Chapter Text
The day my husband died felt like the day I died with him. I was used to not showing my pain to the world and this event was no exception. Never did I think that Grisham would succumb to a plague that swept its way through the world. Many of my friends died of the plague, as well as their loved ones and children. Everyone’s bodies were burned, young and old. There was nothing left and I couldn’t hold a proper funeral, and so that left me to only hold a vigil for him. The only friend I had left, Nikolai, comforted me, but she soon pushed me away. I didn’t think she pushed me away on purpose; it must have been that husband of hers. I never liked him. But the fact of the matter was, when I needed her most, she wasn’t there for me.
I had to pick myself up and continue on with life. Every day, I secretly hoped I would contract the plague for myself so I could return to Grisham’s side. He had been my everything. We had such a wonderful life together and then one day he was just...gone. I couldn’t understand why it had to happen. So many people died...and for what? I was angry; but then, I was always angry. If I wasn’t smiling and laughing, I was screaming and scowling. I never cried in front of people. I refused to. It was a certain weakness that I didn’t want anyone to see that I had. I may have been rough around the edges, so to speak, but I didn’t think that it was bad.
I worked in the palace during everything. Never did I allow the Countess to see that I was sad about it all. But then the Count himself got the plague. It was a horrible time for everyone and it just went to show that not even nobility was safe. He stayed alive for much longer than anyone else did. Day one, someone would contract a sniffle, and by day three they were dead. I didn’t think anyone survived past a week. But somehow, he managed to stay alive for months. Why was he still alive so far after he contracted it when my friends, my friends’ children, and my husband died quickly? Their deaths were by no means quick. Those three days while I tried to care for Grisham were slow and neither of us slept.
The Count was a character, to say the least. He wasn’t a good man, by any means, but if the timing was right he could make someone feel better. Though, that person would most likely end up feeling disgusted by themselves afterwards. He demanded so much from certain people, including me. Oh, he was such a tiresome, loathsome man, but in the best way possible at times. He threw fantastic parties and told wonderful tales, and had so many exotic pets. The monkeys were no one’s favourite pet he owned. Because he was so many people’s boss and he was so powerful, it made saying “no” to him very difficult. He was the only person to see me cry after my husband’s death and it was not on purpose. He’d come to my office to have something made for the Countess and didn’t even bother knocking.
“Why are you crying?” he asked, a confused expression on his face. “That’s uncomfortable.”
“Count Lucio, I’m not crying,” I breathed, dabbing my eyes. “A button hit me in the eye.”
“Sure, Gen.”
“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?”
The Count rolled his eyes, kicked the door shut, and walked over to me as I flipped through my notebook to find the Countess’ measurements. He placed his hand, covered with his golden armour, on the page I stopped at. When I looked at him, he had a grin on his face. I was annoyed with him -- he was the main reason I put a “please knock or go away” sign on my office’s door. Now he was giving me a look like I should have known what he was thinking.
“What do you want?” I snapped.
“Do you miss your husband?” he suddenly asked.
“You need to leave. ” I pointed behind him at the door. “You can send someone else to drop off your request for the Countess’ garment you want made.”
He grabbed my hand that was extended and squeezed it before forcing it back onto my desk. How determined was he to make me angry? Okay, I was already angry, but did he want me to hit him? Because I would. I’d slap him so hard he would cry. Why couldn’t he just go bother one of his courtiers and let me be? The man was prone to tantrums if he didn’t get his way, but half the time no one knew what his reaction to something would be. I heard what he was like at the coliseum and at other events, too, that I didn’t get to witness and that I didn’t want to witness.
“When was the last time you were touched, exactly?” he wondered.
“What the hell kind of--” I began to shout.
The Count cut me off by pulling me to him, subsequently making me become speechless. His armoured hand was still gripping mine. Even if I tried to back away, his grip on me was tight. If he was going to hurt me, he might as well have gotten it over with. I looked up at him, even more annoyed. If he didn’t do something soon, I’d step on his foot or maybe kick him. Maybe both. Rather, he pulled me into a hug, so that he could rest both his hands on my waist, and so that my cheek was resting against his chest. I wasn’t going to lie and say that skin on skin contact wasn’t nice, but I really couldn’t just stand there and take it.
“Wha-- Hey! Watch your hands!” I snapped as he moved his hands down slightly.
“Oh, what?” the Count mocked, lifting my face to look up at him. “You don’t like it?”
“Ugh. What about the Countess?”
“What about her?”
Oh, this man could not be serious. What was the point in getting married if he wasn’t going to actually be faithful to her? What an idiot. Did the Countess care? Did she even know? I definitely wasn’t the first person he was coming onto. He brushed my red hair behind my ear and out of my dark eyes with his unarmoured hand. I scowled up at him.
