Home (Trystan Thorne x MC)
Book: Crimes of Passion Pairing: Trystan Thorne x F!MC (Amelia Rose)
Rating: Teen Warnings: Language. Words: 2,100.
Summary: What happens inside Trystan's head when Amelia found belladis for him (Book 1 Chapter 11).
A/N: I can't believe I'm doing this. I told myself I would only play some Choices books and not write any fics because life is messy enough, but I just fell in love with Trystan Thorne (hard not to) and loved the belladi scene so fucking much, that I had to write something about it. Honestly, that scene is one of the most beautiful things a MC has done for a LI. It was so sweet and considerate, I just needed to add the proper sappiness, as usual. This is my first fic outside Open Heart, and I haven't written something in English in about a year and a half, so I apologize for the rustiness. Whoever takes the time to read this, thank you so much! I can't wait to catch up with the content you have written for this gorgeous person ❤️
Tagging @choicesficwriterscreations to get some boost. I'm not sure who else wants to be tagged in future works, if there's any.
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Home.
Even after eight years, New York has never felt like home.
A penthouse crammed with people. With music, laughter, booze, men, women, sex, poker, gambles. Not even all the fun in the world has made Trystan feel it like home.
Not even her sister. Mag’s the only thing he has left from both his family and Drakovia, and yet, even if he adores her, he can't remotely feel close to home when she’s around. She only evokes the melancholy of not being at home.
The Agency, on the other hand, feels like a community to him. A place with an unusual sense of belonging. Where people appreciate him for him, not for what his title is or where he comes from. The banter, the shared coffees, the theories, the mutual help. It’s all a comfortable space that makes him feel useful for the first time in a long time. It has given him a purpose.
And Amelia… Amelia soon has started to feel like something he had never experienced before. A warm and enveloping sensation every time he sees her. And it’s not just because of the fire that lights up her eyes in every action she does seeking justice, or because they have been spending an incalculable amount of time together in the past weeks, so it could be said he’s been getting accustomed to her presence.
No.
It's because of the sincerity in everything she does and says. The purpose in all she does. This is not just a job, it’s her true calling. And the confirmation just keeps appearing before his eyes day after day. With every theory she makes, with every risk she takes.
And it’s also in the sincerity she calls him out every day. The way she calls him annoying at least ten times a day and the ten times a day he silently agrees, but keeps doing it because he likes the way his brown eyes roll in weariness, but a moment later melt into subtle amusement, letting him know she actually likes how annoying he is. Her smirk confirms it.
Besides his sister, Trystan has never met a person who confronts him the way Amelia does, and much less that the same person who does it, still chooses to spend day after day with him.
He has never met a person who had trusted him with her life. Even after telling her his fault in Juliana’s death.
Being around Amelia makes him be the closet he is at heart. What he truly is. Without pretending, without showing off to prove something. Without having to slow down to be taken seriously. Or having to do grand gestures just to fit in the Prince stereotype. Even if they bicker, even if Amelia groans at him every two seconds, he knows she appreciates him just for the way he is. Otherwise she would’ve gotten rid of him the very first day he hired the Agency.
That’s why Trystan prefers to take a walk by Central Park with her instead of resting at his penthouse, or partying with some ‘friends’.
That’s the reason why just strolling by her side is enough for him. Just walking and bantering about his million qualities and fancy abilities, or watching Amelia twirling around him while Fiera races behind her. It’s simple but it’s everything to him right now.
And that’s why having a bagel with avocado and a fried egg sitting on a bench, is the best lunch he has had in a long while. Topping the most fancy shit he had ever had.
“Do you ever miss it?” Amelias asks, seeing the subtle longing in his eyes as he talks about Drakovia.
“It’s not worth thinking about”, he answers, shrugging.
“So, yes?” She insists.
“...Sometimes.” He confesses. He does miss it, but for once in his life the answer doesn’t sting like before. For once he prefers to be precisely right where he is instead of somewhere else. “This just reminded me we have a place like this in Drakkos. The People's Garden. I used to get belladi there as a child.”
“Belladi?” She inquires, curiously.
“It's a Drakovian dessert. A bit like a scone, with sort of a melty Cadbury egg in the middle, topped with a dusting of sugar.” Even if there have been years, he could taste the sweetness of that first bite every time he tried one.
“Sounds delicious”.
Trystan sighs wistfully, watching some kids racing a few feet from them. His feelings haven’t changed, he prefers to be right where he is, but he does wish to have a belladi right now in his hands.
“They are. But I've never found them anywhere else. No sense brooding over it…”
Trystan can see from the corner of his eye how Amelia looks silently at him for a moment, thinking.
“You know what? I agree,” Amelia says as she hops to her feet, “No sense brooding over it. I'm gonna get you that dessert.”
Trystan turns to her, taken aback with her declaration. He would've expected a change in the topic to make him feel better, probably an invitation to try some new pastry to satiate his thirst for something sweet. But not this.
“I’ve just told you. I have looked” Although he is surprised by her intention, it doesn’t crack the hopelessness he feels about it. There’s no way he will try a belladi ever again.
“If it exists, you can find it in New York. You’re just not looking hard enough,” she gives him a wink, “Lucky for you, you're in the presence of a detective” she adds playfully, pointing with her head towards the path that leads back to the food stands.
