27. Darcy
27
DARCY
F allon thundered into the house just as the sun had dipped down past the horizon.
“Sorry I am late!” he nearly bellowed, coming to a panting, dusty stop before me in the kitchen. “It took me longer to mix this up than last time. I needed a lot more.”
“What is it?” I asked peering at what looked to be a bucket, like those he used for milking the bracku, in his hands. The mystery of the bucket and his loud entrance was actually a bit of a welcome relief. It gave us something to talk about other than the whole I-came-harder-on-your-dick-today-than-I-ever-have-in-my-whole-fucking-life thing. I’d been waiting for him, throat dry and stomach flip-flopping the entire time I’d been putting together dinner.
“It’s what I used to colour the female’s hair pink in that book,” he explained. “It’s made from the petals of a flower that grows out along the creek. I thought it might form a sort of ink or stain for your hair.”
“Hold on,” I said, my gaze going from the bucket to his excited face. “Are you telling me that not only did you paint in that book, you literally had to make the paint yourself to do it?”
“Of course! It is not as if I’ve used any of my credits to order ink to have on hand. I’d never had need of such a thing before.”
I blinked at him, unsure if he realized just how insane and fucking industrious he sounded. Want to paint porn doodles of your wife but don’t have any paint? Just make it yourself!
“And now you’ve made more… to try to dye my hair?”
“Precisely!” He raised the bucket up between us, looking proud, like it was full of gold he’d pulled out of his sculpted orange ass. “Let’s try it now!”
“Don’t… Don’t you want to eat?” I balked. Why the heck was he so excited about this idea?
Was he really that fucking keen on simply making me happy?
It made my head spin.
“That can wait,” he said brusquely, setting the bucket down on the kitchen table. “You should eat, though, if you have not. You can eat while I am putting the substance on your hair.”
“Wait… You’re going to do it?!”
“You don’t do it yourself, do you? You made it sound like someone else always did it for you before,” he said. His tail wrapped around my waist and tugged until I fell unsteadily into a chair. “I am your husband. I will be the one to do it for you now.”
He made it sound so obvious . Like any old husband would do such a thing for his wife, even though I knew better. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen my father touch my mother outside of some political photo op.
Reigning in a sudden fear that Fallon was going to do something ridiculous like dump the entire bucket of pink ink on my head, I forced my shoulders to loosen and told myself to trust him.
Funny thing was, I actually did.
Fallon dipped his fingers into the bucket then brought them to my crown, sliding the liquid over the roots of my hair in thorough, methodical motions. My scalp tingled, and I breathed out, relaxing despite myself. His strong fingers felt so good as he worked the natural dye in. He didn’t speak for a while, and neither did I.
This felt so intimate. Even more so than fucking earlier. Even more than when he’d looked after me after the night in the creek. There was such a simple, soft sort of caretaking in his current actions. I wasn’t bleeding or dying or cold. I didn’t need to be taken care of this way.
“You must really like my pink hair,” I said, my voice cracking unexpectedly, “to go to all this trouble.”
“I think it is beautiful,” he murmured, stroking liquid down the lengths of my strands, “as is the rest of you. But I do this for your happiness, not my own gratification. I would not care if you had red hair, blue hair, or none at all.”
Poop. Why the hell was he so nice? I was going to start bawling. I could feel the uncomfortable sensation climbing up my throat. I cast about for something to distract myself, to protect myself, and settled on a question I’d already wanted to ask him.
“Who did you kill? Back on Zabria.”
Fallon’s movements faltered, but only for a moment. He continued dipping and stroking his fingers along my hair as he spoke in a low, calm voice.
“I wondered when you’d ask me about that.” He paused a moment, as if collecting his thoughts, before continuing. “I was not the man on Zabria that I have become out here. Well, I suppose I was not a man at all, considering my youth at the time. But I was… different then. Angrier.”
I stared at the untouched food on my plate, absorbing Fallon’s words and having trouble believing them. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him angry so far, except for maybe the worried annoyance he’d shown me when I’d come to look for him out in the storm.
“Unlike Zohro, who comes from wealth, or even someone like Silar, who had parents of decent standing, I did not come from an established family of honour. My parents could not afford to keep me, or perhaps they simply did not want me. They gave me up into the care of the Empire shortly after my birth. I never learned their names.”
I froze. My heart went so cold it hurt.
“Those were… difficult times. It was not long before I was engaged in various criminal activities with other boys and young men. I stole. I moved illicit substances from one place to another. I did whatever was asked of me. Looking back, I see the foolishness in it all. But at the time, being in a group such as that one, even one that required terrible things of me, I felt important. Wanted.”
I barely breathed, worried that even the slightest inhale would shatter me.
“There was a rival group, and I was tasked with stealing a weapon from one of their members. He and I fought. He was an adult and larger than I was, and he bested me without much struggle. He had his weapon aimed at me, and I knew I would be finished. Except a small stray dog came upon us, just a pup, and it started to bark. He kicked the dog to silence it. When that did not work, he kicked it again.”
“Oh, my God,” I breathed. I would have shaken my head, but Fallon still had a firm grip on my scalp and hair.
“All the anger that had built and built inside me throughout my childhood just… it exploded. I barely remember what happened next. It’s a furious blur inside my head. But I somehow got my hands on his weapon. I discharged it, and he died.”
I took a strangled breath, blinking back tears for a little Fallon who’d had such a shit fucking time and had only wanted to protect a defenceless animal.
“I remember,” I whispered, “when I asked you right before our wedding, if the person you’d killed deserved it, and you said you didn’t know.” I swallowed hard. “Well, I can tell you right now that he did. Kick a dog and you are fucking done.” I sighed, forcing my rage into a low simmer. “I wonder what happened to the puppy.”
“Oh, I can tell you that,” Fallon said, his voice brightening. “The pup was Sora.”
I jolted, then whipped my head around so fast that Fallon was forced to let go of my hair so that he didn’t rip half of it out.
“Sora, like, Sora , Sora? Our Sora?”
Our Sora. The significance of the words only struck me after I’d said them.
“Yes. She was collected by the authorities as evidence in the case. Stray animals are not common or particularly welcome on Zabria. After the investigation, the options were to destroy her or ship her off-world. I suppose the Empire thought it was easier to just send her away. Same way they did with me.”
“How are you not still angry?” I asked, my gaze searching his. I was furious on his behalf, hearing about everything he’d gone through. But his eyes were a calm, warm brown, that pretty maple spilling out from the centres. “You were a troubled kid who killed someone and then got ripped from his home. How did you not completely spiral out of control?”
“Sora helped,” he said, “As did my old warden. He was a stern but good man. Besides, Zabria was never really a home for me. I did not look at my exile like some of the other men here do. I considered it a relief. It was a fresh start. I love working with my hands. I love the land. I love Sora and the shuldu and the bracku. And I love you.”
He said it so easily, looking right into my eyes. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Being sent here saved my life. Marrying you completed it.”
I should tell him.
Tell him everything. About my mom and Massimo and the whole big mess of the reason I’d come here. Fallon had been so honest. He’d ripped open the trauma of his past, showed me who he’d once been, and all I could do was sit there, so painfully proud of him, in awe of him, while simultaneously feeling like the biggest fucking fraud.
He’d told me his history. Didn’t I owe it to him to tell him mine?
Instead, like a coward, I just nodded, thanked him for telling me, smiled brightly, and said, “So. How long do you think we should wait before we wash this stuff out?”