Ruin Maketh Me

90 - Confession

Their ugliness is something they wish to hide from you. My old friend whispers from the no-man's land of my mind. Their claws, their teeth, their dirty words, hidden desires, tainted thoughts, they don't want you to see any of them. So do you really truly know them? Or are they really just monsters under skins of love and glory? Hideous things that cannot see the light. Broken things that don't deserve your trust.
I lean against the dark walls, place my hand over the rise and descent of carvings in the door. This is nothing new to me; I've seen their ugliness before. Raising my sword, I swing at the swimming Pit, baring its teeth towards me, laughing. I've seen Sol's bloody ruthlessness, I've heard his taunting remarks, I've felt his chaining selfishness as I have Ralphus. The despair, the anguish, the need to destroy. Eirwen's merciless detachment to Elijah, his cruelty, his rejections. I know it all.
Ahh, yes, I see. The Pit stares at me, catching the sword in my hand. But have they ever seen your ugliness? Or have you always been deceptively clean and innocent in their eyes? They see you as something needing protection and cherishing when you really don't deserve it. Tell me, do you think they'll really still continue loving you if they knew who you are? The ugly, deformed, twisted little wretch you are. They're scared that you'll be scarred by their broken nature. But really, the one who should be scared should be you, don't you think?
My fingers loosen and slip from the smooth surface of the lacquered wood. No, that's not true... And yet... I'm scared, god, I'm so scared. A tremble runs through my arms, and my knees don't seem to listen to me. Silence rings hollow all around me, and the darkness at the end of the corridor seems to creep closer and closer. What if? What if they step into this with me but abandon me within the middle? What'd be left of me then?
I cover my face with my arms, yanking my hair, staring at the unclear ceiling. Fuck, I'm thinking too much, and what's the god damn point? Dropping my arms, I clench my trembling fingers behind me, pacing the small piece of haven in front of the doors. Not a word leaks from the small room inside. Nothing, just silence, a reverberating empty echo from the soul of this house.
I stick my ear to the cool wood. Still, nothing, Sol's presence at the edge of my mind doesn't even waver with emotion. Except for the calming plane of sincerity, there's nothing at all. My hands itch towards the brass handles. Just a mere second, and I could push down, charge in, delve into a silence of interruption. But my hand wavers and stops a little more than a centimetre away from the cold metal.
'What's going on in there?' I send tumbling down the bond.
A moment of no reply passes, then, 'Nothing to worry about.'
Some reassurance, a little caressing in the form of intangible emotions.
'Care to share?' I shoot towards him, a little irritated.
     'Uh, well...' A spark of humour peaks in his voice, 'I think it's up to Eirwen and Ralphus to tell you about the content.'
'What are you guys doing? A secret mother's meet or what?' I say, crossing my arms.
Sol takes in a deep breath, and I can imagine a smile full of spoil and helplessness spreading over his thin lips, 'We're working through our differences and some misunderstandings we may have had.'
'You're differences?' I laugh, dissatisfaction rolling off my mind's tongue, 'And how's that going? You've all finally become buddies in what, five minutes?'           
     'Cynder darling, don't worry, it's nothing bad I promise.'
I run my fingers through my hair and crunch my back against the hard but solid surface of the wall. When did I become so fucking fretful about everything? Who am I to dictate what they do? They can go jump off a cliff for all I care.
A sigh seeps from my mouth, and I close my eyes against the oppression of wine drenched shadows. In any sense, it can't be anything bad. It'd save me a load of work if they can mediate the Alpha pheromones themselves... But god, what is it that they're saying? A treaty? A pact? Explanations, entreaties, empathetic exchanges between men of similar standing? Nothing I do or think seems to be able to shake off the syrup of doubt.
Tendrils of cold air squeeze past my fingers and shoulder, clack.
My eyes blink open, and I turn towards the open door. Eirwen, Ralphus and Sol step out, faces weirdly subdued and almost solemn in the harsh glow of red.
"Finished?" All other retorts and remarks stuffed back down my throat.
Eirwen gifts me a tight nod, and Sol's taunt expression melts, as if saying 'see, everything went perfectly fine, there's no need to worry'. But if everything really went as dandy as he says, why do they look like their brother broke their favourite toy?
Ralph's fingertips brush against my wrist, and he looks deeply down at me, "Can we have a talk?"
Sol's jaw and brows spasm into a momentary yet uncontainable anguish and hatred, displeasure twitching through the Bond, and my heart, too, tumbles down like it's been dropped off the table.
But I can't hide.
"Of course."
Eirwen nods faintly, and Sol tries to smother his boiling resentment with another signature smile, but the throbbing of his veins betrays the truth away. Ralphus doesn't even give the others another look. He grips my wrist gently, and together we float back into the entrance hall, up the stairs, into that corridor I'm so very familiar with.
The carpet, the walls, even the smell tinged with a hint of soap are all exactly the same, all except for the view outside the windows. What used to be the sprawling greenery of the gardens is now a playground of destruction. The grass has been stripped from the ground, the trees lie in broken tangles on the bare and broken ground, fractured soil and deep trenches litter the area bitterly.
My heart jolts, and I find myself clinging to Ralph's strong wrist.
"Are you hurt anywhere?" My voice comes out more fraught with interrogative worry than I expected, "Yesterday... this... What happened?"
"Ah." Ralph waves a golden torrent of magic hurriedly at the windows, and all scenery except for the distorted light disappears from sight, "If I had known you were coming back today, I would've restored the garden too."
His beautiful gem-like eyes catch mine, and immediately, it's like he's caught in a struggle that I can't understand. His gaze softens, and heart-wrenching love wells up brightly like honey, yet he almost forces himself to tear his eyes away from me.
"Julius and I had a dispute yesterday night, but I wasn't hurt." The fight in his brow releases, and finally, a fraction of his sun-drenched smile inches back into his lips.
