The evening had felt so long in coming, but finally he was with Vivian in their chosen guest room for the night. Yet, now that he was here, he found it hard to really bring up the subject. Instead he was just listening to her talk.
"I wish I knew what was wrong with her. I feel almost bad leaving her even though I confirmed at least three times that she was asleep."
Vivian let out a soft sigh as she quickly brushed through her hair with her fingers. Renard lay on the bed in silence, watching her as she went about her nightly ritual at the vanity; well, the nightly ritual when he didn't immediately pounce her upon entry.
He shouldn't be hesitating like this though: not only was it making his own anxiety on the matter increase, but continuing to hold his tongue was also horribly cruel to Kyrie. For her to not know when Vivian would suddenly turn on her... It must be agonizing. It had already been painful to watch her during dinner where she'd been even more reticent than usual. Even Vivian had picked up on Kyrie's low mood, and when Vivian had asked her about it Kyrie looked so much like she wanted to cry that Vivian didn't ask at dinner anymore.
What Vivian had done though was follow Kyrie back to their room, and from what Vivian was saying now, Kyrie hadn't said a word about what was bothering her. Vivian had still wanted to stick around and help even if she had no idea what Kyrie was upset over, but when Vivian wrapped her friend in a hug it had just made Kyrie actually cry. Eventually Kyrie had fallen asleep with Vivian at her side, and that was why Vivian had taken so long to get to the guest room. Vivian suspected that either Kyrie was really missing Isaac (he was once again gone), or there was something wrong between the two of them that she didn't want to voice. Kyrie didn't usually cry so much when she just missed Isaac so Vivian was leaning more towards the latter theory. Even if that was what she was leaning towards, she just couldn't fathom what could be wrong with her friend. Isaac and Kyrie had such a good relationship, one that didn't seem to have any problems.
"I don't know. What do you think, Renard?"
She turned her head to look over at him, and he was thoroughly thankful for the fact that there was only a single candle lit in this room. His brain's initial reaction to being directly addressed was panic, and he could just feel his throat constricting in protest for what he was about to do. For once he could actually sympathize with how Kyrie likely felt all the time, and if this feeling was what she had to fight with every time then it was no wonder she said things so rarely.
Still, if he was going to give Kyrie such a hard time for not voicing her thoughts in the face of discomfort then he couldn't just back down himself. Silently telling himself that he was better than this, he reached out a hand to Vivian, beckoning her to the bed.
"Come here."
She couldn't help a smile from lighting up her face at this summons even through her worry about Kyrie, and in her improved mood she just had to give him a little quip.
"Why Renard, did you miss me?"
At first she didn't make any motion to move, and Renard dropped his hand. He would miss this light banter and these easy smiles lighting up her face: no doubt it would take her a while to recover all that good cheer after he broke the news to her. Deciding to savor this last little bit of banter, he gave her a soft smile while his voice took on the almost teasing quality that hers had.
"Vivian, if you make me wait a single minute more I will have to force you over here."
Her whole demeanor glowed with love for him, and sure enough she relented. She wasn't seriously going to miss out on an opportunity to get closer to him, as much as she tried to threaten she wouldn't. A pang of guilt coursed through him upon seeing how happy she was, but he was careful to keep that off his face as she approached.
… They never should have kept this a secret for as long as they had.
Crawling up onto the bed, Vivian leaned up towards Renard to give him a loving but short kiss before turning around and settling between his legs. He was sitting up against the headboard under the covers and Vivian was quick to get her own legs under the blankets alongside his so that she could snuggle up against her lover. Renard's hands wrapped around her to link at her stomach and as he pulled her in close, he breathed deeply against her neck: just one last touch before he ruined the calm.
While he was taking the time to savor, his hand slid along the smooth material of her nightgown and he had to admit that he liked the fabric of her newer nightgown much more than the old one that Mae had supplied them with. Vivian had fairly quickly replaced the plain sacks, as she called them, with a nightgown that was short and flowy. It wasn't anything super sexy like that first one she made, but it was comfortable while also being a little luxurious and eye catching.
This was no time to get caught up in how good she felt though, he had to address the issue at hand. Namely, what was wrong with Kyrie.
Nuzzling his face into Vivian's neck, he forcibly pushed down his hesitation and spoke.
"I think I might have an idea what's bothering Kyrie."
Vivian's mind had already begun to change gears to Renard now that she was in his lap, so when the subject turned back to Kyrie it took her a moment to adjust. Adjust she did though, and thinking that this was going to lead to more messing around on his part, she once again took on that playful tone.
"Oh? And what insight might you have into the mind of a woman?"
"More than you might think."
