Chapter Text
She did mean to help Ajax's mother with dinner. She did. But by the time she had herded both Teucer and Tonia back inside, dinner was nearly finished. All Lumine really managed to do was help clean up a little in the kitchen after cobbling together a single dish. There wasn't a whole host of ingredients to choose from, so she decided to keep it simple and whipped up a lakkaberry madame.
She was setting the table with Tonia after the sun had vanished beneath the horizon, requiring the ignition of a couple of lanterns to keep the room lit. Paimon had awoken from her slumber and taken up residence in the kitchen, calling herself a "taste tester" and definitely doing more tasting than testing, but Lumine hadn't heard anyone scold her yet. Anthon fed a couple of logs into the woodstove before disappearing back into the kitchen to help Teucer finish stripping the herbs.
A comfortable silence had lulled between Lumine and Tonia, though there was no mistaking the clear disappointment holding together the line of her shoulders as the hour grew later and the light in the sky grew dimmer and Ajax still hadn't come home.
"There's still a couple of minutes before dinner's done, you know," Lumine said softly. Tonia sighed.
"Yeah," she said, voice small in a way that pulled horribly at Lumine's heartstrings.
"He's probably just being extra careful on his way back, since it's getting pretty dark out," Lumine tried again. Tonia gave her a small, thankful smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Probably," she murmured. The silence here stretched longer, and Lumine wasn't sure what to say. Wasn't sure she could guarantee Ajax really was on his way back either, even if he did promise her. Then, "You're really nice, Lumine." Lumine hummed softly, smoothing a wrinkle out of one of the napkins closest to her. "Not that I didn't believe Ajax when he said so, but it's different when it's, you know. In person."
Lumine nodded, "Thanks, Tonia. You're really nice too. Ajax always mentions you when he tells me about home." Tonia smiled, picking absentmindedly at a loose thread of the tablecloth.
"I'm really glad you came," she said. "Ajax is always talking about you, about your skin and your eyelashes and your cooking, too. I felt like I knew you before I even met you." Lumine chuckled. Considering everything she had been told today, that did sound like something he would do.
"Well, I hope my skin and my eyelashes and my cooking are all living up to your expectations," she said. Tonia nodded fervently.
"They are, don't worry!" she giggled. "Your lakkaberry madame smelled delicious! And—
—your skin really is just as smooth and flawless as a Sango pearl!"
Ajax's ears perked up at the sound of Tonia's voice from down the hall. She sounded awfully cheerful, which would have been a nice surprise. He had definitely expected her to be much more subdued, especially given that he suspected they were halfway through dinner by now.
"Plus your eyelashes really are super long and fluttery, just like the wings of a butterfly!"
But was she...quoting him? And if so, to whom? Surely, she wasn't...
Ajax almost groaned, glancing back towards the front door to see a very familiar pair of boots propped up against the shoe rack he had somehow missed on the way in.
You can't be serious.
"Tonia," he growled playfully as he reached the dining room door. He heard a sharp gasp from inside, but left her no time to react as he swept in quickly, a blur of grey and orange, grabbing his traitorous kid sister by the waist and lifting her up high. "I thought we agreed that the contents of those letters were to be kept a secret." But Tonia was too caught up in her own excitement to even process his words, a delighted shriek filling the room as she felt her feet leave the ground.
"Ajax!" she exclaimed joyously, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face into his chest, too excited to remember she was supposed to be mad at him. Her shriek had alerted the attention of Anthon and Teucer, who were in the room before anyone could blink, barreling into Ajax, who could only let out of a soft oof as he let himself get flanked on both sides.
"You're back!" Tonia cheered, giggling ecstatically as Ajax set her back down, reaching around to engulf all three of them in the tightest hug they had ever known.
"Of course I'm back," Ajax said lightly. "Didn't I promise I'd be back for dinner?"
"You did!" Teucer exclaimed as though he was only just remembering now, as if he didn't spend the afternoon sneaking glances towards the horizon on the off chance that Ajax would be home early.
"And I don't break promises, do I?" he smiled. Lumine giggled watching Tonia roll her eyes. "Unlike someone," he said, eyeing Tonia sharply. "I definitely don't spill secrets I promised I'd keep."
