Chapter Text
“I don’t understand how you’ve known the man your entire life—”
“No, no, I had a blessed five years of innocence before he first darkened my playroom door,” Ferdinand argued from the couch, waving the dregs of his glass in her direction with meaning. “I scarcely appreciated them, but I had them.”
Dorothea raised her voice over his mournful reminiscing, “Your entire life, darling, without realizing how simple he is to deal with.”
“Simple?” he hissed, appalled, and tried to rise up from the comfortable cocoon of blankets and cloaks around him. His limbs too weary, his head spinning too fast, he soon sagged back with a wary frown.
After five long years of wartime practice, they’d honed their little trysts into an art. At each battle’s end, if Ferdinand found himself still breathing, he inevitably decamped to Dorothea’s quarters to check for similar signs of life—or, as she called it, make rumors. If anyone wandered in and found Ferdinand in his tipsy dishabille, down to his shirtsleeves and serenading her with sappy opera lyrics from shows that went out of style before her birth, they’d have a lot of explaining to do. But no one ever had.
More than anything, it softened the edges of a world Dorothea loathed beyond bearing. They took to the stage, followed their orders, bloodied their hands and their hearts, and then collapsed back into a makeshift dressing room after the show, letting their costumes fall where they may, sinking into plush chairs and couches to laugh away a dim reality for five minutes more. He could’ve been any stagehand that had ever taken a shine to her, any fellow actress desperate to escape her life. That was what Dorothea reminded herself, every time she found his laughter a little too necessary to her well-being. It could’ve been anyone. It just happened to be him.
She poured herself another glass of their hard-earned wine, purchased with their pooled earnings since Prime Minister paid as much as civilian collaborator these days. “Painfully, embarrassingly simple. Hubie would be aghast if he knew.”
Despite himself, Ferdinand leaned forward in anticipation of every secret. The man was so blessedly easy.
“You, dear Ferdie, want to hear a thank you for every single thing you do. Every. Single. Thing.” She wagged a finger at him with each word, then shrugged. “Hubie would rather eat his shoe than hear the words.”
“No one has ever thanked him?” Ferdinand asked, face twisting with such affronted shock that she may as well have slandered his favorite horse.
Dorothea watched her jab at his attention-seeking ways sail right on over his head, and she giggled into her palm. Before, he would’ve thrown back his shoulders and made some disparaging comment about how Hubert’s job deserved to be thankless. Now his ears perked up every time you said the man’s name, as if he could barely restrain himself from singing Hubert’s praises and jumped at every sanctioned opportunity to do so. But put them in the same room, and it was a back alley cockfight all over again.
War wasn’t the time for pining. Lucky for her, backstage at the opera was a different story.
“He prides himself on being taken for granted, no?” she pressed cheerily. As she set her drink aside, she pulled her knees up to her chest and tucked her chin on top, the picture of sisterly innocence. “Edie told me she used to try, but he’d get so uncomfortable if she so much as pointed out what a good job he did shining her shoes. He just wants to be a—” Dorothea stumbled on a laugh, the pieces all sliding into place. “—good little worker bee.”
Ferdinand’s brows furrowed as he tried to follow her explanation though his fog. Bless him, he always was a lightweight. “I thought I was the bee.”
“You can both be annoying insects with wee stingers, Ferdie.”
He groaned at the pun even as a blush nipped at his cheeks and ears. “Hush.”
“Drones together,” she sighed. “Serving the same queen. So romantic.”
“Hush, Dorothea!”
He snapped loud enough that it startled them both, and for a moment she thought he might—what, throw a pillow at her? Perhaps he was questioning the nobility of the action, for she could see the thoughts whirling about in his head.
“Sorry,” he offered a moment later, gaze meeting hers firmly. “I was—That was out of line, I expect. I am trying to have an important thought and your songs are too swift for me.”
Dorothea smiled, stood, and went to pour them some water as she gave him a moment’s peace. But only a moment. Soon enough she found herself humming under her breath, letting her magic cool the glasses to a more refreshing temperature. Usually it was the arias that curled themselves into her mind and flourished, cherished, therein. Now it was the memory of a recitativo that caught her fancy.
“Ah, leave me!” She nudged his dress coat over the edge of the couch to make room for herself amid the chaos. “Flee the dread effect of a distracted love! Close those windows, I hate the light, I hate the air I breathe, I hate myself! Who mocks at my grief? Who consoles me?”
