Work Text:
The issue was, on Beforus, you had sweeps of knowledge to draw on, on Beforus, you’d courted him so well that he’d barely managed a snarl or two before you were pitching hard for each other. The issue was, on Beforus, that you hadn’t even needed to imply any sort of seadweller superiority, it was hate at first sight, and the depth of mutuality was staggering.
You had courted him, and courted him well, insulting gifts and legitimate ones, you’d followed all of the deepest traditions—of seadwellers, violet and ink, and of yellows, psionics and light—and stoked the heat of your hate into a brilliant flame. The issue was, on Beforus, you could do that, you had the resources, the skills, the knowledge–
The issue was, on Alternia, you’d insulted him in a way that he’d always hate-loved on Beforus, and he’d blocked you.
The issue was, on Beforus, she had been a young Queen of an Empress, barely leaving behind the title and trail of Princess when you met her as her fresh-fledged Captain, still growing into your own new title and power. The issue was, on Beforus, she’d seen your devotion and dedication for the flush-leaning it was almost immediately, and although she’d teased you over it, she was never unkind.
She had informed you that flush at first sight was all well and good, but the stories weren’t always right, that love had to grow. The issue was, on Beforus, you had listened and learned, and never had the gall to ask for anything more than what she gave–
The issue was, on Alternia, she’d tried to pap you and you’d flinched away, and you weren’t sure that she wasn’t about to cry.
The issue was, on Alternia, that you remembered them in the entirety of their glory, and they remembered nothing.
The issue was, on Alternia, you didn’t see the first overtures for what they were. You were caught up in pain and rejection and regret—you remembered yourself as you had been, but your words were clumsy, your moves incautious, and you knew you had destroyed your best two relationships before they began—and yes, you had tried to learn, try to be your old self, your best self, and–
And the issue was, you’d gotten so caught up in that new goal, in what had become your only goal, that you’d lost the thread of the unspoken conversation.
You didn’t even notice when Sollux’s insults took on a particularly pitch bite and bent. You didn’t even notice when Feferi’s friendly overtures tilted reddish. It wasn’t something you expected to see, and you didn’t account for it in your plans–
You’ve changed a lot, they’d say, and you’d agree, not even realizing how much those changes meant to them. It was natural to you by now—you’d changed a lot, from that wriggler who’d turned on that husktop and saw all those familiar names and wanted what you’d had a lifetime ago. You’d changed a lot, everyone was saying it.
–and, it was, a little thoughtless to say, a little self-centered, but part of you took it for granted. The pitch of your conversations with Sollux, slipping into the rare flush or occasional pale (you were both sort of disasters but it always worked out), the flush of your chats with Feferi, snarling a pitch refrain when you rubbed each other the wrong way, they were so normal to you and your memories that you fell into old and older patterns without even realizing it.
The issue was, on Beforus, you were all starting from a position of inequity without even realizing it, the issue was that it was so entwined with who you were—you were )(er subordinate, you were his superior, not because of blood but because of position, because he’d been an up-and-coming pilot to your seasoned Commander of )(er Forces, because you’d been an up-and-coming Captain to her Empress—that you couldn’t even see it.
The issue wasn’t, on Alternia.
Blood color defined you all on Alternia, but you’d started at the same age, you got to watch them grow and change, and you got to do it yourself, do it with them. You hadn’t known there was anything you had left to learn, but there was so much that you had missed your first time around.
The issue was, you were a special kind of oblivious, literally always. Alternia or Beforus, it didn’t much matter, you could never really see a good thing until it slapped you upside the fins. The issue was, you figured you’d hit fifteen sweeps and have changed enough, improved enough, to finally court them–
–the issue was, they really weren’t all that patient, and when you first met up at ten, you’d had all of a minute to think straight before someone was kissing you senseless.
The issue was you were really not prepared to be double-teamed.
The real issue was, you decided, curled up safely between the two people who had been your entire world for a lifetime and a bit, the three of you were tied together, inexplicably, inextricably, and you’d somehow managed to remember everything but that. You trusted them more than you trusted yourself, more than you had trusted what your other self had known to be true—that you would always find your way back home.
The real issue was, you weren’t sure how you would ever find the words to tell them what you remembered, what you were to each other. You weren’t even sure if it mattered anymore. You had them, you had everything you always needed and wanted, and it was even better than it had been before. You were even better than you had been before. There was a war to win and a world to explore, and memories were memories, but you had all the time in the world to tell them. Someday.
The issue was, you were standing outside a cafe where a girl as graceful as the seas all but danced through the room to bring a coffee to a boy with the fire of stars in his eyes, and you weren’t at all sure how to explain a thing called pitch or a thing called flush, or the fact that you’ve loved them for more than two lifetimes now and you were not ready to give them up so easily in a third.
The issue wasn’t one you were worried about. This time you remembered everything.