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I think I would've preferred a little less of some things.

[ The danger of too many years and too much idleness leading to grand ideas, maybe, or simply a chance to pull out things he'd kept concealed beneath a veneer. The same machinations that'd once brought every enemy retribution in... less terrible forms. Mostly.

Or maybe he's simply kidding himself considering what they've lived through, what decisions he's made, the ones he hadn't made but would have without a single doubt if they were needed and necessary. Nothing which he pities himself for - just a reality he knows about himself, but now brings another reconciliation of it.

The hand moving along his back is comforting; being folded further into Sylvain's embrace is steadying for thoughts which feel no less turbulent and ones Claude still feels like he can't grasp quite to form into something better just yet. That's not even accounting for what he isn't branching out towards yet when it comes to the three of them and what they'd meant to each other over the years. He lets himself close his eyes in thought for a second, then - ]

What are your thoughts? On yours, I mean.

[ He gives a soft hum, resting his chin against Claude's shoulder. ]

Surprise, mostly.

[ Which is... vague. And not very helpful. But he's still trying to figure out how to put it into words. ]

I wouldn't have guessed a future that looked like that, if you'd asked me. Then again, I've spent the majority of my life actively trying not to imagine what my future looked like. So I can't say i really had any expectations.

But it... it wasn't so bad. And I somehow managed to get everything I ever wanted. Things I never thought I could have.

[ There's a part of Claude that's disproportionately relieved to find that Sylvain was surprised by it all, as if all of those good things he'd embodied couldn't possibly have come from him no matter how many times the other man's been told that they do. It fits in with all he knows about Sylvain too well - though not even a split second later immense guilt hits him for being relieved. Of all the things to find comfort in while they navigate their way back from that supposed future, this isn't one of them. ]

It's the future we've been telling you you deserve, you know. [ Because on this much he feels confident in saying without having to ask Hilda that she'd agree wholeheartedly, even if he's almost equally certain Sylvain might scoff even as he moves to seal it by brushing a kiss to the other's neck. ] And something you should picture for yourself more, minus the whole becoming divine part unless that's also what you want, because you should have all of those things.

[ And a future at all so long as it's something of Sylvain's own choice - but those words enter his mind unbidden and Claude whisks them away. That conversation might be a tangent too far from this one when they're not through it first. ]

[ He does give a quiet little scoff at that, but it's more out of habit than anything else. Or maybe just at the idea of 'deserving' something like that. All those years... they'd only shown him that 'deserving' had nothing to do with it.

But he picks his head up again so he can meet Claude's gaze, his own expression uncommonly serious. He cups a hand against the other man's jaw, fingers sliding against the stubble there. ]

As long as it involves having you in it. That's really what I want.

[ He'd seen, in part, a portion of that future without that. It wasn't a time he wanted to repeat. ]

[ The scoff gets an immediate frown because it feels too close to reactions given whenever he and Hilda had said this before - more than once, many times over, and each time with it being as true as the last. It's filed away for when he goes to talk to Hilda to mention then since with so much else going on, this probably isn't the part his focus should be drawn to.

As Sylvain straightens up Claude's quick to wipe away the frown lest it be misinterpreted. All of that can be dwelled upon another time, though even if he hadn't been able to put the thought aside Sylvain's hand on his face and that serious expression are enough to catch him off-guard before the words which follow still him in place.

They're the more outright words he wanted to hear to go with what was said that day in Libertas, he thinks faintly, even if he couldn't have predicted how they'd end up here. His own answer doesn't take but a second to find. ]

I want that, too. [ But that isn't enough on its own, to merely confirm it. Not when there's more he should add as he unconsciously swallows while still studying Sylvain. ] Even before all of this, I already knew that and for some time. It's never once changed for me.

[ His lips quirk faintly and he drops his gaze again, still unusually hesitant. Even though something warm flushes through him at those words. At the meaning beneath them. ]

It wasn't... It wasn't something I could wrap my head around, before. Not without... Not without living through what we all did. That's not something... It's not something I ever expected to have for myself. I stopped even looking for anything like it a long time ago. I was... content, I guess, just being kept for as long as I could manage it. But it was never something that was going to be permanent. Ever. I fuck it up long before it ever has a chance to get there.

[ His expression falls slightly as he glances down, scuffing a foot. ] I nearly did again. I guess I was lucky that we had like a thousand years to deal with my fuckups.

Edited 2024-06-20 14:03 (UTC)

[ As Sylvain talks he listens carefully, even more so than usual; there's plenty of explanation in there. Some of it is what he could have guessed, other parts he'd inferred from what went unsaid but echoed through loudly in different actions pieced together over the months. Years, Claude reminds himself, because even excluding that supposed future they still had years between them to get to this.