While her voice was full of fun, Renard's wasn't matching it at all, and she turned her head to look back at him from the discrepancy. A familiar chill was beginning to settle in her spine, and she swallowed hard as she tried to just ignore it. She knew these pangs all too well, they were the old urges of distrust, of suspicion, of jealousy... Her life had been taking so much more of a positive turn now that she'd been making an effort to ignore that negativity, but when it reared its head this time, it was so much harder to dismiss.
Vivian tried hard to suppress the urges and tell herself that it was nothing, but Renard could still see the growing suspicion on her features. He couldn't help a slight softening of his own expression born mostly out of pity: so often her fears and worries were unfounded, but this time... This time she would be right to be suspicious. He hoped that wasn't going to make her sink back into a dark place again...
"What do you mean...?"
Her voice had lost that playful quality to it, and now it sounded a little shaky, like she was trying hard to keep her lower lip from trembling.
"Vivian, Kyrie was so upset this evening because I told her today that I was going to be sharing the fact that I've had sex with her with you."
Vivian's mind just seemed to go completely and utterly blank at these words. What he was saying just didn't register, or maybe she just refused to believe that it was true. Whatever the case, the silence stretched out between them in the room, long enough that Renard felt the need to jostle her just a little.
"Vivian?"
This little bit of movement broke the spell: instead of numb she was actually starting to feel something, and what a something it was. It felt like someone had stabbed a needle into her heart, but instead of taking it immediately back out again it was getting rolled around, with the wound getting stretched while blood spilled all over.
"I don't believe you..."
These words were said so softly by Vivian that Renard couldn't discern anything about them aside from the fact that Vivian had indeed made a sound.
"What?"
"I don't believe you!"
It was as if a switch had been thrown, and suddenly Renard found himself struggling to keep Vivian exactly where she was. She was trying to move away from him, though for what purpose he really couldn't say, but he felt like it would be in both their best interests to keep her in his lap.
"Vivian--"
He tried to speak calmly to get her to stop struggling, but she promptly interrupted him as she continued to try pushing out of the vice-like hold he had around her waist.
"Kyrie would never do something like that! Why would you even suggest such a horrible thing?!"
"It's not a suggestion, Vivian, it's a fact. I won't deny that it took quite a bit of coaxing on my part, but she has had sex with me."
Here Vivian hesitated, and when she turned to look back at him she could see just how serious he was about what he was saying. His expression caused her struggling to stop, or at least, she wasn't pushing against his arms with force anymore. Her body was still tense, as if poised to jump away from him the moment that he relaxed, but it wasn't actively struggling. This couldn't be a joke, she knew that it couldn't be: Renard would never joke about something like this. Yet... She just couldn't accept his words.
"You liar! When would you even have done it? You're with me every night, Renard, and Isaac is with Kyrie all the time!"
She was grasping at straws here and she knew it, but she needed to hear it in no uncertain terms. She needed him to tell it to her in a way that she just couldn't dispute. It wouldn't be hard, all things considered, the protestations she raised weren't even good ones: Vivian knew that Renard still occasionally had sex with Dessi even though they didn't share a bed, so it was very possible that Renard could just do something like that with Kyrie.
Isaac was a bit better of a point though... Isaac had made it clear from his body language just how off-limits Kyrie was to Renard, and while Vivian had never explicitly heard him tell Renard to keep his hands off she was positive that conversation had happened at some point. How had he bypassed the solid wall that was Isaac? There was no way he ever would've had the opportunity to get close to Kyrie, not with Isaac keeping such a close eye on her!
"Have you forgotten about when you and Isaac accompanied the lady on her trip to the Dominion?"
Her blood felt like it turned to ice from his words, and all the fears and anxieties that she'd had while in the Dominion came flooding back into her mind; she realized now with an agonizing wrench that all of those worries had been perfectly valid. Usually she hated herself for thinking the worst of people, but in this one specific instance she had been justified in her suspicion! The trip to the Dominion had been months ago though, and she hadn't even had any idea that this had happened?! She should've listened to her gut, it had been right to be worried about Kyrie! And she had been right to think that in her absence Renard would look for something else!
Even still though, her mind didn't want to accept this... Kyrie was her friend.
When she thought back to Kyrie crying earlier in the evening, it only made more sense that what Renard was saying was actually true. When Vivian had pulled Kyrie in for a hug, it had only made her cry. If she really was so upset about losing Vivian's friendship, then that little bit of good feeling that Vivian had offered her would've likely been seen as the last instance of it she'd ever get. … If she felt so bad though, then why would she have even done this in the first place? It was clear that Vivian still mattered to her, mattered quite a bit in fact.
Vivian could feel herself tearing up now as it really began to sink in what Kyrie had been crying about and what she'd been trying to comfort. Of all the things it could've been, it was a betrayal towards herself that she had been trying to make Kyrie feel better about.
