faderift | open | well i've lost it all

Entry tags:

open | well i've lost it all

WHO: Lexie and the brave people who feel like maybe getting things thrown at them/being yelled at/cried on/some other flavor of ridiculousness.
WHAT: Breakup Drama ♫
WHEN: nowish (end of Haring)
WHERE: De La Fontaine apartments in Hightown
NOTES: if you're a melodramatic noblewoman with a sudden case of regency constitution clap your hands
[ if you want a certain flavor of ridiculousness, put it in your title or hmu on plurk (@shaestorms) or discord (shae#7274) ♥ ]

It has been three days since she returned to the apartments the Comte keeps for her and her sister in the middle of the night, and Alexandrie de la Fontaine has not emerged from her room. In fact, Alexandrie de la Fontaine has not emerged from her bed. The only mark of her continued residence is the persistent heartbroken sobbing from behind the door. It is largely quiet, muffled, a background sound to be filtered out like the ocean waves. It does on occasion become more energetic as some thought—new or revisited for the hundredth time—sets her off, or disappear entirely when the expenditure of it all sends her to sleep.

Meal after meal is brought, left, and found again untouched; the tea over-steeped, the coffee stale, and both quickly rendered cold, for she will not stand for a fire being lit in the hearth. (The first maid to find it silly and begin to kindle one in any case for her lady's own good received a thin bruise the shape of the side of an expertly aimed hairbrush and a tongue-lashing for her trouble. There have since been no other attempts.) Instead, she has wrapped herself in the covers of her bed, her attire unchanged since her return save to become rumpled, her hair slowly coming free over time as the pins vex her and are yanked out and thrown to disappear in the rug.

She is missing entirely. Silent on the network when she would usually be flip, absent from both duties and regularly kept company. Crystal messages go unanswered, and callers are turned away with the vague explanation that Lady Alexandrie has taken ill and is not receiving visitors; that they may leave a card, or a message, and she shall respond once recovered.

Some callers are, of course, slightly more insistent.

[ Here you still are! If you're not Evie and you're coming in the normal person way, Marceau is chasing after you right now in that sort of eminently austere way fourth generation lifelong butlers have. If you're a scalawag or something, she has a window. There's probably a trellis. We'll figure something out. Prose or brackets are fine! ]

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[ A sniff. It's true; the softness of Gwen's voice and touch is enough to startle KItty out of a bit of her self-pity and self-hatred. She wipes her face, finding the tears slowing a bit, finding her breath becoming steadier and slower. It's very strange - comfort's never really worked on her before. But then again, comfort's not really been offered to her by anyone for a very long time. Even coming out of the hospital after Mr Tallow's assault, Mum and Dad had really just scolded her...Lakshmi had been a bit soft and sweet to her, but she hadn't really known what to do with that. Hadn't felt like she deserved it at the time. She guesses - the sweetest person up to this point had really been...Gwen's dad. Which is - its own little tangle of complicated feelings. ]

I don't want an apology for me. [ Another deeper breath. ] I want one for that maid. The one she hit. That was why - [ Kitty falters, biting her lip. ] I lost my temper. I ought to have been sweet to her, but - I was just so furious - She oughtn't be the sort of person who'd hurt those who can't fight back. Even when she's sad. I don't want to be friends with her if she is.

( gwenaëlle hums, not quite coming down on one side or the other of her thought—and then, )

She listens to you, doesn't she? You can't always tell, through all of her flutter and hair, but she does listen, she's learned things. She isn't the same as she was when we met, that's for damned sure.

( this is, indeed, going somewhere. )

[ A little bitterly: ]

Yeah, she's learned what to say to really hurt my feelings.

Among other things, ( because quite frankly that is fair.

after a moment, )

And she's in pain so she's reverting to what she knows better. No one becomes perfect or sheds every lesson in a moment, they'll make stupid mistakes. You can write her off, now, or you can still be here when she's able to hear things without interpreting them through that and say that. All she's going to hear right now is 'blah blah you don't matter as much as other people', it doesn't matter what you're actually saying. But it's a moment, and it ends.

You're not obligated. If you don't care any more, you don't care, I get it. But if you do, and you're just mad now too—

Maker knows I've done some fucked up things, too. And I've had friendships survive things maybe they shouldn't have done, but it's...it isn't nothing, to come out the other side.