"Dispute?"
But his lips tighten, and he doesn't reply, only increases his pace forwards through this passage, so dear, so full of fear. It hasn't been long. Not long at all, compared to those years on Earth with Dan, with Jacques. And maybe that's why, each spot, the lines in the wallpaper, the creak of the floor arouses waves of biting sweetness, a flurry of disturbance through the pounding of my heart.
I reach out a finger, trace the bump and dip of each raised flower in the white wallpaper, now painted deep red. Here, in front of Julius's door, I had first felt Ralph's heroism, and this walk now, between one and the other, how many times have we made it together? How many times, in the dead of night, have I made it myself, drawing the lines of his tortured body before my eyes?
This door, with its gleaming handles and looming presence, I can memorise each carving within my mind. Perhaps, it's been burrowed in my soul.
Click.
Ralph presses down slowly, pushes in slowly, and everything becomes completely true or so dream-like that it feels like reality. A sea of red spreads before my eyes. The red of his sheets, the red of the wood of his bed, the red of his curtain, the red of the light reflected against the white walls.
     He leads me to the armchair, he sits me down, he kneels down before me, he gazes up at me, he clasps my hands in his.
     "Sorry, I made the wrong choice, and I couldn't protect you. Sorry, Cynder."
My mind rings blank, "Ralph, stand up, please."
"I'll give Declan his punishment right this moment, so please, forgive me." The spirit of his eyes swim with nameless agony, the soft underbelly of a wounded beast.
But it's not this that I need or want to see.
     "If he abandoned his duty as a knight towards Mal, if he killed Declan du Sel without giving a fuck for the consequences, all he'd value would be his love for you. And that, that would be absolutely terrifying."
"No, listen, I'm the one who should be sorry." My hand slaps against my chest, "I'm the one who's guilty, why in all fucking hell should it be you who's apolog—
     "Cynder."
     One look, one word shuts all sound from my mouth.
     His fingertips tremble, everything, the raging battle in his gaze, the tension in his shoulders, the strain in his legs, tells me that he yearns to envelop me in his embrace, and yet he doesn't. He holds my hands tightly; he holds me back like I'm something he has no right to touch, like I'm something easily broken on an altar.
     "I knew," He says, voice lowering, hoarse, "from the moment you were mated with Lilith that you were destined to be with more than one partner. How can you not be loved when you're so radiant and beautiful? And what right do I have to strip that freedom from you? Just because I believe in something I've been taught since young does not mean that you should do the same." His lips tilt upwards, but his eyes cry, "I'm happy for you. You're loved by so many magnificent and powerful males. All I ask for is that you keep me by your side. I've said it before, you don't have to love me, you don't have to do anything for me, I just ask to remain here, as your Knight."
      Sourness and anguish and all the shredded things in the Pit leak behind my eyes and to the back of my throat.
      His hand tightens, "Please Cynder, I don't care if you're not mine as long as I'm yours."
      "Please?" A harsh shredding that is my voice spirals through the room, "I don't get it! Why are you degrading yourself like this? Why are you begging me like you don't deserve any of this?" The chair clatters to the floor behind me, and I rip my hands from his hands, "I, the wretched thing that I am, don't deserve you doing all this for me! I'm not a fucking treasure! I'm just a piece of fool's gold, I look shiny on the outside, but really inside, I'm just a lump of shit. And even despite that, you still love me! I should be the one begging you not leave, not you! Never you out of all of them! For God's fucking sake, I loved you first and foremost so why is it you on your knees? What in all hell made you think th...
     My voice extinguishes like a broken cassette.
     Ralph's face is flushed a sunset pink, and all previous grievances are stripped away from his face, all that's left is a twisting fight between fear and soul-wrenching doubt and an absolute painting of innocence and a surrender to joy.
     "You love me?" He murmurs, eyes searching my face frantically in fearful happiness, "Do you truly... love me?"
     All sound, all things but him melt away from my vision, and there's only one thing I know how to say, "Yes, I love you. I love you Ralph."
     We collide together, chest to chest, fingers clenched in each other's hair, lips desperately seeking the deepest depths. He presses me closer, into his hard body, into his invading scent, into his tongue and lips and mouth. His tongues laps shallow and deep, and everything radiates from him, into me, his need, his happiness, his care, his love. Everything lights onto my tongue, into my mouth. And I give mine all to him, back aching, hands encroaching, mouths merging.
      And he tastes so sweet.
      We break apart, gasping, rosiness kissing his cheeks as surely as it kisses mine.
      "I love you Ralphus," I murmur into his chest, "So you don't have to ask me to stay by my side, you don't have to do anything at all. And as for the others... I'm sorry, even though I loved you first, I—
      "Shhh, it's ok," He kisses the top of my head, hands trembling as they stoke the small of my back, "I've told you, there's no need to apologise."
     I stare up at his winking eyes, and even in the disturbance of the film of wine, the sea of lulling purple is full of inextinguishable sparks that fill the space of my heart until there's no room left for aching.
     "I'm yours, as surely as we're here in this moment right now. Don't doubt it, take me." I place his large hands on my butt, shivering at the sudden warmth penetrating the thin fabric of my trousers, "Eat me all up."
      Ralph's gaze glazes over, and his treasure rubbing against my lower abdomen hardens and bulges, but he shakes my hands off gently and sprawls on the bed, opening his powerful arms, "Please, Cynder, hold me instead. This is something only I, out of all of them, can give you. Come."

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AN: OOOOOOHhhhhhhh Ralphus is so sexy. Cynder and Ralphus is a switchable couple, so if anyone (switching is completely normal and rlly common btw) dislikes switchable couples in fiction, feel free to skip the next chapter (mostly gonna be sex).