#btz!julius

[sufferu]

I do think I want everyone to know that, originally, Julius was going to find out that Subaru and Joshua were dating by barging into Subaru’s room on his birthday morning and catching them both. Uh. Right before they were about to solidify the nature of their relationship.

[sufferu]

BTZ. Don't have to use this, but it would be a little comical if Ram was unable to insult Subaru in the teasing manner she used to, but slowly and overtime she starts to become friendly with Julius and begins to lay into him with her barbed tongue. Subaru is left devastated because he's no longer being insulted by Ram anymore. Lol.

Oh that’s already an issue between Ram and Subaru lmao. The only reason Ram felt free to be a dick to Subaru like that was because she thought it was obvious that she cared about him and would never actually hurt him. Now that THAT’s been proven false, she can’t bring herself to treat him like that anymore. It’s just not the same situation to her.

Of course, after a couple weeks of her just — coming to terms with everything, she DOES begin to reconnect with Subaru. It’s not the same as before, but that’s alright. Maybe she doesn’t banter with him in the same way nowadays, but she still makes him steamed tatoes, and now she’s been doing her best to try and be more open about the fact that she loves him instead of being all coy with it. She helps him tidy his hair sometimes, and they go shopping together, and — it’s DIFFERENT, but Ram doesn’t think that has to mean it’s BAD.

But of course, Subaru is in no condition to actually recognized the positives of their new relationship. As far as he’s concerned, Ram is just — refusing every overture he makes, and acting like their old dynamic never existed. She hates him now, doesn’t she?

…Now. Rubbing it in by making it so that Ram starts insulting JULIUS could actually be really fun. Ram treats Subaru like her beloved second little sibling and Julius like the dumb hound who keeps getting his head stuck in buckets. Everyone sees Subaru as the one who’s getting special treatment except for Subaru himself. Oops.

[sufferu]

This is BTZ!Julius’ impression of how their sparring sessions together began btw.

BTZ II: The Night Before

“Wake up!”

Julius was abruptly jerked out of his sleep to see Subaru standing over his bed, arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

“Wha…?” he muttered.

“Wake up already,” Subaru repeated impatiently. “You promised you’d train me, remember? So get up!”

“S…Subaru, what time is—” Julius’ bleary eyes finally managed to lock onto the clock in the guest room he was staying in. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“So? Are you scared? You a chicken?” Subaru kicked him in the abdomen with the flat of his foot. “Well I’m not scared of YOU, so get up already!”

Julius stared at him for a long moment.

It had taken him a long while to agree to Subaru’s request. As soon as he had come down from visiting Wilhelm, still recovering in his room from the battle, he had made a beeline for Julius and demanded his assistance in continuing his swordsmanship practice. With Wilhelm out of commission, after all, he was out of a mentor — and without a mentor, Subaru’s progress would take a hit.

Though of all the people he could have asked, Julius had no idea why it had to be HIM.

He had balked at the suggestion at first, hastily asking Subaru if he couldn’t pick someone else for the task, but Subaru responded with a scowl. He had meekly reminded his friend of their unfortunate first impression of one another at the training grounds, which had only occurred a week ago, but this only appeared to have made him more determined. Subaru’s argument had been loud and long, and after about three hours, Julius had finally been beaten into submission.

He had still been worried, however. Before he had fallen asleep, his mind had been full of frets about whether Subaru really understood what he had been asking for. How would the next morning go? What would he do if Subaru started to panic out on the field? Could he perhaps give him a sword and remain unarmed himself, if only for the first couple of lessons? Or would holding a practice sword in Julius’ presence feel terrible enough? Then he had finally fallen asleep, and his dreams had been full of uneasy images of Subaru’s beaten face, crying out for him to stop.

And now here Subaru was, scowling at him as he attempted to physically wrestle him out of his bed about five hours before dawn.

“…I need to sleep, Subaru,” Julius apologized after a moment, pushing himself back onto his mattress from where Subaru had managed to drag him halfway off. He did feel a little bad for putting it off, when Subaru was rearing to go like this, but he was just too tired. He pulled the covers back up. “We’ll train in the morning, alright? As soon as the sun comes up.”

Subaru sputtered. “Are you a coward?!” he challenged. “I don’t want to wait for your lazy ass!”