It should have long before now, but suddenly the reason(s) Sylvain around circled and looped about specifics, why he'd always taken the out Claude had been careful to offer him each time instead and watched it happen without blame. How could he have expected anything else? What he doesn't care for is the shift in the other man's expression in what he's come to understand further still, and he traces a touch across Sylvain's cheek. ]

You can't shoulder that by yourself when you weren't the only one responsible.

[ Though even as he says the words, Claude knows it won't keep Sylvain from trying to nonetheless - all that time together's taught him there's no preventing it no matter what he might try. Once again, his thoughts can't and won't stop there. ]

Everyone makes mistakes on top of that. Though if you happen to get some sort of power in the future, I'd rather be told about it than find out another way. [ On this there's no need to elaborate when they know exactly what's being referred to, and Claude doesn't feel the need to go over it... not quite again, given the years didn't happen, but it's more than enough to leave it there. He moves the hand on the other man's face to tilt his chin up instead, but whether Sylvain looks up at him or not he'll continue. ] I've always meant what I've told you, Sylvain. I care about you for who you are. All of it, even the parts you think overwhelm everything else that's so good about you.

[ But that's still avoiding what he's not saying, isn't it? Sentimental and genuine as the words are, they skim over and fall well short of the actual feelings he knows he has. That he's had for some time now but held onto since it's a tip of the scales he can't take back, even if it's true. Holding back's earned him nothing but uncertainty and caused it for Sylvain, too, and so he adds, ] Or I should say it's a lot more than just 'care' for what I feel.

[ He lets his gaze be drawn back up to meet Claude’s own, and the other man will likely see what’s written there, even if the redhead doesn’t give it voice. That it had been his fault. His secrets, that had driven a wedge between all of them that had taken all of a century to begin to earn his forgiveness for. And even then… he’d never quite forgiven himself.

And he still has trouble accepting those words. Not that he doesn’t believe Claude means them - at least their 800 years together had proven their truth in a way not even he could argue. But he was still caught between being the person who had trusted that… and the person who trusted nothing.

His gaze drops again, struggling with how he should respond. The instinctive urge to distract, to shy away from anything too real - and urge he’d outgrown in the future but one that had somehow returned to the past all the same. He would have preferred to leave it behind entirely, if he’s honest. Licking his lips, he takes a deep - if shuddering - breath, and meets Claude’s gaze once more.

He didn’t want to be a coward about this anymore. That had gotten him nowhere good. So it was time to tell Claude the truth. Even if it did shine a distinctly unflattering light on him. ]

It’s more for me, too. So much so that I… I still struggle to know what to do with it. Before coming here… back in Fodlan, the longest relationship I’d ever been in… it lasted all of eight days. I didn’t do those, I didn’t do connections, or emotions - those were too dangerous to allow, especially with the kind of person who most often pursued me. Attachments were too dangerous to risk, which is why most people I dallied with only lasted for a night or two, at best.

But you were the one that changed that. You, and Hilda, and Jesper. But that didn’t mean I knew what I was doing. At all. For all my experience, in that… I knew next to nothing. And when I actually found myself wanting more… There was nothing more terrifying. Because wanting more inevitably ended up in disappointment for everyone involved and I was dreading the day I saw that in your face. Or worse, watching time handle that for me and waiting for your gaze to start to drift elsewhere, returning less and less.

I tried to brace for it, but the longer I braced, the more I knew it was going to hurt. So many times I argued with myself, that the smart move was to rip the bandage off myself before I got any deeper. But I was already too deep and I… I couldn’t do it. It’s why… why I had to withdraw for so long, after… [ He only barely brushes over that time, the dark depths of it. Those years he had barely hung on, and even then, only because he’d had no other option. His lips quirk and then drop downward. ] I guess I hoped that maybe if I was invisible for long enough I really would fade away finally, and it would stop hurting.

So trust me when I say I’m done with secrets. I’m done with… with hiding. Or I want to be. It’s harder to keep that conviction when I feel that worry that I’ll end up right back in the same place again, with some other mistake I don’t anticipate coming. Because I want this. More than anything I’ve ever let myself want before. Even if that’s still terrifying in its own way.

It’s not just ‘care’, Claude. It hasn’t been, not for a while - even before the Singularity gave us that future together. I can’t regret it, because eventually… it gave me everything I never allowed myself to even consider, let alone want. But I want it now. I want it again.