Ajax recognised the mixture of self-preservation and embarrassment darkening her cheeks as she clammed up. Expectedly, she pointed to Teucer and exclaimed that,
"Teucer was spilling them too!" Ajax held in a sigh.
Of course he was.
Teucer gasped, whether from the shock of being caught or the shock of Tonia's snitching, it wasn't clear. But Ajax knew that if Tonia and Teucer were being this shameless, then that could only mean that Anthon had probably also...
Surely his family did not spend the afternoon quoting his letters about Lumine to Lumine. Ajax sighed. He knew the answer, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He could already feel the rush of blood headed for his skin, and it took all his concentration to keep it at bay.
"I didn't!" Teucer insisted. "Not everything, at least," he added, quieter. Ajax almost laughed, not sure if he was more embarrassed or annoyed, though the feeling of her eyes on him didn't exactly help. Dramatically, hoping to distract both himself and Lumine, he clutched at his chest in mock pain, turning to Anthon with a pained expression,
"Turns out you're the only one here I can trust, Anthon," he said. "Unless...?"
Anthon pointedly refused to meet Ajax's eyes, shuffling so that he was closer to the kitchen door, like a poor prey animal, ready to bolt. Ajax sighed theatrically, though he had, unfortunately, already foreseen this exact reaction. Not to mention, Lumine's quiet giggling from behind him only spurred him on further.
"Well then, for your betrayal," he said, eyes narrowing on each of them in turn, "I shall have to dole out the proper punishment." Faster than either Teucer or Tonia could react, Ajax danced his fingers up their sides, tickling mercilessly as they wriggled and cried out in joy. Before he had the chance to turn his ire on Anthon, however, the second youngest had already readied his attack, sneaking a quick punch to Ajax's gut when he wasn't looking.
"Run!" he exclaimed, and the three kids took advantage of Ajax's shock to dash into the kitchen, taking shelter, he guessed, behind the safety of their mother's legs. The "punch" had barely hurt, and Ajax was almost sure Anthon could have hit harder, but it certainly took him by surprise, and he found himself falling backwards onto his behind, recovering from his stupor by watching the kitchen door swing on its hinges, the familiar laughter of his family (and, was that Paimon?) just beyond the wooden barrier.
"Traitors, the lot of them," he muttered indistinctly, though the tinkling sound of Lumine's laughter softened him up immediately. He looked up to find her hand outstretched, limned with firelight, honey-sweet eyes sparkling with mirth down at him. Without thinking, he slipped his hand into hers and let her help him up off the ground. He murmured a quiet thanks, but was mostly focused on the way their hands had stayed connected, even after he found his balance, barely an arm's length away from her.
"So, like my eyelashes, do you?" Lumine suddenly piped up, and his eyes shot to hers in an instant to find her fluttering them at him in a way he did not like to admit was making his mind go blank. "Long and fluttery like butterfly wings, are they?"
Ajax groaned, bringing his free hand up to his face, wanting to hide, but also wanting to watch the sparkle in her eyes dance with amusement for just a moment longer. It was a difficult decision for him to make, and the way his fingers parted just slightly over his eyes was definitely his body making the decision for him.
"Nicer than the sunshine in the dead of winter, am I?" she continued, her smile turning dangerously brilliant, and Ajax gulped, wondering if perhaps she was glowing brighter than even the fire burning in the woodstove. "As warming as Fire-Water too, huh?"
"Lumine, please," he croaked, feeling his shoulders sag, a sizeable part of him wishing deeply to curl up into a ball. But Lumine persisted, as if the way his skin burned under her teasing smile and playful tone simply wasn't enough for her,
"And you'll have to refresh my memory here, but was it my eyes or my hair that sparkled more than the scales of a moonlight snowfin?"
This was miserable. Tonia had chided him for comparing a lady to a fish, so who was the genius who divulged that detail to her?
Probably Teucer, he thought to himself.
"Archons," he muttered," did they break the letters out and read them to you?" Lumine giggled.
"Not yet," she said. "But I think we had plans to after dinner."
Absolutely not, Ajax thought to himself. Not over my dead body. Silently, he thanked whatever higher power let him finish work soon enough to race home before dinner.