The tears began to fall down her cheeks now and she opened her mouth to say something but a soft sob left it instead. Rather embarrassed that she couldn't even talk at the moment, she clenched her eyes shut, bringing her hands up to her face as the tears spilled out. The minutes stretched by as Vivian cried in Renard's arms, her body no longer trying to get away from him and instead just giving in to this pain.
She wasn't saying anything, and this unnerved Renard so much more than if she was to lash out. Letting his hands gently rub at her stomach in an attempt to comfort, he brushed his face against the side of hers, but these actions caused her to tense up and jerk away from him rather than be comforted. Since he had effectively interrupted her own misery, he became the subject of her ire.
"How could you?! You couldn't keep your hands off of my best friend, Renard? You couldn't even leave one person I could have total faith in?!"
It hurt so much more that it was Kyrie.
She'd been able to accept that Renard slept with Dessi, Dessi was so open about all the people that she had sex with but Kyrie? Vivian had trusted Kyrie: the younger girl had shown time and again that Vivian's affection was so much more important to her than Renard's, so there had been no real reason to suspect her! Was that even true anymore though? Was she actually trying to win Renard's affections on the sly? As Vivian's mind raced through images of Kyrie going about her everyday life, she still couldn't really see it even after being enlightened to the fact that Kyrie had slept with Renard. She was just openly so much closer to Isaac and herself. She couldn't also be trying to make such a close relationship with Renard then: their closeness would seep through their every day interactions regardless of how careful they were if that was the case.
Even as Vivian's mind questioned Kyrie's integrity, deep down she knew that Kyrie did still care for her. She had been crying for the whole evening because of what she'd done! And knowing Kyrie... Kyrie wouldn't just be crying about losing Vivian's company, she'd also be crying because of how much pain she would be putting Vivian through. Why had she even done it then?! Renard said that she'd taken a lot of coaxing but even his best coaxing shouldn't have worked on her! Did... Did he force her?
Renard still wasn't saying a single thing, and she could feel herself bristling at him now from the line that her thoughts were taking. Did he really have nothing at all to say for himself?! Turning around to fix him with a glare, she was a little taken off guard by the expression he was giving her. His usual mask wasn't there, he wasn't trying to keep his composure for this; it looked like as she suffered, he suffered just as much, and she had to admit that she had not expected that to be the case.
Her expression towards him visibly softened to see this before she turned away, and instead of snapping at him again, she held her tongue. In fact, she bit her lower lip a little and scrunched up her features as her tears fell down her face all the more. She had to admit that a part of her glowed with warmth at the thought that he cared enough about her to be sad at the prospect of her being upset; it once again reinforced the idea that Renard really did care for her beyond just the physical aspects of their relationship. It wasn't just her body that he wanted, he wanted her mind to be happy as well.
… If that was the case though, then why had he even chosen to tell her in the first place? Surely Renard had to realize that he and Kyrie were doing just fine at hiding their affair, so why would they ever choose to put themselves through such agony? Unable to leave this question only to her thoughts, she spoke softly, with her head bowed as she cried into her lap.
"Why would you even tell me...?"
Renard really was out of his element with this whole conversation, and it didn't help that the reason she was so upset was because of something that he himself had done to her. He couldn't help thinking that he wished he'd told her about his intentions before he'd ever actually had sex with Kyrie, that way there wouldn't be this horrible sense of betrayal that she was feeling right now. She'd still be upset about it, it was true, but it wouldn't be because he'd done something behind her back and kept things a secret. He could understand now why Kyrie had wanted to avoid this information getting out: to watch Vivian process all this was more painful for himself than he ever thought it would be.
Vivian still wasn't done crying, but when she asked her question he felt like now would finally be a good time to start speaking. Her body was practically limp in his arms, and it felt like most of her anger had been spent. He could only barely fathom the struggle in her mind, and he softly kissed her cheek before saying what he knew she would love to hear.
"Because I love you, Vivian."
These were like magic words to Vivian, and sure enough, more tears welled up in her eyes as she heard them. It wasn't even untrue on Renard's part, either. He still did not have the same definition of love that Vivian did, but what he did know was that he cared about the woman in his arms. She was an important part of his life that he would really prefer to always have in his life: she was a huge source of fun and pleasure for him, and her presence was also entirely unique. He actively wanted her to remain a part of his days, and he wanted that to continue for as long as possible.
Bringing a hand up to cup her cheek on one side and kiss the other, she leaned into his hand as her eyes closed, waiting for him to elaborate on his statement.
"We've been getting steadily closer to each other after the attack on Lady Dandridge, sharing more than just sex and a physical relationship and the more I've gotten to know you, the more I realized that I couldn't keep hiding what I'd done with Kyrie. I know it's painful, I can feel it through every fiber of your being, but I want to be open with you instead of having you find out about it some other way."
