I can't, he answered me.

Well, shit.

I shrugged my shoulders like that too, just a slow rise and helpless fall of them as he gave me his pained response. Well, shit in physical manifestation. What more was there to say? If he couldn’t do it then he couldn’t do it--I mean, at least he was being honest with the both of us.

But it turns out there was more to say and he was finding it and spewing it all at me:

*That's not how I work. I'm not a swan - our species isn't built to be monogamous, kék-szikra.*

I was thrown by two things--the thing he called me (which was a hell of a lot more awesome than whatever the hell kis hollo was) and some knowledge he was apparently dropping about our species. About how a dude’s mind is wired, about the hot blood that drives him. And I don’t think Volterra knew what his words were doing to me; how the breath in my chest went stale and I had trouble pulling in something fresher, how my eyes dimmed and a faint ringdingding was sounding in my ears.

If that’s the case, then I know many friends who I care deeply for, and wouldn’t begrudge them ’dozens’ of others who, also, care about them; especially in an hour of need.

Huh. Okay, then.

It was like some great family secret was spilled on accident in my lap, in my hearing, some poisonous stuff I wasn’t supposed to learn even if it affected how I played the game. Some worries and confusions clicked into place with Volterra’s explanation--puzzle pieces locking together tightly, and it all felt so right, like...of course he had to be speaking the truth. Duh! The bastard didn’t know a damn thing about a heart and how to hold it, but blood ran through more organs than that one, and I guess there were pieces of being alive that he knew better than others (and that I hadn’t even tried to explore). Get this: it didn’t even cross my mind that Volterra was bullshitting me at that moment, that whatever he was saying was a crock and that he could’ve been wrong about all of that. It made too much sense to me.

But oh god it made me sad.

My whole...everything just dropped. Like, if you could see my spirit then you know that bitch had sunk all the way to the bottom of the tank. My shoulders slumped with the weight of my heart dropping, and the fight I had had buzzing in my bones just stopped with the shock of the heaviness. Was this disillusionment? Was this disappointment? I mean, I dunno, I’d felt all of those things at some point in my life, but this one drained me in a way that anything else in life hadn’t before. I’d been broken, shattered, left bleeding in more ways than one--but I dunno, I’d never suffered this...this future disappointment before.

Because what Volterra was saying was that, no matter what was gonna happen, Kis was gonna be someone’s cheap. I was gonna be someone’s cheap--and it ain’t like I was trying to search for my sugar daddy or anything but the idea of it now just seemed sour in my mouth.

Would it be so bad? a faint voice in my mind tried asking me, reasoning, wondering if it was really the end of the world if I wasn’t someone’s only lover.

The twist in my gut was answer enough.

"That's why she deserves better. She deserves someone who can be hers and hers alone, because I know there are some men out there who can stifle their instincts."

Even Volterra himself was offering a light at the end of the tunnel, but my guts refused to unfurl and my heart stayed stony. This was more, much more, than I bargained for and even more than I ever felt like thinking about, a realm I’d just...I dunno, left alone until I had to face it, until I was thrown into it by force. I kinda wish I had let it sneak up on me instead of this preemptive sense of let-down.

"You think I'm scum, don't you?"

His question brought be back to the Earth; I blinked and looked at him, and I remembered how frustrated with him I’d been just minutes ago and how it had morphed into something so much more general and bleak. “I think…” I’m sad. That I understand why she wanted to kill you. That this whole thing is so fucking pointless, like, what is even the point? That we’re fucked even when it comes to something that supposed to be small, and pure, and good for a change. “What I think…” I started again, chewing on my response, “...is that, if you love her like you say you do, you need to leave her the fuck alone.” I paused, debating on whether I should add more to it--then let it slide softly on my tongue. “She wanted you dead.”

I could see through Chico’s eyes that Kis was still sleeping--so I didn’t really have much of an excuse to leave other than the fact that I was tired of all this. Of him, of her, of these ideas in my head at a future where I was bound to cry over a dude. I sighed and the fight really went out of me then, like it was blowing out of my chest. “My name’s Ros,” I said gently, turning away from him and starting back down the mountain. It seemed wrong for me to know his name when he didn’t know mine. I could give that to him at the very least.

I came here to...well. The excuse was that I was gonna help him even though I knew jack-shit about healing someone, but that didn’t happen. So. I dunno really. I guess there was a piece of me that was curious about who could pull a heart out of Kis like that, much less find one in the first place. He intrigued me in that way, I guess--and as frustrated as I’d been with him, he definitely wasn’t the villain Kis had made him out to be with a mouthful of fire and salt. Or maybe he was a villain but doomed to it through his penis, in the way he had explained it to me.

Shit, I dunno. I just know I came here with two broken hearts on my conscience and now I was leaving with three.


"talk"