[ Kitty looks down at her hands for a few long moments, picking grime out from under one of her fingernails. Is it worth it? Even aside from the self-martyring thought of oh, I've screwed it up, Lexie doesn't want me anymore - does Kitty? She's hurled people aside from less. She's hurled people aside who mattered more to her for less. She'd had a good friend when she was little, Lydia, who'd told her that her short hair was ugly and made her look like a boy and Kitty hadn't ever spoken to her again after that day. Still feels a little bit angry when she thinks of Lydia. And Jakob, when Jakob had stopped leaving his room, Kitty had stopped seeing him. So who's Lexie to her? Why's Lexie worth the abuse? Why's she worth tolerating being treated like a guttersnipe, like some trollop, like an inferior?

Finally, quietly: ]

I'll stay. And I'll give her another chance. But if she keeps treating me like I'm rubbish, I'm not going to put up with it. No matter what we've shared. I'm not rubbish.

Tell her so. Like that, not just slapping back at her when she lashes out. 'I'm here because I care about you and you're going to have to live with how you respond to that'.

( gwenaëlle, famously intemperate, but she sounds uncomfortably experienced in this particular arena. maybe don't examine that closely. )

You aren't. You don't deserve it from her any more than she deserves it from Loki. And she isn't any more off the hook for it than he is, I just think she might actually give a damn about that.

( where she has her doubts, as much as she's always liked him—

he, she thinks, would cut off his entire face to spite his own face. )

We don't fight with her. She wants that. What she needs is people to be honest with her, and as patient as we can manage under the circumstances.

Edited 2018-12-27 23:55 (UTC)

[ A grunt. Kitty's settling down, now, moving out of her self-pity and back into her normal sharp-tongued state of existence. ]

But apparently 'your boyfriend was a self-obsessed wanker who wasn't good enough for you in the first place and isn't worth giving a single shit about and you're better without him' isn't the right kind of honesty? Since that didn't go over so well.

Edited 2018-12-27 23:59 (UTC)

But now it's been said,

( ever so neatly, )

and we can all take it as read.

Could be said again. Repeatedly. At volume.

[ A sigh. ]

Anyway. I'll follow your lead.

( gwenaëlle nudges her with her shoulder, quietly affectionate. ) That'll be novel.

( after a beat: ) You wouldn't, probably, if you'd met me three years ago. And Alexandrie's only been here a matter of months. I'm not saying we never get held accountable, just that there's...productive ways of doing it. She doesn't have the capacity to listen in this moment, it doesn't mean she never does.

I was fucking awful to Coupe, which is just as she deserves because she's a dreadful bitch, but—I pushed her so, so hard, because I was terrified. All she was trying to do was make me better and stronger, and I took aim at every single thing I could think of to hurt her so she'd think I wasn't worth it. I hate her, she's appalling, ( so extraordinarily casually it cannot possibly be true, gwenaëlle has never hated anyone that blithely, she's a mercurial monster who does things at maximum passion only, ) but I can rely on her.

Sometimes that's what people need. Someone to think they're worthwhile when they don't. And it's harder when she's already pinned that on someone who's let her down. Not impossible, just. Infuriatingly difficult.

[ A little nod. Not that Kitty's good at not letting people down. Quite the opposite, really. But - Lexie's not her mum, or any of her teachers, or anyone but Lexie. The circumstances here are the circumstances here. If she keeps letting her past get her all twisted up, nothing good's going to come of it. ]

Are you and Coupe all right now?

When she fucking turns up, I'll let you know.

( but that is an entirely separate thing, and things with coupe have always been...

complicated. to say the least. she brushes it aside, )

Just don't expect too much of Alexandrie today. We're riding the storm because we love her, even though she's also a miserable bitch. Because she would if it were you or me.

( a pause. )

And I would, if it were you.

[ Alexandrie, for her part, is crying again in the bath as she struggles on her own with the mess she had made of her waist-length curls. Because she'd dismissed the maid as soon as she had been able. Because she knows she's angry, and she knows she's cruel, because she'd trained herself to be both angry and cruel because kindness is weakness and apology is weakness, and the only way she knows how to spare anyone that is to tell them to go away.

But nobody will.

Marie wouldn't go away, and wouldn't go away, and wouldn't go away, and so she'd been angry and cruel and hurt her. Kitty wouldn't go away, and wouldn't go away, and wouldn't go away, and so she'd been angry and cruel and tried to hurt her too. Now Gwen is here, and she won't leave either.

No-one will do what she asks, which means no-one cares what she wants, which means no-one cares about her. Which means the only reason they're here is to take advantage of the power they can take. The gossip. The knives they can sharpen and tuck away, knowing now what places in her heart she curls around when pushed.

That cannot be right. That cannot make sense. This is not court. This is not Orlais. You are in Kirkwall. Things are not like that here.

