The intensity of his gaze spoke of many things, and it inspired many things in Nyx. Clearly, her husband was quite angry with her. Clearly, he was utilizing all his control to keep his calm. But something else, something dark and smoldering was in his gaze, as well. Nyx recognized it, and the feeling it inspired in her - but she pushed it down.
(How perverse they were, to have such difficulty discerning whether they wanted to throttle or ravage each other.)
He was too tall. She had to crane her neck to look at him if they were standing too close to each other - with her seated and him standing, there was no hope at all. So, she rose from her own seat, posh, comfortable chair that it was, and crossed her arms to stare back at him.
Despite the fact that she'd missed him, despite the fact that she'd come home because being without him made her ache, the way he looked at her provoked her. And there was some twisted urge in her to provoke him - to make him respond the way that she did.
But no, that's not why she was here. Not really.
"I assume the rest of the evening went well?"
Well, that wasn't that bad. Her voice had been neutral, as had her expression.
He lifted a hand, waved away the question-statement.
"Rather. Do. You think?"
His jaw clamped down tightly over the vituperative thoughts that demanded to be let loose over his tongue and through his lips. After a minute of icy silence, he finished.
"You abandoned your guests. You abandoned ME. And you troubled your daughter. The rest of our children. And our future son. No. Nyx. The night did not go well."
With thinly veiled disgust, he turned away from her again, stacking his papers carefully, and sending them to his private study downstairs.
Nyx arched a brow at his back. She did not like his tone, and she did not like his words.
"Our children are made of sterner stuff than to be traumatized by Mummy leaving a gathering early. And I'm sure the Titan will somehow manage to dry the tears on his pillow."
Nyx couldn't help but smirk at that image. Though, thinking on Styx, and on Ere, her slight mirth subsided.
"I've already sent word of my apology to Styx," she said, managing not to sound grudging about it at all - though she saw no need to inform her husband of her offer to assist with the wedding plans yet.
A pause.
"And I did not abandon you, Erebos. I left precisely because I do think - because better for me to have departed and have you make excuses for me than to have returned there when I hadn't a proper hold on my temper and ruined the evening."
She narrowed her eyes as he gave her his back again.
"Though it seems you did a perfectly marvelous job of that yourself."
"It is good to know that you have some sense in your head and have sent Styx an apology. You owe the rest of them the same. But Styx most of all. Pallas, next."
He turned slowly.
"And I want this to be very. Clear. Indeed. This is the last time I will ever cover for your. Petulent. Childish. Tantrums."
He said it flatly. But his eyes were flickering just slightly. Just barely.
"I do not accept your attempts at blaming the consequenses of your actions on me. That is not how it works, Wife."
Nyx's eyes blazed with none of the subtlety that her husband employed. But she let him finish before she spoke; she let him finish, and took the time to absorb what he said before responding.
"Firstly, husband, I have made my amends with my daughter. I made no scene, I caused no ruckus - I excused myself politely. If you opted to be dramatic about it -" Oh, he'd love that one - "that is hardly my fault.
"Secondly, if you don't plan to 'cover' for the consequences of your own presumptuous, inconsiderate, autocratic behavior, then perhaps next time, you should simply host any suitors to any of our daughters by yourself, you condescending oaf."
"And finally, there should have been no consequences for my departure. If you had simply said, 'Nyx is overwrought,' or 'Nyx is tired,' or 'Nyx wanted a bloody bath,' all would have been well. I can only assume that you failed to say any of these. What did you do, go back inside with a proper brood on and say, 'Nyx. Is. Indisposed. And has. Departed. The Underworld. To have a tantrum?'"
"Your very absense was scene enough. I did nothing to increase the disaster you wrought. It was your duty as a hostess in our temple to be there. It was your duty as a mother to be supportive.
"In reality, it matters not at all if I approve of Pallas or not. Styx wants him; she will have him. Nothing that you or I say will change it. My agreement was heart-felt. But even if it had not been, I still would have agreed. Immediately. Without any reason to give our daughter the idea that it did not please me. Without a way to make her think that I disapprove. Without any way of feeding rebellion or hurt in her heart. Why? You figure it out, Nyx.
