A day like any other. A full schedule full of the things he did every day, or near enough not to matter. Meetings in a board room, the neat lines of a well tailored suit and his hair neatly braided down his back. Annoying corporate asses who couldn't think past their own greed. Who saw a young man, not even twenty five yet, and thought they knew better. Half fawned over him, hoping to gain by it, while the other half tossed him casual disrespect and microaggressions. Half of him hated the nonsense, the circus, the pantomime of it. The pandering to keep tempers in check, to keep small men with too much self importance from politicking and stalling everything just to feed their own egos.
Half of him waited with barely restrained, vindictive eagerness for the day he became their boss.
Sometimes he day dreamed about offering them casual, sweetly worded insults they didn't dare call him out on. Of brushing aside all their petty machinations to take firm hold of the company and direct it how he wished. It had been a fond dream for a few years now, but with the end goal in sight, it was harder and harder to wait for it. Harder still, because in the back of his mind, he knew they were ants. Tiny, insignificant, against the war that raged beyond their glass walls. To the giant that was the Negaverse, of which he was part, they were nothing but a means to an end, if that. He could have powered up and ripped the star seeds out of their irritating little bodies and watched them flop about like rag dolls as they hit the floor, all their hard, hard work for nothing...
Work in the Negaverse was at least marginally more rewarding. Everything he did got him closer to his coveted promotion there as well. There was less politicking, though that may have been more because the rest of Netherite's subordinates were happy to let him handle the dull office work. And he learned so much from Netherite about manipulation, about information gathering, about what was important to know and what wasn't. His mother, Joellen, had not been a corporate sort of woman. She was a designer, her head and her days were filled with fabrics and cuts and styles and trends. She had a whole army to run her company for her, and a son she'd trained from near birth. With Netherite, Fafnir learned how to truly run that company.
Meetings could not keep their pointed claws in him forever and he was eventually released to snatch lunch before he was swept off to be primped and primed for a photoshoot, this time solo. It passed in a haze, so second nature he hardly needed to think about, especially when they had a team this time to take care of hair and make up. After the shoot, despite his growing exhaustion, was dinner with a client, where he flirted professionally, fed their ego, and left with promises on both sides.
It was late, and he was no little bit tipsy from the wine after dinner, before he finally made it home, their sometimes-driver depositing him on the steps of his mother's spacious house. Though there were lights outside, inside it was dark, and deathly quiet. Trey didn't bother with the lights, ascending the stairs to his suite of rooms. At least here, everything was how he wished it to be and how he had left it this morning, and the quiet was his quiet, rather than the house's. He stripped in the dark, not bothering to put anything on or do more with his discarded clothing than let it puddle on the floor, to be picked up later. His skin silver in the faint moonlight through the window, Trey padded to the seat there and sank into it, pulling his braid over his shoulder to begin unraveling the strands from their usual braid.
The silence was heavy around him, and the darkness felt full of things he kept from his mind in the light of day. Another day, another round of struggles that often seemed to get him no where, or at least no where he was confident he wanted to go. Waru had asked what he really wanted, but sitting here, Trey wasn't sure what the answer to that was. His control loosened by the wine, his thoughts turned over themselves and sought out forbidden paths, dragging him down trails of memory he only wanted to forget. How long had it been? Two years? Three? Chase, Dia, Regan, Suri... Rowan... Lesser pains, and one that still ached so deeply he couldn't allow himself to linger on it long. What was he doing? His fingers stilled in his hair, the color jet against ivory in this light. Was this what he really wanted? He'd always thought he didn't have a choice. Its why he was working so hard, fighting so hard, to reach a place where he could make his own choices, but... was what he gave up for it, worth what he would gain? In vino veritas... the truths he told himself during the day were flimsy tonight.
Rowan... this had always been for him. Shoulder Mother's expectations, play her little doll and Rowan got to do as he pleased, got to have what he wanted and be the beautiful, spirited dancer Trey knew he was in his soul. It had all been worth it, attending Rowan's shows and watching him shine, hearing the way he laughed when they were together. Pushed aside his own dreams till he couldn't remember what they were any more, remold himself into exactly what he needed to be, and then... and then Rowan was gone. Now, everything he did and everything he'd done felt... pointless.
Once the thought wormed its way the surface, there was no stopping the flood of others. Of regrets and anger, the self-pity and disgust. Who was he now? Was this who he wanted to be? Did he even have a choice?
It always came back to that, too. No choices, no freedoms. But he was so close.
So close.
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