my heart, bared.

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<center>     <blockquote><h1>[[my heart, bared.->1]]</h1></blockquote>     <b>[[CONTENT WARNINGS->content warnings]] </b>  </center>

  <i>my heart, bared.</i> is a work of interactive fiction in the Gothic Romance genre, made for the One Choice Game Jam. It includes textual depictions of the following: <blockquote>♡ Death ♡ Unhealthy romantic relationship dynamics (co-dependency) ♡ Ecclesiastical content </blockquote> <b><center>[[RETURN->start]]</center></b>

The smell of roses is inescapable. Blooms too heavy to hold their own heads aloft nod gently, swaying on shorn stems, angled to sit just so. They sprawl languidly across every available surface, petals fluttering down to carpet with any movement in the house. Every sighing tumble sets your teeth on edge, eyes skittering to the doorway. He stands silent sentinel, one hand resting against the threshold, not yet bidden entry. He watches. He walks forward with the bearing of a military man. "You liked roses. They were your favourite flower, before," he says. There's a slight hesitation bookending the event in question. Neither of you can bring yourselves to speak its name. He turns his head, so that shadows swallow his features, and the murky cracked yellow light from gaslamps outside fills the room. The curtains are thick, muffling faint sounds from the street below, of civilians eking out the earliest hours of morning. It's been difficult, to keep track of time, here. Days slip into nights, and hours race past. [[There is no true sunlight.->2]]

"I thought that you might appreciate a change, however- there were hydrangeas at the flower market, and there was pink, blue, and purple- a profusion of colours. The gradients- you might like to paint them? Your watercolour set, I brought it out from storage. It's been awhile since anyone used it." He smiles, a tremulous thing. A fledgling hope burning in his expression. It hurts to confront. A slim wooden box is set down onto the table in front of you. It's lowslung, covered in a lacy cloth tatted at the edges with embellishments you don't remember making. Resting beside the paint set is handful of sable hair brushes, and a block of cold press paper. The vase sparkles, a fluted, elegant thing: still slightly wet at the lip, where the round flowers jostle against one another and crowd for your attention. The blue of the flowers, you decide, look entirely too much like the pale eyes floating over you, like [[a man determined to commit you to his memory.->3]]

"May I stay and sit?" he asks. It's hardly as if you could refuse him in his own home. He asks anyway, and you nod. He smiles, crooked at the corners, silver scar tugging his mouth slightly. His hands are just as bitten into, bearing the marks of experiments gone wrong, faces broken against the crush of knucklebone, and gun powder burns from where he's held rifles with the same surety as a long cherished lover. "Thank you," he adds. He's careful not to sit too close, though his eyes are dim with barely hidden wistfulness. "It was a busy day, today. I hope things were well at home. I brought back some more blankets, and quilts- I saw how you were looking at the patterned squares on the one in the sunroom, the other day." He fidgets, unable to sit with the stillness of silence. "The laboratory is running smoothly, and my students hardly need any instruction. They've been progressing beautifully. I'd like to bring you there, when you feel ready. It's quiet, secluded- not too many people outside of the assistants. Cool, too, which is [[a lovely respite from the warmth of summer...->4]]"

His voice trails off. The paintbrush's handle is burnished smooth from your cradling fingers, fitting into a phantom's touch. It's difficult, to focus on sketching, even with the luxury of the smooth, buttery glide of pencil over paper. His gaze holds a physical heft, like butterfly pins skewering you into place. He remains quiet, holding his tongue, hands folded politely in his lap. He fiddles around with his cufflink, pearls cradled close by gold. Eventually, it grows intolerable. He stands up abruptly, walking in long strides that make short work of the distance, and shakes out a knit blanket, in the deep blue he favours so. "Here, love- I know you run cold," he says. "And see, the bit of fringe: it's quite soft, wonderful to pet. Silky on the face, too, and I know how you love that. I know you," he repeats, slipping suddenly into the old melancholy that devours him whole in its treacherous current. The blanket rests over your shoulders, wrapped close: left open at the front, to leave room for your arms. He smiles, painfully earnest, eyes intense in their scrutiny. [[He leaves you feeling flayed upon examination.->5]]

