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“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.”
