Chapter Text
Motormouth Mike - or Small Mike, as he was sometimes, less favourably, called - wasn't sure why he was wandering through town like this.
Usually, he was only ever at the television studio. Or rather, the green Pippins pretending to be Motormouth Mike was only ever him there.
Battat shook the in-character thoughts from his head.
You're off the clock.
He adjusted the oversized mascot head, the perpetual grin fixed upon its face seeming almost mocking now. It was strange, how something so cumbersome could also feel so safe. Inside it, nobody looked at him. They looked at Mike. Loud, confident, irritating Mike.
Nobody expected Battat to be that kind of loud.
Truthfully, he wasn't sure why he'd put the costume on in the first place.
Or why his feet had carried him across Castle Town.
Or why they continued carrying him now.
He hadn't realised where he was going until he saw the house.
Modest, compared to Card Castle. No towering treasury; no endless halls lined with polished marble. Just a home.
His King's home.
No.
Not his King.
The King of Diamonds.
Battat stopped outside the gate.
He could leave.
He should leave.
He had come all this way rehearsing speeches that now dissolved the moment he reached the front path.
You manipulated me.
You shouldn't have treated me like property.
You shouldn't have made me believe I needed you.
The words had sounded so convincing while walking.
Now they sounded childish.
He almost laughed at himself.
The Mike costume stood with its hands on its hips, eternally self-assured.
Battat, inside it, could barely bring himself to knock.
Eventually, somehow, he did.
The door opened, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
"...Mike?" Diamonds asked, brow furrowing.
Battat almost turned around.
Instead, he reached up.
The mascot head came away with more effort than he expected, the foam catching briefly on face before finally lifting free.
Cool air brushed against his face.
"There," Battat said, attempting a smile that never quite formed. "It's... me."
Recognition bloomed instantly.
"...Peridot."
The name struck harder than he expected.
"No," Battat replied, almost automatically. "Battat."
"...Battat," Diamonds corrected, although he sounded upset about it.
Silence settled between them.
Battat had imagined this conversation hundreds of times.
He would tell him everything.
How he'd spent months untangling what love actually was.
How every compliment had become another knot to undo.
How being told he was precious had also meant being told he belonged.
How the vault still haunted his dreams.
How sometimes he couldn't tell whether he'd been rescued or collected.
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Without the oversized Mike head resting on his shoulders, he suddenly felt... exposed.
Smaller.
He'd forgotten.
He had genuinely forgotten how much taller Diamonds was.
As Peridot, he'd always looked up.
He found himself doing it again.
Diamonds hadn't moved.
He simply looked down at him with those same familiar eyes.
Gentle.
Patient..
Affectionate…
The way he always had.
Something inside Battat lurched.
He hated that look.
He missed that look.
He remembered careful hands fastening jewels around his neck.
He remembered mornings spent waiting for Diamonds to wake.
He remembered walking through the treasury while being told, over and over, that he was worth more than everything inside it.
He remembered standing before the vault.
"I fear that, if I brought you inside, I would never let you leave."
At the time… At the time, he had thought those words were beautiful.
His grip tightened around the mascot head until the foam creaked beneath his fingers.
He had come here to tell Diamonds that what happened between them had been wrong. That devotion should never have been demanded from someone who had never been allowed to imagine another life.
He knew every word. He had practised every sentence.
Yet now, standing before him without the smiling mask between them, all he could feel was the terrible familiarity of looking up at the man who had once defined his entire world.
"...Peri-"
Diamonds caught himself.
"...Battat."
Battat's breath caught in his throat.
The rest of the speech vanished.
So did the years between then and now.
And for one impossible, terrifying moment, he could no longer remember whether he had come here to leave…
…or to come home.