“My apologies for being lazy,” Julius murmured, eyes fluttering shut. “But I’m afraid I need just…a little longer…”

“Hey, hey! Don’t fall asleep when I’m talking to you!” Julius coughed as he felt Subaru begin to reign punched into his side from above, trying to jerk him back awake. “Stop it, you asshole! Get up and fight me alrea— WAUGH!”

Julius had turned back over, reached out, grabbed him, and pulled him under the covers.

“—Eh?” Subaru managed, suddenly sounding rather small.

“Just until sunrise,” Julius yawned, feeling sleep taking over once again. “Ia will wake us up then, alright? You can stay here, just…”

“Wha— You jerk!” Subaru kicked out, but even like this Julius was much stronger, and he didn’t even budge. “Let me go! This isn’t fair, asshole! When I get free I’m gonna—!”

Julius never heard the rest of that sentence, falling back into a blissful rest.

[sufferu]

The BTZ Rabbit Situation, summarized:

Subaru: These people all want to kill my pet. I can’t lose this rabbit. I know I’m not— I don’t have the right to have a pet, but I really don’t think I’ll be able to take it if I lose my rabbit, too…! I’ll guard it carefully, and stay up all night if I have to, just to make sure this sweet, sweet, innocent angel is safe—!

Otto: That rabbit just called me a faggot.

Crusch: That rabbit got into our storage and chewed on half our military rations, completely ruining them without even having the decency to finish any of it.

Ferris: That rabbit purposefully scratched up all of our best furniture. It completely igynored the cheaper stuff. I swear, it knyew what it was doing.

Julius: That rabbit angrily peed on the carpet while staring me directly in the eye.

Wilhelm: That rabbit knows that I fear it and is taking advantage of the situation.

Everyone, individually: Unfortunately, Subaru really likes this fucking rabbit for some reason, so now I have to cover up for it’s bad behavior so that the others don’t make him sad by throwing it out of the house.

(Joshua: I wonder if I can teach the rabbit to open doors…?)

[sufferu]

BTZ!Julius from Subaru’s perspective: Julius is better than me in every possible way and everyone around me knows it. He is stealing all my friends and getting everything I wanted. I keep trying to beat him in something — ANYTHING — and it never works. Why am I even alive.

BTZ!Subaru from Julius’ perspective: I’m pretty sure I’m Subaru’s new chewtoy. Between him kicking me awake at random hours of the night to dragging me into the strangest games in front of everyone — and of course, Wilhelm is there to force me into going along with whatever he wants. (Though really, it’s not like I wouldn’t do whatever Subaru wants me to, anyway…) It’s good to see that Ram and Emilia have been heeding my words and actually trying to repair their relationships with him: I know they were horrifically traumatized by that whole experience, but I also know that Subaru missed them both terribly and I hope they all get to be just as close as they were before. Or perhaps even closer than that.

[sufferu]

Behold, the REAL reason I decided to move up the Julimilia get-together in BTZ:

BTZ II: Emilia, Right?

____

“Lady Emilia is the one he’s dating, right?”

Garrett exhaled slowly, watching alongside Peter as Subaru and Julius sparred together in the courtyard. —Or rather, they had stopped sparring seriously a few minutes ago. Now they were more just roughhousing. “Yeah,” he said.

“Hm.” Peter was quiet for a moment. “I kinda thought…”

“Why, you little—!”

Julius had grabbed ahold of Subaru’s side, squeezing. Garrett could hear the ensuing laughter from where he was standing, clear as day.

“Yeah,” Garrett muttered. When he first saw Julius and Lady Emilia dancing together, he’d initially thought that Julius had cracked his skull open and decided that it was a great idea to start two-timing the Sword Demon’s new grandson. “Apparently, that was never actually the case.”

“Hm.” Peter nodded. “But — they sleep together sometimes.”

“Yep.”

“And they do…this…every single morning.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And Julius has been calling him ‘Subaru-chan’ for the past two years.”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

The two men were silent for a long moment, just — watching.

“I didn’t actually think that one was interested in women,” Boris confessed, finally speaking up. “I was certain he was gay.”

Garrett didn’t disagree. For the past…however many years it had been, most of the Order had quietly assumed the exact same thing — whether Julius himself realized it or not.

