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Vil’s frustration echoed through the house with each harsh pull of his dust cloth over every surface in his and Leona’s home. The already immaculate living room had become his battleground; a place where he could channel his anger. The actor hadn’t planned on cleaning, but after yet another argument with his husband, ridding the house of every last speck of dust was the only thing he could think of to rid himself of his own sullied emotions.
It had all started over a simple load of dishes. Dishes. But things had been building up for so long— between Vil’s job constantly taking him away, and Leona’s duties as a prince interfering with their plans when he was home— the argument had spiraled.
𓃬♕𓃬♕𓃬♕𓃬♕𓃬
Leona was sat at the table. Vil could feel the beastman’s gaze fixed on him as he scrubbed at one of the dishes that had lingered in the sink from their dinner prior. The silence between them was heavy and oppressive. Finally, Vil couldn’t take it anymore. He slammed a plate down on the counter with more force than necessary, surprised it didn’t break.
“Are you going to help, or just sit there and brood?” He snapped, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife.
Leona’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move from his seat. “Why? Yah seemed to have it perfectly under control,” he replied coolly, his tone laced with sarcasm.
Vil’s eyes flashed with anger. “That’s not the point, Leona, and you know it. I am tired of doing everything here myself.”
The prince’s jaw clenched as his hands tightened into fists on the table. “Well, maybe if yah didn’t yell at me for not doing everything exactly the way you like for it to be done, I would help more.”
The actor huffed and shook his head. “Really? You find it that difficult to load the dishwasher in the way that cleans everything best?”
Leona rolled his eyes before he unclenched a fist to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Seems to me, if yer that stressed out, it shouldn’t matter how I load the dishes,” he said before he pulled his hand back to glare at Vil again. “Shouldn’t it only matter that I did them?”
Vil flushed. “Oh, honestly, if you think that’s the point,” he scoffed. “It’s like you don’t care about anything anymore.”
“Funny you should say that when you don’t make it easy to show yah I care. All we do anymore is fight, Schoenheit.”
“And why do you think that is, Leona!” Vil shot back, his voice rising with frustration. “It’s like you have checked out of this marriage, and I’m the only one trying to keep us together.”
Leona stood up abruptly, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. “I’m distant for the same damn reason,” he said, his voice cold and hard. “I’m tired of walking on eggshells around you, Vil. It’s exhausting.”
Vil felt as the corners of his eyes began to sting, but he refused to let the tears fall. He couldn’t afford to show weakness. Not now. Not when everything was falling apart around them.
He lifted his chin, his voice steady despite the tremor he could feel in his hands. “Then maybe you should leave.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Vil wanted to take them back; pull them out of the air, and pretend he hadn’t said them. But it was too late. The damage was done.
Leona gave a brief flinch but soon returned back to his stoic, void expression.
“Is that what yah really want?” He asked, his voice low, almost dangerous. “For me to leave?”
Vil’s heart raced in his chest, but no words came out. If he was honest, he didn’t know what he wanted to say. It was unfortunate that the beastman took his silence as affirmation, though. Because, when the actor didn’t respond, Leona sneered, gave a curt nod, and then turned to leave the house.
A few moments later, Vil heard the front door slam shut.
𓃬♕𓃬♕𓃬♕𓃬♕𓃬
After recalling their earlier argument, Vil’s fervent cleaning became more agitated. Each swipe of the cloth turned into a punctuation to one of the bitter thoughts running through his mind.
How dare he put this all on me.
How dare he just walk away?
Vil’s jaw clenched as he remembered the way Leona had stormed out, leaving their conversation unfinished and their relationship teetering on the edge.
It wasn’t until his hands brushed against a familiar leather-bound album on one of the bookshelves that Vil stopped, his breath caught in his throat.
Their wedding album.
His hand hovered over the spine for a brief moment before he pulled it down from its place on the shelf. The edges were worn, softened by time, and they had spent many moments looking back on it together. His fingers traced the cover, the ornate lettering that spelled out their names intertwined. With a resigned sigh, Vil sat down on the floor and the tiles underneath him cooled off the remaining anger that simmered through his veins. His chest tightened as he stared at the album that was now in his lap, but he still opened it; the thick pages creaking as they revealed the first photograph.
There they were, younger versions of themselves, standing side by side in golden hour sunlight, their smiles wide and full of a kind of hope that now seemed almost naïve. Vil’s hand shook slightly as he touched the photo, remembering how nervous and excited he had been that day and how everything had felt so right.
The next few pages were filled with images of the ceremony, friends and family gathered around, faces beaming with joy. Vil could barely look at them without feeling the sharp pang return in his chest. It was the realization that all of that happiness had led them to this moment — a moment where they were everything they’d built together was in danger of ending.
Something in the actor told him to keep going, though. So, he turned the page. And there it was; the photo that always made him catch his breath. It was a candid shot, taken just after the ceremony. Leona had been whispering something in his ear, something that had made him laugh, and the photographer had caught that exact moment — the two of them looking at each other like they were the only people in the world. Vil’s smile in the photo was genuine and unguarded, and Leona’s expression was soft, his eyes filled with a love that had felt so certain, so enduring.
Vil’s vision blurred as tears welled up. He tried to blink them away, but they spilled over, leaving dark spots on the page. He quickly wiped them away with the back of his hand, but the damage was done. The image of their perfect moment was now marred by the reality of where they were now, and Vil couldn’t help but feel like it was a metaphor for their entire relationship—once beautiful and pristine, now damaged by time and circumstance.
How did they get from that day to this?
How had the love that seemed so strong become so fragile?