"Your statement that your absense should have had no consequences is ridiculous. You are a strong. Powerful. Steady goddess. Everyone who knows you, knows this. And everyone in that room, with the exception of Pallas, knows you. Anything I could have said would not have fooled them. As a matter of record, I explained that you were too embarrassed to be seen openly weeping for happiness. And that you wished them all the best."
He needed to leave. Right. Now. Because he was becoming more and more furious with her attitude.
"As for dramatics. I would think that with your vast experience in it, you would know better than to accuse me of such womanly nonsense. I do not flounce off when I don't get my way. I do not abandon my duty to my guests when I want to have a good hard pout. I do not abandon my spouse for days on end because I just got an earful of Truth. You disappoint me, Nyx. Greatly. I thought better of you than this display. Pull yourself together. Come back to me when you feel more reasonable."
She stood in silence for a time after he finished speaking. Every word he spoke drove greater anger - and toward the end, still worse, hurt - into her.
Of course, it was easy for him to dissemble; it was easy for him to condemn her as spoiled, as childish, for both her disapproval and her reaction. He had no idea... no idea what it was to know what would be, to know that this was not the best path for Styx - or Moros' - happiness.
And there was nothing she could say to him to make him understand. Nothing she would say to him, now. Not after he'd said all this. Besides, it wasn't her place to disclose the work of Fate, despite how much easier it might make everything for her.
He wanted her to leave. She wouldn't beg to stay. He was nothing but a hateful brute - why should she want to stay? Her spine straightened, and she looked at him for another moment before she spoke, her dark eyes veiled in shadow, ironically enough.
"If that's what you think, and that's how you feel, then I suppose you're right. If you're quite finished insulting me and exhibiting your utter lack of understanding of me, I suppose I should come back when I feel more 'reasonable.'"
With that, she pushed past him, moving for the door so that she could greet the children before she left.
His hands snaked out and seized her - none too gently - then dragged her to his table and sat her down hard on his wooden chair.
"Do not."
But the rest got clogged in his throat. The truth was, she scared him. And being angry with her was easier by far than being scared. The truth was, he couldn't watch her leave again. And being angry with her was easier by far than watching her leave again.
His hands left her and he glared. But he didn't manage anything else.
She was wrong. He knew she was wrong. In so many ways. Wrong to try to deny Styx what she would demand to have - what she would have, one way or the other. Wrong to leave their guests when she needed to be there. Wrong to leave him, when he needed her.
He hated the fact that he needed her. But that was the truth too.
Her first feeling when he grabbed her, when he sat her down forcibly in his hard wooden chair, was a lightning flash of surprise, followed immediately by a tremendous wave of relief. Despite his anger, despite his harshness, he hadn't let her leave. In truth, she hadn't a clue where she would have gone. She hadn't liked being without him, being so far... but at least she'd been angry enough to need the distance. This time... not so much.
She looked up at him, at his angry visage, and her shoulders slumped slightly. There was nothing she could say here, because he would not give. He never would. Neither would Fate - and there was nothing she could do about either.
And so she swallowed it.
She swallowed his dismissal of her behavior as petulant; she swallowed his perception of her reticence about Pallas as sheer wrongheadedness; she swallowed his assertion that her departure had been disastrous, and she, a failure in her duties for having made it; she swallowed his idea that she had abandoned him, and at that, for no more than a petty squabble.
She swallowed it all, and looked down at her hands, away from his face.
"I am... sorry," she said so quietly that it could barely be heard.
He jerked the closest chair out from under the table and sat down heavily in it. Still staring at his wife, he wondered just how they were supposed to see eye to eye when the whole wrongness lay in Nyx, who refused to admit to any of it.
But suddenly, her apology came, and although it was not an admittance, not by far, he found that it was enough.
Her gaze didn't rise to his yet, though it did fall on his hand on the table. She felt the anger in him die down, at least somewhat, leaving behind... fear?
It had escaped her before... disguised by anger, and her own senses focused on what she'd been going through.
She'd frightened him.
And suddenly, for the first time in this conversation, she felt a pang of guilt. Her eyes shot up to his face, and her hand reached out to slide into his. Briefly but tightly, she squeezed before she began stroking the back of his hand with her thumb.
"I'm sorry," she repeated in a more audible whisper, only this time, she wasn't talking about anything but the worry she'd caused him. This time, she very much meant it.
