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therenlover · 3 years

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Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk (A Young Revolutionary!Zemo x Non-Binary Reader Oneshot)

(a/n: so, in honor of barricade day, have this young revolutionary!Zemo fic, which is basically just canon Enjoltaire dynamics but with a Zemo/reader twist on it, because that dynamic is literally my whole heart. Consider this a weird twisted Les Mis au if you want to, but you don’t need to know the book or musical to enjoy this, if it can be enjoyed...)

Synopsis: Helmut recalls the story of how he came to be the ruthless man he is and, more specifically, how he came into possession of his strange purple mask.

Tags: Canon Compliant, Angst, Young!Zemo, Non-Binary!Reader, Death, Enemies to Friends With Benefits to Lovers????, Implied Sexual Content, Friendship, Pining, Revolution, Speedrunning A Slow Burn

Rating: M (+16)

Warnings: Major Character Death, Implied Sexual Content, Gun Violence, Drinking, Minor Homophobia/Transphobia (it’s one sentence near the end and it’s very vague coming from Heinrich), Swearing, Survivor’s Guilt, Really Just Death Everywhere

Word Count: 10,200~

“What’s with the mask?”

The question was innocent enough.

Sam posed it while lounging on the expensive couch of Zemo’s Riga apartment, head tilted back and eyes closed in silent contemplation.

Bucky remained silent as Zemo glanced over from his place at the counter. Outside, the sun was long gone, giving way to a stunning moonrise over the city that poured through the stained glass windows and lit up the night with its glow. It was quiet, much quieter than things usually were between the trio. Still, things being quiet didn’t mean they weren’t tense.

Clenching his teeth, he took in a long breath through his nose. “I am unsure what you mean by that, Sam,”

“The mask,” Sam pushed, “you know, the one you wore during the fight in Madripoor. What’s the deal with that?”

“Ah yes. That mask,” As if on cue, Zemo took a long swig from his glass. It burned all the way down. He didn’t speak again, though, instead choosing to let his gaze fall on the elaborate tilework above his countertops, tracing the patterns with his eyes. Anything to divert himself from the thoughts that rushed back into his mind at the thought of the knit piece of cloth that sat firmly in his inner coat pocket.

Unfortunately for him, Sam wasn’t satisfied with letting the topic fizzle out. “Come on man,” he griped, rubbing a hand over his face, “we got you out of prison, so you owe us one. In fact, you owe us a lot. So, spill. What the hell is the deal with it? Were you Sokovian batman or something?”

That urged a dry laugh from the baron’s lips as he set his crystal glass on the counter with a little more force than was necessary. “Are you always so interested in your captives’ personal lives?”

“Usually,” Bucky chimed in dryly.

“I suppose I’m outnumbered,” Zemo sighed. The bile rising in his throat was easy enough to force down as he turned himself out on his stool to face the room. It wasn’t the right time for true weakness, not yet, but he couldn’t deny that painting himself in a desirable light and offering the pair honesty might give him the upper hand. So, he folded.

Slowly he retrieved the purple mask from his coat and turned it over in his hands. It still fit after all the years it had sat gathering dust in his storage unit which was a blessing in its own right. It still served its original purpose too. That mask had seen horrors beyond imagination, had been washed clean of blood more times than could be counted. Did it hold the memories of the things it had seen within its fabrics as Zemo did in his mind? Or was it as naive as he had been at the time of its creation? He let out a bitter laugh. That was a question they would have asked him.

As he exchanged his literal mask for one entirely emotional, Zemo leaned back on his stool and managed a smile. “How educated are you on Sokovian politics?”

Sam shut his eyes again, letting his head lol back once more. “I went to public school, so I don’t think I even knew Sokovia existed until it didn’t,”

“I know enough,” Bucky added. From his place leaning against the way, ever vigilant and ready to jump into an imagined battle, he turned to face Zemo and crossed his arms. “Hydra had fingers in the government there, more so than other places. There was a big power struggle in the ’90s when the king died, right? Because people wanted democracy, and they didn’t want the little shithead prince to take over,”

“Yes,” Zemo nodded, “My cousin Emil. I’m glad you’re familiar,”

A spluttered laugh escaped Sam’s lips as he shot up. “I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this stuff anymore, but damn,”

“He and I weren’t close,” Zemo waved his hand dismissively, and yet there was a strange sadness in his eyes. It wasn’t for his cousin, though. Not in the least. “But James was correct, there were riots in the streets when the king died. They were shut down quickly by the National Guard, though, who had more than a little help from Hydra’s favorite supersoldiers once they realized just how much power the citizens held. What street were you assigned to, James?”

Bucky sucked in his cheeks, eyes falling to the floor, but before Sam could butt in and defend him he had muttered an answer. “I cleared the barricade at 18th Avenue, the second largest. Those kids fought valiantly,”

Zemo hummed lowly. “And so they did,”

“Okay, what does any of this have to do with your stupid purple mask?” Sam exclaimed.

He was sitting up fully now, face turned to where Zemo had stood from his stool and begun to round the bar. His mask still sat in a small ball on the marble. It seemed to be a member of the conversation all its own, silent and sure, drawing all three men together as it weaved a story from the past into the present with its very presence.

“That mask served me well and hid my identity when I stood against the very men that were serving my family,” Zemo muttered, letting his fingers brush the fabric gently. The names of the lost sat heavy on his very soul even if they would never pass from his lips.

Hans, Andrei, Ivan, Vladimir, Anton, Lazlo, Nicholas, little Sebastian…

Y/N.

“I was young then, too young for my own good,” he said softly, “naive and hopeful and convinced that the world was able to change for the better if I simply willed it to be… so when I discovered the connection between my family and Hydra I packed up my things, emptied my bank account, and moved into a tiny apartment with another like-minded friend, Hans Perlitch,” a soft laugh escaped him, genuine and youthful and all too honest, “We preached to the hungry masses of a world free from the thumb of the elite and all the while we would return home to a heated apartment and a stocked pantry. Still, we were well-liked and gathered a bit of a following. That was when everything changed, the early fall of 1997…”

------------

“You know, for someone who claims to be as smart as you say you are, you’re quite a fool,”

The voice came from the back of the room, smoke still hanging thick in the air from the cigarettes shared by the masses of students that had packed the tiny repurposed stockroom of the bar while Helmut had given his speech for the week.

He didn’t give the interloper the dignity of his full attention as he gathered a few of his scattered notes from the table that served as his soapbox. Still, he was in a generally good mood. Almost double the usual students had shown up for the meeting and a few had even chimed in to ask questions, so he took a deep breath and resigned himself to the fact that rooting out one ignorant opposer now would mean less work in the long run. “I’ve never claimed to be smart, so I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to,”

A scoff came from the back of the room, but the person made no effort to come closer. “You can change your last name and present yourself as a member of the public all you want, but someday someone is gonna recognize that pretty face of yours, and your whole revolution is going to come crumbling to the ground,”

Now that was enough to make him pause.

“How did you-”

“How could I not?”

It was sardonic, biting and harsh in the worst of ways. Everything about the tone made Helmut’s blood boil beneath his skin. He was not one who enjoyed being threatened or outdone. Still, the play was out of his hands now, should this strange intruder choose to ruin him.

Biting his tongue, he finally turned to face them. “You have my attention, now what do you want?”

Across the room, the stranger remained unphased. They were relatively unremarkable, a bottle of cheap beer held firmly in their grip as they toasted to nothing and drank down the remaining dregs. With a smile and a chuckle, they propped their feet up on the small, round table before them. Something about that sight lit a fire in Helmut’s chest. He didn’t know who they were, or why he was there, but he was certain that he despised them already.

“I don’t want anything,” They replied, and with a certain grandness reserved for a gamin mocking the bourgeoisie, they flourished with their hands, letting their booted feet drop to the ground as they stood and bowed. “I’m just saying that if you’re trying to convince people that you’re not the missing baron while you’re pretending to be all impoverished and rallying us commoners, you might want to change more than your last name and your fashion sense,”

Helmut gritted his teeth. “So what? Did you come here just to rub my face in it, or are you going to help me make a change?”

That elicited a small snort from the stranger, but they did take the opportunity to traipse up to meet him at his table, leaning on the edge as they gazed up at him with a strange look in their eyes that he couldn’t quite identify. Their face was soft upon closer examination, alive and bright with a merriment that only came from intoxication. It made Helmut sneer involuntarily.

