#also if i see people demonizing myrtus i’ll fight you in the parking lot

[vacantgodling]

on love and jealousy

wip: prim & provocative

character(s): narcissus spokes (she/her), myrtus spokes (he/him); mentions of tagetes gunn, iberis gunn, matricaria gunn, and lavendula calderon

finally decided to write something for narci because i wanted to figure her out more soooo have her and myrtie talking about their separation

tw(s): mentions of cheating and transphobia (not by either character but myrtus’s family has very rigid ideals of what a woman is that neither of them agree with)

“That’s not fair Myrtie!” Narcissus clutched the phone against her ear, sniffing grandly. She glanced up from where she was curled into herself at the side of her bed, at the large purple mirror hung on the wall. When she’d moved in, she asked her brother in law if he would put a bigger one in, to make the room feel more like her own; but staring back at her pitiful state like this was a torture all of its own. “That’s not fair of you to say that you never loved me. Every time you kissed my head, or bought me nice things because they made me happy, or called me pretty right to my very face was a lie then?”

“I never said I didn’t love you.” Despite wanting to stay angry, the even timbre of her separated husband’s voice over the line did wonders to calm her nerves. Maybe that’s why she was clinging to the phone so desperately; so desperate to hold onto any bit of him and the calm confidence he swept away with him when he left. It hurt her heart, yet it healed it. She was all befuddled.

“I did say that I don’t love you the way a husband ought to.”

“In what way do you love me then!” She cried. She kicked her feet, not that he could see it, and dislodged one slipper from her foot. It flew out and hid under the bed.

“As a sister.” Myrtus said gently. “As a friend.”

“Then what does Ris have that I don’t?” She cried. “Since clearly you love him more than just a ‘brother’ or a friend!”

You’re acting like a baby. The cruel voice in her head whispered. He has every right to leave someone as inconsolable and childish as you.

“I—“ Myrtus hesitated over the line, perhaps not wanting to insinuate her worst fears. But that was the problem with Narcissus, wasn’t it? She latched onto that hesitation like a falcon digs its claws into an unsuspecting rodent. “He does have something! I knew it! You can just say you never loved me—you’ve already gone and left me.” She spat. “I’m not sure why you’re trying to spare my feelings anymore, if I never mattered to you anyway.”

“Narci, that’s not it at all.” And despite how much she pushed him, Myrtus’s voice never wavered, never sounded cross or rose, and maybe that’s why she was staring back at herself in her silly wall length mirror so distraught. He was the one person who never seemed to become cross with her and yet somehow she even drove him away! It didn’t matter that he cheated; she could deal with that hurt to her pride as long as he stayed. It had been like a dream come true when Tagetes first told her that they’d arranged a marriage for her with the handsome Myrtus Spokes. A family friend for years and a man she remembered seeing around the family manor growing up. He and Iberis had gone to school together, and Narci never thought much of him, until that fateful day. And he’d smiled at her kindly and took her hand and said she’d be a beautiful wife and she wanted to sob all over again. She’d already wailed all the way here a few weeks ago, throwing herself into Tagetes’s side. And here she was, ready to wail again.

“Then what is it!” She demanded. “What is it about me that isn’t to your liking? Is it—is it my hair?”

“Your hair is lovely, Narci.”

“It’s not! Don’t lie to me!” She snapped. “It’s stringy and thin and, and, oh never mind that! Is it the way I dress? How I talk to people— oh I know I’m so chatty—“

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Narci.” His voice stayed even but even over the phone she could tell it was sharp. “And I’m sorry that this mess ever made you think that. You’re perfect.”

“But not for you!” Narcissus cried, and that was the crux of it. The line went silent for a long moment, the only sound being her helpless sniffs and heaves of cries that shook her body like a polaroid.

“No,” He finally said softly. “Not for me, not in that way.”

“But why!” She cried and she’d never cried so hard in her life. “Why?”

Myrtus let out a long sigh. “I didn’t want to tell you this, because I didn’t want to hurt you more.” If he were there, Narcissus knew he would run a hand rapidly through his hair, as he always did when he was particularly peevish about something. He still didn’t sound cross, just… uncomfortable perhaps. “But your brother and I have been in love for longer than you think.”

Narcissus could’ve guessed that. But she still bit. “Since when?” She asked miserably.

“Since we were boys, really.” Myrtus’s voice got quieter. “We began seeing each other when we went away to university.”

That she didn’t guess. She couldn’t have. She thought hard about the times that Iberis came home for breaks, and he never seemed particularly affected. Not around her, Tagetes (though, Getes probably knew, of course they did, they knew everything) or even their father, when he was still alive. They still seemed just as close but friendly as they always had. Nothing seemed amiss. Were there times they snuck away? Times where the soft lips Myrtus only deigned to grace her hand with pressed hard into Iberis’s neck or chest? Times where they went to town together and held hands like giddy young lovers that she never saw?

“Then… why…” Narcissus asked faintly.

Myrtus sighed over the phone line again.

“You know my parents.” Narcissus knew them but she never paid attention to them because Myrtus didn’t like them so why should she? His mother was a stuck up old cow, no different than her stepmother, and his father always regarded her with the same contempt you would show a mule. She could play friendly with them, never as well as Lavendula or Matricaria, but she could be tolerable. Yet, Myrtus never brought her around them much anyway. “They truly believe that traditionalist nonsense and wouldn’t accept me taking over the business if I didn’t marry a woman with the “correct parts.”

“Those being?”

“A cat*, of course.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Narcissus said immediately and in disgust. “You’ve been managing their assets since we were practically children! And they’re worried about the bits and bobs of who you want to be with?”

“I know.” Myrtus said and he sounded so bitter. He sounded bitter and angry and it began to dawn on her: in finally pursuing who he loved, he’d lost. He lost it all. Decades of work; of blood, sweat and tears to keep his family’s empire afloat. All washed down the drain like summer rain. If his parents were like that, then marrying her was the easy choice, the correct choice to them. Is that why Tagetes helped arrange it? Not because they wanted what was best for her… but out of pity for him?

Where did her feelings fall in all of this?

“I…” Narcissus suddenly felt so small. Felt so minuscule in the grand scheme of things. Just an afterthought, as she always had been, and Myrtus hummed soothingly over the line.

“I’m sorry Narci.” He said and he at least sounded horribly sad. “I should not have been cruel to you and hurt you like this. There’s nothing wrong with you, and there never was. I dragged you into my problems and you’re the only one suffering for them. There is no apology deep enough that I can give.” He sighed again. “Even still, it would’ve only fallen apart with time.” He said it, almost mumbled to himself, but Narcissus heard it.

“Fall apart?”

“My parents wanted grandchildren, and heirs. And, even if you and I had that kind of relationship Narci, I have no intention of having children.”

She didn’t say it but Narcissus felt much the same. She couldn’t bear to have another thing that she should be measured against Lavendula’s standard with.

The silence lingered until the phone line felt like nothing but a static buzz in her ear. Myrtus made no attempt to push the conversation further, just gave her time to digest everything she just heard. She was sat in her nightgown squarely in the middle of her bed. Her reflection gazed back at her. Same red rimmed eyes and brittle bottom lashes, saturated with tears. Her long, blonde hair hung straight down to her lap and pooled on the space there, spilling out like an unruly tidal wave onto the sheets. She looked so…

“Do you really love me?” She couldn’t help but ask. It’s not that it mattered anymore, truly, but—

“Yes, Narci.” Myrtus said, hushed. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t be the man you deserved.”

No. She wanted to say back.

I wish I could’ve been.

—

*cat is slang for vagina or pussy, in case that wasn’t obvious.