But it was impossible to hang onto the anger when she was looking at him like that, when her thumb was stroking his hand, when her voice sounded like that---
--and the table was gone, just gone. In a second, it didn't matter, because the shadows rose up from the floor and tugged his Nyxie into his lap, where the Dark One held onto her as if she were some futuristic preserver of life. (Only not donut-shaped).
"Do not do that again," he mumbled against her shoulder. It escaped being a command because of the way it came out.
He sucked in a breath - and it smelled like Nyx - and told himself that Darkness. Does not. Cry.
As he gathered her to him, her guilt and relief washed over each other again and again as she wrapped her arms tightly around him. Her fingers gripped him relentlessly for a few moments before she began stroking his back soothingly, murmuring soft, wordless comfort against his neck. Her lips moved to his cheek, and she murmured, so, so softly:
"I'm sorry..." her lips pressed against his skin, then moved to his eyelid, to oh so gently kiss away whatever non-moisture might not be there. Again, she spoke softly,
"I'm sorry..." His other eye.
"I'm sorry..." His other cheek.
She nuzzled the crook of his neck once more, quietly chanting the mantra of her love and contrition.
"My beast... my love... I'm sorry..." She used her lips to kiss away his pain and tension and fear.
Her own hurt and anger was all but forgotten. That which she'd wrought on him was unbearable, unacceptable - and she would do anything she could to take it away from him.
He made a sound in the back of his throat, followed up by a tight squeeze that pulled his wife even harder against his form.
"Don't ever. Do that. Again," he said, but in a tone so soft that it felt like the dawn.
He stood, taking his wife with him, and walked over to their bed, carefully laying her down on her back at the edge. When he perched on the side, feet on the stairs, he said nothing to her. The indecision of whether to stay where he sat or climb in with her was clear in his eyes, though his expression did not give anything away. He did not know what rights he had, for now, after all these things had come between them.
No; not this, not this hesitation. Never this from her beast. She sat up and took his face in her hands, stroking his sharp cheekbones with the soft pads of her thumbs.
"Yours," she said, and kissed him once softly.
"Yours," she murmured again, then kissed him again, less gently this time, but still sweetly. Her hands slipped into his hair, and tugged at it, her chiton slipping down her shoulder a bit.
"Always yours, foolish beast. And you, always mine." And she kissed him again, slanting her lips against his, her tongue teasing its way across his lips, until he gave her his mouth and his taste and his tongue.
And she pressed herself against him, her hands slipping down to his shoulders, nails digging into his skin, because it was all right to be angry, it was all right to be afraid, and it was even all right to be hurt, as long as they came back to this. As long as they told each other these things that they wouldn't speak through this, through the touch and the taste and the grind and that hot sting of teeth and nails and his tightening grip on her, it was all right, because that was a part of it, too.
He gave into her hands and her teeth and her lips and her nails and her tongue and her voice, and everything that made her his wife. Sliding to her side, he gathered her up in his arms.
"I love you," he said between kisses. "Can't be.. Without you.."
(How perverse they were, to have such difficulty discerning whether they wanted to throttle or ravage each other.)
He was too tall. She had to crane her neck to look at him if they were standing too close to each other - with her seated and him standing, there was no hope at all. So, she rose from her own seat, posh, comfortable chair that it was, and crossed her arms to stare back at him.
Despite the fact that she'd missed him, despite the fact that she'd come home because being without him made her ache, the way he looked at her provoked her. And there was some twisted urge in her to provoke him - to make him respond the way that she did.
But no, that's not why she was here. Not really.
"I assume the rest of the evening went well?"
Well, that wasn't that bad. Her voice had been neutral, as had her expression.
Not that bad at all.
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He lifted a hand, waved away the question-statement.
"Rather. Do. You think?"
His jaw clamped down tightly over the vituperative thoughts that demanded to be let loose over his tongue and through his lips. After a minute of icy silence, he finished.
"You abandoned your guests. You abandoned ME. And you troubled your daughter. The rest of our children. And our future son. No. Nyx. The night did not go well."
With thinly veiled disgust, he turned away from her again, stacking his papers carefully, and sending them to his private study downstairs.