“Don’t make that face at me,” he snapped. “It’s ugly.”
“What face do you expect me to make?” I retorted.
The Count took my face in his hands and kissed me, and my face immediately began to burn with anger. The absolute nerve of him. Despite pushing against him, he didn’t stop. Of everyone in the palace, why did he suddenly decide he wanted to come onto me? So many questions remained unanswered, of course, especially since I couldn’t even ask them. I was beyond the point of anger; now I was just waiting for him to cut it out and leave. Someone else was bound to come to my office to see me and if that person was the Countess, I would be in so much trouble.
“Stop squirming and stand still,” he hissed, pushing me back slightly.
“Then stop doing what you’re doing,” I muttered.
“Don’t want to.”
He returned his hands to my waist, expecting for me not to move anymore. I didn’t want him throwing a god-awful tantrum in my presence and so I just decided to let him have it. Reaching up, I wrapped my arms around his neck, which just seemed to make him pull me closer to him. Soon, I forgot all about being angry about his complete lack of reading the room and why I was crying in the first place -- no, a button had not hit me in the eye; I was crying because I missed Grisham. I’d not been touched in months, obviously, but that wasn’t why I missed him. I missed him just for the sake that he was my husband -- I loved him and cherished him, and I had to watch him die, and now I had to live my life alone. The Count suddenly stopped, and I found myself hot and wanting more than just some touching and kissing. What was I even doing? He was my boss, and I was his tailor, and a widowed tailor at that.
“You’re pretty when you have those kinds of eyes,” he said, running the back of his armoured hand along my cheek.
“These are my normal eyes,” I breathed as I pressed a hand against his chest.
“Sure. You’re begging me to take you with those eyes.”
“I most certainly am not!”
The way I felt told me otherwise, though, and I could tell my eyes were different just based on how my eyebrows weren’t furrowed in anger anymore. In any case, no matter how I felt, I was not going to let him have me anywhere in my office. I pushed away from him, but he just immediately pulled me back to him. He was so damn insistent that it was getting on my nerves. Before I could speak up, though, he held my hand tightly and led me out of my office.
Now that we were in the hallway, I really couldn’t make a fuss. I squeezed his hand back in annoyance; he was leading me back to his bedroom in his private wing. I was just going to have to go along with it, wasn’t I? By now, though, I couldn’t lie and complain that I wanted him to really let me go. I wanted relief and as far as I was concerned he was the only one to give it to me. The lamps in his room were already dimmed, and so we didn’t have to waste any time getting our clothes off.
Was I worried someone would come check up on him? Of course I was, but I was also worried that the feeling of needing relief would never leave. I couldn’t understand how someone who was so busy all the time had so much energy; when I thought the Count was done and relieved himself, he would start back up again. It wasn’t a secret to myself that I wondered what being with him would be like, but he was married and I was a widow and almost a peasant. He was painful to be with, occasionally doing things to me that I, under normal circumstances, would have never let happen. Candles and his armour were involved. Finally I was able to be relieved, and I realized why he just kept on going before.
Somehow wrapping his hand around my throat and squeezing slightly made my release feel better. I didn’t understand it and I didn’t want to understand it. My breath hitched in my throat when he finally let me go. I really couldn’t have said I didn’t like it, because, much to my chagrin, I did. He leaned down and kissed me gently.
“You’ll keep coming back,” he whispered. “For now, I guess you can stay and cuddle. I give good ones, y’know.”
“You can’t be serious,” I muttered as he laid down next to me.
“I’m totally serious. Come here if you don’t believe me.”
⚂⚂⚂
“Stop moving or I’m going to poke you on purpose,” I muttered. “And put the wine down.”
“I don’t see why the wine would make your job any less difficult,” Valerius scoffed.
“Everytime you move to drink, you give me a different measurement. Now put it down.”
“No.”
As if to spite me, he took a sip of his wine as I was measuring his arm. Two could play at that game… I stabbed him in the arm with a pin. He flinched slightly and then looked at me with a big frown on his face. Without saying a word to each other, he handed me his wine glass and I was able to set it down on my desk. He always had damn wine with him; he could live without it for ten minutes.
“You could have been out of here already, Consul, but you chose to ignore me,” I sighed.
“Would you be quiet and do your job?” he snapped.
“Keep talking to me like that and I’ll poke you again. Do you want these new robes or not?”
