Regrets
A/N Not much to say on this one - some time has passed since the last one, obviously - several months or so. Warnings for some implied explicit content and a sweary drunk
Helessa was very, very drunk.
There was something pathetic about getting absolutely hammered alone. She had few other options, however - a desperate need to forget her last assignment had overruled every other consideration and prevented her spending the necessary time tracking down someone to get drunk with. She’d at least had the sense to do her drinking in the privacy of her own room.
She was several bottles in then she realized that she wasn’t quite sure when the hammering on her door started. Hells, she wasn’t even sure what day it was anymore.
The distance to the door from the half arsed attempt she’d made at some kind of comfortable nest by the fire seemed like far too much effort. She’d taken another pull from her bottle, eyes sliding closed again.
The banging, unsurprisingly, did not stop.
“Sod off!” She bawled, sticking two fingers up at the door.
The noise continued.
“For fucksake, can’t a woman drink in PEACE?!” Helessa flailed, somehow ending almost upright, bottle still in hand and contents… mostly still inside. As she fought to untangle herself from a particularly malicious blanket, she continued to swear like a landlocked sailor.
Conceding defeat, she shambled her way to the door, blanket stubbornly clinging to one leg. The frame was shaking from the efforts of whomever it was that was so intent on interrupting her pity fest. Grumbling as she unbolted the door, she took a moment to realize that the banging had stopped. Shrugging, she turned, full of intentions to return to the fireside and drink all the rum before she could be interrupted again.
The door behind her clicked, then swung open.
Helessa was lamenting the demise of yet another bottle when she became aware that she wasn’t alone.
“How’d you gerrin? Door’slocked” She squinted at the figure sat on the edge of her bed.
“You unlocked it.” The voice was clipped, precise.
“I-wha’?” Helessa reached for another bottle. Odd, it was right there a moment ago.
“I think you’ve had enough, don’t you?” She knew that voice. Not the any-anmy-purple eyed one… the other one. She scrunched her eyes closed, trying to think through the fog in her head.
Images of a sweaty, chubby hand groping too hard-
Her eyes snapped open. “Not ‘nuff.” She grumbled.
“I am quite certain that the memory of tomorrow morning will eclipse whatever horror you’re trying to bleach from your mind.” Dammit, that voice. She knew the voice, but it wasn’t quite right.
“‘S it matter t’you? ‘S my room. My rum. My recr-rep- re-cu-pe-ra-tion time.” She scowled, quite unaware that, half buried in blankets, her not quite dry, not quite blonde hair in a wild tangle, she looked about as threatening as a freshly hatched chocobo chick.
“Ah, yes. From a mission you were supposed to fail.”
“I don’t fail nuffin’-”
Wait… supposed to fail?
The small lake of rum in her stomach suddenly wasn’t sitting so well.
“As you have proven. Quite the shock, I can assure you.” White hair caught firelight as he stood. “I am curious as to how you managed it.”
Sweaty hands, bare skin - too close - please finish soon.Pretend, remember? Pretend, pretend, pretend-
With considerably more coordination than she had demonstrated earlier she found her feet and, free of blankets, bolted for the bathroom. She managed to slam the door shut behind her before parting company with a large quantity of rum.
When she emerged several minutes later, her face still damp from the cold water she’d washed with after aggressively brushing her teeth, her guest was sprawled on her bed, hands folded behind his head.
“Well, I suppose that answers that, then. Not much fun, I take it?”
“Why are you here, Thancred?” She propped herself against the doorframe, her head still spinning.
“Could I not want to check on a friend?” The bandana over his eye was absent, his amber gaze assessing her.
“Are we friends? One job and a drunken night all it takes to get over the moths of loathing one another?” Helessa tilted her head and immediately regretted it when the world tilted in a completely different direction.
“A week in the field watching each other's back seems to prove that we can coexist without wanting to murder each other nicely. The night after was… an added bonus.” Slowly, almost lazily, he rolled to face her, head propped up on his arm.
Helessa eyed him for a long moment before exhaling, her guard dropping. “I’m f-”
“‘Lessa, don’t tell me you’re fine. The… ten empty bottles say otherwise. If you don’t want to talk about it… then don’t. If you’d rather I left you to your pity party, I will. But if you want me to stay - as company, nothing more - then I’m happy to.” His stillness mirrored hers.
Damn him. Damn him for teaching her his tricks, for knowing her tells.
Tired of the room spinning, of pretending and yes, of trying to bear this alone, she carefully picked her way to the door, glancing at him as she locked it again. He relaxed, a tiny tug at the corner of his mouth and a small exhale telling her that he had expected her to send him packing.
Kicking off her boots and stashing her knives in easy reach, she folded herself onto her bed, sitting with her back to him. He didn’t move. Just lay, waiting patiently.
“I don’t think I could do it again.” The words were the closest she could get to admitting to what she’d had to do. How she’d… used her body.
Twelve, she’d not felt this bad after her first kill.
“Killing… stains your soul. What you did… you tear a bit of yourself away, doing something like that. You give something up.”
She hadn’t realized she’d spoken that last bit aloud.
“‘Lessa… you don’t have to do that again.” His hand on her arm was tentative, his voice soft, almost… concerned.
“I promised. Whatever it takes. Whatever… whatever is needed, for me to-to make a di-difference.”
“Not that. Draw the line somewhere. Keep that one thing just for you. You can do enough, be enough, without that.”
The bed shifted, warmth - familiar, comforting warmth enveloped her as she bit her lip hard, fighting to keep hold of the emotions spilling from her.
It could have been a few minutes, or a couple of hours. She didn’t know. But he sat there the whole time, his body curled around hers, shielding her from the rest of the world as she came to terms with what she’d done. There was no outpouring of grief, no storm of crying to wash away the feelings eating her alive. Just a quiet examination of what had happened and an eventual acceptance of her limits.
His questions helped. A gentle probing of why, exactly, she felt she had to give everything to have any worth.
She fell asleep halfway through the story - somewhere around being told that her only worth was in a good match and the children she could produce - curled up in his arms.
The sun was high in the sky when she stirred.
Warm fingers brushed her skin, lips grazed her neck. Even as her head started to protest the rum she’d tried to drown herself in, her slowly awakening body seemed far more interested in the distraction so readily offered.
“This okay?” His words, breathed in her ear, drew a small nod from her. “I’ll stop when you tell me…” That voice - that was the one indelibly printed on her memory, blurred with sleep and heavy with promise.
He was as good as his word, spending the rest of the morning administering his favorite cure for hangovers - and providing quite the memory for her to look back on.