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"Our children are made of sterner stuff than to be traumatized by Mummy leaving a gathering early. And I'm sure the Titan will somehow manage to dry the tears on his pillow."
Nyx couldn't help but smirk at that image. Though, thinking on Styx, and on Ere, her slight mirth subsided.
"I've already sent word of my apology to Styx," she said, managing not to sound grudging about it at all - though she saw no need to inform her husband of her offer to assist with the wedding plans yet.
A pause.
"And I did not abandon you, Erebos. I left precisely because I do think - because better for me to have departed and have you make excuses for me than to have returned there when I hadn't a proper hold on my temper and ruined the evening."
She narrowed her eyes as he gave her his back again.
"Though it seems you did a perfectly marvelous job of that yourself."
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"It is good to know that you have some sense in your head and have sent Styx an apology. You owe the rest of them the same. But Styx most of all. Pallas, next."
He turned slowly.
"And I want this to be very. Clear. Indeed. This is the last time I will ever cover for your. Petulent. Childish. Tantrums."
He said it flatly. But his eyes were flickering just slightly. Just barely.
"I do not accept your attempts at blaming the consequenses of your actions on me. That is not how it works, Wife."
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"Firstly, husband, I have made my amends with my daughter. I made no scene, I caused no ruckus - I excused myself politely. If you opted to be dramatic about it -" Oh, he'd love that one - "that is hardly my fault.
"Secondly, if you don't plan to 'cover' for the consequences of your own presumptuous, inconsiderate, autocratic behavior, then perhaps next time, you should simply host any suitors to any of our daughters by yourself, you condescending oaf."
"And finally, there should have been no consequences for my departure. If you had simply said, 'Nyx is overwrought,' or 'Nyx is tired,' or 'Nyx wanted a bloody bath,' all would have been well. I can only assume that you failed to say any of these. What did you do, go back inside with a proper brood on and say, 'Nyx. Is. Indisposed. And has. Departed. The Underworld. To have a tantrum?'"
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"Your very absense was scene enough. I did nothing to increase the disaster you wrought. It was your duty as a hostess in our temple to be there. It was your duty as a mother to be supportive.
"In reality, it matters not at all if I approve of Pallas or not. Styx wants him; she will have him. Nothing that you or I say will change it. My agreement was heart-felt. But even if it had not been, I still would have agreed. Immediately. Without any reason to give our daughter the idea that it did not please me. Without a way to make her think that I disapprove. Without any way of feeding rebellion or hurt in her heart. Why? You figure it out, Nyx.
"Your statement that your absense should have had no consequences is ridiculous. You are a strong. Powerful. Steady goddess. Everyone who knows you, knows this. And everyone in that room, with the exception of Pallas, knows you. Anything I could have said would not have fooled them. As a matter of record, I explained that you were too embarrassed to be seen openly weeping for happiness. And that you wished them all the best."
He needed to leave. Right. Now. Because he was becoming more and more furious with her attitude.
"As for dramatics. I would think that with your vast experience in it, you would know better than to accuse me of such womanly nonsense. I do not flounce off when I don't get my way. I do not abandon my duty to my guests when I want to have a good hard pout. I do not abandon my spouse for days on end because I just got an earful of Truth. You disappoint me, Nyx. Greatly. I thought better of you than this display. Pull yourself together. Come back to me when you feel more reasonable."
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Of course, it was easy for him to dissemble; it was easy for him to condemn her as spoiled, as childish, for both her disapproval and her reaction. He had no idea... no idea what it was to know what would be, to know that this was not the best path for Styx - or Moros' - happiness.
And there was nothing she could say to him to make him understand. Nothing she would say to him, now. Not after he'd said all this. Besides, it wasn't her place to disclose the work of Fate, despite how much easier it might make everything for her.
He wanted her to leave. She wouldn't beg to stay. He was nothing but a hateful brute - why should she want to stay? Her spine straightened, and she looked at him for another moment before she spoke, her dark eyes veiled in shadow, ironically enough.
"If that's what you think, and that's how you feel, then I suppose you're right. If you're quite finished insulting me and exhibiting your utter lack of understanding of me, I suppose I should come back when I feel more 'reasonable.'"
With that, she pushed past him, moving for the door so that she could greet the children before she left.
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His hands snaked out and seized her - none too gently - then dragged her to his table and sat her down hard on his wooden chair.