Licking their lips, they murmured, “Make a change? Is that what you think you’re doing?” and as they let a giggle escape their parted lips Helmut lost it.

He gasped them firmly by the front of their baggy sweater and dragged them in close. “At least I’m trying! What are you doing about it? Extorting the only person who might be able to actually make a change in this shithole of a country? That’s so much more helpful!”

Their faces were inches apart as Helmut spat his words like venom and yet the stranger never stopped smiling. It was almost dopey, the grin that made its way across their lips. Helmut couldn’t stand it.

“You know, baron,” they purred, setting down their empty bottle on the table beside them, “I like you. I might just stick around here for a little while, see what else about your little plan I can pick apart,”

Never in his life had Helmut been less thrilled for someone to join his cause.

“Why are you here anyway,” he groaned, releasing their shirt, “don’t you have something better to do with your Friday night than bother me?” and, as an extra jab, he added, “besides drinking yourself to death, of course,”

The jab didn’t land, though.

Taking it all in stride, the stranger simply grinned as if they too knew how badly they stank of cheap alcohol and was thrilled that someone had noticed. “Anton invited me. He said I should get out more, make some friends. It’s just a coincidence that I happened to recognize you while writing down an itemized list of all the things you got wrong while you grandstanded,” There was a pride in their words, a giddy energy burbling just beneath the surface of their skin, and suddenly it all made sense.

Anton was newer to their group, a poet and a free thinker, something hard to find in the slums of Novi Grad. Still, he lightened the impromptu meetings up with his smile and would often spend the hour scrawling away fervently in his notebook as he immortalized each and every word that was said “for posterity”. Helmut was sure that only someone as accepting as Anton would ever choose to spend their time with someone quite as insufferable as the person before him. Suddenly, and uncomfortably, he became aware that he didn’t even know their name.

Swallowing down a nasty barb, Helmut sighed and offered up his hand, which the stranger took after a moment of pause. “And you are?”

“Y/N,” They replied.

“Well, Y/N,” he spat their name from his mouth like a cherry pit, “I suppose I’ll have to get used to having a man like you-”

“Don’t call me that,”

Helmut cocked his head to the side. “Pardon?”

“Don’t call me a man,” Y/N replied, “and before you ask I don’t want to be called a woman either. I’m just… I’m just Y/N, at least for now I am, it’s not like I’d give a rich brat like you my legal name while we’re mixed up in all this illegal, halfway-treasonous nonsense you insist on spouting. Maybe next week I’ll be something completely different and new. Until I tell you otherwise, though, I’m just Y/N, your highness,”

“Do I dare dream that that means you might learn to respect my ideas?” Helmut sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face and choosing to ignore the sarcastic address in the hopes of letting such things fizzle and die without encouragement. Unfortunately, the goofy grin he got in return told him that was wishful thinking.

Suddenly, the door opened and Helmut jumped away from his newest tentative ally (if you could call them that) to find Hans standing in the doorway. At his side was Andrei, the third in command of their little posse and final member of the leading triumvirate. They seemed shocked at his lateness and he was quick to try to gather himself up lest they see him as undone as he had found himself while facing the smallest taste of Y/N’s antagonistic nature.

What had he even been doing when they interrupted him? It took him a moment to even gather himself together enough to remember. Scanning the room, his eyes fell on the papers

Oh yes, he had been gathering up his notes…

He was quick to finish the task as Y/N sauntered away towards the door, preparing to push past the two men who stood beyond it.

“You’re Anton’s friend, right?” Hans asked, back stiff. When Y/N nodded he did little more than give a noncommittal noise from the back of his throat. He had always been good with making things impersonal as he crunched the numbers and calculated probabilities. That was why Helmut liked him so much.

Andrei, on the other hand, provided a needed warmth to their leadership in his outreach.

He smiled warmly at Y/N and clapped a hand on their shoulder. “I hope we’ll be seeing more of you around,”

Y/N was quick to offer one of their signature grins before winking back at Helmut in a way that made his stomach turn. “Oh, you’ll be seeing plenty of me from now on,”

“We’re glad to have you,” Andrei replied as they passed.

Before they fully left, though, they turned one last time to shoot Helmut a final smile. “Till next Friday, fearless leader,”

Then, Y/N was gone, lost in the crowd of revelers beyond the small, smokey storeroom and, more importantly, beyond where Helmut’s eyes could follow. Somehow, despite everything, he missed having them there. He quickly chalked the feeling up to wanting to keep a close eye on people with the ability to thwart his best-laid plans and left it at that. Besides, he had no room in his heart for anything besides the betterment of Sokovia.

Attachments meant the possibility of other priorities, and other priorities got people killed. He couldn’t have that happening on his watch.

Thankfully, Hans snapped him out of his melancholy quickly. “Do you have everything sorted?”

Helmut gave a short nod before tapping the pile of papers against the table and setting out towards the door, abandoning his thoughts and feelings about his interaction with Y/N at the table as he exited the room and gathered himself once more into the man his friends needed him to be.

He could only hope that as long as he ignored Y/N’s jabs, they would soon grow tired and be gone within the month once they realized he was anything but afraid of their little games.

------------

Much to Helmut’s abject disappointment, Y/N did not, in fact, stop showing up.

They did quite the opposite.

Instead of leaving him well enough alone, they showed up to Helmut’s meetings every single Wednesday and Friday for months, always piss drunk and happy to jeer at him from the corner, shouting their unwanted opinions and throwing off every meeting with their nonsense.

It was as if they did it just to get on his nerves, and get on his nerves they did.

As the seasons changed, from spring, to winter, to fall, and, finally, to the very beginnings of summer, so did the types of jabs Y/N decided to throw.

In the beginning it was all business, comments on the idiocy of his plans for a protest based on common police routes or mocking jokes about his unending optimism when it came to fighting the national guard on a large scale, but as things began to get more and more serious on the path towards a full-fledged revolt, they seemed to aim more and more of their vitriol towards Helmut personally.

Sometimes it was a comment on his face or voice. “Ease up pretty boy,” they’d jeer, “keep talking like that and a guardsman might just do more than knock out a few of your perfect teeth,” Other times, which Helmut found infinitely worse, they’d throw a jab at his ability to lead them to victory. “The only thing that waits for us at the end of this is a painful death, especially if you’re not joking about those fucking super soldiers they supposedly have on ice,”

The worst part was that half the time, Y/N was right.

Helmut hated to admit it but it was true. More than once he had to go back and edit his plans to take into account a valid point thrown in by Y/N that he had never even considered. Hell, if it had been anyone else picking him to nothing he would have been grateful, but it wasn’t a well-meaning contributor trying to make the world a better place, it was a drunk who seemed to have one solitary life goal: making his life as miserable as possible. Perhaps that’s why they had devolved to frantic angry fucks behind crates of wine and massive cans of chocolate spread after the worst of their arguments…

Not that Helmut cared for them.

No, he didn’t do attachments. Neither did Y/N. They hated each other, after all.

It was just a way to release their tensions at the end of stressful meetings and nothing more. They were dealing with matters of life and death after all. It was only normal to seek comfort in the warmth of a companion, if he could even call Y/N a companion.

Whether he liked it or not, though, they were they to stay, even if they rarely made themself useful to the cause.

By early June, the drunkard had become close friends with all of the remaining students that still gathered at Helmut’s location for meetings instead of ending up at the offshoots that began to form once the group got too big to pile into the storeroom. Helmut loathed thinking about it, but Y/N was probably invited to more birthdays and Saturday night get-togethers than he ever was. There was something about their smile that drew people in. It made them feel wanted, welcome. Helmut hated that he never got those smiles from Y/N, only ever the mocking, blithe kind that they handed out freely to friends and enemies alike.

He didn’t have time to think about that, though. Not with so much fast approaching as the first pears began to hang from branches down in the royal orchards, soft and ripe and ready to be harvested. Their growth marked King Hugo’s daily weakening. His death could come any day, and when it did, Helmut knew he would need to strike quickly if he truly hoped to overturn the system before the coronation of his cousin. That meant every meeting, now more frequently held throughout the week, was filled to the brim with preparations and planning.

