Prompted Fics (#16-20)
Prompt: Rachel, Whenever the rain ends
Song: Does Anybody Wanna Buy A Memory? - Brooklyn OST
They were so very fond of telling her little maxims that were apparently meant to make her feel better. “She's in a better place now.” “It's always darkest before dawn.” A particular favorite is, “You've got to have the rain before you make the rainbow.”
And all Rachel, almost-14 and grieving, wants to know is when the damn rain is going to end.
Because Elizabeth's death doesn't just shock a Suit and lose a young teenager her mother, oh no. It's not that simple.
Elizabeth's death also tears apart a family.
Robert and Caleb, once brothers in all but blood, can barely stand the sight of each other without spitting poisonous words that break the hearts of all who hear. Blame, anger, all of it buried in guilt over the fact that they couldn't save the woman they cared so much for.
Their guilt also becomes directed at Rachel, who looks so much like her mother that it's painful. Caleb deals with it by drinking and pushing her away. Robert deals with it by effectively kicking her out of his life and, more importantly, Andrew's.
Andrew, who was probably one of the only people that could save Rachel from herself.
So for the first few months after Elizabeth's death, the last remaining Fioros and the last remaining Caustellos are shattered. Caleb barely emerges from his quarters save to get another drink. Robert avoids Rachel like the plague. Andrew tries to sneak out as often as possible to come to his cousin's aid, but Rachel's too busy locking herself away and causing a scandal by nearly training herself to death. It seems like the rain won't end.
But then Edgar finally manages to get through the barriers around Rachel's physical presence and that, in turn, helps him get behind the barriers around her heart.
And when he drags her out to the park-- her first time out of the Clubs Castle in months-- and manages to get her to smile a little again, she thinks she sees a rainbow peeking behind the clouds.
~*~
Prompt: all-male-Face-Cards!Rachel: Paid ag ofni, dim ond deilen gura, gura ar y ddôr, 28
Song: Daughters- John Mayer.
Cadogan's the only one that knows that she started hating men because she had been broken too many times by their gender. Pushed away by her uncle, disowned by her father, shunned by her love and pitied by her cousin- not to mention the Diamonds men who had persecuted her on her way up the ranks- it was all too much for one woman to take without becoming jaded, putting up a wall of Diamond detachment and righteous fury to keep her heart from shattering again.
He's also the only one that knows that secretly, she's terrified that now that she's let him in, he'll do the same.
Sometimes she acts like a woman haunted, starting at every leaf brushing up against her door, seeking him out as though if she doesn't, she'll lose him. Those are the nights when she'll linger too long in her office, sleepless, and he'll remain with her, reassuring and silent and worried but there.
Sometimes, she is the door, pushing him away like she used to push away her childhood friends, like her father and uncle pushed her away. Those are the nights she's more Diamond than ever, ordering him away with a clipped voice and a faintly pinched expression on her face.
Sometimes, she's just broken, awash with a never-ending amount of Missing. Missing a mother, an uncle, a father, a love, a best friend, a Queen, a King, a cousin. Those are the nights she lets him hold her, lets him be the strong one, for once.
But usually, there are only good nights. Stolen moments in the darkness of the courtyard or peaceful minutes in her office, sitting before the fireplace with her curled against him and no ghosts of the past haunting their thoughts, no barriers blocking their connection, no brokenness forcing fragility out of either of them. He will unconsciously sign Welsh poetry against her skin and she will speak of brighter days long past with a smile void of any bitterness. He's just Cadogan. She's just Rachel.
More importantly, it's always just the two of them, just like that.
Simple as a pair of hands intertwined at night.
~*~
Prompt: Choices are made and casualties counted /(air can make me meaningless) /Falling like pages /when a book hits the wall
In battles for the heart, true love always wins, he thinks. Maybe this time, love will convince her.
[falling like pages]
He comes to her quarters that evening. It's later than she would have expected, given that she'd asked for the transfer papers at noon and already spoken with both Argine and Andrew since. She supposes it's because he wanted time to word the argument he could not believe he was making. That he needs to make.
There is a stack of books that are nudged to a precarious position when he opens the door. Words fail him when he sees she's already half-packed, and for a moment he lingers, before crossing the room in a few strides and smashing desperate lips against hers.
They hold the kiss long enough to need to gasp for oxygen when they part. When he's finally able to speak, he presses his forehead against hers, saying, “If you leave, we won't be able to do that anymore.”
