C is for Cut
Takes place after Glass Sword. Warning: self harm, language.
The water is cold when he steps in but it sizzles and burns moments later, trailing over his scorching skin.
He goes through the motions robotically, running a shampoo-covered hand through his messy black hair. It's overgrown; he thinks absently, hanging over onto his forehead and blocking his sight. And then he remembers his mother fussing over his hair before Queenstrial, demanding he see a barber, and he can't breathe.
His mother will never be around to remind him to get a haircut again.
There's a strange feeling inside of him: pain and anguish and a little bit of relief that is overshadowed by tremendous guilt. His mother may not have been maternal but she had tried. That's more than he can say for a lot of people in his life.
He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block out memories of amber eyes and amber whiskey. His fingers brush his jaw and he realizes that it has been days since he's shaved. He reaches blindly through the shower door towards the counter, swiping the razor on its surface.
Suddenly, he's aware of how silent the bathroom is and how sharp the blade is against his skin. He is completely alone, a rarity these days, and he hates it. Because alone means quiet and quiet means time to think.
He's been thinking a lot lately, of a girl with lightning in her touch and red blood in her veins. Of the adoration in her eyes as she'd looked at him in the back row of a darkened theatre. He clings to the memory for all she has for him now is fear and disgust and hatred. Sometimes, when he's lying alone in bed at night, those are the only feelings he has for himself too.
As an unwanted son and the perpetual shadow to a flame, Maven knows what it means to feel unworthy, inadequate, undeserving. He would never admit it now but Mare Barrow is the single person in his life who never made him feel that way.
Stop being such a coward, Maven. He hears his father sneer in his ear, flashing back to a day nearly thirteen years ago when he'd been too afraid to sleep alone in the dark. Calore men can't afford to be weak. Four years old and trapped in the dark confines of a room for the first time, he'd ended up wetting his pants that night. The familiar shame courses through his body, turning his blood to ice.
I will never make the mistake of loving you again. Those words hurt more than anything his father could ever say. Mare had loved him, and he'd thrown it away. And for what? The never-ending loneliness and guilt that haunts him every single day of his life.
Idiot. Coward. Weakling. Liar. Murderer.
I'm not any of those things, he wants to scream but he can't because he is. Tears blur his vision and he can practically hearing his mother calling him pathetic. He opens his mouth to tell her he's sorry and then he remembers she's dead and how miserably he has failed her.
The Red Rebellion is growing. The High Houses are on the brink of civil war. The country is falling apart and all he can think about is how he can make the dark haired girl in his dungeon love him again.
Cal probably would've known what to do, he thinks bitterly. He would have jumped in and saved the day like everyone always expected him to do. Like when Maven split open his knee on a dusty screw while playing in the gardens and Cal carried him back to palace on his shoulders. Huddled in the corner of his shower with a blade against his skin, Maven Calore admits that he misses his big brother.
He hates himself. God, he hates himself so fucking much.
The razor, which he's still turning over in the palm of his hand, stings his skin suddenly and he glances down to see silver blood oozing from a tiny nick. The smell fills his nostrils and he wants to vomit. But the pain had felt good. It had felt like releasing some of the pressure built up inside of him.
Coriane Jacos had slit her wrists, he remembers suddenly. He wonders if she had felt the way he did now. He slides the blade down the skin of his forearm, making a large cut in his porcelain skin. He doesn't retch this time, instead watches in morbid fascination as the water at his feet runs silver. He lifts the blade again, ready to inflict more damage, when a knock at the door interrupts him.
"Your Highness?" He groans at the sound of his secretary's voice through the locked door, "Your first meeting begins in fifteen minutes."
He holds his bleeding arm under the hot water, not even flinching as it burns the small but deep incision. When he's drying off, he wonders, if his bothersome employee hadn't interrupted, would he have killed himself?
Yes, he decides, and then gets out to begin his day.
Fifty-three people.
He holds a conversation with fifty-three people throughout the day and exactly zero notice the raw, uncovered cut under his sleeve. Surrounded by more people than he ever has been before, he feels so goddamn lonely.
He goes by the Bowl of Bones after dinner on impulse. It's likely she's asleep or sulking and he's probably the last person she wants to see. He doesn't blame her; sometimes he flinches away from the mirror.
He grips the bar as he nears, peering through the metal into the cell. It's hard to make out anything in the darkness so he concludes she must be asleep and begins to turn away.
"What is that?" He almost starts at the sound of her hoarse voice below him. He draws up a small flame with his right hand and stares down at her slumped form on the ground.
"What?" He asks, forgetting to sound like a captor speaking to his prisoner.
"On your arm." He shivers as her fingers brush his skin lightly. He wants to laugh because of course it would be her who finds his vulnerabilities.
"I hate who I am." He says in response, his voice hollow and defeated.
She's quiet too until she speaks suddenly, "I think that any sane person would be delighted that her enemy tried to kill himself. But I'm not. I never could let go of the boy I thought you were. The boy I fell in love with. And now I can't bring myself to hate who you are because I see myself in you. There is something broken inside you the same way there's something broken inside me."
He lets out a choked up sob, leaning his head against the bars. "I wanted to be him," he says, "I wanted to be the man you thought I was so badly."
She should back away. She should kick him for daring to come so close to her and snarl insults at him. But she's never been good at doing what's expected of her. She gets to her feet and through the bars, pulls him towards her. His head ends up clumsily jammed into her collarbone as she threads her fingers through his too long hair. "Don't ever do it again," she whispers, "Don't ever hurt yourself. You brought yourself down to this level and you can bring yourself up again."
He finds he's not too inclined to follow the rules either.
So the king sobs in the arms of his prisoner and for a small moment in time, she lets him.
Thanks so much to the people who reviewed/favorited this story! It really means a lot. I do have the next three chapters already written, but before I post them, I want to try and get at least five reviews just to see what people think of the story. Thanks for reading,and please review! :)