Finally, they watched as Lady Emilia emerged from the manor, calling out to them both with a smile on her face. They watched as Julius perked up first, and then dragged Subaru up behind him before going to meet her by the entrance. They couldn’t see either of the boys’ faces from this angle, but they could see Emilia’s: warm and smiling wide. They watched as Julius quickly pecked her on the cheek — before immediately turning to Subaru and hugging him HARD, spinning him around as he squawked and flailed.

“Lady Emilia IS the one he’s dating,” Peter clarified. “Right?”

“…I think so.”

Lady Emilia hid her amused smile behind her hand, watching as her new boyfriend playfully tormented her lost love. Her shaking shoulders made her giggles visible across the courtyard regardless.

Boris sighed. “Well, if SHE doesn’t care, then…”

“Not like it’s any of our business,” Garrett muttered.

With that, the three soldiers stood and watched as the Finest of Knights proceeded to be more physically affectionate with Subaru than with his own girlfriend.

[sufferu]

Post-Julimilia get-together BTZ!Anastasia is having the funniest fucking time, because. You know how Emilia values Subaru as number one in her heart regardless of Julius being her romantic partner? Julius is the same fucking way with Anastasia, the Lady he swore his sword to as a knight. Anastasia has no fucking idea how she ended up in this situation.

[sufferu]

Okay, so, here’s a list of what the characters in BTZ II are regularly doing. Like, just for reference:

Taking time out of their schedules to play with him literally every single morning. Like, Subaru sees it as training, but while Wilhelm, Ferris, and Julius aren’t skimping out on actually teaching him things they really do mainly see it as a way to get him to have a bit of fun.

They’re not the only ones, either. Other people don’t really make a habit on joining in on those lessons every day, but Ricardo keeps having to remind the entire Iron Fang to PLEASE not tell Subaru about any upcoming missions, because he keeps trying to sneak out with them and he’s kind of losing his mind a little. Or any other sensitive information that they keep fucking telling him because they want to impress this starry-eyes kid with tales of their awesome field missions.

The other mercenaries kind of want Subaru to sneak out with them. Just for fun. Ricardo will strangle them with his own two hands if he ever figures out who, exactly, keeps telling Subaru about their early-morning departures.

“AND STOP GIVING HIM IDEAS.”

Going out of their way to make his favorite meals whenever he seems sad. Kararagian food isn’t exactly cheap in Lugunica, either, and they’re not even waiting for him to ask for it. They just see that he might be getting homesick and silently decide to go ahead and make him something nice for dinner that night. Their budget can take the slight hit, it’s fine.

Painstakingly translating an entire series of trashy romance novels into I-script so that he’s got something actually fun that he can practice reading with. They’re not even good. Otto hates every minute of it but he does it anyway, and then sneaks them all into his room so that he doesn’t have to admit to it.

Putting up with that fucking rabbit.

On paper he can only keep the rabbit if Regulus remains on his best behavior, but in reality everyone keeps scrambling to cover up for all of his absolutely god-awful misdeeds because they don’t want to make Subaru sad. This ranges from rushing to find a replacement for the very expensive carpet he pissed on while staring Julius directly in the eye to coming up with some bogus reason as to why All Their Emergency Rations need to be replaced after that fucking rabbit chewed all of them up.

Allowing Subaru to keep a former Witch Cultist as a pet at all, frankly. That’s kind of insane behavior on their part.

Willingly sleeping with him when he’s sick, and then not letting anyone tease him about dragging them into his bed. Julius still gets shit for that one.

He’s not the only person who’s ended up acting as Subaru’s pillow for a period of time. Wilhelm thinks back on it fondly now, but at the time he had no idea wtf he was supposed to do and nearly had a heart attack.

Blatantly attempting to get Subaru to call them some variant of Big Brother/Sister. This applies to Garfiel, Mimi, Reinhard, and several others. It’s as pathetic as it sounds.

Getting Subaru souvenirs whenever they go on missions. Dolls, fancy clothes, fabric, fun-looking fairytales, new toys, sweets, all sorts of things.

Dragging Subaru out to operas, parties, theater performances, etc. He’s getting popular!

Like I can’t stress this enough: all these people ARE making an active effort to show Subaru genuine affection. The fact that it keeps going so catastrophically wrong is really only like…70% their fault.