Well, preparations and planning and a healthy dose of Y/N and Helmut yelling at each other about nonsense across the room until Anton or Laszlo stepped in to pull Y/N down into their chair once more so the meeting could resume and they could all go home before things got too late and they were questioned in the street on why they were possibly out and about at such an hour.

Things were no different on that Friday meeting on June 4th.

“Is there anyone here who isn’t already passing out pamphlets in the dorms at NVU tonight?” Helmut asked the room, scanning for a hand that didn’t belong to his least favorite member of the group. Unfortunately, none came up. “Come one now, at least one of you has to be free,”

Y/N groaned. “It’s like you don’t even see my hand waving up here, oh great one,” There they went again with the ridiculous terms of address that made Helmut’s blood sizzle in his veins. He remained composed, though. At least, as composed as he could be given the situation.

“I’m ignoring you because I remember the last time I asked your drunk ass to pass out pamphlets. What round of dominos were you on by the time I showed up to check on you, five or six?”

The scalding remark was enough to get Y/N to sheepishly lower their hand, eyes downcast. It was getting easier and easier for Helmut to manage to shut them up the more frantic meetings got, and he couldn’t say he was displeased by that fact no matter why it was the way that it was. A quiet Y/N meant less chance for mistakes which meant fewer future casualties. Fewer casualties were good, it was what he strived for.

Thankfully for Helmut, a new hand came up.

It belonged to Vladimir, the oldest of the group by a year rounding out at an even 26 years old. He was dependable, definitely the kind who could be trusted to run an errand as important as the one Helmut needed to have done. The thought that Vladimir would be the one to pick up the shipment of smuggled guns was a relief. He made as much evident while explaining their next moves.

Throughout the remainder of the meeting, though, Helmut couldn’t help but feel watched. It didn’t last long, half an hour at most. Still, there was the creeping itch on the back of his neck that told him there were eyes on him that he wasn’t aware of. Only when the group was dismissed and the feeling didn’t go away did he realize exactly who was staring at him so intently.

“I hope you know I really did intend to hand out those pamphlets,” Y/N said once they were the last one remaining, the rest of the group having trickled out to get food and drinks before heading home for the night. It wasn’t unusual for Helmut and Y/N to be the last two remaining at the end of a meeting. That didn’t mean he was happy about it though.

So, instead of offering up an acknowledgment, he busied himself with plotting out a few potential spots to barricade the roads and hunker down when things got messy in highlighter on the large, laminated map of Novi Grad that had found its home on the big front table.

Y/N didn’t let up, though. They never did. “I know you don’t believe me, why would you, but I did. I just wanted to loosen them up before I started talking about overthrowing the damn government, which is a terrible plan, by the way. Have I told you that lately?”

“Only every time you see me,” Helmut sighed.

Somehow, that made Y/N smile, soft and sarcastic and all too honest. Helmut didn’t know how they managed it. Secretly, he envied their neverending veracity. He’d never say that though. No, not while they crossed the floor and offered up a large bottle of whiskey.

“A drink, dear leader?”

“Absolutely not” He griped, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How many times do I need to remind you I don’t drink?”

“Too many,”

“For once, I agree with you,”

A laugh passed through Y/N’s plush lips and, regrettably, Helmut couldn’t help but look up at them and relish in the sight. Their hair was a bit longer than they usually grew it out, a particularly unruly piece tucked behind their ear. Helmut hated that he noticed little details like that, despised the way he had come to know the soft dip of their cupid’s bow and the warmth of their palm. It was still Y/N, after all, for better or worse. He couldn’t help but allow himself those small recognitions though. It made him feel human, or something close to it.

Still, all good things must come to an end, and they did when Y/N decided to speak again. “You know, the longer I show up for these stupid meetings, the more I think you’re actually gonna try to go up against those bastards,”

Helmut should have known the barb was coming, but perhaps his better nature, if it truly existed, prevented that. Nevertheless, he sighed into his hands as he dropped his highlighter. “If I didn’t intend to actually try to change things, why would I have spent the last year of my life living in a shitty apartment and putting up with you?”

“You’d be surprised the things people do and never finish. Not everyone is as driven as you are,” Y/N huffed. They were quick to seat themself on the table once Helmut wasn’t actively working over it, smearing the highlighter away on their corduroy pants. “Nobody would blame you if you did tap out, you know. There are plenty of ways to make a change that don’t involve trying to take down the entire local Sokovian military force until they decide to give you what you want,”

“The changes we could make without a revolt wouldn’t really be changes, they’d just be the illusion of changes. You know that as well as I do,” Helmut replied with a groan.

Two of the fingers from Y/N’s free hand, the one that wasn’t gripping their bottle like a lifeline, pointed towards the closed door behind them. “Is living under our current system and knowing they have fingers in a few less-than-savory organizations really worse than leading all of your friends to their deaths?”

That struck a nerve in Helmut’s chest.

“And who says that has to be true?”

“Come on, oh benevolent and giving baron,” Y/N’s voice was light yet pointed, like a million minuscule particles of glass flying through the air, “Do you really think we’re all gonna make it out of a fight with the big guys? And even if all of us do, can you say the same for the poor kids fighting where we aren’t?”

“I never said there would be no casualties-”

“What about Sebastian? The kid is barely 12 and I know you’re going to say that if he tries to show up, you’re gonna send him home, but I think you underestimate how many people will want even someone as young as him dead if they catch him in the street. Are you really going to let him risk his life for this? A half-assed plan for you to get revenge on your asshole relatives for making your childhood shitty?”

“You know that’s not what this is about,”

“Do I?” Y/N asked, and for just a second, no, a millisecond, Helmut wasn’t sure anymore. It was only a brief moment though, nothing more. The fact that they could make him doubt himself do deeply though… it was a problem. Calling it that was an understatement, but there was no other way to put it that truly worked.

Helmut growled lowly and nodded, pushing the doubt from his mind. He was right. He had to be right. What would he be if he was wrong? A spoiled rich boy who was leading his friends to their dooms for nothing?

No.

He had to be right, so he was. It was as simple as that.

“Is there anything else you need to critique, or can you leave me to work now?” Helmut asked. His patience had long since worn thin. That didn’t matter much to Y/N, though. They liked to wear him down thin, see just how far they could push without breaking his resolve. It was a game they were both intimately acquainted with.

They played their hand expertly. “In fact,” Y/N smiled while they spoke, another mocking little grin that made Helmut’s stomach turn in the best and worst of ways, “there is one last thing I needed to ask about,”

“I shudder to think what it might be,”

“How are you going to hide your face?”

The question caught Helmut off-guard as he leaned back on his heels, letting his forearms brace against the edge of the table, his face scrunching up in thought. “What?”

Y/N gestured absently towards his face before bringing their bottle to their lips. “I’m betting that your family will expect you to be out there whenever we actually stage our attack. If I’m right, that means the soldiers will be looking for you as their top priority, and if they find you, they’ll kill everybody around you just to get a chance to drag you back to mommy and daddy. Even if they don’t kill us on sight we’ll be charged for harboring you without turning you in to the proper authorities. So, how are you going to hide your face?”

Once again, Helmut found himself thinking that, despite their drunken stupor, Y/N might just be right, and he hated it. He hated that he hadn’t thought of it first, hated that it was a valid point, hated that he had no satisfying way to answer the question they had posed. He hated it all.

“I’ll just throw on a bandana,” He managed to grumble, and that was that.

Or, that should have been that, but Y/N scoffed at the idea, setting down their bottle and leaning in close to Helmut’s face. After a moment of contemplation, they brought their hand up to his face and let their thumb come to rest on one of his largest beauty marks, the mole that rested high on the left side of his nose. “I’m afraid that a bandana isn’t going to cover up your absolutely blinding radiance, fearless leader,” There was a softness to their voice, a gentility Helmut was unused to. It made his chest hurt. He hated that too.

“Are you going to offer a solution or are you just going to sit there telling me I’m stupid,” His words were a low groan.

Much to his surprise, though, Y/N reached into their back pocket only to pass him a crumpled purple ball. It was obviously fabric, though the outside seemed to be coated in some sort of weatherproofing, and upon closer inspection, once unraveled, two distinct eyeholes became visible.

