parent. but then ash remembers that she tried to tell him. at one point, she wanted to. then ash left her for dead and earned her lifelong loathing, which is about what ash deserves. he doesn't hate her. he hates what happened to her, that she nearly died, that she had to give birth alone, that she had to give up her son, that she didn't really have a choice, either. she still should've told him, but ash understands with perfect clarity why she wouldn't have.
still, doesn't lyr deserve to know his father? to have that choice? smart, bookish, too serious lyr. ash would give an arm and a leg just to know him, just to meet him once. to see if they look alike, if they act alike. to see if he's as angry at the world as ash was, at his age. he has to be a teenager now — still young, but older. ash missed all the milestones, things he would've loved to see, things he's always dreamed of being a part of when he managed to right the wrong of his father through parenthood. the heels of his hands flatten on his eyes, pushing the tears back in. )
No. ( he only stops when embry says all that, squeezing his nose before pulling away his hand. his face is splotchy and wet, but he looks at embry, so he can see how serious he is. ) That was my call, my choice. You were following orders. You could've been court-martialed if you didn't. ( he shakes his head. ) She's my sister, too. I own that.
( if the only thing he can manage to do right is assuage embry of his guilt, then he'll do it. )
I don't need you to hold anything for me. I want to protect you. Come here. ( he extends an arm, gesturing embry closer with a wave of his hand, to fold him against his chest. he waits until he knows it's the truth to say, ) I'm glad I know.