Reese Plantina had been an absolute master builder of cages.
The irony was, of course, that Reese Plantina despised the thought of ever being caught in one. Even a theoretical cage was all too much; Nicodemo knew this better than anyone. They’d mentioned, once or twice, about what things would be like after the unnamed point in time where Reese and Nico had gotten married— wishful thinking at best, entirely hypothetical, and yet the way Reese looked when the words left Nico’s mouth, well…
It may as well have been that Nico had suggested Reese break their own legs and become house-bound for the rest of their life for the horror in their eyes. Nico had learned very quickly to never mention weddings even in passing, ever again. But, they supposed the damage had already been done. Even now, the thought worried like a worm in their gut that maybe that had been The Thing That Did It. That mentioning marriage had been what prompted Reese to look for a way out. That maybe the concept of settling down and starting a family with Nico had been what had made it all so tempting.
And maybe that had been it. Or maybe it had been something else. Maybe it had been the way Nico cooked dinner, or maybe it had been the way Nico folded their laundry, or maybe it had been the way Nico sometimes couldn’t leave the house. Maybe Nico had been the cage; because what freedom was there in being tied to a person who, on particularly bad days, couldn’t move at all?
Maybe it had been all of it. Nico never knew. Even when everything hurt, even when they sat at the kitchen table and sobbed out their agony, even when Nico’s head was in their hands and even when they begged, shuddering and gasping and begged to know “why”— Nico never knew. Because no matter how much Nico asked, Reese never told them. One of many things, it turned out, Reese would take with them to an early grave. Nicodemo knew better, now, years later. They knew that the entire ordeal had been a year in the making. That Reese had tasted life with Nico and tasted life with Feldspar and had decided after a year’s worth of rumination that the latter simply tasted better. And that had been it.
And yet, even as Reese broke free of the cage that was Nicodemo del-Nestore, they had softly, tenderly and exquisitely replaced the bars around Nico themself. And Nico had let them do it— had sat there like a good little pet and watched as each gilded rod was set in place, until their heart could only ever beat at Reese’s discretion. In Reese’s direction. Even as it killed Nicodemo to have Reese’s head on their shoulder, even as it broke their heart to feel Reese’s hands on their chest, even as every last part of Nico was turned to dust to sift through those soft, fluttering fingers, Nico had always and only ever been theirs.
”I miss you. I miss this. I miss us being like this.”
And even as the words were whispered into the dim light of the living room, just above the sound of the television and their own even breathing, even as Reese’s hand squeezed against Nico’s own and even as Reese curled against Nico’s shoulder just a little closer, Nico had wanted to say those same exact words. Had wanted to say them over and over, get down on their knees and beg for this to stop, for this to start, for this to become nothing or everything so long as it stopped being in-between. Nico had felt caught in a tempest; whipped this way and that, and every time they reached out for something to hold onto, they were whipped in the opposite direction.
Because Nico had missed this, too. Nico had missed it so desperately that no matter how much it tore at them to curl up on the couch with Reese, no matter how much it hurt to listen to them talk about their boyfriend, all the good and all the ill and all the little things in between, no matter how crushed they had been to see the ring around Reese’s finger, Nico never once had the strength in them to stand up and say no.
After all, Reese Plantina had been a master at building cages, and Nico had been thoroughly caught and thoroughly tamed, and it was only when the water boiled over that Nicodemo even realized they were being cooked alive inside it.
The water had evaporated completely, now. It had been two weeks on the stove-- two weeks of knowing that Reese had been sleeping with someone else while they and Nico had still been together. Two weeks of knowing Reese had kept the other man in the same kind of gilded darkness as Nico themself. Two weeks of knowing that Nico had never been enough, would never have been enough, and wouldn't have even been enough to warrant being truthful. Two weeks of burning cages, and now all that was left was the barest mineral residue and the charred, skeletal remains of what had once been. The reek of smoke and something long since dead. The coldness of tea left forgotten on the coffee table. The weight of a pendant hanging from a still neck.
Nicodemo looked down through their fingertips at the necklace suspended from their throat. The slight motion set the metal to swinging, turning in the dimness of the evening light. Reese had been a master builder of cages, but the water was long since gone. The rods had long since rusted. The gilding had long since tarnished and the pins had long since weakened. The string had frayed, had come undone fragment by threaded fragment— when Nico took hold of the weighty thing, it took no strength at all.
Just gravity.