“Is this-”

“A mask?” Y/N finished his sentence for him, “Yeah. I figured you wouldn’t think about it, so I whipped something up with some old polyester-based yarn and then I coated it so it wouldn’t be a problem if it got wet. It should still be breathable, though,”

For the first time since he’d known them, Helmut looked up at Y/N and thought that they were incredibly valuable. He still hated them, of course he did. Y/N was Y/N and he was himself and they hated each other because they were, at their basest, entirely incompatible.

At his silence, Y/N looked away, almost nervous. “I hope it’s alright,”

“It’s more than alright,” Helmut said as kindly as he could possibly manage, “I hate to say this, but owe you one,”

“Could I collect on that debt now?” Minutely, Y/N leaned closer, eyes falling to Helmut’s lips.

He swallowed thickly. “You’re drunk, Y/N,”

“I know I am. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Why would that be wonderful?”

“Because that means I won’t remember this,” And, with that, they closed the gap between the two of them and captured Helmut’s lips in his own.

Kissing Y/N wasn’t a new thing. They had kissed plenty of times during their frenzied hookups; soft kisses and hard kisses and long kisses and short kisses. Still, Helmut would never get used to the thrill of it. That was yet another thing he hated about Y/N. He could never quite get used to them. Every single interaction always felt as fresh and raw as their first.

With a fervor only he could muster, Helmut kissed back and pushed at Y/N’s hips, pressing them harder into the table below, and just as quickly as he had gained a physical mask, he had lost his emotional one.

------------

In the end, that was the last time Helmut had slept with Y/N.

They had fallen together, two sweaty half-dressed bodies laid out over the laminated map of Novi Grad, and then Y/N had gathered themself up and left with little more than one last kiss pressed to Helmut’s temple. By the time he himself had gotten home to Hans, the news of King Hugo’s death was almost an hour old.

After a few phone calls to lay the final plans and keep every sect of their band of revolutionaries on the same schedules, things rolled into motion like a finely tuned machine.

On the morning of June 5th, the barricades rose and Helmut wore his mask proudly as his people fought for freedom in the streets he had walked since childhood. Y/N was beside him.

By the early hours of June 6th, they were the only barricade that remained.

Helmut should have known that once things got too challenging that the super soldiers would be released, he should have anticipated that they’d be waiting for the backlash once king Hugo passed, and yet he hadn’t. He had blindly walked into the disaster with his eyes wide open. There was no one to blame but himself.

Little Sebastian, just one month shy of 13 years old, was dead, shot at long distance when he had attempted to grab a fallen box of bullets that had toppled over the peak of the jumble of hoarded furniture and scrap metal. Anton was dead too, taken at gunpoint while he stood guard at a side street and executed with his eyes bound and a sonnet on his lips. Even Ivan, stoic and strong Ivan who bound his knuckles in boxer’s tape and sparred with Helmut when he needed to clear his head, had been caught in the initial fire and bled out over the course of the day, dying with a smile on his face as he leaned on a discarded chair.

I never said there’d be no casualties.

His own words rang in his ears, taunted him with every bullet he shot and every breath he dragged into his aching lungs. How had he ever been so naive to believe that even one life could be expendable?

The real lowest point came at almost midnight when Helmut picked up a call from a student on another barricade only to met with screaming. “Winter is coming!” They had wailed, “Winter is coming!” and then they had died, right there over speakerphone. Helmut had the good sense to hang up once it got to the worst of it, the strangled gurgled growing to be too much for the group.

As things truly settled, in those hours so early that the world still considered them night, Helmut still stood vigilant. That’s when Y/N finally approached.

They wore no smile, not like usual. Instead, their face was stoic as they came to stand beside Helmut and waited silently for a moment. He took the chance to beat them to the punch.

“You don’t have to tell me you were right. I know you were,” I hate you for it.

Y/N offered a gentle, humorless laugh. “I wouldn’t rub it in at a time like this, but yeah, I was,” I know you do. I hate myself for it too.

Slowly, Helmut brought a hand to his face, scrubbing the exhaustion away from his eyes. How had it all come to this?

“How much time do you think we have,” Y/N was speaking before he had a chance to say anything more, saving him from having to elaborate on his admission. He was grateful. Grateful to not be alone, grateful to be spared more shame, grateful to see Y/N’s gentle smile one more time. He’d never show it though. No, he was to be the fearless leader till the end.

So, he sucked in a deep breath and stared out into the starry sky. “A few hours at most. I’m surprised they haven’t made another advance after the last big push in the evening when we lost…” he swallowed thickly, “when we lost Anton,”

Licking their lips and pushing back their hair, Y/N sighed. “For what it’s worth, for a minute there I really believed you could do it,”

It was a bigger compliment than it seemed and they both knew it, but neither acknowledged it. Instead, Helmut gestured absently towards the half-full bottle of wine in Y/N’s hand. “You mind if I have a drink of that?”

A grin spread across their lips, but it was as far from mocking as was possible as they passed the bottle over.

“I never thought I’d see the day,”

Lifting the bottom of his mask to take a swig, Helmut groaned at the deep, bitter burn of it. “Don’t get used to it,” He replaced the fabric quickly before passing the bottle back.

“I’ll try not to,”

“Happy 20th, by the way,” Y/N added, “this is a hell of a way to celebrate, but it’s very you,”

Helmut froze as the realization sunk in that it was, in fact, the 6th of June, even if it had only been that way for a couple hours.

There had been a party planned. It was just an intimate thing, cake and a few card games in the afternoon with his closest friends, but that was long behind them now, forgotten in favor of the larger cause. To Y/N, though, there was never a larger cause than Helmut himself. He was realizing that slowly. In a bitter moment of realization, he laughed.

“What?”

“You weren’t invited,”

They quirked up an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“To the birthday party. I didn’t invite you,”

“Well, I’m here now, and this is a pretty good party if I do say so myself. You and me and the revolution all jam-packed together in the middle of a street. Wouldn’t it be cool if the new democracy was born on the same day you were?”

He smiled softly. “It was meant to be,”

“I got you something, you know, even though I knew I wasn’t invited to the party,” Y/N added breathlessly. “It was stupid, just some dumb sweater with a whole bunch of random ass quotes from Machiavelli all over the back, but Anton and I saw it when we visited the better side of town to hang up those fliers for the march a few weeks ago and we knew you had to have it. It’s sitting all wrapped up on my front table,”

“It’s a shame I won’t get to open it today,”

They nodded distantly. “Yeah, a real shame…”

Then, they were quiet again, staring up at the stars mere feet away from each other and yet miles apart, farther than they’d ever been.

Y/N cut through the soundless night first, but not before several silent minutes had passed, filled with only the distant chatter of their surviving friends and the gentle whistling of the breeze over the rooftops above. “When everything goes to shit… with the universe, I mean, not now. Everything’s already gone to shit now. But that notwithstanding, when the world goes kaput and the sun explodes, we’re all gonna be starstuff together, right? You and I and Sebastian and Andrei and Anton and… all of us. We’re gonna be nothing but matter and dust out there in space,”

“Is there a point to this or are you just having an existential crisis?” Helmut muttered, but there was no bite to it.

They just chuckled as their eyes scanned the sky.

“I was just thinking, if all of us are gonna be nothing more than matter and dust and star stuff, it only makes sense that someday, even if it’s a billion years from now, a little part of each of us will be together again as part of some supernova in the sky to be seen by somebody else, and, when that day comes, I think I’m gonna know, and everything is gonna be alright,”

He hummed thoughtfully, running a hand absently over the thick purple knit of his mask, relishing in the gummy softness of the coating on his bare fingertips in the cooling air. “That makes no sense,”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“Still, it’s a pretty thought. Anton would have liked it,”

“Yeah, he would have…”

Helmut let his eyes fall from the sky to his companion. They looked so fragile, so broken, that he could barely stand himself, because, if he hadn’t made the stupid choices to lead them here, they never would have felt that way. They’d be curled up in bed somewhere, asleep and safe, far from the cold darkness of the night at his side. It made him sick.

How could he possibly put that to words? How could he apologize for denying every nudge, every chance to turn around? He couldn’t, and it made him as bitter as the wine that Y/N sipped from absently before turning to face him once again.

“Hey, Helmut,” they whispered, and his breath caught in his throat because how dare his voice sound so sweet on their lips? How dare they keep that joy, the joy of hearing his name whispered with reverence on the early morning breeze, real and caring and perfect, away from him for so long? “Do you think I could take a chair from the barricade?”

