(>1000 words, WoL/Thancred in an exes-becoming-friends way, post Stormblood)
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It rains, after everything. It’s the slow, determined kind of rain, and it follows us from Porta Praetoria to the Reach like an honor guard. I sit on a crate outside the barber, under the portico– a makeshift waiting room for the infirmary, mostly empty now– and watch it fall steadily for a while. It ought to be comforting, after… everything, and in a way I guess it is. I mostly just wish it didn’t smell like flowers.
"You could be in bed, you know," says Thancred.
Seven hells. Either I've become unused to him, or he really has gotten stealthier. I make a mental note to get him back later.
"I bet you say that to all the boys," I say.
"You got me, I’m patrolling. What is it they say about old habits?"
"Meaning you can't sleep either?" I edge over and pat the crate next to me. He gives another got-me shrug and swings his leg over.
I’m small enough, there’s room for both of us. Just. In the half second it takes him to balance I tuck myself into his arm. I know it’s forward, and a few months ago– hells, a week ago, a day– I wouldn’t have done it. But he doesn’t move away, so neither do I.
The rain falls. It smells like crushed flowers and distant smoke, ceruleum and ozone and old upturned earth, and a thin slash of copper through it like a blade.
“Orishan,” I hear Thancred saying, “where are you?”
“Zenos kept saying– how alike we are. Were.” I don’t think I could stop the words coming out of me, not for gil or glory. “How we were the same. When we fought, before he–”
“They say things like that,” says Thancred.
“You weren’t there.”
“No, but I’ve heard similar. He says ‘we’re not so different,’ he means ‘you’re no better than I am.’ He wants you to believe that’s true.”
I watch the rain. “Isn’t it?” I say. “Does he– did he– see something I don’t? Before he–” crushed flowers, the smell of copper– “He called me his friend.”
“And were you?”
I can’t answer. I didn’t think so, but I don’t know anymore. The rain falls.
“How well do you know me, would you say?” Thancred says eventually.
Probably better than most. Probably not as well as I should. “Where are you going with this?” I say.
“What did Lahabrea see that I didn’t?”
That startles me into looking up. “You’re nothing like him–”
“No?” says Thancred. “He convinced me otherwise, for long enough, anyway.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Of course not,” he says. “You’re here, and you’re still you.”
“Th- that’s not what I meant,” I manage. Suddenly I can feel my face flushing red. We’ve never talked about this, about Lahabrea, about the distance between us after everything, and here I am pitying myself. “I didn’t–”
“I know,” he says, and the hint of steel fades from his expression. “That isn’t quite what I meant either. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this.”
I can’t help laughing a little. “Join the guild,” I say.
“What I mean is,” he says, “let’s assume that I know you at least as well as you know me, all right? And if you can’t believe yourself, believe me. You’re nothing like Zenos either.”
“All right,” I say, collecting myself, “I’ll believe you.”
“Excellent. Now will you try to get some sleep?”
“I will if you will.”
“That’s a fair bargain.” He starts to stand up, to go. I catch his hand.
“That’s not what I meant,” I say again.
Thancred looks down at me with an eyebrow raised. “Me?” he says, gently, good-naturedly skeptical. “Really?”
And I ask myself, really? After everything?
“Just sleep, not anything else,” I answer. “And not as anything other than friends, not if you don’t want. But– I do need a friend, a real friend, and I’d like it if it was you.”
For a long moment he holds my gaze. “As a friend, then,” he says at last, and he leans down again, carefully- maybe cautiously- reaching to tilt my face toward his. I don't think I've seen him unsure before. But I don’t move away, and neither does he. He closes the distance.
One part of his reputation, at least, is well founded. He is a good kisser. I let myself get lost in it for a while.
“Bed,” he says, after another while, pulling away. He looks a little flushed himself. “Sleep. You don’t get out of it that easily.”
“Who made you commander,” I grumble, but I do take the hand he offers me and climb down from the crate.
He laughs- a real laugh. “My apologies, oh valiant hero. Lead on and I shall follow.”
I do lead the way, out from under the portico toward the tent I’ve been given, with Thancred following me silent as usual. It’s still raining, but I don’t mind. It’s comforting. And it doesn’t smell like anything other than rain.