"Do not."
But the rest got clogged in his throat. The truth was, she scared him. And being angry with her was easier by far than being scared. The truth was, he couldn't watch her leave again. And being angry with her was easier by far than watching her leave again.
His hands left her and he glared. But he didn't manage anything else.
She was wrong. He knew she was wrong. In so many ways. Wrong to try to deny Styx what she would demand to have - what she would have, one way or the other. Wrong to leave their guests when she needed to be there. Wrong to leave him, when he needed her.
He hated the fact that he needed her. But that was the truth too.
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She looked up at him, at his angry visage, and her shoulders slumped slightly. There was nothing she could say here, because he would not give. He never would. Neither would Fate - and there was nothing she could do about either.
And so she swallowed it.
She swallowed his dismissal of her behavior as petulant; she swallowed his perception of her reticence about Pallas as sheer wrongheadedness; she swallowed his assertion that her departure had been disastrous, and she, a failure in her duties for having made it; she swallowed his idea that she had abandoned him, and at that, for no more than a petty squabble.
She swallowed it all, and looked down at her hands, away from his face.
"I am... sorry," she said so quietly that it could barely be heard.
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But suddenly, her apology came, and although it was not an admittance, not by far, he found that it was enough.
Some of his anger died. None of his fear did.
Slowly, he reached out his hand across the table.
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It had escaped her before... disguised by anger, and her own senses focused on what she'd been going through.
She'd frightened him.
And suddenly, for the first time in this conversation, she felt a pang of guilt. Her eyes shot up to his face, and her hand reached out to slide into his. Briefly but tightly, she squeezed before she began stroking the back of his hand with her thumb.
"I'm sorry," she repeated in a more audible whisper, only this time, she wasn't talking about anything but the worry she'd caused him. This time, she very much meant it.
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He tried very hard.
But it was impossible to hang onto the anger when she was looking at him like that, when her thumb was stroking his hand, when her voice sounded like that---
--and the table was gone, just gone. In a second, it didn't matter, because the shadows rose up from the floor and tugged his Nyxie into his lap, where the Dark One held onto her as if she were some futuristic preserver of life. (Only not donut-shaped).
"Do not do that again," he mumbled against her shoulder. It escaped being a command because of the way it came out.
He sucked in a breath - and it smelled like Nyx - and told himself that Darkness. Does not. Cry.
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"I'm sorry..." her lips pressed against his skin, then moved to his eyelid, to oh so gently kiss away whatever non-moisture might not be there. Again, she spoke softly,
"I'm sorry..." His other eye.
"I'm sorry..." His other cheek.
She nuzzled the crook of his neck once more, quietly chanting the mantra of her love and contrition.
"My beast... my love... I'm sorry..." She used her lips to kiss away his pain and tension and fear.
Her own hurt and anger was all but forgotten. That which she'd wrought on him was unbearable, unacceptable - and she would do anything she could to take it away from him.
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"Don't ever. Do that. Again," he said, but in a tone so soft that it felt like the dawn.
He stood, taking his wife with him, and walked over to their bed, carefully laying her down on her back at the edge. When he perched on the side, feet on the stairs, he said nothing to her. The indecision of whether to stay where he sat or climb in with her was clear in his eyes, though his expression did not give anything away. He did not know what rights he had, for now, after all these things had come between them.
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"Yours," she said, and kissed him once softly.
"Yours," she murmured again, then kissed him again, less gently this time, but still sweetly. Her hands slipped into his hair, and tugged at it, her chiton slipping down her shoulder a bit.
"Always yours, foolish beast. And you, always mine." And she kissed him again, slanting her lips against his, her tongue teasing its way across his lips, until he gave her his mouth and his taste and his tongue.
And she pressed herself against him, her hands slipping down to his shoulders, nails digging into his skin, because it was all right to be angry, it was all right to be afraid, and it was even all right to be hurt, as long as they came back to this. As long as they told each other these things that they wouldn't speak through this, through the touch and the taste and the grind and that hot sting of teeth and nails and his tightening grip on her, it was all right, because that was a part of it, too.
She would show him.
She would teach him.
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"I love you," he said between kisses. "Can't be.. Without you.."
The rest was lost in quiet, healing sounds.
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