Ferdinand accepted the glass of water, as well as her feet making themselves comfortable in his lap a moment later. And then she finally won a smile from him, tired and fond. “Ah, fly, leave me alone, for pity’s sake!”
“I knew you’d know that one.”
“For pity’s sake,” he repeated softly, holding the cool glass against the side of his overheated cheek.
“I won’t mention it if it distresses you so.” Dorothea ran a hand through her hair, making herself seem half-interested instead of desperately concerned. “But I think we both know it is not a passing fancy, that torch you hold.” She could see it all too easily in truth, Ferdinand holding the torch and wandering off into the darkness alone, as long as it lit the way for Hubert and Edelgard to follow. Such courtly love, its name never spoken. Utter rubbish.
With a wave of his hand, Ferdinand brushed away her concerns. “There’s a war on. I am not such a fool.”
Yes, there’s a war on, and tomorrow might be too late. She sighed and reached to fiddle with the longest waves of his hair. “That’s what you always tell me when I ask to braid this. There’s a war on, Dorothea. And every day I only want to braid it more.” She raised an eyebrow meaningfully.
Ferdinand flushed and cleared his throat. “Enough of that. A moment of seriousness—only a moment, I beg of you.”
“Whatever you want, Ferdie.”
“…Someone needs to thank him. Someone must.”
“He doesn’t want your thanks.” Dorothea reached out to draw a finger down the severe furrow growing between Ferdinand’s brows. “And now you’ll say it’s a matter of honor, that a noble receive the gratitude that is his due, blah blah blah. Just…”
That was the point when a real, true friend would have offered their honest advice, would have at least paused to consider that this particular man with this particular affliction of affection required a serious plan of action, and would have absolutely never given in to petty frustrations of their own.
What Dorothea said instead was, “Oh, just kneel for him and get it over with already!”
And the glass slipped from Ferdinand’s fingers.
The world slipped a bit sideways after that. Ferdinand wrenched his shoulder diving for the glass, her feet still caught in his lap, the sheets and pillows and scarves all giving way until they found themselves on the floor, freezing water dripping from Dorothea’s skirts as she ruined her voice on peals of giddy laughter. Goddess, just one look at him with a sopping wet shirt and his face as red as his untied cravat, and she could feed for a week on her mirth.
Ferdinand finally managed to cover his face with one hand, having to blot out the sight before his own laughter bubbled free.
Before Dorothea could stand and put them to rights, or rather to drape herself across the couch and sing another line of pointed romance, a hesitant knock on the door shocked them all into sudden silence.
“H-hello? It’s Bernie!! Are you okay? I heard a crash, and, and if you need any help—”
Ferdinand scrambled to his feet, and Dorothea let him, saint that she was. She even tried not to fall back into giggles as he patted down his chest and thighs, pulling at the angles of the fabric, trying hopelessly to look presentable if they were to invite another lady into the room—and then, that flash of delightful horror, when he realized there was already a lady in the room.
“Come in!” Dorothea called, grinning brightly and stretching her arms along the length of the couch behind her. She draped herself, mess and all, into a picture of such glorious decadence it couldn’t help but make Ferdinand squirm.
Bernadetta scarcely opened the door a crack, but it was enough for her to slip through. She froze two steps inside. “Were you…having a party?” she asked cautiously, eyes darting from the bottle of wine to the mess of the couch.
Dorothea cut in smoothly before Ferdinand could stammer out his explanations. “Just what we need, another opinion! I was just telling Ferdie that he’s going about things all wrong. Bernie, if you really, really wanted to thank someone, someone you absolutely adored, wouldn’t you drop to your knees?”
Behind her, Ferdinand made a wheezing noise, like an old man taking his final breath, or like he wanted to throw down the gauntlet and challenge her to a duel for his honor, but had misplaced his glove and needed at least five cups of tea to settle his delicate nerves first.
“I’d probably, um, try getting them a present first…? Unless, oh!” Bernadetta brought her hands together and clutched them to her chest. “Is Ferdinand trying to propose?”
“Ladies, it has been a delight! Thank you for the opinion, Bernadetta. I fear I must be leaving, however, and—” Ferdinand’s voice steadied as he went along, grabbing his things and regaining his composure if not his usual coloring. He pointedly did not look at Dorothea and her renewed shrieks of laughter.
Bernadetta caught him by the hem of his hastily gathered coat as he passed. “Oh! But Ferdinand, you’ve torn the seam here, see?”
“Went down on his knees with too much enthusiasm,” Dorothea managed to choke out.
“Goodnight!” Ferdinand squeaked, as noble as could be, and fled.