Just as soon as it had come, the joy was gone. “Why would you need a chair?”

Y/N shrugged. “I want to go sleep,”

“Why can’t you sleep out here?”

“I don’t want to be woken up,”

“We wouldn’t wake you until the fighting was starting back up again-”

“Oh, my darling fearless leader,” their voice was empty, tinny and cold, “I don’t ever want to be woken up,”

Their words pierced Helmut straight through the heart he didn’t know he had. It made him feel so much, so many emotions he had simply not allowed himself out of a misplaced sense of self-preservation. “But we’ll need every able body ready to fight when they send in the super soldiers if we even want a chance at making it out of this,”

The smile that crossed Y/N’s lips didn’t come from a place of joy, nor did it mock Helmut for his blind and dying faith. It was simply there because they did not know how to do anything else. “There’s no making it out of this. Not for me, at least. For you, though… you still have a chance,”

Denial and anger went hand in hand as Helmut sucked his teeth, grinding his molars and letting his hand ghost over his pistol hanging at his hip.

“So you’d really rather die like a coward than take a stand against the evils in the world?” he spat, harsh and cold as the air around them. “Pathetic,”

“Don’t do this now, Helmut, not after we were finally getting somewhere. I don’t want to die with things like that,”

“I’m not the one who’s giving up,” he snapped.

He just needed… something. A reaction. A reason to keep fighting when the war was already lost. Anything. Why couldn’t Y/N light the same fire in him that they’d kindled for months? The fire that had driven him to spend sleepless nights poring over maps and plans and speeches and guns. If he just pushed a little harder, just hit the right button, they’d light it again, he just knew it.

“Please,” the word fell fragile from Y/N’s lips. Not a beg, just a soft plea.

It fell on deaf ears.

“You know what? You can take your chair!” Helmut was shouting then, loud enough that the remaining students on the barricade could hear every word. “Take your chair and leave us to fight while you die in your sleep. If we make it through the day I’ll put the bullet between your eyes myself. Now get out of here! I don’t want to see you again,” There was a cruelty to it, an edge that he thought might just push them off the edge. Still, it wasn’t cruel without reason. Helmut thought that maybe, if he was lucky enough, Y/N would simply leave.

They had no stakes in the results of the revolt, no serious lasting ties that would get them hunted down in the weeks to come if things came to a gruesome end. If he bid them to leave, to disappear from his sight, there was a chance, however small, that they would disappear into the shadows with a chance to live.

Against all odds, though, Y/N smiled one of those empty smiles again and drank down the very last of their wine.

“As your baronship commands,” they whispered, before departing to gather up a chair and disappearing into the restaurant where they had met so many times before.

Then, they were gone, and Helmut was free to sink to the ground as his heart broke and mended and broke again.

------------

As expected, the super soldiers arrived only a couple of hours past Y/N’s departure.

Their arrival was silent, only marked by the slow thud of retreating national guardsmen in the distance. They weren’t needed there anymore, and the less they saw the better.

Helmut watched his friends fall one by one in the panic, the barricade falling to ruin as the soldiers- if they could even be considered that, soldier seemed a far too human term for the monstrous creatures before him- pulled it apart with their bare hands. From there it was just a game of who was caught first in the insanity that ensued.

Nicholas; caught a bullet through the neck.

Vladimir; thrown against a solid stone wall at a speed near impossible.

Lazlo; impaled on a bit of broken wood as the wood exploded.

Andrei; shot 3 times point-blank in the chest as he held the door closed to buy Hans and Helmut a little more time with a love confession for his closest companion falling from his mouth.

Hans…

Helmut didn’t know how Hans died.

He had never asked. All he knew that the shots had come as he wailed Andrei’s name, and then there was a deathly silence in the golden light of the morning sun as Helmut stood alone at the back of the storeroom, taking in the 4 walls that had held the best year of his life.

What remained now?

A failed dream? A pile of bodies? A single survivor waiting for his death?

Helmut didn’t know. He couldn’t fathom it.

The two soldiers sent to finish the job were nameless and nondescript as they slipped through the door, armed with long, silent rifles and hidden by masks not too dissimilar from Helmut’s own. They did not speak, not a word. Instead, they simply raised their guns and took aim at Helmut as he closed his eyes and thought of-

“Wait!”

The word rang out heavy and made the two executioners snap to the side.

“I’m with him! I’m with the revolution! Down with King Emil! Down with the monarchy!”

There, hidden among the crates and shelves of canned goods and glass bottles, was Y/N.

They looked objectively awful, eyes rimmed red and hair mussed up and coated with oil. Still, it was the most beautiful sight Helmut had ever seen.

It was only right that they go together.

Slowly, Y/N made their way across the room to take their place at Helmut’s side. “I know you said you never wanted to see me again, but I assume you’ll make an exception for the circumstances,”

“I never meant it,” he whispered back, and Y/N smiled, “You have to know, I never meant it,”

“Even if you did, I never would have listened-”

Suddenly, one of the soldiers spoke, taking aim straight for Helmut down the barrel of their gun.

“Quiet,”

Y/N only paused for a moment before pressing their hand into his. “Kiss me, Helmut?”

Who was he to deny them?

Pulling off his mask, he pressed his lips to theirs and clasped their hand like it was the last thing he would ever do. When he pulled away, they were smiling one of their old, mocking, joyous smiles.

“Oh, fearless leader… I win,”

The words were a whisper of air against his lips. Before he could fathom the true meaning of them the pair was peppered in a spray of gunfire as Helmut closed his eyes to the world for what should have been the final time.

When he opened them, Y/N was struck dead at his feet.

------------

It was their final winning move, he later realized, the checkmate to a game of chess he never believed would end.

In the end, Y/N had been as correct as they always were.

All the same, he hated them for it.

Some nights, in the darkness of his room back at the summer estate where his father has imprisoned him until further notice, he wondered if Y/N had kissed him because they wanted to or if they had done it to get him to remove his mask long enough that the soldiers would recognize him and spare him. It wouldn’t surprise him. Y/N did have a tendency to be right about things like that.

Ghosts haunted him often.

Not full specters, he would wish for something so merciful. Instead, he saw flashes in the periphery of his vision. Outside his window, he’d hear a child’s laugher and be so sure it was Sebastian until he looked out to find that it was simply a group of the staff’s children playing ball. Or, when the assigned guardsman brought him his dinner, he would glance down the hall and be so sure that a man at the other end was Lazlo, preparing to face a board of proctors as he delivered a thesis he would never write. It never was, though. It never would be.

Worst of all, when he laid awake in his bed as the clock struck twelve, he would feel them beside him.

They had never slept together in the literal sense. Whatever they had shared (love, Helmut would come to realize after many, many years with Heike, painfully hollow without the same kind of flame. He had loved them and simply never known how to show it) was purely physical and contained within that bloody, bloody storeroom that he was sure would be torn down someday soon as they glossed over the casualties and stamped out the evidence. Still, he could feel Y/N beside him in the darkness despite the fact that they had never been there.

Their head on his chest, their body pressed flush to his side, their hot breath fanning over the fabric of his nightshirt, creating a patch of damp warmth in its wake…

It was maddening, an eternal punishment he was doomed to endure for his stupidity. Nevertheless, if he let his brain wander to a better place, a different lifetime, it was almost comforting to feel their ghost wrapped tightly to his side.

When he woke, though, the loss of the dream was more maddening than living through it.

Almost a month after the failed revolution, in the hot and heady days of early July when the wasps buzzed loud at the window and the skies were filled with thunderclouds most of the time, his father finally came to speak to him.

“I trust you spent your birthday how you wished to,” Heinrich said plainly. There was no question to it, just an empty sentiment.

Mockery wasn’t nearly as pleasant when delivered by his father and not his lover, Helmut thought distantly.

“On the contrary, I spent my birthday watching everyone I cared about die,” he snapped back.

Heinrich didn’t offer any sort of commiseration. He simply shrugged and continued on with what he was there to say, not that his son minded much. The less time he spent there the more time Helmut would have to himself, which was preferable to listening to his father’s droning.

