I hit the bottle until the floor came up and hit me back. Then I got up again, and I kept the fight goin’.

  In the space of a half day I put down a quarter of the heavy case of fancy whiskey I'd sold my soul for.

  My guts hurt, got the shits so bad I soiled myself before I managed to stumble ten steps to the fancy washroom. The shame didn't stop, the ache in my heart, and whatever was left of my liver, that didn't stop me neither.

  I didn't pause from my drinking until a knock on my door.

  It was midday, maybe, time was funny when you drowned it in whiskey.

  "Fuck off," I mumbled and took a swig, "not a good time."

  The door opened.

  A man stepped in.

  He wore a dark blue uniform, his coat and hat the same shade. His pretty face was clean shaved, his Outcast features sharp and distinct. Even through the bleary haze of tears spilled in selfish misery and good drink I could recognize Raph. The way he moved was familiar, the confidence in his posture, and the casual grace.

  "You look like shit." He said as he shut the door behind him.

  I couldn't muster up the energy to respond.

  "Xoxoctic told me you were riding out the effects of some powerful mind magic. An encounter with a Cuhaite?" He asked as he crossed the room, kicking empty whiskey bottles out of his path.

  "Fuckin'..." I started, then lost the plot. Why the fuck was he here? All this was his fault. Confusin' me. A man ain't supposed to be pretty, I ain't supposed to be confused.

  "My father experienced something similar," he said as he bent down, a gentle hand reachin' for mine as I sat heavy on the newly stained carpet of my apartment. I stared at it until he frowned and stepped back, "he was thralled, once. Held in the grip of a powerful creature. An Ascended cast from above, forced into exile in my mothers village. At the time my mother was already quite taken with the handsome Southerner come to make peace and trade with her people. The fact that he was taken from her so callously demanded cruel action, according to her- our culture."

  He sat in my fancy chair as he spoke, and for some reason that was more offensive to me than him just invadin' my space. Fuckin' fancy boy, thinkin' he owns everything he touches. Who they are to come and lecture me Raph?

  Who the fuck are you?

  "My mother broke the hold by killing the other woman. She cut her throat as she slept, sawed the Ascended's pretty head off for the crime of Husband Theft. She did it right, in the proper way, to prevent the other woman's spirit from cursing her family, yet, some of her power lingered."

  I started to nod off, my anger not quite enough to keep me vertical through the heavy press of booze and misery.

  "Father had a hard time recovering. He wasn't the same after that. Not as confident, not as quick to smile, or laugh, or love. That woman had changed him, and not even for the better. So, Xoxoctic tells me your lover, a Cuhaite, was responsible for the killings, the murders of several men. She told me that she took some of your spirit Roche." Raph's face fell, and something in his lovely eyes seemed to go hard, "can you understand why I might take personal offense to that?"

  I blinked and found his face close, his eyes burning with something far more dangerous than hate.

  "What would you do in my place? If a monster had tried to take something, someone, important from you, would you not do everything you could to see that the thing responsible was destroyed?"

  I didn't know.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I couldn't know just then. The only part of me that was still thinkin' wasn't worried about stories or monsters, it was fixated on how close he was...

  How much I wanted him even closer.

  "So I'll ask you again," he said as he stood and walked to the door, his back turned and his eyes downcast, "what would you do?"

  "I'd..."

  I grabbed him, drew him down to my level, a gloved hand clutchin' a fistful of his hair and the other wrapped around his waist. He didn't fight me, he didn't even seem surprised, though I sure as hell was.

  I'd never, ever, wanted a man before.

  But damn if the taste of his pretty lips didn't make me forget my own name.

  I kissed him, and he tasted like sweet rain, and warm earth, and the smell of the desert after the first, fat drops of monsoon season. It was the taste and the smell and the feel of a new home, and gods be damned if I wasn't starvin' for just a taste. He melted into me for a moment, feelin' in my arms just like any good woman should, before he pulled away, his face flush, his breath short, and a frown writ across his brow.

  "Stop," he said, his voice thick with some emotion. I couldn't quite tell, "you're too... You're not thinking straight."

  He pushed me off and stood, backin' towards the door. I couldn't quite make out the details of his face, had somethin' in my eye, but I could guess at what was writ there. As he pulled back whatever comfort I had felt ran away, and in it's place? In the wreckage of whatever fucked up emotions that had been stirred in my chest?

  Hurt.

  Anger.

  And worst of all, loneliness.

  "No," I said, my own voice rough and ragged, "I ain't!" I roared, stumblin' to my feet, "you fuckin' sissy, ever since I met you I've been a godsdamned mess! Ever since I've known you, everything I've done has gone to shit!" I slammed a fist into the wall I held for support. The wood gave and I fell forward, barely catchin' myself as the room spun.

  "Gods Roche, no I-"

  "Shut up. Fuck you, Raphael."

  I stumbled toward the door, the room was spinnin' and my guts were turnin' in a most unpleasant fashion.

  "Get the fuck out of my house. You and your whole damn family can go get eaten by the fuckin' Wyrm for all I care! I don't want you, don't need you. You go and, go and-" I felt something hot runnin' down my cheeks and I realized I was cryin', and there was no way I could show that face to him.

  "You're a godsdamned liar," I whispered, my words little more than a choked out wheeze, "you don't want me. No one does. Not the girl, not Shorty, not you."

  The door opened, and I heard Raph's voice, and his words were more wretched than any of the lies he'd already spoken.

  "Of course I do. Of course we do... Goodbye Roche."

  And then, just like that, I was alone.

  Again.

  I stumbled back to the bed, barely makin' it before my knees gave out. I clutched a pillow to my face and screamed into the feathers and fabric. The cloying scent of the Songbird still lingered in the room, mixed in with the clean scent of rain and goodness that had clung to Raph's clothes.

  I cried, and the pain that tore from me was more wretched and cruel than any physical wound.

  There, on a bed stained with blood and liquor, the ghost of my past, present, and future all mixed together and mocked me with a thousand unspoken memories.

  All I had left was a bottle.

  Others came later.

  Shorty. Ernesto. Even Temeprence and Tom.

  Each of them tried their own way of draggin' me out of my hole. Shorty offered a clawed hand and good sense. Ernesto offered assurance and kind words. Temperance and Tom reminded me that I had more business in this world, more a part to play and this.

  But no amount of sense, sensitivity, nor honor was enough to reach the bottom of the bottle I hid myself in.

  I repaid each gesture of friendship with venom and anger, and soon, they stopped comin' altogether.

  The whiskey didn't run out, even when I started drinkin' the cheap stuff, poison I bought at the dockside dives and sailor's drinkin' holes I searched out in the depths of the Harbor below.

  I was lookin' for Songbird, I think. Or Raph.

  Or somebody, anybody.

  Someone to blame. Someone to tell me that it was all their fault, or mine. Someone who could absolve me, damn me, put me out of my endless, self inflicted misery.

  I found nothing but more drink, and the kind of company you bought with it.

  It wasn't until a week later that I was dragged back into the light.

  Not by the gentle hand of a friend.

  But by the one spark of hope that had always driven me through the darkness.

  If the world only wanted to hurt me, then, well, I just needed to start hurtin' it back. Still drunk as a vineyard lord, I left my stinkin' hole, and stumbled toward the Guild.

  Murder was on my mind, and I was just good enough a man to go and find an excuse for it.