But they are, they are, they are, they are like that everywhere, and even the heat of the bath feels cold as she gives up on her hair, wraps her arms around her knees, buries her face in them and wonders, childlike, if anyone had ever been sorry they'd hurt her. Or if, perhaps, she had learned well enough from Emile that they had simply never known they had.

What kind of victory, that? Pyrrhic. And lonely. Horribly, horribly lonely.

Would it feel better or worse to lose?

It occurs to her that she is, here, finally alone.

And she hates this too. ]

[ Kitty lapses into uncertain silence for a moment after that last comment of Gwen's. She half wants to question her, to push and challenge, because - because no one ever rode the storm for her, except maybe Jakob, but even he told her back then that she was being stupid to go to court and that he wanted no part of it. So what's different about her? Why would she be willing to take that risk? To put forth that effort? Would Lexie really be willing to do it? It seems impossible, that these women she's not even known a year and who she's squabbled with as often as she's had any pleasant talks with them - If they're really willing to fight for her, they're unlike anyone she's ever known before.

But she can't question her, because that would sound so egotistical. Tell me more. Do you really like me? What do you like about me? Please. So, instead, she draws in a breath and says - ]

It's - been a while. Should we go and check on her?

( on occasion, it's enlightening, the things gwenaëlle will say about the people she cares for and admires when prompted—but there's as much chance of her waving her hands vaguely in the air and refusing to be drawn on the matter, so it's hard to say whether kitty misses anything that would have served her.

gwenaëlle purses her lips, briefly, and then slaps a hand down on the bed and stands. )

Probably.

( it would be polite to knock, especially under the circumstances, but what actually happens is the door opens and gwenaëlle says, )

You've seen my tits, so don't even begin to start with me about your privacy.

( and then, making a small noise in the back of her throat, )

—give me the comb.

[ Bizarrely, of the two of the intruders, it is Kitty who has last seen Alexandrie unclothed and in the bath. Even so, the woman is hardly demure. She has for many years worn her nakedness as unselfconsciously as anyone might wear anything, and often as a sort of weapon.

But she has indeed seen Gwenaëlle's tits. Recently. Rendered very nicely in oils. On the wall of the bedchamber she had so recently quit. Which also means Loki has seen them more recently than hers and she hadn't really fucking needed to think about that, so while the comb is indeed handed over it's with a sharp toss over her shoulder, a defiant angry sniff, and the fervent vicious wish that somehow she could pull the comb with her hair rather than the opposite.

At least it stems the tears, even as she curls farther around herself and sinks her nails into her calves. ]

[ As Kitty watches Alexandrie, she swears a silent - but fervent - oath to herself: If I ever let myself become this distraught over a man, I will personally draw a bath and drown myself in it. ]

I can go and fetch some sweets or something. [ That's to Gwen. Kitty is still too raw and hurt to speak to Lexie directly. Probably will be the rest of her life, frankly. Can a friendship continue if you never look the other person in the eye again? ] If you think you can cram them down her throat.

I think I might manage, ( she says, lightly, taking the comb from alexandrie and waiting until kitty's retreating footsteps are out of earshot to say, working it up through the tangle of red from the bottom, )

Now you're going to say thank you to me for cleaning up the mess you've just made with one of the only decent people either of us know, and when she gets back you're going to apologise to Kitty for how badly you've hurt her today.

( the tone brooks no argument, but that doesn't mean gwenaëlle doesn't expect any. )

Mess I have made? How badly I have hurt her?

[ Now that Kitty is out of the room, and it's just the two of them, Alexandrie is speaking in Orlesian again... and not least because she hates how Trade sounds coming out of her mouth when she can hardly breathe through her nose.

It's defensive enough that it's fairly obvious she knows she'd behaved poorly. ]

I did not ask anyone to come. I did not ask anyone to stay. In fact I asked everyone to l-l- [ Damn this. Force it out. ] to leave because I know I am a beast and when I am hurt I hurt back, and worse, so they w-will stop and shall not dare do it again, but she would not stop and would not leave and w-would not— and so I—

[ And it hadn't been just Kitty. She sticks the side of her hand in her mouth and sobs around it. ]

I was cruel to him, Gigi. Every bit as much as he— [ But she's not to talk about that. She can't. Not to anyone. Not even to Gwenaëlle. She searches for something, anything else she could say; Kitty again, perhaps. The younger woman is the subject of Gwen's current caring, after all. And her betrayal still stung very badly coming on top of everything else. ]

—and how is it that I have hurt her, she made it perfectly obvious she cares nothing for me, only for what power and influence I might wield in support of her all-important personal crusade on behalf of a 'common man' she has carried over with her from the Fade! She could not care any less for how she steps outside the lines in my life, but should I chance a single toe outside the bounds of what she deems correct behaviour then the Maker help me! But yes, yes, I have hurt her.