“You’re lucky to be alive. The family is on thin ice thanks to that stunt you pulled, but with time we’re all sure that you’ll become an asset if you simply learn to use that fire for something more… productive,”

Who the ‘we’ was went unspoken. It didn’t need to be.

Helmut sighed and looked out the window at the rain falling on the garden. Nicholas would have loved the gardens at this home. He would have pressed every flower at least once in the little book he kept beside him filled with the pieces of the world that he collected as he passed through it. Where would he be kept and collected now that he was dead?

“I’ve called in a favor and enrolled you for military service. You’ll be tested to find your strengths, sent where you’re best suited, and trained from the ground up. Once we know you can be trusted, you might even lead your own squadron and make some friends more of your caliber,”

It took all Helmut’s strength to clench his teeth and hold back the rage he felt in his chest. “When do I leave?”

“As soon as you’re married,”

Married.

The word struck a bolt through the rage and dissolved it, giving way to pure shock. “What the hell do you mean?”

Crossing his arms, Heinrich took to pacing a 2-foot line back and forth in front of the door. “We’ve found a suitable match from a good standing Sokovian family, and they’re willing to look past your little misstep as long as their daughter becomes a baroness and is adequately involved in society. She’ll be here in three days time and you’ll have a week to get acquainted before the wedding,”

“I never said I was going to get married,” Helmut growled, “You can’t make me get married,”

His father stared down at him from above like he was a little boy again. “I can make you do whatever I want. Don’t think I didn’t hear about what happened with that freak they shot down at your side! No son of mine is ending up with someone like-”

In an instant, Helmut had rushed across the room and punched his father square in the jaw. As blood poured down the man’s face, a hiss escaped his son’s lips.

“Never talk about Y/N like that again,”

“So it had a name!”

That earned him another punch, but Heinrich escaped Helmut’s grip quickly, cupping a hand beneath his nose to catch the redness that poured from his face. As he retreated out the door, he turned to deliver his final verdict. “You have three days to get your act together, and maybe, just maybe, if you don’t fuck this up, I’ll let you know where they dumped all your little friends to rot,” And with that, he shut the door behind him and left Helmut to pick up the pieces of his soul.

------------

The tale Zemo wove was a sad one (sans most of the details about Y/N. That was a story whose finer details he would take to his grave) and as he came to a close, the purple fabric between his fingers was a tether to reality. The coating was a bit old, thinner in places than it should have been, but it had remained steady and strong for over 20 years and he didn’t know the first place to start repairing it.

Y/N would have known, they’d been the one to do it in the first place after all, but they were long gone, not even a ghost anymore. Just a name and a face forgotten to time as all the other impoverished students were, buried in an unmarked grave in a place he never learned. It was all that remained of them. The only thing that proved they were ever there at all.

“You know the rest of the story,” he added firmly. “I married Heike, climbed the ranks of the military, had my son… and they were simply lost, an unwritten page in the history of a country that no longer exists,”

Suddenly, though, a deep voice cut in through the heavy air between them.

“Ciczheni,”

“Pardon?” Zemo asked softly, pouring himself a final tumbler of whiskey and stuffing the mask back in his pocket.

“We buried them in Ciczheni,”

He nearly dropped the bottle in his hand.

Bucky was quick to continue, voice low and eyes clouded with memory in a way that only the two of them would ever truly understand. “It’s a tiny town along the border to the Czech Republic. There’s a big open field there, or at least there was, marked with a flat grave marking it as a burial site. I don’t remember the name on it, some random pseudonym, but they’re all there, all 57 dead and buried in the ground under that rock,”

Helmut gave a stiff nod. “I see,” Then, in one long gulp, he downed the whole two fingers of whiskey straight and relished in the way it burned down his throat. When the glass was empty and set down safely on the counter again he was quick to school his expression as he turned away. “I’m afraid all that excitement has exhausted me for the day. Goodnight, gentlemen,”

He was gone down the hallway into his bedroom before the pair had a chance to say another word.

Ciczheni.

As he undressed, he smiled softly, letting a few errant tears drip down his cheeks.

They had been born and raised in that tiny farming town. Sometimes, when he had let himself listen in on their conversations with some of the other members of their small, tight group, they would talk about how much they wanted to return someday, once they’d made enough money to live on for a while if they supported themself by growing a small garden and maybe keeping some chickens. The thought, even then, had always made him smile. Just Y/N and a cottage and a chicken or two.

Sometimes, if he was especially indulgent, he would imagine himself there with them. Sharing a home.

Making a family.

His biological family, the one he had created with marriage and his own flesh and blood, was something different entirely. He had loved them. God, how he’d loved them. Still, it was never the same. He was never at peace. He was never home. There would always be a bitterness there, as bitter as the dark summer wine he’d drunk the night he’d turned 20, a resentment that came with the obligation of creating a place in his heart for them when there never should have been.

For Y/N, though...

He sighed, wrapping himself in his robe and slipping on a pair of fleece pajama pants before crawling between the sheets and laying flat on his back, eyes to the ceiling.

Things wouldn’t have been happy all the time. Hell, they probably wouldn’t have been happy even most of the time. Still, they would have been where they belonged, seated firmly at his side for the rest of their long, wonderful lives.

Ciczheni, he repeated in his mind, then the memorial for Novi Grad. It was a minor detour, adding barely 2 hours more to the whole trip when he had plenty more to spare.

Ciczheni, then Novi Grad, and then, finally, peace.

Beside him, he could feel the phantom limbs wrap around his body, resting their weight firmly on his chest where the guilt and shame and terror built by the day, and for the first time in almost a decade they were not Heike’s. Perhaps, if all went according to plan, they wouldn’t be phantom much longer.

Or, if not, he would wait. He would wait a billion years to disintegrate into stardust and spread across the cosmos in search of them.

Either way, when they were together again, he’d know.

They both would.

--------

a/n: I’m not crying, you’re crying.

TAGLIST: @tatestripedsweater , @elaineygrace , @multiyfandomgirl40 , @lovelymischief , @rami-malek-trash , @avgravy , @wh0re-4-techno , @forcebros , @sugarsweetkiss , @grandmuffinsharkbailiff , @killsandthrills , @novasstudy , @thnksfr-ptrkstmp , @inmate-marmalade , @alanathedeer , @your-pixels-are-showing , @shit-post-things , @bbarton , @sux-ubus , @halefirewarrior , @janelongxox , @rax-writes , @wondermia69 , @booklover2929 , @lol-im-done , @rorodendra , @spookycereal-s , @viviace , @wxrmh0le , @whatawildone , @mush-room-princess , @aliyahsfantasticlife , @gredvb , @chipster-21 , @whatawildone , @cloud-of-roses , @bry-97 , @mossybank , @simsiddy , @xxspqcebunsxx , @be-cautious-around-bri , @metaphorical-love-for-a-car , @frothonthedaydreams

#zemo #baron zemo #helmut zemo #baron helmut zemo #zemo x reader #helmut zemo x reader #baron zemo x reader #baron helmut zemo x reader #barricade day #zemo fanfic

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the-everlasting-dream · 5 years

Text

No - Drake x MC

Summary: Elizabeth’s reaction to King Liam’s request from Chapter 2 of TRH

A/N: Oh look who’s alive and decided she remembers how to write. Thats right, I’m back with some subpar fiction and I hope you like Elizabeth’s honest reaction to the fiasco that was the beginning of this book. Some lines are obviously from the dialogue.

Word Count: 3408

Warnings: Swearing.

Tags: idk who even reads anymore so @chantelle-x0x , @choicessa, @mariamulroney , @drakewalkerwhipped , @quartzandarrow , @mfackenthal , @srawesleyghuewrites , @topsyturvy-dream , @enmchoices , @gardeningourmet @debramcg1106 , @alesana45 , @meladoridarcy, @blackcatkita , @tmarie82 , @annekebbphotography , @lizk77 , @jayjay879 , @tornbetween2loves , @akrenich , @theroyalweisme , @likethetailofacomet , @sleepwalkingelite , @littleblossom-18 , @ooo-barff-ooo , @drakewalker04 , @mkatschoicesblog , TRR only: @speedyoperarascalparty , @carabeth , Drake: @fairydustandsarcasm , @drakewalkerisreal

‘To ask us if our future baby would be the ruler of Cordonia?’

The words rang in Elizabeth’s ears, the sound of her own voice alien to her as what Liam was alluding sunk in.

