(SE) when the nighttime comes, say yes

SUNJATA

i'm drowning in all these voices in the sea
and meeting all my vices in the ring

The words were meant to be honest, to tell her what it was that was between Phoebe and him, that aside from marriage in name there wasn’t anything else to it for him. He’d given the midwife his terms, had told her he could give her everything he hadn’t wanted. A marriage. A child. And all he asked in return was to keep his activities to himself, and hers to her own. That she could do exactly what it was he was doing here, and he wouldn’t care, wouldn’t mind, in fact he’d likely prefer it that way.

But things hadn’t gone his way. Things rarely did, anyway.

He lets her withdraw, his gaze remaining on her as she speaks. “Because she knew I would say no. And in my stubborn pride, of so many times I’ve told her I never wanted it, I said yes.” His head tilts a bit as he leans back, arms loosening around her. “She can do whatever she wants too. I told her I’d marry her in name only, that she’d have my protection but aside from that I wanted nothing more.”

But Maea continues, about the wedding, and he can feel the conversation shifting, the frustration flaring in the midst of stupid decisions and lost bets, heart shifting to something akin to the sorrow he’d felt in the days leading up to being shackled to the altar. “The thing is, Maea, I asked her after she lost her nephews, what I could do to help her. She said this was it. ’Miserable together is better than miserable alone.’ That’s what she told me.” He pauses in his thought process as she pushes away from him and he lets her, still prepared to catch her should she begin to slip away under the current, and he runs a hand through his hair with a quiet sigh, exasperated ever so slightly. “She doesn’t care what I want, because I don’t want any of the things that she does, and yet I’m sacrificing everything that I am and everything I want, for her.” He shakes his head to that, some dark chuckle leaving his throat at that.

“I’m not free of blame, not in the slightest. But if my secrets are all I get to keep in this arrangement with her, then I will keep them.” His gaze levels back on her, a seriousness to them, an emptiness to them, something broken from within from the times Lusea had died, from the times he’d never been enough, from the times he’d never gotten anything he’d wanted despite how hard he’d fought for it over and over again. A shift from how both him and Phoebe were to be blamed for what occurred, both out of stubborn pride, or was it spite? But he wasn't the monster it seemed he was, nor was Phoebe the damsel she seemed she was too.

so step inside, i ain't afraid to bleed
there ain't a casket strong enough for me