Valerius went quiet and finally actually listened to me. I didn’t know the whole story as to why his robes got destroyed, but it had something to do with Vulgora telling a wild story. I was surprised more people didn’t have to come to me because of them; those claws of theirs were something else. They’d only touched me once and tore through the shoulder of one of my dresses, and it wasn’t an accident at all. There was no such thing as a friendly rivalry with them; it was rivalry or death, it seemed. They didn’t seem to like that they couldn’t scare me, either. I wasn’t scared of much, but the list was becoming shorter and shorter.
“Okay, you’re done,” I said. “Step down.”
“Give--” Valerius began.
“Patience.”
I smoothed out his new robes for him, standing on my tiptoes to take a look at his collar. He swallowed hard as I did so. Backing off, I realized he had a small blush across his nose. I thought it was cute, but didn’t voice my opinion. I picked up his wine glass from my desk and held it out to him. But just before he could take it, I held it away from him.
“‘Thank you, Geneva,’” I sing-songed.
“Thank you,” he replied, his hand still out.
“Good enough.” I handed him his glass. “Have a nice day, Val.”
“Why, you little-- Don’t call me that!”
“I haven’t stopped calling you that since the day I met you and I don’t intend to now. Shut the door on your way out.”
Indeed, he shut the door on his way out; more like slammed, really. I sat down at my desk, not sure what else to do. Even if I didn’t do anything, I still got paid. The Count had never given me what he wanted me to make for the Countess, which just solidified in my mind that he wanted to get me into bed. Apparently I’d not given him enough attention for his liking. I had a job to do and he was more worried about making me like him. I didn’t hate him, exactly. He was just an acquired taste, like snails or boats. I did like the Countess, though, even if it seemed like she didn’t like me. Maybe it was my attitude she didn’t like, because most of the time I was around her, she wore a displeased expression.
My door opened and in came Valdemar, completely ignoring the sign and not even waiting for me to invite them in. What was it that they could have possibly wanted? All they ever wore were their work clothes. I never did see if they wore normal clothes beneath that doctor’s coat, but it didn’t seem to matter. While everyone else who came into my office made a sound, Valdemar was completely silent. They had managed to sneak up on me a few times. I wouldn’t call ourselves friends, really; just friendly acquaintances.
“Do you people ever knock?” I asked.
“Only when I feel like it,” they replied, pulling their mask down. “Which is never. Sorry, does that bother you?”
I leaned back with a sigh, letting my head hang over the back of my chair. “You know it does.”
“Too bad.”
“What do you want, Demi?”
“Someone is in a bad mood today.”
“Maybe I’d be in a better mood if you’d have knocked.”
Sitting up straight, I realized Valdemar was tilting their head at me. Why were they so damn curious about me in the first place? They never used to be, not until my husband died of the plague. Moreover, why were they so interested in the plague? They were a strange person and that was putting it very mildly. They usually didn’t bother me.
“Do you want something?” I snapped.
“Yes,” Valdemar replied, but they didn’t continue.
“Oh, my God, what do you want? ”
“Fabric.”
“Fabric?”
“Please.”
“Like for tourniquets?”
They closed their eyes, smiling pleasantly. Well, that was that conversation over with. I rolled my eyes as I got up to my scrap bin. It took me a good few moments to find scraps that were decent enough for tourniquets, which I didn’t understand why they didn’t have their own. I guess it was a good thing to be on somewhat good terms with the palace’s tailor. When I turned around, I bumped right into their chest. Annoyed, I shoved the bunch of scraps into their steepled hands. They weren’t steepled after I gave them the scraps.
“Have fun,” I muttered sarcastically as they let me pass them.
“Oh, I shall,” they said. “Thank you.”
I waved them off as they left my office, closing the door behind them. I couldn’t imagine how bad the burnt bodies and death and blood smelled. Who would want to be around that all day? Besides Valdemar, that is. If it was as fun as they made it out to be, then I probably chose the wrong profession. Stabbing a patient with a needle to get them to stop moving probably would have proved to be more problematic than poking someone with a pin, though. I never knew when I was going to have to make a garment for someone or fix a uniform, so a lot of the time I sat in my office doing nothing. Plenty of times people had caught me sleeping at my desk. Vulgora had once grabbed my chair right from under me to wake me up. It worked, but I’d obviously gotten angry with them. Not like they cared.
I grabbed my wedding ring that had a necklace looped through it so I could wear it on my neck. Sliding it on and off my ring finger over and over again, it got me wondering. Would Grisham mind if I moved on? Would he want me to be with someone new? Or would he want me to be alone? He was a good man; always showering me with kisses and love and flowers. The two of us had always seemed like polar opposites; he was always happy and I was always angry. There was, of course, something about being with him that made the anger go away. I never knew what he would think if I chose to chase after someone else. If he knew that I’d slept with Count Lucio, what would he think?