[ Though there are parts of what's said that he'd sensed again along with what came before, there's much about Sylvain's logic from it all he could have never parsed together in this life or the next. Logic which makes an unfortunate amount of sense from all that life had taught the other man and how those cycles repeated whether through his own actions or someone else's, much as Claude doesn't want to admit it.

But he has to, because otherwise he'd be denying the same wasn't true for himself: that an early lifetime of hurt taught him to wall himself away, to never let anyone close, to never risk being wounded again because it would never be worth it. That even though it'd cost him genuine connections or merely the chance for them he'd convinced himself it was for the better - had nearly lost Hilda through building back all the guards she'd made her way through right back into place and in the end, it'd spared him no pain but only made the agony worse.

There is a familiar trajectory Claude recognized he'd placed himself on yet again without meaning to in how something he hadn't thought would be serious at the start became everything. And, as life also taught him slowly but surely and a century had done the same, there are things worth not keeping to himself any longer. For himself, for Sylvain, for Hilda. For all of them, and it can start here by picking up those affirmations that'd been placed before him now which answer so much. ]

Then let me be much clearer. [ That much Claude can do to start as he places both hands on that cherished face now to hold Sylvain's gaze with a smile but none of the teasing that might've been there at any other time to make sure there's no risk any of this is misconstrued as being something else. ] That's what I want, too. You aren't alone in not knowing what to do with something that means the world to you and not knowing how to move forward with it from there. I think last summer's proof enough of that, though the less said about it the better since I'm not trying to relive that for any of us.

There are a lot of things I've held back from because I also didn't want to be hurt, but that comes with a cost I no longer want to pay. I don't want you to pay it either, and I also don't want that for Hilda. The future... or rather, that version of the future wasn't perfect and I don't like who I became, but what I would never change is what the three of us had. I want it here, too, and I want all the mistakes that come with it. We'll make them because none of us are perfect, but we'll make them knowing we'll be better for them in the end, won't we?

And before you ask me how I know that for certain, it's because I love you, Sylvain. For who you are now, for you might be in the future, and for who you were because I care about you for all of it. What you wanted from the future - you have it here. Even if it frightens you, even if you don't know what to do with it, I'll be there with you while we figure it out together.

[ He looks a little surprised when Claude cups his face in warm, calloused palms, but he can't help but lean into the touch all the same. It's a move so achingly familiar now that he feels his throat tighten up once more with emotions. His own hands come up to clasp overtop them, needing the feel of Claude's hands against his own to ground him in the moment.

Because his words are both the best and most terrifying things Claude could say to him. ]

I could do with a little less of those mistakes, to be honest. [ It's said lightly, a momentary deflection, if only because those words had rocked him to the core and his mind is scrambling to keep up. But he turns serious again almost immediately. ]

I love you, too.

[ The words come easier than he expects, for someone who's spent two years struggling to give them shape and form. Now, when they have actual meaning behind them and were no longer the empty flatteries and pretty charm offered to all those who vied for his attention. They'd come easy once, but after things had grown serious with Claude, with Hilda, with Jesper, he'd felt like a hypocrite to even think them. What right did he have to utter them now, when he's said them so often and so flippantly without meaning them a single time?

He meant them now. More than any statement he'd ever made. And they're weighty with that meaning, his voice hushed and husky, a faint flush rising up the back of his neck. ]

More than I ever thought I could feel for anyone, if I'm honest. Part of what makes it feel so scary.

[ Because it's handing someone else the weapon that could destroy him utterly. The key to all his carefully guarded locks. ]

[ When Sylvain first speaks, Claude doesn't respond. On this he's content to wait rather than to react and even if he doesn't know what he's waiting for. It might be that this is all that's said, after all. A possibility he's accounted for in all those plans of not quite infinite outcomes - of all the times he'd tried (without much luck) to pry into something beyond the surface of what's been said before without much success. But he believes - has to, when there's so much said and unsaid, when he's learned Sylvain's many masks almost as well as his own. Like the one now only there for a second before he watches it disappear.

And what it leaves behind in its place is something as treasured as the person in front of him. Though Claude thought he'd been at peace before, with it brings a balm he couldn't have imagined. The smile on his face is even brighter than he could guess as he looks up at Sylvain and runs a thumb along his cheek, unwilling to move the familiar hands settled on his and more so when those flickers of anxiety being admitted follow. ]

I know.

[ And he does, more than anything, because part of the relief in finally saying something held back for far too long is, surprisingly, being known with it. For all the obfuscation and avoiding of being the first to say anything about what he realized with so much certainty months ago, there's nothing but peace brought with it now. The realist in him forever looking at all angles of everything knows this is another step forward and there's no guarantees of anything.