‘Liam.’ Her mouth moved but it was Drake who spoke, tone laced with disbelief.

‘I... I don’t know what to say. My kid sitting on the throne...’

My kid. Our kid.

They’d talked extensively about kids in the past month, agreeing that while they still both wanted children, it would be nice to spend some time together first as a couple. Surely Drake would say no. The next words that came out of his mouth shook Elizabeth to her core.

‘I mean it would be an incredible honor.. I don’t know what to say..’

She turned to gape at the man she now called her husband, remembering vividly how he’d described how excited he was to take their little one on the same camping trips like his own father had done, teaching them the art of making the perfect smore, giving them the life he wished he could have had. That picture of a little boy or girl with Drake’s hair and her eyes, a perfect mix of the two of them firmly planted on his shoulders seemed to evaporate when she heard those words.

‘Elizabeth. What do you say?’ Liam’s blue eyes turned on her in expectancy.

‘No.’

The word was out of her mouth before she could control herself but she didn’t want to take it back. She watched both their faces fall and straightened her spine, swallowing hard. ‘No. No Liam. I wish I was sorry but I am not. I’m not giving my child up for anything.’

‘Walker,’ Drake started, reaching for her hand but she wrenched it out of his grasp.

‘No. I said no.’

Seeing his mouth open again presumably to reason with her, she turned on her heel and stormed off down the beach. Anger boiled in her veins like never before, searing hot; she could barely think straight. Liam to coming here — on their honeymoon, no less — and asking them for their literal unborn child was insurmountably selfish.

Hadn’t she giving up enough already? Was getting kidnapped, shot at multiple times, having the man she loved almost bleed out in front of her not enough? Was she to sacrifice her future family just because the king of Cordonia couldn’t get a date?

These and a thousand other venomous thoughts were swirling on her mind as she stalked off, heading in no particular direction except away from the conversation.

‘Walker wait up.’

Elizabeth did nothing to slow her pace as she heard Drake jog up to her. ‘Walker would you just stop for a minute? Elizabeth!’

Jerking to a halt, she waited until he was in her line of vision before fixing him with a poisonous look.

‘Jesus what was that?’

‘I could ask you the same damn thing. What the actual fuck Drake?’ She spat, not caring if anyone heard her.

‘Liz c’mon. It’s not like the kid wouldn’t be ours still.’

‘Drake do you even hear yourself? I thought you of all people would be with me on this. You’ve spent your entire life hating the nobles for their stuffy ways, you’ve ranted to me on enough occasions about how pretentious and prim and stuck up and snobby they are. Now you’re turning around and saying you’d sign our child up for that without a second thought?’

He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. ‘Walker, c’mon you know it’s not like that..’

‘Then tell me what it’s like!’ She screeched, her voice shrill as it no doubt carried down the beach to where the rest of their friends were waiting. ‘Because to me it seems like you’re willing to drop and show your belly every time Liam asks you for something. Have you forgotten you have a wife now or does my opinion weigh nothing?’

‘You know that’s not true Elizabeth,’ he snapped back angrily and some part of her was glad to see the reaction, any reaction. ‘He’s got a good reason. We married for love. Don’t you think Liam of all people deserves the same?’

‘I do. You know I do. But his happiness shouldn’t come at the price of ours.’

Drake ran a weary hand over his face. ‘Don’t you care about the future of Cordonia?’

She paused momentarily thrown by his question. ‘What I care about is the future of my family. Something that you obviously don’t share. I don’t get it Drake. I really don’t. You of all people know how dangerous the life of a monarch is. Assassinations, poisonings, coups. Did the situation with Anton teach you nothing? And the worst part is that you didn’t even think to talk to me about it? You’re happy to just agree with whatever ridiculous demands he dreams up!’

Drake glared at her. ‘That’s bullshit and you know it.’

Hot tears pricked the back of her eyes as Elizabeth met his gaze. ‘We promised each other that we would have each other’s back. All the time, one hundred percent. All we talked about after this whole wedding shebang was to have a normal life, the two of us and the family we would have together. At least that’s what I thought we both wanted.’

The look on his face told her that her words had been driven home. They stared at each other in silence for a long moment.

Say something. This is our first real fight. Say something. She begged him silently, watching as Drake opened and closed his mouth several times but no words came out.

‘I’ve got a beach ball here with both your names on it!’

Maxwells voice cut through the tension. ‘What better way to work through some newly wedded strife than to slap a ball at each other huh?’ He shot a grin at them before wrapping a hand around each of their arms, leading them toward where the others had all gathered.

‘Beaumont this is hardly the-‘

‘Splendid idea Maxwell,’ Elizabeth interrupted, snatching the ball angrily out of his hands. ‘You’re on my team.’

Tensions boiled hotter than the afternoon sun as the game took place on the sand opposite the villa.

Elizabeth barely made a sound the whole game, concentrating her entire effort on hitting either Drake or Liam in the face. It would have solved anything but it would have made her feel a whole lot better, she decided, spiking the ball towards her husband. She rolled her eyes as he flawlessly intercepted it, sending it sailing over the net to Hana. She didn’t forget how Liam was readily avoiding her eyes, tapping the ball sympathetically over the net towards her as some kind of convoluted apology. She hit the ball again, harder this time, treacherous thoughts of Rumplestiltskin and baby snatcher rolling through her head.

What kind of person asks another person for their baby? Go make your own goddamned baby. What do I look like? The baby making machine? He may be a king but I am a duchess and my body is mine and so is my child.

‘Elizabeth heads up!’

The warning was too late and she was midway through turning her head toward the sound when something slammed against the side of her face, the impact hard enough to knock her off balance onto her hands and knees on the sand.

‘Walker!’

‘Elizabeth! Oh my god! Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ she answered, brushing aside Hana’s hands, her ego wounded more than anything. Regaining her footing, she avoided all eye contact under the pretense of brushing the sand from her skin, keenly aware of Drake’s gaze on her.

‘I think I’ve had enough volleyball for one day.’

‘Elizabeth -‘ Maxwell began but she silenced him with a hand.

‘Max just... don’t. I want to be alone. Please.’

Steam rose off the bubbling waters of the outdoor jacuzzi as Elizabeth sunk deeper into the tub, trailing a hand through the churning foam, the other against her reddened cheek, her thoughts reflecting the same image.

This is my baby. Our baby — she corrected herself. Mine and Drake’s.

‘I want a little girl with your eyes and my hair.’

‘Not my hair?’

‘Hell Walker, you’re so perfect I’d take an exact copy of you.’

She laughed and they shared a cheesy smile as they both stared out at the waves crashing on the sand. She took another sip from her wine, feeling Drake’s eyes on her.

‘Something’s on your mind.’

‘What? N-no.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I may have only been married to you for a month but I know when something’s bothering you Walker. So what is it?’

Elizabeth heaved a big sigh. ‘Its just… We didn’t get a ton of time as a couple before the whole wedding debacle happened. We’re still learning about each other.. And I know we’ve got the rest of our lives to do that…'

‘But?’ Concern leaked into his big brown eyes and she could tell he was trying to hide it so she cleared her throat resolving to just say it once and for all.

‘A baby means a big change. For us. As a couple and as ourselves. And I…’ She faltered.

His hand slipped into hers, squeezing comfortingly.

‘This last year has been amazing, me coming to Cordonia, becoming a duchess, marrying the love of my life, so many things have changed. I could do with some normal before another big change happens and shakes it up again.’

Drake tugged on her hand and she took the opportunity to climb into his lap.

'I only just got you. Is it selfish to want you all to myself for just a little bit longer?’

Elizabeth felt his lips on her head, pressing a gentle kiss there.

’Not at all.’‘I know you’re excited for a baby — I am too but I… I’m just not there yet.’

She buried her face in his chest, worried about what he was going to say next. ‘Its okay Liz. Its okay. We don’t have to jump into this thing head first.’

He hooked a finger under her chin so she’d look at him. ‘When it happens, if it happens, it doesn’t matter. All I care about is us. As long as we’re in this together, I’m down for anything with you Elizabeth.’

As the memory replayed in her head, Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel a sense of betrayal. Did all that mean nothing? Or perhaps Drake simply put more stock in Liam’s opinion than her own?