He doesn't mean it to sound like an ultimatum, she's sure, but it is one nonetheless. It reminds her that his family feels so negatively about inter-Suit marriages, claiming they weaken the renowned Clubs loyalty. If she left and they stayed together and got married like they planned, he would be disowned just as she had already been by her father.
She doesn't linger on the fact that they're both adults and his parents don't have any actual say in their relationship anymore. She doesn't linger on the fact that even if he did run the risk of being disowned, he could still choose her. Choose them.
She doesn't linger on the fact that his words imply he won't.
Instead, she presses another, gentler kiss to his lips and replies, “If I stay, I'll become so bitter that we may not make it, anyways.” Then, softer, she adds, “It doesn't have to end if I go. We can still stay together. Or... you could come with me.”
It isn't the right thing to say. She doubts anything could be, really. He stiffens a little and queries, “Do you realize what you're asking of me?”
How could she not, when she'd experienced exactly what staying together might cost him in the extreme? It burns a part of her that loves him, deep down inside. She never thought he'd cause that kind of pain before, “Of course I do.”
“Then why would you even ask it?”
“...You said once that you'd do anything for me. You promised.”
He inhales. Exhales. Rubs the back of his neck as he finally admits, “I can't do this... I'm sorry.”
It's too much hurt to hold back. Her voice cracks as she whispers, “I thought you loved me.”
“I do love you! Just not enough to give up my family. After everything you've been through, how can you ask that of anyone?”
“I gave up my father for a chance at my happiness. Can't you risk your own, for ours?”
“It's different. I love my family. And they love me. Your father doesn't-”
She can't help the strangled gasp that escapes her lips, drowning out the sentence he doesn't complete but she hears anyways. Your father doesn't love you.
It's like a stake of ice to her chest. For a moment she can't breathe. He looks apologetic, like he wants to reach out to her but can't. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't've-”
“But you did,” she interrupts, and her voice is as cold as the ice that has pierced her heart, “Which is ironic, really, because the last time I said something like that, you were the one that reassured me it wasn't true.”
“Rachel...”
“Go, Edgar.” She feels numb. Cold. Yet still her voice is speaking, “Go. I need to pack.” She turns away.
He hovers, hesitant, “Rach... If you go, it won't be easy to come back.”
The disembodied voice speaks again, “You have made it very clear that I have nothing to come back to.”
It takes a moment for that to properly settle in. When it does, though, it sparks a fire of rage in him that sharply contrasts the iciness she is feeling, “So that's it, then? You'd walk away from your home, your family, from us? And for what? To fulfill some... some empty ambition? Rachel, this won't bring you peace! Your mother wouldn't-”
“You have no right to speak about my mother,” she states in a voice far too distant for the subject matter.
“No right?! Even without our relationship, she was like a mother to Andrew, and thus to me! When are you going to learn that her death wasn't just your own loss? Other people loved her, too, you know! Stop using your grief as an excuse to follow something that will never bring you happiness. It has been five years. Stop running from the pain and accept it.”
“She was my mother, Edgar. My family.”
“And am I not family enough for you, now? Are Argine and Andrew not enough family for you, after all these years?”
It's surprising how easy it is to answer him. How calmly the answer slips out, “No, Edgar. No, it's not enough.” Especially if she isn't enough family for him.
She still doesn't look at him.
For a moment, there is a roaring silence. She can feel his disbelieving eyes boring into the back of her head, and so she turns, facing him, showing him how seriously she means her words, “There is no happiness here for me. Even with you and Argine and Andrew. There will always be too much sorrow to let through any joy. I need to start over. I need to change.”
He studies her face as if seeing it for the first time and hating what he sees, “Then you are not Rachel Caustello. And Rachel Caustello is who I fell in love with.”
“I'm not,” she replies, so simply that he wants to throttle her and make her feel, “I am Rachel, of the Diamonds, and I stand on my own.”
He just shakes his head, twisting violently away from her and heading towards the door, “Then may you get everything that you desire and more, Rachel of Diamonds. I hope it will be enough to please you.” It's not a blessing. Those words, spoken with such bitterness by someone who once loved her so, are a curse.
It's a curse that, as she offers a cool, “Goodbye, Edgar,” she doesn't even realize will come true.
He slams the door shut behind him and the tower of books comes undone, tumbling to the ground in a brutally devastating mess. She doesn't even bother to try to the stop the disaster. She's too busy collapsing to the floor herself.