For a moment then, it seemed as if Lumine was showing him mercy. Had she had enough? Had she finished with her teasing? A part of Ajax certainly hoped so. But another part of him, annoyingly loud and unexpectedly large, was pleased that she sounded so pleased. Didn't mind suffering in embarrassment a little longer if it meant she'd flutter her eyelashes at him a little more, continue to bite down on her lower lip so sweetly, keep twirling a lock of her golden hair around a delicate finger. And for better or for worse—
"Oh, don't be so dour, Ajax," she said, nodding her head towards the kitchen as she did so. "I helped make some lakkaberry madame for dinner tonight, since you like my cooking so much."
Ajax was sure he was the colour of his shirt by now. He hoped it could be explained away by the red-orange cast of firelight, by his jacket, by his scarf, by the warmth of the room, but something about the way Lumine's pretty giggles continued to jingle in his head like tiny, golden bells made him think that she was not about to buy any of those excuses, much to his chagrin.
"This is horrible," he grumbled, which only seemed to make the bells jingle louder. He almost wanted the Abyss to open up right under him and swallow him back up again, but the way Lumine was still laughing so brightly at his demise, glowing a pretty pink herself, with her hand still nestled against his—it made him reconsider the thought all together. "I'm never bringing you back here," he muttered, knowing good and well it was perhaps the biggest lie he'd ever told.
Something about the way the outlines of her body seemed to blur against the background of his childhood home made her seem dangerously like maybe she belonged here. He was sure that his family would love her, though he was secretly nervous that she wouldn't have loved them. But he had seen the snowmen out front, standing taller than anything his siblings could have made by themselves, he could somehow pick out the smell of lakkaberry madame floating in from the kitchen, and he had seen the large box of pastries on the sideboard, with what looked like every pastry you could possibly get from a bakery in Snezhnograd. That had to mean something, right?
Just like the way she was looking at him now had to mean something, right? With a sparkle that only seemed to urge him to lean in closer, until he could count those long, fluttering eyelashes individually. The quick dart of her tongue to wet her lips caught his attention in a way Ajax was not eager to admit, but it did prompt him to lick his own lips in turn, a sudden hunger settling in him that could not have been sated by even the sweetest of lakkaberry madames.
He wasn't even sure when he had gotten so close, when he could start to feel the heat of her breath against his skin, when the fringes of their hair had begun to brush against each other. But none of it mattered, not if it was unrelated to the inevitable pull that seemed to be present between their bodies, like something was meant to happen here, prophesised like it was destiny.
He could almost taste her on his tongue, she was so close, so—
There was a loud bang as the kitchen door flew open just as quickly as Ajax and Lumine flew apart from each other, a little dizzy and a little breathless. The red on both of their faces had no time to subside, but no one seemed to comment on it, especially not when Ajax's younger siblings were excitedly carrying dinner in their hands, rushing to set them on the table so they could scurry back to the kitchen and grab another dish. Thankfully, neither Teucer, Anthon, nor Tonia seemed to sense the tension in the room. Nor did they seem to sense the way it dissipated slowly between Ajax and Lumine, lingering like a teasing reminder of what almost was. The way Paimon's eyes darted between their flushed faces seemed to imply that she might've suspected something, but if she did, she was gracious enough not to comment on it, much to both Ajax and Lumine's relief.
But Ajax's mother definitely noticed. Her eyes were as sharp as her son's, and she watched, with thinly veiled delight, the way her son pulled out the chair beside him, hopeful eyes flickering up to his companion.
Watched as Lumine reluctantly let go of his hand to take the seat next to him without a word, without so much as thinking about it, like it was where she was meant to be.
Watched Ajax lean closer to her, prompting her to lean closer to him, speaking in hushed tones, gesturing to each of the plates—whatever he said must have amused her, because she giggled for him, and he looked at her like the sound had cast a spell on him.
Watched as Lumine dabbed gently at Ajax's face with a napkin after he dropped a pierogi into his stew, splashing broth across his cheek, her fingers moving instinctively, like she had done it a million times before.
Watched as Ajax picked out his favourite part of the fish and didn't hesitate to set it onto Lumine's plate.
Watched when in response to Ajax pouting playfully at Tonia having taken the last two kurnik, Lumine quietly moved the one on her plate to his. And when he noticed and reached under the table to squeeze her hand in thanks, neither of them seemed to let go.
She smiled. She really had nothing to worry about.