Now THAT hurt to think of. She was very familiar with the bro code but surely that didn't still apply after freaking marriage?

Why us? That was another puzzle, she couldn’t solve. Why Drake and I specifically? Wouldn’t it make more sense if Liam absolutely HAD to appoint a heir to appoint one from one of the longer standing noble houses? What made her so special?

For the briefest moment, another thought crossed her mind. Surely he can’t still be in love with me...?

Elizabeth shook her head, perishing the thing from her mind. That door was long closed. If a public wedding wasn’t a big enough sign of rejection, she didn’t know what was. Was there something she was missing here? Something everyone knew about except her? Why did it seem logical to everyone to take someone else’s child and make them heir when you are perfectly capable of making your own?

‘Got room for one more?’

Elizabeth picked her head up to see Hana standing in the doorway, a pair of brightly coloured cocktails in her hands. She shrugged in reply, gesturing to the space beside her, gladly accepting the beverage. The cool liquid soothed her dry throat and she sipped it appreciatively, feeling marginally better.

‘Thanks Hana. You always know what to do to make me feel better.’

The other woman smiled softly. ‘What are best friends for? We missed you’

‘I missed you guys too.’ Elizabeth could not help the corner of her mouth lifting for a moment before it dropped back down, her somber mood settling back in. ‘Are things back home as... turbulent as he says?’

Needing no clarification, Hana’s pretty face crumpled in regret. ‘Truth be told Elizabeth, things are more tense than Liam let’s on. As soon as Anton’s trial was over and you guys left for your honeymoon, we received delegates from our neighbours Monterisso and Auvernal. I’m not sure if Bertrand taught you the history behind those countries.’

When Elizabeth shook her head, her friend continued.

‘Back then both countries were at odds with each other, always fighting, always trying to undermine each other. Cordonia was in the middle. The neutral ground so to speak. So it was only logical that each of them would try to win us over to their side so they’d finally gain the upper hand over each other. Constantine’s reign was the only thing stopping either of them from overwhelming us. And when Liam ascended the throne…'

‘Power newly transferred is the easiest to be taken,’ Elizabeth finished.

Hana nodded. ‘Since Liam doesn’t have an heir or any marriageable prospects really, he looks weak. And as a new king, in the middle of a political battlefield, he looks easy.’

‘But why me Hana?’ she burst out. ‘Why does it have to be us?’ She watched her friend’s pretty face crumple in through for a moment.

‘Because he trusts you and Drake the most. All the other houses, other nobles. Sure they might be happy to give up one of their own for the throne if Liam asked, who knows what agenda they have… I’m not telling you to do anything. Just keep all that in mind okay?’

Hana placed a comforting hand on her leg. ‘I’m going to get out before I turn into a prune,’ she joked, getting to her feet. ‘Bertrand would be horrified if we showed up to dinner in this state. You coming?’

Elizabeth nodded vaguely, turning over the new information in her mind. ‘I’ll be right there.’

Dinner was a tense affair. To make things worse, the conversation immediately ceased when Elizabeth took her place at the shared table, next to Bertrand. After a few moments of sporadic mumblings and pushing her food around her plate, she stood up abruptly, making her excuses and leaving, ignoring the gazes of her friends behind her.

The sea wind whipped at her hair, tousling it beyond taming as Elizabeth stared out into the dark horizon, kicking at the sand as she ambled down the beach. Her mind still turned over Hana’s words from that afternoon, now that she’d had time to process it, she was beginning to see the reasoning.

‘Can I join you?’

She shrugged, not needing to look up to know that it was Drake. ‘There’s nuff beach for the both of us.’

‘How’s your cheek?’

‘Its fine.'

They continued like that for a little while longer, walking two feet apart, both of them silent as she ignored the way his eyes begged her to look at him. Rubbing her arms, Elizabeth shivered slightly as the cold sea air nipped her skin. She turned her head to see Drake already shrugging off his denim shirt, having noticed.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Just take it. You may be mad at me but I’m still not going to let your stubborn ass freeze.’

He stepped closer, his hands were warm when they touched her, settling the fabric over her shoulders protectively. Their faces were inches away and for the first time since that afternoon on the beach, she dared to look up into his dark eyes.

‘Thanks.’

He shook his head in a gesture of dismissal, pausing briefly to gather himself. ‘I’m sorry about earlier.’

‘Me too.’

The crashing of the waves on the beach was all that could be heard for a few moments. ‘Is that really something you wanna subject our kid to?’ She said finally, breaking the silence. ‘Liz…'

‘I’m not mad anymore. I just… I wanna understand where you’re coming from.’

Drake let out a huge sigh, tipping his head back to the night sky above them. ‘I know its out of character for me.. that I’m the last person who would want this.’

‘No kidding. You’ve spent your entire life hating that place. Two days after we met you were warning me about the nobility and how toxic they were and now...'

‘You’re right,’ Drake admitted, lacing his hands behind his head and staring up into the sky, sighing in defeat. ‘You’re right.’

‘So what changed your mind?’ Elizabeth watched her husband think for a long moment.

‘To be honest,’ he said finally. ‘It was you. You were the one who showed me that a person could go through that place and still be the same honest, down to earth girl I fell in love with. What you’ve done to this country, in the last year, generations of nobles couldn’t achieve in decades. You showed me that there’s more to the nobility than gilded walls and politics.’

Drake’s eyes took on a faraway look now. ‘Yeah when you got that duchess title, I was a little scared that you’d finally be one of them but you’re not. You didn’t let it define you, you used it to make a difference like you did for me, the court… hell, the whole kingdom. So when I thought about how our home needs our help… how my best friend needs our help, I knew that with you by my side, if anyone could raise an heir with a good head on his or her shoulders, it’d be us.’

Elizabeth dropped her head to hide the small smile that broke through. ‘You’re doing it again.’

‘What?’

‘Making me fall in love with you.’ She looked up at him. ‘A little prince or princess raised by two former commoners could do a lot of good around there.'

Drake didn’t say anything as he wrapped his arms around her and she gratefully sunk into his embrace, finally feeling at peace for the first time all day.

'Promise me something.’ Elizabeth spoke up, her voice slightly muffled by his shirt.

‘Anything.'

'From now on,’ she pulled back to look him in the face. ‘We make big decisions like this together. We’re gonna be facing a lot of tough things as duke and duchess and we gotta have each other’s backs. Because if we don’t, who will?’

‘Promise.'

‘I guess we should go talk to Liam now huh?’

‘I guess we should,’ Drake replied, lacing his fingers through hers, preparing to lead them back to the villa before Elizabeth tugged him back to her.

‘Actually wait, I just thought of something.’

'Liam I am going to be frank with you,’ Elizabeth towered over where he was sitting on the couch, a menacing look on her face. 'What you asked of us today was a huge overstep of personal boundaries. You may be king but you have no right whatsoever to be so presumptuous especially with such a life changing decision.'

'I am sorry Elizabeth truly I-'

‘Do not interrupt me Your Highness.’ Elizabeth’s tone seared through the room as she fixed him with a fierce stare. ‘You had crossed the line and frankly it is only your best friend’s negotiation skills that saved your ass here.’

She paused, watching his blue eyes widen slightly at her use of the word before she made her demand.

‘Five years.’

Liam’s brow furrowed in confusion. ‘I-'

'I’m giving you five years to find a wife and put a baby in her. Drake and I, we care for this country and we care for you but we have to prioritise our own family first. So in the interest of compromise, we’re giving you until our child is five years old to marry and produce an heir of your own. In that time, Drake and I are fine with our kid being the centre of all the media attention and political nonsense as long as you understand that this arrangement...’

Elizabeth paused to gesture between them. ‘Is temporary. When your wife is pregnant, we will withdraw our child as heir and yours may take its rightful place. Those are my terms.’

Liam rubbed his jaw, eyes flitting from Elizabeth’s determined eyes to the floor as he thought it over for a moment before turning back to her.

‘I accept your terms.’

#this is the only way i can see liz going along with that horrorshow of a plot #and not be like canon mc my uterus is at your command liam #nah this is much more liz #Elizabeth Walker #Elizabeth Richmond #drake walker #drake x mc #drake x elizabeth #king liam #hana lee #maxwell beaumont #the royal heir #the royal romance #choices #choices fanfiction #choices fandom #playchoices #long post

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