But the glint in her eyes tells him this is more than some detectivesque challenge, a treasure hunt. This is a different kind of fire than the one that drives her daily. There’s something else. And for some reason it makes his heart flutter.
Amelia makes him go back to the vendors and asks every single one of them if they have heard about a place where they could make drakovian food. For about half an hour, they only encounter shook heads and apologizing looks, until finally a woman at the end of the park, clues them in of a food truck in the 82nd.
Trystan hadn't had his hopes high in all that time. He didn't want to be disappointed. Yet he was feeling very grateful to Amelia for trying. But the moment the woman tells them she had heard there was a truck with drakovian food but that had moved out of the park, something warmed up inside him just like when he was a kid.
The sun is going down by the time they make it to 82nd Street. Trystan cannot contain his smile when the man behind the window recognizes him and then, after taking a selfie with him, starts to prepare the pastry.
“I must admit that, even if I have never doubted that you are an impressive detective, I really thought you wouldn't find it" he confesses somewhat regretfully, “You can add “dessert hunting” to your resume now”.
“I know, I'm truly impressive, am I?” Amelia says, almost only to herself, “I never doubted myself, but making this happen feels really, really amazing”. Suddenly, Amelia giggles, clapping her hands in excitement. “I'm so glad you are going to get that belladi you so much wanted”.
Trystan grins, amused, because he had never heard her laugh like that, like a child. And that sole view touches him deeply in his heart. To be able to see another side of Amelia. A side less tough and more effusive. And he feels somewhat more grateful than he already was.
A few minutes later, the man behind the window reaches to give them the belladis plus some bitter drink to enhance the flavor of the pastry. Both content with the food, take it to a quiet stoop a few feet away and take a seat to enjoy the much awaited delicacies.
Trystan groans full of pleasure the moment the belladi melts in his tongue.
“Oh my god, this is even better than I imagined”.
He feels shivers down his spine as the sweet flavor invades him along with some of his best childhood memories.
Happy and truly thankful for the gesture, Trystan turns to thank Amelia for the crusade she put herself in just to get him a belladi, absolutely convinced she would be wolfing down the pastry just as he was. But instead, he caught her watching him with a wistful smile and warm eyes.
The moment their eyes meet, Amelia hurries to take the pastry and engulfs her mouth with it.
“Woow, yes, indeed, this is amazing,” she says, hastily, her cheeks evidently blushed.
“Yeah”, he sighs, trying to contain a chuckle.
That was just the confirmation he needed to convince himself that all that wasn’t just about proving herself being an amazing detective. A personal challenge.
This was for him.
Who would walk almost the whole damn Central Park just to prove a point? Well, she would. But no one offers to find it in the first place just to prove a point. She could prove herself with anything else. But something that seemed too personal for him?
Only Amelia would take the challenge just to get him the damn belladi and calm his homesickness.
She might look tough and cold, but she was the most considerate person when it came to the people she cared about. So, acting like that meant that she… Trystan stops himself right at that moment, trying not to jump out to conclusions.
But he just cannot shake the idea off his head. So he searches for her hand and takes it in his.
“What?”
And then lifts it to his lips, as Amelia doesn't seem to oppose.
“Thank you”, he says, staring directly into her chocolate eyes, charged with intention, meaning and candor.
She blushes again, more profusely, then shakes her head, "It’s nothing".
“Uh-uh,” Trystan stands up and turns her body to him, still holding her hand, “You know how difficult it is for me to be away from home. That I can’t go back there. You saw that I miss it, and when you found there was a tiny chance to make me feel like home, you took it and made it possible. It's not nothing, Amelia.”
She looks at him, serious, her eyes glistening.
“I hate to see you sad, missing home, because you don’t deserve it, you don't deserve anything that has happened to you, so I had… I had to try at least, to find you this something that you were missing so much, even if it was a goddamn pastry”.
He gives her the most dazzling smile she has ever seen, it was almost blinding.
“Thank you. Thank you, Amelia. I really mean it.”
And without giving it a second thought, he embraced her, tightly but delicately, his arms around the small of her back, his cheek pressed to her head, his nose feeling the critic scent of her chestnut hair. Amelia stands frozen for a few seconds, petrified, before giving in to the embrace, crossing both arms around his back, grasping the silk fabric of his shirt, smiling softly.
“You're very welcome, Trystan,” she says in a tiny voice.
What if he was wrong all along? Or maybe he was just looking in the wrong places. About home.
Maybe he thought home would always be the same place, that place in the past he couldn’t return. Drakovia. But even if someday there was a chance he could return, he knows it will never be the same. It was now tainted with bittersweet memories and grief.
Maybe home turns into something different once he finds a new place with happy memories.
Maybe home is not always a place but a person, or a pastry.
Maybe a truck with belladi.
Or maybe a person leading him to a truck with belladis.
Or maybe a person who would do anything to get him a belladi, just to see him happy.
As the sun goes completely down and the purple sky reflects on the skyscrapers of 82nd Street, Trystan sighs happily, contendly, peacefully, for finally being home.
The Detective Amelia Rose had helped him to find more than belladis that afternoon.
She helped him find his home.
Her.
Amelia.
