Man, taking a break from posting for SIRB was absolutely the right call, I feel so much better taking my time to write
Still on hiatus, but if you don't mind spoilers, and would like some Dadyero angst....
Below the cut :)
Samhain reached, grabbing his brother's shoulder - the first touch they'd shared in many years "You are right. I would be no different, if it were Yuletide. Because he is my son, and I love him more than anything on this earth"
Fiyero seems to know where his brother is going with this, and swallows almost nervously.
"And you would- are - prioritizing Dorothy, because you feel the same about her" Samhain paraphrases himself "Because she is your daughter, and you love her more than anything else on this earth"
It sounded so simple, when Samhain said it. Like it was something he'd pretended wasn't real. He loved her, of course he loved her. She was so easy to love. But… as a daughter? Oh, that had been what he'd pretended didn't exist piratically since Shiz. Even then he'd been called out, teased, chastised, but he'd stood firm. He wasn't her father because she'd had one, and he'd died, and his death left such a painful mark on the girl. How dare he even pretend to fill up that space?
He told himself so often that he loved her, but it was like an uncle, or an older cousin, or anything else platonic that wasn't that paternal, deep affection that clawed its way past his uncaring facade and clenched his heart like a vice. With Elphaba, it was different. She was his great love, his lover, his wife. But Dorothy… She had been the real beginning of the end for the uncaring prince mask, she'd tossed it aside and he'd never been able to wear it quite the same.
And then she'd come back, and then she'd gone and he'd sworn it was for good.
And then she'd come back again, hurting and crying because she was relieved to see him after being so thoroughly betrayed by people that were supposed to love her more than he did. Elphaba called him out about it as she always did, and now, here he was, in front of his brother, a father himself with a son he would lay down his life for, telling him that they were alike. For the first time in their lives, they had something in common.
And Fiyero couldn't even bring himself to say anything about it. Not an affirmative, not a denial. Nothing.
All he could think about was that little girl from the star called Kansas was in danger, under the hand of a power he had no knowledge of. Not just any little girl from the star called Kansas - his little girl from the star called Kansas. He hoped, somewhere, Brendon Gale wasn't upset with him about all this.