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, lost in memories and regrets. The hours seemed to blur together as the light outside shifted through the window and dimmed. Vil’s fingers traced the edges of the photographs, each one a reminder of the love they had once shared; a love that now felt so distant, so far out of reach. The sound of the front door opening and closing barely registered in his mind, dulled by the fog of his thoughts. It wasn’t until he heard Leona’s familiar, measured footsteps approach that he snapped out of his reverie.
Panic fluttered in his chest as he closed the album. His hands trembled as he wiped at his eyes, desperate to compose himself before Leona entered the room. But no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t get the tears to stop, or ease the tightness in his throat. The most he could do was force himself to sit up straighter.
So, when Leona rounded the corner and caught sight of Vil on their floor, he knew it was his disheveled state that caused the beastman to pause and enter the room. He then watched as the other man stayed in the entryway.
For a moment, they just stared at each other. Vil could see the exhaustion in Leona’s eyes through his own haze of tears; the way the strain of their recent arguments had etched deep lines into his features. But there was something else there too — something softer, more vulnerable — that made Vil’s heart ache even more.
“Vil,” Leona broke the silence, his voice low and gentle. But his name was all his husband said.
He watched as the beastman seemed to struggle to find more words before he finally gave into a sneer and moved closer. Leona then lowered himself to the floor beside Vil. He didn’t try to pull him into an embrace. He didn’t even reach out to him. But his presence alone gave Vil more comfort than he had felt in a long time.
It was enough to cause the actor’s breath to hitch again, and he struggled to keep the little composure he had. But the tears kept falling, no matter how much he tried to hold them back. His shoulders shook with the effort, and he bit his lip, hard, to keep from letting out the sobs that were threatening to escape.
Leona turned his head to look at him again, and Vil realized the beastman’s ears had fallen. He also saw how Leona’s other arm came up and hovered. It was the most uncertain movement he’d ever seen from his husband. But after a moment, the lion shook his head and moved his arm again to reach around and place his hand on Vil’s cheek.
The loving gesture was enough to break the last of Vil’s fragile resolve, and he choked out a sob.
“You’re back,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Wasn’t ready to give up just yet,” Leona replied, his own voice gravely.
Vil sobbed again and brought his hand up to touch the one the beastman had on his cheek. He felt as Leona stroked away some tears with his thumb.
“Leona, what happened to us?” The actor asked as he stared at his husband. “When did our bickering turn into something filled with so much…vitriol?”
Leona’s thumb continued to stroke Vil’s cheek — a slow, soothing motion — but his brow furrowed as he searched for an answer.
“I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “It just…happened.”
Vil felt a fresh wave of tears welling up in his eyes, but he blinked them back, not wanting to lose himself entirely in the sadness. “You used to make me feel like I’d finally found it,” he confessed, his voice trembling. “My very own…fairytale where I finally wasn’t the villain.”
Leona’s ears twitched, his expression pained as he listened to Vil’s words. “Hey. Listen to me…I don’t care how mad we’ve gotten at each other. You have never been the villain to me. Yah hear? Wouldn’t have come back if I thought that.”
The actor choked back a sob and pulled himself closer until his forehead was against Leona’s.
“How do we fix this, then?” Vil asked, desperate for an answer from his husband. “You do want to fix this, don’t you?”
The prince moved his hand down from his cheek to his arm. “Like I said…I wasn’t ready to give up yet. So, yeah, I wanna fix this. But yah gotta stop seeing us as…some perfect fairytale. Those don’t exist. We do. You and me. And what we have together is something real. That’s what I believe in. Do you?”
Vil’s breath caught in his throat as Leona’s words sank in, cutting through the haze of doubt and fear that had clouded his mind for so long. He pressed his forehead more firmly against Leona’s, seeking the comfort and reassurance that his husband’s presence always brought, even in their darkest moments.
For a long time, Vil had clung to the idea of a perfect love, a flawless fairytale where everything would fall into place, and they would be happy without struggle or pain. And in trying to mold their love into something perfect, he had lost sight of what made it real—what made it worth fighting for.
“I do,” Vil whispered, his voice trembling but resolute. “I believe in us, Leona. I believe in what we have, even if it’s not perfect. I just…I got so caught up in wanting everything to be ideal that I forgot how to love you the way you are. The way we are.”
Leona’s grip on his arm tightened, a comforting pressure that grounded Vil in the moment, reminding him that he wasn’t alone in this.
“We’re not perfect,” Leona said, his voice steady but laced with emotion. “But we’re real. And that’s what matters. We don’t need a fairytale, Vil. We just need each other.”
Vil stared into Leona’s eyes before he shook his head. “I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted, his voice breaking. “I don’t know how to fix us. But I want to try. I want to learn how to love you again, without all the expectations and pressure I put on us.”
Leona’s hand slid down once more to take hold of Vil’s and he intertwined their fingers, his grip firm and filled with reassurance.
“We can figure it out,” the beastman said. “One day at a time. And we’ll make mistakes along the way. But we’ll be makin’ um together. No more tryin’ to be perfect. No more tryin’ to fit into some fairytale. Just you and me, Vil. That’s all we need.”
Vil nodded as he squeezed Leona’s hand back and held onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, they could find their way back to each other.
“Just you and me,” he echoed, the words a promise that he would fight for their love, for their future, no matter how difficult the journey ahead might be.
Leona’s eyes softened, and he leaned in to press his lips against Vil’s lips. The kiss was soft, almost tentative, but it carried the weight of all the emotions they had been struggling with—the pain, the regret, the hope that they could still make this work.
When they finally pulled back, Vil rested his head against Leona’s shoulder, his heart full of a quiet, fragile hope that they could rebuild what had been broken.
“We’ll figure it out,” he whispered, more to himself than to Leona, but the beastman heard him all the same.
“Yeah, we will,” Leona murmured, his voice filled with quiet conviction as he wrapped his arm around Vil, holding him close. “We’ll figure it out, Vil. One step at a time.”