You are beastly when you're hurt, ( she agrees, unmoved by that and still patiently, painstakingly working her way through the mess that alexandrie has made, in addition to the rest, of her hair. there is no particular pause. ) It's easy. You're hurt and frightened and you go back to what's familiar because you know how to do it. It feels like control.

( it's inexorable. )

She didn't roll over and show you where you hurt her, so you kept slashing. She's going to fucking leave, Alexandrie, and it actually will be your fault. You are very good at this, and you hurt her. What she's very good at, as near as I can tell, is surviving. And an idiot would stay with you while you use her for a claw-sharpening post, and I may have talked her into being that idiot out of the love we have for you, so I want to be very clear that we are going to prove you're better than you just showed her that you are. Now. I love you. I don't care what you say to me, I know what you're doing and I don't care. Kitty is a girl. You were unconscionably cruel. You will apologise.

( she holds alexandrie's shoulders when she leans forward, presses a kiss to her temple. )

And we're going to stay. With you. Because you need us and you would do it if our places were reversed, ( very gently, ) you ungrateful strumpet.

[ By the end, Alexandrie is very still, and very quiet (save for the intermittent sniffing), her head lowered much like a broken horse under Gwenaëlle's unyielding and far too incisive words.

How. How could she still be so easy to destroy. So simply reduced to some wounded elemental creature without a single spark of humanity to her not rendered nearly unrecognizable by rage or grief. So easily induced to pass the same destruction on to any who dared come near her. And Kitty... as deeply insistent as Kitty always is that she is not to be treated like a child, Gwen is right. Despite all she has been through in her life, she is a girl. One no older than Lexie had been when she had been...

taught the agonizing lesson about the place in the world she was to occupy by her betters.

When she speaks again it is hushed. With a sort of quiet horror, as if finally looking at her hands and finding them bloody. ]

She... she will never forgive me and she will be right not to.

Not if you don't apologise to her.

( the comb is a slow, steady motion. she works the tangles out methodically, patiently, and makes no effort to make alexandrie look at her—it's easier, she knows, if she doesn't have to. )

There's only no way back if you burn it down. We make choices, Alexandrie. I am giving you an opportunity. All right? You're not any better to her breaking your own back over how dreadful you are. We pick ourselves up and do better.

I found some sort of - fondant fancies, maybe?

[ Kitty comes in, wrinkling her nose at the little tray of petits fours she's recovered from the kitchen. Taken without permission - but, well, they were doubtless intended for Lexie anyway, so it's not like fetching them early is something terrible. And they're probably to Lexie's tastes. ]

[ The feeling in the room is palpably different, in the same way one might feel upon opening a window once a storm has passed.

Alexandrie starts slightly, as if surprised to indeed hear Kitty’s voice again. Which she is, as she struggles to take to heart Gwenaëlle’s point that she won’t be any better to Kitty thinking she’s a monster. Easy enough to say, harder to hear, hardest to apply; she’d already entirely convinced herself that it was too late and Kitty had left and didn’t she, beast that she is, deserve to be left so?

But here she is, and talking casually about fondant of all things—she’d actually gone to get them? Fragile as Lexie is, it near sets her to weeping again.

You’re meant to look at people when you say things, aren’t you? But she can’t. Instead she looks at her knees, and feels the gentle tugging on her hair and the way the water drags against her as she’s pulled back and released by the movement and feels ill at the thought of eating anything at all but she’d try anyway if it meant not still being contrary. ]

I...

[ It’s small, and cracks in her throat. She doesn’t apologize, historically, and she’s terrible at it, but hasn’t she been doing it more than she ever has, these last months? Try again. ]

I should not have said those things to you.

[ Almost. ]

[ Kitty's gaze swings around towards Gwen. No mystery who's responsible for this change in outlook, though God only knows how she accomplished it. More than almost anything, Kitty wishes that she might ask after that, ask how Gwen did it - or, in some perverse way, she wishes that she might go back in time to when she and Lexie were still biting at each other. There's more familiarity in cruelty and savagery than there is in making amends.

So she fidgets for a moment, poking at one of the petits fours, as she lets loose a little uncertain noise - holding the floor until she can think of what to say. She manages: ]

I oughtn't have thrown water on you. So. I started it.

[ And then she looks to Gwen, trying to seek out some guidance as to how to proceed here. ]

open | well i've lost it all

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