"I was thinking, as well, today- while in the flower market. There's quite the number of stray cats, and some of them are kept to perform little jobs- butcher's helpers, and mousers to keep them away from nibbling at the leathers, that sort of thing. It might be nice, wouldn't it? To have something to keep you company, while I'm away for work. I'd be more at ease if I knew that you had another set of eyes keeping watch over you while I'm not present as well," he chuckles. He sinks back down beside you. "Some of my associates by the docks, they drink at a particular establishment under the guard of such a cat. She's quite the hunter. Due soon for a litter of kittens. I'll ask to bring one home. Hopefully one of them takes after their mother, she's a very sweet tricolour- which is supposed to be lucky. Superstitious lot, them. But I'd like to give it a good home, and I think you'd do marvellously at helping it settle in." He reaches to take hold of your left hand, where a golden wedding ring sparkles, the diamond commanding attention. [[His own band is plain, worn down thin.->6]]

Your husband (for that's what he is to you, though it feels foreign, ill at ease- with the expectation of familiarity, like the dressing gowns he belts shut at your waist, careful not to leave his touch lingering-) follows your gaze. He smiles tenderly, before raising your hand to his mouth to press a warm kiss over cool metal. Cold as the grave- though he says nothing of it, even as he shivers. "I kept yours safe. I'm afraid that my ring has seen better days," he chuckles, reaching over to adjust how the blankets fall over your frame. "I was thinking it would be nice for have it restored- perhaps reworked, a refresh in the design, or have some of the old material incorporated into a new ring: something old, something new- something blue." He sighs, leaning back against the couch for a moment, arms folded across his chest. His gaze is cast downwards, as if studying the reflections in his mirror-shine polished shoes, [[an entry in a spy's ledger of tricks.->7]]

"I understand, you know- that all of this is very sudden to you. It's different. Without the context- you're bound to need more time to adjust. I've had years to forge a life for myself here, hardwon and bitterly laid down as it was: it felt so carved hollow, scraped clean of meaning. It felt like a betrayal: how could I come to consider this place home, if my heart had been torn out of my chest? What good would it do, when the only person I wanted in my arms was beyond my reach forever more?" His voice is soft, rubbed thin with sadness. He closes his ice-chip eyes then, the stern set to his mouth giving you momentary pause, fingers burrowing into the soft fabric of the blankets, scrunched between trembling fingers to still them. When he speaks, it's with them still shut, hands moving to play through the rainbow abalone beads on his necklace: a bastardized rosary worn like [[a sprightly strand of pearls to dress up an outfit.->8]]

"For many years, the only thing convincing me it was a worthwhile endeavour was to make a life I could be proud of sharing with you. In any lifetime, under any circumstance- I would choose to be by your side. But it made it more tolerable, making a home out of a house, laying down the foundations- to be able to give you everything and anything you asked of me when you returned." "All to have you back beside me- it was an intolerable thought, to imagine that I'd never be able to, at the very least- lay you to proper rest. To hold you for one last time, gathered up in white silk and interred like a saint: we have something like one in the church out on the hill. I named her after you- patron saint to a refuge for the lost and weary, for the iconoclastic doctrines that speak of love, and compassion, and righteous anger- [[forgive me,->9]]" he whispers.

He's shifted his weight, leaning over to touch you: cradling your face. He's missing the end of his left pinky finger, shorn short: cropped about two thirds of the way down. "Forgive me," he repeats, voice solemn, eyes looking right through you. His hand trembles. "For my faith wavered- that I would think you beyond salvation. For my folly, I have been punished by the divine. I know that you don't remember," he says softly. "You don't remember me. You don't remember our life together. But it's all forgiven- you are here with me, and I am with you- and I'm never going to let you leave again, beloved. If you don't remember that you love me- I'll make sure that you know I love you, until you're ready to [[hold faith->10]] yourself."

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<blockquote><center>[[You can have it—->start]]</center></blockquote>