Of course there wouldn't be if he tried this on his own like he'd been doing without much avail. But that's no longer the case considering this isn't about just him any longer and hasn't been for a long time, he thinks, and then hums. ]

And it is for me, too, so you aren't alone in that either. But I think it might be worth being afraid together while we figure it out, don't you?

Edited 2024-07-08 18:01 (UTC)

Honestly? I'm so tired of being afraid of it.

[ His lips quirk faintly, a rueful hint of a smile as he closes his eyes and leans into the warm touch of Claude's hands on his skin. He exhales, soft and shaky, even if something in him is already relaxing at Claude's reaction. One more hint that there'd still been far too much fear lingering despite what he thought he knew. ]

It feels silly. After everything, that it should still be so frightening. But my brain is still trying to figure out if any of it was real. If maybe I just made up the whole thing up out of wishful thinking.

[ he doesn't even try to disguise the fact that what they'd found, what they'd had, had been everything he could have - would have - wished for. ]

If you mean what we just went through, I think that we remember the same things probably takes away from it being something you imagined.

[ Probably. As he's saying it, it does occur to Claude he hadn't actually confirmed with Sylvain beyond the few general things they've spoken of and there could be other things that don't match up. Like an even worse version of the timeline disaster they're already familiar with from Fodlan - and this would be worse, he thinks, than even all of that.

But they're here, dealing with something neither of them could have predicted like everything else that's come their way. What had come before it, those truths he'd known for himself - those never once wavered within that future or this one. Claude takes a moment to study Sylvain's face purely for the familiarity of it rather than choosing words carefully. A relief to no longer do that, he realizes. ]

Maybe it wasn't time we've lived like the rest of it, but it was still real. What I felt for you then - what I feel for you never wavered. If anything, I'd say it's only stronger.

Yeah, well, wrapping my head around some of what I became and what I could do there, when it all felt so... normal? in the moment? It's still a little bit much here on the other side of it.

[ He confesses this with a hint of a sheepish smile. Although he suspects Claude will know what he means. Even if Claude's opinion of who and what he'd been in that strange time hadn't been the same as Sylvain's.

His thumbs brush against the back of Claude's hands as he bumps their foreheads together, unwilling to pull away. ]

But this part of it? Yeah, it felt real. It felt perfect. Maybe that's why I keep questioning myself. [ he had a hard time believing in anything that seemed to perfect. ]

[ Claude hums in partial agreement to - some of it, most of it, nothing he wants to particularly pin down right then. Being dragged to the Singularity, living entire other lives, and now finding themselves back in Cadens at home like nothing shifted would be a lot on any day. Adding this into it certainly doesn't lessen the complication of everything.

Now that the words are said, now that the sentiment no longer has to be contained for fear of fully frightening Sylvain away, the love he feels for Sylvain feels as immutable as it had when it'd been something only whispered through his mind. Claude closes his eyes for a moment when Sylvain leans his forehead to his own and focuses on that and the hands over his own as the same calm and steadying presence as always. As grounding as ever as he opens his eyes again. ]

And if I told you there's nothing left to question on this?

[ On this, on them - of course it won't actually be that simple. They're too much alike to not stop turning something over and over no matter what they're told. Even if that future left him all the more certain of what he should have done and said long before now, there's still room for more. Perhaps making that much clearer will make room for the rest. ]

Then I'd have to say you're being particularly uncreative at the moment in thinking up at least a dozen new things we're both probably going to obsess over and question in the near future.

[ His voice holds a note of wry humor as he chuckles, staying pressed close. Soaking up the contact.

And despite his words? That simple statement of fact is more reassuring that Claude might realize. Even if neither of them will ever stop questioning something important to them while they still draw breath. ]

You know what I mean.

[ Sylvain can see him do the actual fond eyeroll with how they're standing pressing together, but Claude doubles down on it by placing it into his voice anyway. There's no denying the truth in what's said since they will still find too much to wonder about - Claude will find any number of things to puzzle over as much as he'd done at the seemingly sudden appearance of the earring.

Something which feels almost silly now in retrospect for how opaque it'd seemed when it should've been only transparent, he's come to realize. But they'll find other small ways to both offer and find reassurance, he's certain as he tips his head up to kiss Sylvain. Slowly and without rush, as if to seal what's both been said and unsaid in it. Another type of promises beyond the ones made in the past and now the present, and for what'll come in the future no matter which path that takes them down. ]

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