Slowly and shakily Vivian brought one of her hands up to rest over the one that Renard had on her cheek, and they were both very aware of the fresh new wave of tears that ran down her face. It wasn't just her making an effort to get closer to him, he was trying as well.
She still loved Renard. She still loved him more than words could fully express.
Every time that he did something she didn't like, she just couldn't bring herself to stay away from him. He helped her look forward to each new day and interacting with him was easily one of the highlights of her time in Mae's manor. Without him her life would seem so dark, especially if she was also going to be losing Kyrie's company. She just couldn't stay mad at him: even if she didn't approve of his sleeping around. The idea of cutting ties with him was just so much more painful than bearing with his promiscuity.
Something was different this time around though: Renard was actually opening up to her. Usually when she expressed disapproval about him sleeping around, it ended with both of them upset with the conversation. She got nothing from him aside from a flat refusal to be only hers, and he got nothing from her aside from utter outrage. They were actually connecting here though: she could see how her pain really affected him, and he was getting her to move past more than just being outraged. Their efforts over the past few months really were paying off, and even if he had slept with Kyrie, their own progress together wasn't suddenly lessened.
It still hurt though. All of this hurt a whole lot.
Renard could just feel the utter defeat of the woman in his arms, and as she cried, he gently lifted her up to turn her around and she rather eagerly wrapped her arms around his neck now that she was facing him. She still loved him, he knew that she would, but he couldn't help the sense of relief that went through him to have her hugging him of her own accord. Slouching down so that he was only barely sitting up against the headboard, her body nestled up into his while her face buried into his neck. His hands wrapped around her as she did this, and he gave her head a soft kiss that made her hiccup with tears all the more.
"I'm sorry I hurt you, Vivian, but I love you, and I hope that you'll be able to forgive me."
Her grip tightened on him as he said this, and her lip trembled as she opened her mouth to speak.
"I-I do..."
Once again kissing the top of her head, his own grip tightened on her a little.
"Then our relationship will continue to grow stronger, my dear."
She turned to look up at him with tear-stained cheeks that were full of so much love and sadness that he couldn't help but be moved. Leaning down to give her a gentle kiss on the lips, she recoiled for just a moment before leaning into his touch. When the kiss broke, one of her hands clenched against his bare back, silently telling him not to move away.
"Promise me, Renard. Promise that you won't keep a secret like this from me again. I want... I want to know what you're thinking before you act on it."
This was a promise that he had no problems agreeing to, it was his preferred state of being anyway. It had been a mistake not to do it with this whole affair with Kyrie, and he had certainly learned from that lesson.
"I promise."
This promise was sealed with another kiss, and Renard could just feel Vivian's limbs getting heavy as a sense of closure and relief washed over her.
As her consciousness slowly began to fade, there was just one last question burning in her mind.
"... Why Kyrie, Renard...?"
As one of his hands gently played with her hair, he was quiet as he really thought about this question. How much of the truth did he really want to say to Vivian? What even was the truth? With how heavy her voice was, another option was for him to just not answer her at all, she was going to fall asleep shortly anyway. Still... The twinge of his conscience pulled him to answer her more seriously, without trying to hide any truth from her again.
"She has a curiosity to her that she tries so hard to suppress, and I can't help but want to cultivate it and see it grow."
Slowly, Vivian looked up at him as her tired mind processed this. That kind of a response didn't exactly fill her with confidence or happiness, but it was also weirdly confusing. It just wasn't clear at all what he meant by that statement. Maybe it was just because she was so tired that it was hard to comprehend how he felt about Kyrie. Did she hold interest to him because she was a curiosity? Did he want to get close to her like he was doing with Vivian? Or was there something else altogether? In an effort to bypass that confusion, she asked another question.
"And why me...?"
"You, Vivian, you always have a smile for me and I love how interesting our interactions are. If Kyrie is still a sprout, you are a fully bloomed flower ready for me to enjoy. You are perfectly unique, and that makes interacting with you an endless delight."
This was so much more satisfying of an answer than she ever could've hoped for. It still didn't make his statement about Kyrie much clearer, but what she did know what that she was immensely important to Renard. This revelation made the tears start all over again.
"I love you, Renard. I love you so damn much."
There was a bit of a choked laugh as she murmured this to him, and she let her head fall against his chest now while her body tightened around him.
"And I love you, Vivian."
His hands soothingly ran through her hair and once she fell asleep on him, he couldn't help letting out a heavy sigh as he fully lay down on the bed. It really felt like a huge weight had been taken off his chest, and even Vivian's promise didn't seem like much of a chain to him at all. This had turned out so much better than he was expecting, but he had to admit that it had also been way more exhausting than he had expected. His hands lovingly stroked through Vivian's hair as he thought about how happy he was to still have her close like this, and he only hoped that Vivian's relationship with Kyrie hadn't been too broken.