When the tears are spent, she takes off the ring he had given her once long ago as a promise and sets it on the table. Then, she moves to pack once more.
By the next morning, she's gone. After some years, he is with Argine and she is standing on her own, a proud Ace.
A few years more, and he's gone and she is still alone. A Queen now, and one even colder than the icy eighteen year old who left the Clubs all that time before.
[when a book hits the wall]Some curses can never be broken. Some fallen books can never be fixed.
Sometimes, true love doesn't win.
This is the time it didn't.
~*~
Prompt: She's got her lipstick on; hit and run, then I'm gone.
She rarely does these kinds of assignments. Usually when Queen Ophelia asked her to... dispose of someone, she was only informed that she needed to do it quietly. Rarely did her missions require her to go undercover. Rarely was she required to seduce anyone.
That didn't mean she didn't know how.
The dress fits in all the right places, thanks to Nadia's impeccable designing skills. Her lips are red as the blood of the man whose heart she's about to stop-- some elderly business mogul who had a craving for younger flesh and the misfortune of coming too close to learning about the Deck.
They meet at a party and she hides her disgust behind a glittering smile as she allows him to wrap a chubby hand around her waist. When it's over she invites him to her humble abode-- really just one of many mansions the various Suits held in different Outside cities for this exact purpose-- and, upon arriving, indicates to her 'butler,' some Four who had incurred the wrath of the King and Queen, to prepare the wine.
They end up in the sitting room and when the Four arrives, bowing briefly to the Ace and her companion, she accepts a certain glass and waves the other to the man before her.
The man-- poor, poor, stupid man-- raises it to her in toast, "To your good health, madam."
She smiles another glittering smile as she nods and lifts the glass to her lips, not bothering to echo his sentiments.
A few moments later, he convulses and collapses, spilling his poisoned wine as he does so. She waits a few heartbeats-- long enough for his own heart to stop beating-- before placing her own untasted glass on the table and nodding to the (poor, poor, stupid) Four.
"Help me burn him."
Soon enough, Rachel is safely on her way home. In the city behind her, the ashes of the dead are being scattered by wind and water.
And when she returns to the Deck, her Queen and King congratulate her on two jobs well done.
~*~
Prompt: Blame it on the boys who keep hitting on you
Ophelia asks her once why she hates men. It's hard to think of a specific answer.
She thinks of Jeremé Prideux, the man who used to help her ride horses when she was a child. She thinks of the way he stabbed her mother through the heart from behind during a Challenge and how he hadn't looked at her or her family in the eyes when he made his apology. When she became an Ace, she'd had her vengeance, but thinking of him still made her cold heart burn.
She thinks of her Uncle Robert, the man who used to give her and Andrew piggy back rides around the castle. She thinks of the way he tried to stop Andrew from seeing her after Elizabeth died and how he refused to speak with her again until he himself was dying. Even then the words hadn't been sufficient to reconcile all that had passed between them.
She thinks of her father Caleb, the man who used to read her bedtime stories and give her goodnight kisses. She thinks of the way he became more and more detached from her after her mother died and how he had disowned her without a second thought. She still uses his last name in the hopes that someday he'll take her back, but he hasn't yet.
She thinks of her cousin Andrew, the man she used to rely on for comfort and strength. She thinks of the way he had never been able to accept the choices she had made and how much of a shadow their relationship became because of it. It's been a year since he died and still she can't let go of his ghost-- she still needs his forgiveness.
She thinks of Edgar, the man she loved. She thinks of the way he had told her that her love would never be enough and how he had promised he'd do anything for her and lied. She wears a ring he gave her once around her neck in remembrance, and some days it feels like just another burden.
She thinks of Walter Givenchy, the man she first Challenged as a Diamond. She thinks of the way he refused to accept his loss to her and how he and his friends made her every day a living hell. Since she became Queen and they still don't quite know how to respond to her.
She thinks of Henry Givenchy, the man who almost killed her. She thinks of how he had broken her body and almost her spirit as a way of getting back at her for his brother's shame. Years later and sometimes she still wakes up in a sweat, his taunts echoing in her ears making her curse men all over again.
Ophelia asks her once why she hates men. It's hard to think of a specific answer.
She thinks of all the men that have ever been a part of her life and then replies, "Because they can't be trusted."
There's so much and so little left to say.