Cinda Williams China really wrote both almost the entire heir chronicle series and gave me so many wonderful characters and yet, I can only focus on Fitch and Ellen
I love how we never actually see Fitch interacting with any of his siblings in The Warrior Heir and yet he still somehow manages to be such an Oldest Child.
"Okay, clearly neither of you know how to lie to adults on the spot, so we're gonna let me handle this one."
"Jack, you good? You're looking kinda... yeah, no. Nope. You're not good. Go take a breather, Will and I can take over digging for a while. Drink some water."
"Dude, we just watched two grown men try to SET YOU ON FIRE less than an hour ago, you are out of your mind if you think I'm leaving you here alone in the middle of nowhere and you can tell your aunt I said that."
"Look, you're my friend and I support your choices so I've been trying to say this gently but your ex didn't deserve you to begin with and if you take her back I am going to LOSE IT. There's only so much Leesha Middleton I'm willing to put up with in two years."
"I have access to everyone's grades because it's 2006 and the faculty would rather let an unpaid sixteen year old handle the new online aspects than learn how the internet works. Do you want me to flunk the guy who keeps trying to beat you up? I can and will do that."
"Publicly pouring an entire hot fudge sundae on someone is morally correct if that person fucked with you first and Ellen Stephenson is a goddamn role model."
"Will- Will. Will, calm down, lemme talk to her, okay? Cool. Linda, for the last time what the fuck going on with our best friend and if you say 'Nothing, he's fine', so help me GOD-"
"Why are these adults so on board with you being a child soldier? No, seriously, you can't even vote yet-"
Notes: Minor The Sorcerer Heir spoilers below the cut. THIS SHIP WAS OUT OF NOWHERE AND HELLA CUTE AND DEMANDED FIC
Leesha supposes it might be weird, but she watches Fitch anyway as he leans closer to his laptop screen, the light reflecting strangely on his pale face. He’s too absorbed in his work to pay attention to her paying attention. She thinks that, once, a long time ago and yet all too recent, she would have found a way to make him pay attention to her.
Then again, once and yet all too recently, there’s no way this side of Hell that Alicia Middleton would have started dating an Anaweir.
Not that they were dating.
She wasn’t really sure what they were.
Maybe they had been dating all this time, and she was just too stupid to realize it.
The sound of his fingers clicking along the keys fills the air.
It’s been two months since he first kissed her, since he stupidly, foolishly, risked his life for her. But they haven’t defined themselves.
She supposes she’s worried about doing that. His fingers race over the keyboard, the tip of his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth in that totally cute Harmon Fitch way. Ugh, she’s getting sappy about his concentration habits.
“Is there something on my face?”
His question takes her by surprise, and despite herself, she feels a familiar flush creeping up her neck. “Your face is fine, Harvard.”
Fitch looks up at her now, platinum hair catching the light. He’s not magic, but damn if he doesn’t look it right now. “You’re going to have to call me Cambridge here soon.”
She arches a perfectly plucked eyebrow at him, lips tugging into an amused smirk. “Are you that confident you’re going to get in there?”
“Hey, I got a scholarship to Harvard, didn’t I?”
He did. And she has no doubts that he’s going to get into Cambridge, too, and he’s going to - He’ll -
“I’m not going to be gone forever,” Fitch tells her as he goes back to his work.
Her nose wrinkles. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face said it.” The clacking of keys being hit with force fills the air again. “You get that worried pinch in the corner of your mouth whenever people tell you they’re leaving Trinity.”
“I do not!”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Shut your mouth, Harvard, before I set you on fire.”
It’s the most empty threat that Leesha has ever issued in her life, and they both know it.
“I’m going to come back.”
“I don’t care what you do, Fitch, it’s your life.”
She wants him to go. This is a great opportunity for him, and he’s so smart, and he has a chance to go out into the world, and she can watch his siblings. She’s got the time, when she’s not with the Council, and she’s definitely got more than enough money to take care of them and his mother.
Her lips purse as she crosses her arms over her chest and glares at the carpet in his bedroom. It’s faded, past its prime, in need of a quick death, and yet so hopelessly Fitch.
He’s watching her again now from his seat at the desk, so she flops back on the bed instead, her legs dangling off the edge. She stares at the cracked ceiling. Much better.
There’s a long stretch of silence. And then movement, shuffling along the shabby carpet. His bed dips as he crawls onto it next to her. She’s waiting for him to kiss her when he flops down next to her, an inch between them. Enough to give her space, but also close enough to feel the warmth of his body.
“I’m not upset about you leaving,” Leesha finally says.
“You kind of are. You only get this bitchy when something doesn’t go your way, and then you do this weird thing where your newly grown conscience makes you feel guilty for things you can’t control. You think I’m going to go away, and without your protection, something will happen,” Fitch tells her, voice soft. Like he’s treading carefully.
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable. You are, Fitch.”
“But I’m Anaweir.”
A heaviness lays in her chest. “Jason was a wizard.”
Silence again, this one like a wet cloth pressed tightly into her face. She shouldn’t have said that. She didn’t mean to say that. Two months of making out with Fitch doesn’t give him the right to be privy to her thoughts, to what hurts her the most.
And yet, here she is, baring it for him. Bringing Jason’s name in the space between, and part of her kind of hopes that it’ll push Fitch away.
He reaches out, lacing his fingers with hers. They’re surprisingly rougher than she always thought they would be, even after all this time of holding his hand. Warm, though. Heavy, like they can keep her down. She squeezes his hand.
When she turns her head, her cheek pressing into his blanket, she finds him watching her still.
“Are you scared to lose me like you lost Jason?” Fitch asks her.
She blinks back the sudden burn of tears in her eyes. “I don’t know. Yes.” A sigh. “Yes.”
“So, what you’re trying to tell me is that Alicia Middleton really likes an Anaweir?” He laughs. “You can’t make things like that up in this world.”
“This is serious, Fitch.”
He scoots in closer until his nose brushes against hers, until his face fills her whole vision and distorts it. “I know. But I can’t help but feel a little excited that my girlfriend cares that much.”
“Girl - Wait.” Leesha pulls her head back so that Fitch is no longer a blob in her vision. “Whoa, we never talked about that.”
“I was kind of waiting for you to - Not get over Jason. I would never ask you to do that,” he tells her, and he’s definitely serious now. His eyes darken, his jaw sets. Her stomach flutters a bit, like it usually does whenever she sees him these days. “But for you to realize you could like someone else again.”
Jason is a dark stain on her soul, a brightness she thought she could have before realizing she was wrong. Maybe the definition of her and Fitch hadn’t been because it wasn’t being said, but because she couldn’t allow herself to admit it. That if she felt something for anyone else, it would be a disservice to her first love. That Jason would be dishonored in some way.
“You’re an idiot, Harmon Fitch,” Leesha growls before she rolls over on top of him, kissing him hard enough to steal his breath, leaving him flushed.
“I think you’re the idiot, Leesha Middleton.” His hands go to her waist, one sliding along the length of her back. “I want to hear you say it before you kiss me again. I might lose any rational thought by then.”
She contemplates it, kissing him again, letting him taste her power so that they don’t have to have this conversation. “Will you”--her lips brush the tip of his nose--“be my”--the corner of his mouth that’s parted and waiting for her--“boyfriend?”
“Why,” he laughs, rolling them over so that she’s pressed under him. “I never thought you’d ask. Do I get a ring, too?”
She kisses him again and rolls so that she’s on top. “Don’t push it.”
