quinn.
Kipling rises unsteadily, stubbornly avoiding Quinn’s touch as much as she can help it. His impatience flares, then withers at the sight of her, agonized and livid with him. He can
feel the pain evolving into fury within her.
He should be grateful for this. Dealing with angry opponents is a great strength of Quinn’s. However, as with every other insufferable little detail that
should have made this exchange easier on him, Kipling’s righteous anger only wounds him more deeply — because he knows he deserves it.
His sneering and scolding did nothing for him earlier, so he abandons the tactic. When Kipling steadies and he sees her ears pin defiantly back, instead of goading her as his instinct demands, Quinn flicks his gaze down to the sand.
Pathetic, he thinks of himself.
How did you allow yourself to fall this far? How did you become so weak?
Her voice cuts once again through his haze of confusing self-pity and (though he would never admit it even to himself) guilt. The fire in her words cuts his pride down to the quick, and Quinn flinches visibly, no longer able to compose himself, though he realizes that he’s been failing at composure since he realized Kipling was here.
To our CHILDREN, she snaps, and Quinn’s expression warps. His mask slips to reveal a face of twisted agony, lips pulled back in a defensive snarl, eyes wide with fear and pain. He has no right to lash out at her — he has brought all of this upon himself, by thinking he could father an objectively innocent child with a woman who deserved literally anyone other than himself, and then vanish. His greed had gotten the better of him, and now he must suffer the consequences.
He knows all of this, and yet, he lashes out anyway. Quinn is spoiled, accustomed to getting his way, to talking his way out of trouble or letting trouble roll off of him if he can’t negotiate an escape.
This trouble not only refuses to budge from his shoulders, the weight of his own regret pressing the air from his lungs, but it digs its fucking claws in, too. Quinn doesn’t know how to stand there and take it, so he tries to buck it off.
“Listen to me, foolish girl,” he roars, shedding the last of his self control with explosive anger. Quinn cannot remember the last time he has raised his voice in his life, and it feels so wrong, so very very
wrong to be yelling at his beloved Kipling, but —
“I could not risk your life by staying,” he says, the tidal wave of his voice crashing and receding, leaving raw and ragged sand behind. His voice cracks, and his chest heaves.
“You never questioned me when I told you about my arrangement, but you should have. My queen is dangerous, Kip, and I underestimated her anger. She found out that I was seeing someone and I could not let her find out that it was you. I couldn’t lose you, I couldn’t let her hurt you and our —”
Oh, shit.
“— son.”
Kipling had said ‘children’… plural.
He looks at her in horror. It’s not that he was initially
fine with abandoning their son in addition to Kipling, but now… well, now the weight upon him is doubled.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers raggedly.
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
stallion. spanish mustang mutt. 15.3hh. smoky black overo.
